Ep. #338 - Zack Snyder's Justice League

Dan McCoy

[0:00] On this episode we discuss Zack Snyder's Justice League.

Elliott Kalan

[0:05] The longest superhero movie ever, the most expensive director's cut in film history,

[0:10] and only the second major motion picture to have the word Zack in the title.

[0:14] Sorry, Justice League, Zack and Miri make a porno got there first.

[0:30] Hey everyone, welcome to the Flophouse. I am Dan McCoy.

Dan McCoy

[0:49] Heck yeah, and I'm Stuart Wellington.

Elliott Kalan

[0:51] And this is Elliot Kalin. Hey!

[0:55] Oh, oh, oh.

[0:56] Big energy.

[0:57] Well, we used up a lot of energy. That was too much. I don't have anything left.

[1:01] I'm going to go lie down now.

Dan McCoy

[1:02] A little more gas in the tank?

[1:04] So, I know what the listener is thinking right now.

[1:07] They're thinking, Justice League?

[1:10] These jerks don't realize they already talked about Justice League.

[1:14] Well, oh boy. Let me spin you a tale.

[1:17] There's a gentleman called Zachary Snyder, who is a visionary director,

[1:21] and thus deserving of, I don't know, having his every whim fulfilled,

[1:27] so internet nerds have insisted upon this cut.

[1:31] Elliot, you look raring to give more context to this, so go right ahead.

Elliott Kalan

[1:35] I did. Well, the first context I wanted to give was,

[1:37] hi, this is the Flophouse. We're a podcast where we watch a bad movie and then we talk about it.

[1:40] The other context I want to give was, you're right, Dan.

[1:43] This is the legendary Snyder Cut.

[1:45] It could only be brought about because of a huge campaign of fan activism, online bullying,

[1:50] and resources that, you know, might have probably been spent on making a new movie or just arguably things that the world needs more than a cut of the Justice League movie.

[1:59] But hey, we don't need to get into all the backstory because there's a little bit of tragedy in it.

[2:05] Needless to say, there was, Zack Snyder was making the Justice League movie, then he had to leave because of a family tragedy that's very sad.

[2:12] Then Joss Whedon came in to finish it and nobody liked that version of it.

[2:16] And now that Joss Whedon is officially canceled, it's time for Zack Snyder to step up and take the helm again.

[2:21] That's right. It's Zack Snyder's Justice League.

[2:24] A leaner, meaner, streamlined Justice League.

[2:28] Nope.

[2:29] It's just a fast machine that keeps its motor clean.

Stuart Wellington

[2:32] Nope.

[2:34] I do want to point out, before we get into too much of the meat of this,

[2:37] that Zack Snyder has made a fair amount of charitable efforts with this cut of Justice League.

[2:45] I believe they're donating some of their money and yada yada.

[2:49] So that's all cool.

Elliott Kalan

[2:50] I feel like the way that Zack Snyder himself has handled this has been super reasonable and above board.

[2:57] And the only people that I put any disgust on are the subset of fans that wanted this so badly

[3:06] that they made other people's lives difficult and unpleasant.

Stuart Wellington

[3:09] And will probably continue to do so now that they've been vindicated.

Elliott Kalan

[3:14] Well, yeah, now that they've been rewarded, I mean, there are already calls for the different cut of Suicide Squad,

[3:20] which, I mean, unless you're just going to add a hundred more songs to that movie, I don't know what else you can do with it.

Dan McCoy

[3:26] Yeah.

[3:27] So, I mean, as Stuart alluded to, or wait, sorry, as Elliot alluded to in his joke and Stuart roundly rejected,

[3:36] this is a longer cut of the movie.

[3:39] This is a long cut.

[3:41] It is a four-hour cut of Justice League.

Stuart Wellington

[3:46] Available on the least useful streaming service, HBO Max.

[3:51] It is useful because they have a good selection of shit.

[3:53] It is not useful because their user interface is the worst of all fucking streaming services.

Dan McCoy

[3:59] Again, I direct you to stars where they just dumped a bunch of movies under the category movies and left it at that.

Stuart Wellington

[4:07] I mean, they're movies, by the way, Dan.

[4:09] I mean, what else can you say?

Elliott Kalan

[4:11] I will say that HBO Max, the breadth of their content is only matched by the slowness of the apps loading when you want to use it.

Stuart Wellington

[4:20] I do like that they currently have a section under Famous Aries Actors because I like to pick my movies based on my knowledge of their horoscope.

Dan McCoy

[4:31] Yeah.

[4:32] So, anyway, this is a long cut of the film.

[4:35] And as such, rather than have an extra long flop house, since we already have extra long flop houses, we are going to do...

[4:42] It's called every episode.

[4:43] Yeah.

[4:43] We're going to do our very first two-parter flop house.

[4:48] What momentous event could possibly deserve such treatment?

[4:54] Oh, other than visionary director Zack Snyder.

[4:57] So, this is covering the first four chapters, which goes up to about 220 in the film.

Stuart Wellington

[5:05] What's great about it is that you have just buried the lead there.

[5:09] What's that?

[5:09] One of the biggest changes is that he breaks the movie down into chapters with chapter habits.

[5:15] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[5:15] That's true.

[5:16] And the chapters have a quote at the beginning from a character in that chapter.

[5:22] And I was just glad to see that the only thing I don't like about The Wire was continued by another visionary in their work.

[5:31] Because I think it is super ridiculous that every episode of The Wire starts with a quote that is attributed to one of the characters in the episode.

[5:37] Like it's an epigraph we're supposed to recognize.

[5:40] And then you see a character say it in the episode and you're like, oh.

[5:43] So, they were just a warning that that was going to be said at some point in the episode.

[5:48] Everything else about The Wire, super big fan of.

[5:50] But anyway, Justice League.

Dan McCoy

[5:51] We'll file this under complaints, comma, Elliot's weird.

Elliott Kalan

[5:59] Now, speaking of weird Elliot comments, not a complaint.

[6:03] So, I think a lot of people – one of the things that's interesting about this movie, and we'll get into it later.

[6:08] I would like to reserve final judgments until we watch the whole thing, if possible.

[6:12] But that it has received a lot of positive appraisal in a way that the first movie didn't.

[6:17] And I want to say this.

[6:18] Here's my thesis statement for how I will be engaging and interacting with this particular textual work.

[6:23] Yes.

[6:24] This movie, I don't think it is the Citizen Kane of superhero movies.

[6:28] But I think it may possibly be the Matthew Barney's Craymaster cycle of superhero movies.

[6:33] A kind of strange, overlong, personal interpretation of myth that involves a lot of, like, various effects and things that are not meant to appear realistic or to resemble anything in the real world, but exist on a sort of metaphorical level.

[6:49] So, as we get into the plot, I'm going to – there might be moments where I point out just kind of Craymaster moments where I'm like, yeah, yeah.

[6:55] This reminds me of Matthew Barney's seven to nine hour – I forget how long – epic about the early sexual differentiation inside of fetuses.

[7:03] As seen through the life of Gary Gilmore and Harry Houdini and the Guggenheim Museum and a bunch of other things.

Stuart Wellington

[7:11] And I'll be comparing it to different moments featured in the Niebling slide.

[7:15] Oh, wow.

[7:16] Which I think you'll see it's going to match up quite a bit.

[7:20] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[7:20] I mean, if there's ever been a movie that I would say might be qualifying as some sort of Wagnerian – what is it?

[7:27] Gamatz Kunstwerk?

[7:28] Whatever is it?

[7:29] The complete artwork?

[7:31] That's – my pronunciation is terrible.

[7:33] This is edging towards that and there's a real use of leitmotifs.

[7:37] Oh, yeah.

[7:38] Certainly, yeah.

[7:39] Yeah.

[7:39] In the fact that every time you see Wonder Woman, the same exact piece of music plays.

[7:44] Like, this is The Departed and just hitting that dropkick Murphy's needle drop every single time.

Stuart Wellington

[7:48] Well, yeah.

[7:49] And watching it with subtitles because, you know, I like doing that.

[7:54] Because I was hitting the treadmill while I was doing it, which I feel like Zack Snyder would approve of.

Dan McCoy

[8:00] Also, you kind of need it.

[8:01] You kind of need it.

[8:02] We were watching it and, like, we went, like, 15 minutes in.

[8:05] And then Audrey, like, just, like, with a pleading voice, like, can we turn the subtitles on?

[8:09] Because there's a lot of muttering in it.

Stuart Wellington

[8:11] I need to know if an ancient lamentation is playing.

[8:15] Yeah, exactly.

Dan McCoy

[8:18] You know what, Elliot?

[8:19] I think that you and I actually, I don't want to spoil anything, our thinking might be simpatico on this movie.

[8:25] But I also have a theory, but I'll save it for later.

[8:28] It's not...

[8:28] Okay.

[8:29] I can't wait to hear Dan's theory.

Elliott Kalan

[8:30] That's an official, that's like a foreshadowing of what's going to happen.

Dan McCoy

[8:33] It's not so much a theory, but we'll see.

[8:35] Part one.

[8:36] Part one.

Elliott Kalan

[8:36] Your theory is that brontosauruses are very narrow at one end, very much, much wider in the middle, and then very narrow again at the other end.

Stuart Wellington

[8:42] Yeah, I feel like brontosauruses are who is the stock model for Gildenbrand t-shirts.

Dan McCoy

[8:51] Elliot, I can't, the only reason I can't give you a wedgie right now, besides social distancing and the fact that, and literal distancing, is that I knew what you were referencing, so...

Elliott Kalan

[9:02] If you got that reference, then you do not deserve to give me a wedgie, sir.

Dan McCoy

[9:04] Yeah, I am implicated in it as well.

[9:06] Okay, part one.

[9:07] Part one is titled, Don't Count on It, Batman.

[9:12] And so this cut of Justice League, rather than a big...

Elliott Kalan

[9:15] So that's referring to the scene where Batman receives a broken calculator.

Dan McCoy

[9:20] Yeah, don't...

[9:20] Yeah, and Abacus.

[9:22] Don't cat on this.

[9:23] There's some beads missing.

[9:25] So, unlike the theatrical cut of Justice League, which I believe started with more of sort of an info dump of Steppenwolf nonsense and hypercubes or whatever the fuck they're called.

[9:40] Motherboxes.

[9:41] Motherboxes.

Elliott Kalan

[9:41] They only mention the phrase a thousand times in the movie.

Dan McCoy

[9:44] Whatever.

[9:45] I mean, they don't mention it that much in this cut because they're like, you don't understand?

[9:49] Who cares?

[9:50] Like, that's kind of the exact side.

Stuart Wellington

[9:52] I am slightly nervous of this summary now.

Elliott Kalan

[9:55] No, no, no.

[9:55] I mean, ironically, and we'll get to it.

[9:56] I feel like this movie lays out the information much more clearly than the first cut.

Dan McCoy

[10:02] I kind of agree, but then I also have an...

[10:05] This ties into what I was going to say.

[10:06] Anyway, don't count on it, Batman.

[10:08] Superman, in this cut of it, it begins with Superman dying, as he did at the beginning of what?

[10:15] Batman versus Superman, Dawn of Justice, or end of it.

[10:17] Yes, end of it, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[10:19] Now, Dan, is this in regular moe, or is it in fast moe?

[10:24] What moe is this in?

Dan McCoy

[10:25] This is in the slowest moe that you can...

[10:27] Glacial moe.

[10:29] Yeah.

[10:30] You get regular moe from The Simpsons, and you're like, can we turn him down like eight notches?

[10:36] Pump the brakes, please.

[10:37] And we see Superman, he dies so loud that everyone across the world hears it.

[10:42] Just like his death scream goes all over the place.

[10:46] Yeah, it's like, oh!

[10:50] It's like when in The Mummy, when he's running away from the sun, you can see the sound waves traveling across the world.

[11:00] Oh, man, remember The Mummy, guys?

[11:01] What a movie.

[11:02] I do remember it.

[11:02] What a movie.

[11:04] People, you know, such luminaries as Cyborg hear it, and it also wakes up...

Elliott Kalan

[11:09] I mean, wait, just for the record, just for the record, he does not outrace the sun in the first Mummy movie.

[11:12] It's in one of the Mummy sequels.

[11:14] Okay, that was important.

Dan McCoy

[11:15] Yeah, I think it's Mummy 2.

[11:16] Important, correct.

Elliott Kalan

[11:17] I don't think it's the dragon's emperor's tomb.

[11:19] That's part three.

[11:21] Yeah.

[11:21] Okay, so Cyborg hears it.

Dan McCoy

[11:23] Yeah, Cyborg hears it.

[11:24] It wakes up one of these mother boxes.

[11:28] That'll be important later.

[11:29] Anyway, meanwhile, Bruce.

[11:31] What's up with Bruce Wayne, everyone's favorite billionaire?

[11:35] He is going to...

[11:37] He goes to the mountains in his house on the sea.

[11:41] He's asking about a guy who comes and he feeds everyone fish, but they don't want to tell him where he is.

[11:47] But one of them is Aquaman.

[11:50] We know this because we've seen the other version of Justice League.

[11:53] We've seen Aquaman by now.

Elliott Kalan

[11:55] And you've seen the posters that have Jason Momoa as Aquaman.

[11:59] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[12:00] And he's like a rough and tumble dude, right?

[12:03] He's just like, man, whatever.

[12:05] Nobody can pin me down.

[12:07] Yeah.

[12:08] I'm the protector of the seas, maybe.

Elliott Kalan

[12:10] Well, like Thor in the last Avengers movie where he's wasted all the time, that's Aquaman in this movie.

[12:16] Yeah.

[12:17] So the bottom of the barrel version of Thor is Aquaman.

Stuart Wellington

[12:20] But he's so fucking caught up, dude.

[12:22] Jesus Christ.

[12:22] Oh, he's in such good shape.

Elliott Kalan

[12:24] Oh my God.

[12:24] I just couldn't stop looking at those abs.

Stuart Wellington

[12:26] At one point he takes his fucking tank top off to go swimming.

[12:29] And I'm like, but he's wearing jeans to swim?

[12:32] That's fucking crazy.

Dan McCoy

[12:33] That is one of my major problems of the movie.

Elliott Kalan

[12:36] I mean, the fact also that he doesn't-

Dan McCoy

[12:38] He takes his shirt off but not his jeans to swim?

[12:41] Because you want to see what's under there.

Elliott Kalan

[12:42] Yeah.

[12:43] Come on.

[12:43] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[12:44] But also, because he also, that he doesn't swim so much as flies through the water, that bothered me more.

[12:48] Because I'm like, how is he creating traction?

[12:50] I buy it too.

[12:50] It also bothered Namor.

[12:52] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[12:54] Namor's like, use the little wings on your ankles.

[12:57] This is the dumbest thing in the world.

[12:59] But I like Namor more than Aquaman.

[13:01] I know it's a dumb thing to bring up on this stupid podcast we do.

[13:04] But I like Namor a lot.

[13:05] He's a core going on.

Elliott Kalan

[13:06] A thousand percent.

[13:07] Namor's great.

[13:08] Namor is-

[13:09] Okay, this is not related to Justice League at all.

[13:11] But the thing about Namor that I love is, one, he is a total jerk.

[13:16] But he's a total jerk for a reason, which is why-

[13:19] Literally, his kingdom's been destroyed by the surface world.

[13:22] Why should he not dislike and be an arrogant jerk to the surface world?

[13:25] Why not?

[13:26] You know?

Stuart Wellington

[13:27] And he also is trying to steal Sue Storm away from Reed Richards.

[13:30] Like, ravishing Rick Rude over Andy Savage.

Elliott Kalan

[13:33] Reed Rude, which one?

[13:34] Oh, yeah.

[13:35] Of course.

[13:36] He deserves it.

[13:36] Well, Reed Richards is a-

[13:38] Here's the thing.

[13:39] Namor is a jerk, and he knows he's a jerk.

[13:41] Reed Richards is a jerk, but he thinks he's a nice guy.

[13:43] So, Namor, he's a jerk who knows he's a jerk.

[13:45] And that's the worst kind of jerk.

[13:46] Reed Richards is a jerk who thinks he's a nice guy, which is kind of worse.

[13:48] That's the worst kind.

[13:49] You got a promising young woman, Reed Richards.

[13:51] Teach him a lesson.

[13:52] Okay, Dan.

[13:53] So, Aquaman, he gets asked to be in the Justice League.

[13:55] Does he say yes or no?

Dan McCoy

[13:57] Well, yeah.

[13:57] You know, they have a cutesy scene where they pretend like, oh, Aquaman.

[14:02] Bruce pretends he doesn't already know this guy's Aquaman.

[14:05] Aquaman's pretending he's not Aquaman.

[14:08] You know, they're in Iceland.

[14:09] Aquaman has a great brown sweater.

[14:12] It looks great.

[14:13] You just want to bury your fucking face in that shit.

[14:15] Well, as a woman does later on while singing in Icelandic.

[14:18] Yeah, and I'm jealous.

Dan McCoy

[14:19] Lament.

[14:19] But, yeah, Aquaman's like, I don't know anyone, anything.

[14:23] And he goes into the water, and the women sing in Icelandic for a long time, because this

[14:29] is the Zack Snyder cut.

[14:31] For a long time.

Stuart Wellington

[14:32] It is a long time.

[14:33] Now, I hate to pump the brakes, guys, but we've talked about how there's chapter titles.

[14:39] But there's also something specific about this movie.

[14:41] That's right.

[14:42] Just like First Cow, it's shot like it's in a square box, right?

[14:46] To preserve Zack Snyder's artistic integrity.

[14:49] It's what?

[14:49] Four three?

[14:49] It's shot in four three?

Elliott Kalan

[14:50] It's four three.

[14:51] This is the thing that does not bother me.

[14:52] There is no natural format for movies.

[14:55] No, it's fine.

[14:56] I'm just joking around.

[14:57] Yeah, yeah.

[14:57] But it is an interesting choice for what would normally be kind of like a big widescreen movie.

[15:02] But I'm going to mention two things.

[15:03] Well, this was all going to be IMAX, right?

Dan McCoy

[15:04] That was the point.

[15:05] This is four three because of IMAX.

[15:08] Yeah, that's why I was going to do it.

[15:08] Yeah, anyway.

Elliott Kalan

[15:08] Is that why First Cow was shot like that?

[15:10] Yeah.

[15:11] Yes, because First Cow was meant to be for IMAX, and then COVID, the theaters all shut down.

Dan McCoy

[15:15] Oh, look at how big those cakes are.

Stuart Wellington

[15:18] Oh, man, give me them cakes.

Elliott Kalan

[15:20] You can fucking feel them.

[15:22] So just looking at our Craymaster listings, some women singing an Icelandic dirge as one of them buries her face in a superhero sweater.

[15:31] That's pretty damn Craymastery.

[15:33] And also the fact that how long is that Superman death sequence?

[15:37] Bruce Wayne doesn't get to that village until like eight and a half minutes into the movie, which is crazy.

[15:43] Almost nothing happens in the movie that we haven't seen before for the first eight minutes.

Stuart Wellington

[15:48] Yeah.

[15:48] And those women singing in Icelandic, that's like the nymph singing Rheingold, dude.

[15:52] It's the same thing.

Elliott Kalan

[15:54] Very much so.

[15:55] Oh, wow.

[15:55] Wow.

[15:56] This is like a regular lipstick traces right here.

[15:58] We're finding links for art throughout the generations, you know, centuries.

Dan McCoy

[16:01] Who says we're not real critics?

[16:02] Anyway, so Superman's mom is visiting his grave.

[16:06] Everyone's sad about Superman.

[16:08] She's moving out of her house, which is closed.

[16:12] Jeez, moving out.

[16:14] Yeah, Lois is sad as well.

[16:17] She was engaged to Superman, but he's dead.

[16:19] Everyone's sad.

[16:21] Cut to London.

Elliott Kalan

[16:23] This is when I started wondering, I was like, did Zack Snyder ever fill out a top ten sight

[16:29] and sound list of the best movies ever?

[16:32] And if so, where is the November Rain video on that list?

Stuart Wellington

[16:35] That's a good point, because even God is sad because it's crying at Superman's great.

Elliott Kalan

[16:41] It seems like that's his biggest influence for these scenes.

Dan McCoy

[16:44] You know what?

[16:45] If in the middle of Justice League Slash left a church to do a really long guitar solo,

[16:51] it would not be out of place.

Stuart Wellington

[16:54] Or if some dude just jumped through a cake for no reason.

[16:57] Yeah, man.

Elliott Kalan

[16:58] I mean, we haven't watched the second half.

[17:00] It's possible someone jumps through a cake.

Stuart Wellington

[17:01] We get some good hot dog action.

[17:04] I feel like if we put a cake in front of fucking Steppenwolf, he's diving through that thing.

[17:07] There's no way.

[17:08] There's no way he's not.

[17:10] He has the anti-cake equation.

[17:11] He has the anti-cake equation.

Dan McCoy

[17:12] I mean, he's also so stressed at work.

[17:15] He has to please his boss.

[17:16] He wants that cake.

Stuart Wellington

[17:17] Yeah, that is not an easy boss to please, from what I can tell.

[17:20] I mean, I haven't met Darkseid, but I have seen him as an obelisk shaped into the form of Darkseid.

[17:27] And he does not seem cool.

[17:28] And he also seems kind of boring.

[17:29] But we'll talk about that later.

Elliott Kalan

[17:32] And he's also the kind of invader, as we'll see, who goes to the place where the other army is and just tries to defeat them in hand-to-hand combat rather than bombing them from the skies, which is a strange choice when you have spaceships and they have horses.

[17:45] But, Dan, continue.

Dan McCoy

[17:46] So we are now in London.

[17:49] There's a hostage situation.

[17:52] There's, like, schoolgirls taking hostage.

[17:54] There's men with suitcases and papers flying everywhere.

[17:58] A real hullabaloo.

[18:00] And Wonder Woman.

Elliott Kalan

[18:01] Now, guys, I had a question.

[18:02] Is it made clear, or did you recognize what this building is?

Dan McCoy

[18:07] I was not clear on it, no.

Elliott Kalan

[18:09] It seems like it's some kind of bank or government building.

[18:12] But I'm like, if it's a bank, why are schoolchildren on a tour of it?

[18:15] If it's a government building, why is there no security?

[18:18] So it's a building that exists only to be attacked by these guys so Wonder Woman can save them.

[18:23] Because she happens to be hanging out on a statue nearby.

Dan McCoy

[18:26] Yeah.

[18:27] If that's a real statue, then I would say that building is a building that is near that big statue.

Elliott Kalan

[18:34] That enormous gold statue of Lady Justice.

Dan McCoy

[18:37] Of Lady Justice holding her arms out straight so that Wonder Woman can be standing on top of one of the arms.

[18:42] In a shot that, like, honestly made me laugh out loud when I saw it.

[18:46] Not because there's anything, like, inherently bad about it in a superhero movie.

[18:50] It was just such a silly reveal, it felt like, for some reason.

Elliott Kalan

[18:53] Oh, no, it's just, well, here's, the thing with Wonder Woman is everything about her is super on the nose in this movie.

[18:57] Like, if she's going to hang out anywhere, it's going to be on the arm of a statue of Lady Justice.

[19:01] There's a part where a girl asks her, can I be like you when I grew up?

[19:04] And she goes, you can be anything you want to be.

[19:06] And later, Steppenwolf goes, this one's mine.

[19:08] And she goes, I don't belong to anybody.

[19:10] And it was just like, Wonder Woman feels more like an idea of a Wonder Woman than a human being a lot of the time.

[19:16] And I've got to give credit to Gal Gadot for bringing that idea to as much life as it has.

[19:19] But again, this is a metaphorical movie.

[19:21] It is not meant to be a representation of reality.

[19:23] This is the Craymaster Cycle or the Naibalonga.

[19:25] So it's like not a, it's okay for her to be on that statue and just be a walking kind of you-go-girl power woman, you know.

[19:32] But not Power Woman who is a different character.

[19:35] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[19:36] Well, anyway, so we got your Wonder Woman.

[19:39] She's been introduced into the movie.

[19:41] And she leaps into action.

[19:44] She lassoes one of these terrorists with her lasso that makes you tell the truth.

[19:49] Although this guy is still like pretty cagey.

[19:52] He's like, wouldn't you like to know, like basically, like it's just like, you know, I figured that the lasso would be more effective.

[19:58] But also he calls himself a reactionary terrorist, which seems like-

[20:02] Yeah, that seems odd.

[20:03] Like he's like, yeah, a villain knowing that he is the bad guy.

Elliott Kalan

[20:08] He also says he's like, we'd like to turn the clock back a thousand years.

[20:11] And it's like, then why are you all wearing suits and hats?

[20:13] Like-

[20:13] Yeah.

[20:14] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[20:15] You're dressed like it's the 50s.

[20:17] Yeah.

[20:17] Shouldn't you be dressed like it's like LARPing or something?

[20:21] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[20:22] I mean, they should be, they should be a big crowd of Q shamans.

[20:24] But again, that hadn't happened yet.

[20:26] Zack Snyder can't tell the future, everybody.

[20:28] That's true.

[20:28] Well, anyway.

[20:29] So, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[20:30] So we get an action sequence here and it's a little, it, I mean, I think this is telling

[20:34] and you're going to see this more throughout the movie.

[20:37] But like Wonder Woman in the process of saving people destroys as much shit as possible.

[20:44] She like breaks everything that is possible.

[20:46] It's like, it's like firefighters show up to like a stovetop fire and they're like, well,

[20:51] we have this buzzsaw in our fucking truck.

[20:53] I'm going to buzzsaw your door down, idiot.

Dan McCoy

[20:55] This was definitely my issue with this fight sequence, which is a lot of like slow motion,

[20:59] her like, you know, like ricocheting bullets with her, uh, her bracelets.

[21:04] But like, yeah, she like does that one at a time rather than taking out the dude with

[21:09] the gun.

Elliott Kalan

[21:10] Yeah.

[21:10] She's much more interested in showing off how good she is with her bracelets than in

[21:13] diffusing the situation quickly.

[21:15] Yes.

Dan McCoy

[21:15] And then instead of just like tackling that guy with her, like, she seems to be almost as

[21:20] fast as the Flash, honestly, if, you know, if not as Flash, instead of just like tackling

[21:25] the dude, she, uh, mashes those bracelets together to do like a sonic boom that blows out the

[21:31] building.

[21:31] I'm just like, uh, come on, Wonder Woman.

Elliott Kalan

[21:33] Now I'm going to defend that.

[21:35] And I'm also going to criticize it.

[21:36] I'm going to defend it by saying, one, they've got to show that she has that power.

[21:40] And two, she doesn't come from man's world.

[21:42] She prizes life over physical objects.

[21:45] So she has to destroy, say, a historic French church to take out one sniper in the Wonder

[21:50] Woman movie.

[21:51] She's going to do that.

[21:52] I see.

[21:53] Here's the criticism.

[21:54] She's an archeologist.

[21:56] So if anyone would not want to destroy physical objects, it is her.

[21:59] So there's a real tension at the heart of Wonder Woman in that her whole career,

[22:03] is about the preservation of ancient artifacts.

[22:06] And her superhero career is about the destruction of modern artifacts as much as possible.

Dan McCoy

[22:10] Well, anyway, she saves everyone.

[22:12] A little girl is like, can I be like you someday?

[22:15] And instead of telling her the truth, which is, no, you can't.

[22:19] I'm a literal superhero.

[22:21] You can't be like you someday.

Stuart Wellington

[22:22] Yeah, she hasn't wrapped the fucking lasso of Hestia around herself, though.

[22:25] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[22:26] She's like, you can be whatever you want.

Elliott Kalan

[22:29] Then the next scene is that girl tying a cape to her neck and jumping off a building and

[22:34] breaking her legs.

[22:36] Oh, no.

[22:36] They should have rated the movie R.

[22:38] And Wonder Woman is like, you can't sue me.

[22:40] I just said she could be anything she wants.

Dan McCoy

[22:43] So anyway, we're on the, I guess, the Amazon island.

[22:48] I can't remember the name.

[22:49] Themyscira.

[22:50] Themyscira.

[22:50] We're on Themyscira.

[22:52] And the mother bikes that we saw get cracked from Superman dying.

[22:57] They're, you know, Amazons are protecting it.

[22:59] We got some of those flying robots you might remember from Justice League.

[23:04] Those are parademons.

[23:05] Parademons, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[23:06] To use some technical terms, a boom tube opens up from Apocalypse.

[23:10] We don't know it's from Apocalypse yet.

[23:12] It's not what you call your wiener, Dan.

[23:14] So stop laughing.

[23:16] No, it's what you call your colon and your rectum.

[23:18] A boom tube is what you call your rectum.

[23:20] Yeah.

[23:22] And a bunch of those parademons come out.

[23:24] And who's with them?

[23:25] Uh-oh.

[23:26] Steppenwolf.

[23:27] The band.

[23:28] And they are ready to jam.

Stuart Wellington

[23:30] I got to say, guys, if ever a movie deserved this tagline, I think here, evil gets an upgrade.

[23:36] Jason X in theaters everywhere.

Dan McCoy

[23:38] Well, I agree with you, Stuart, even though you're saying nonsense ironically, which is

Stuart Wellington

[23:43] that, like, it's my whole fucking thing.

Dan McCoy

[23:46] Steppenwolf in this movie looks so much better than he does in the original Justice League.

[23:52] In mine, I think that he looks like such, like, dumb.

Elliott Kalan

[23:56] That he has non-stop rippling fractal armor as opposed to just a dude with a big head in

[24:01] the first movie?

Dan McCoy

[24:02] Yeah.

[24:02] I think it looks great.

Stuart Wellington

[24:04] Yeah.

[24:04] He looks kind of like the Shrike from the Hyperion books.

[24:09] Yeah.

[24:09] Yeah, he looks cool.

[24:09] He does look like the Shrike.

Elliott Kalan

[24:11] Or, like, he's like the Shrike mixed with the Destroyer from Thor.

Stuart Wellington

[24:14] Yeah.

[24:15] Yeah.

[24:15] And later on, he has this cool little buddy that's like a little spider that comes out

[24:19] of his armor.

[24:20] And, like, I mean, it's weird that, like, that seems like his only clothes.

[24:23] Like, even the loincloth is made out of the rippling blades shit, which is, like,

[24:27] it's bonkers, man.

[24:28] But whatever.

[24:28] Metaphorical steward.

Elliott Kalan

[24:29] It's not like he changes clothes.

[24:30] He's the metaphorical depiction of both evil and also disappointing your father.

[24:37] Yeah.

[24:38] These are the two things he represents.

[24:39] So anyway.

[24:40] Now, again, so I assume he's, I haven't seen the end, I assume he's Darkseid's son in this.

[24:44] Because if he's not, why would you use Steppenwolf and not Calibac, Darkseid's actual son?

[24:49] Meet me in the second half, or I'm going to talk more about Calibac.

[24:52] Okay.

[24:52] Dan, continue.

Dan McCoy

[24:53] Yeah.

[24:54] So they're trying to protect this mother box for reasons that presumably no one understands

[25:01] if you haven't already seen the original cut of Justice League, other than knowing that

[25:06] every movie has a MacGuffin.

[25:07] So they're, like, the Amazons are throwing it around and running away with it on horses.

[25:12] And, like, there's a scene where one of the Amazons is carrying this, like, stone cube.

[25:18] And I know that they're supposed to be super strong, so I'm not sure how the actors should

[25:21] have played it, but it still looks like they're carrying, like, a styrofoam prop.

[25:25] Like, there's no weight to it.

Stuart Wellington

[25:27] Yeah.

[25:28] I feel like this scene is more exciting in this cut than it was in the original.

[25:31] I don't remember the original.

[25:33] Though, in both cases, I think it would have been much more exciting if they were riding

[25:37] in barrels down a river.

Dan McCoy

[25:39] What do you think?

[25:40] What if, like, an elf maybe, like, was jumping from barrel to barrel?

Stuart Wellington

[25:44] If there was an elf jumping everywhere.

Elliott Kalan

[25:46] Or a troll.

[25:47] And it was dark out, so he didn't turn to stone.

[25:50] Sure.

[25:50] And instead of the parademons attacking, what if they sang a song while throwing dishes

[25:54] about in a whimsical manner?

Stuart Wellington

[25:56] Jesus Christ, Ellie, you're giving me a fucking boner.

Elliott Kalan

[26:01] Okay.

[26:02] You gotta cut it out, dude.

[26:04] This is a much more coherent action sequence.

[26:08] And there's a fake out where you think that they defeated the bad guy for a moment, but

[26:11] then it turns out they didn't.

[26:12] But it is a lot of, and I'm not saying this, there's anything wrong with this, if this is

[26:17] something you like watching in movies.

[26:19] There's a lot of scenes of women screaming as they either lift things or hurl things.

[26:24] Just tons of close-ups of women just screaming at the camera while they lift or hurl.

[26:28] And it wouldn't bother me as much, except there's so much of it in this movie.

[26:32] There's so much of just close-ups of people screaming at you.

Dan McCoy

[26:35] Well, anyway, so Stabbing Wolf takes the first mother box.

[26:40] Oh boy, he's got number one of MacGuffin City.

[26:45] And the Amazons need to warn everyone else that bad times are coming.

[26:51] And that leads us into part two, Age of Heroes.

[26:57] How do they warn everybody?

[27:00] What?

[27:01] In a scene.

[27:02] I'm going to jump in there.

Stuart Wellington

[27:03] Okay.

[27:04] So they warn everybody by, I'm going to jump ahead because it doesn't matter the exact

[27:08] order on this.

[27:09] They warn everybody in a scene where they have to light an ancient temple on fire again because

[27:15] they got to get Wonder Woman's attention.

[27:18] And you know what it did was it made me think about how great that sequence in Return of the

[27:22] King is when they have to fucking light the fires and Howard Shore's impeccable score

[27:28] fucking swells and you're like, I believe in hope and love again.

[27:32] Humanity can unite.

Elliott Kalan

[27:34] Wasn't that the sequel to Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium, Howard Shore's impeccable score?

Dan McCoy

[27:39] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[27:41] So Steppenwolf, to fill into some of the stuff that Stuart passed by, Steppenwolf makes

[27:47] his headquarters in Chernobyl.

[27:49] And he's like, if I get the rest of the boxes, then my boss will like me again.

[27:53] Yeah.

[27:53] And Bruce Wayne is looking for the Flash with the cattiest Alfred in all of the film and

[27:59] television Alfreds.

[28:00] Jeremy Irons.

[28:01] Because he's like, we got to find more heroes.

[28:03] And Jeremy Irons is like, do we have to?

[28:05] I don't want to.

Stuart Wellington

[28:07] So let's take a look at Alfred's for a second.

[28:09] We got Michael Caine, of course.

[28:11] Let's take a look.

[28:11] We got Jeremy Irons.

[28:14] We got, who's that?

[28:15] Sean Pertwee.

[28:16] Who's the guy?

[28:17] Is it Sean Pertwee in Gotham?

[28:19] Is Alfred Pennyworth?

[28:21] I don't remember.

[28:22] Who's Alfred in the TV show Pennyworth, Dan?

Dan McCoy

[28:25] I don't think I've ever.

Stuart Wellington

[28:28] Who's Alfred in the Adam West TV show?

Dan McCoy

[28:31] Oh, I don't know.

[28:33] That was.

[28:34] Okay, so here we go.

[28:35] Go or Gal is in the Tim Burton ones.

Elliott Kalan

[28:38] I'm going to screen rant and their ranking of every adaptation of Alfred Pennyworth ranked.

[28:44] Oh, wow.

[28:45] Let's see.

[28:46] Yeah, Sean Pertwee is in Gotham.

[28:48] Let's see.

[28:49] There's William Ossey who played Alfred in a 1940s serial.

[28:52] Alan Napier, that's right, who played Alfred in the Batman TV series.

[28:56] This is the Adam West one.

[28:58] Stuart, were you just trying to show?

Stuart Wellington

[29:00] They're ranked in cattiness, right?

Dan McCoy

[29:03] Stuart, were you just trying to show off by showing how many Alfreds you did know?

[29:08] I did pretty good, though, right?

[29:10] I knew Sean Pertwee.

Elliott Kalan

[29:12] You know what?

[29:13] I didn't realize that Ephraim Zimbalist Jr. did the voice of Alfred on Batman the Animated Series.

[29:17] Huh?

[29:17] Oh, no shit.

[29:18] And of course, there's Michael Gog or Gaug who was in the Tim Burton and following Batman movies.

[29:24] There's a lot of Alfreds.

[29:25] Michael Caine, of course.

[29:27] A lot of Alfreds.

[29:28] Huh.

Dan McCoy

[29:29] A whole lot of Alfreds going on.

[29:31] Yeah.

[29:31] Okay, well, let's just, come on.

[29:34] Let's get back to the long, long, long movie.

Elliott Kalan

[29:37] There's a parademon that's looking for something at Star Labs.

[29:40] And yeah, and the Amazons need to get Wonder Woman's attention.

[29:43] So instead of calling her, they shoot an ancient arrow of fire at a temple.

[29:47] That's the dumbest fucking thing.

[29:49] At a temple.

[29:50] And she finds out about it because she sees it on the TV later.

[29:53] So it's not even like it's a special place she's paying attention to.

Dan McCoy

[29:56] I understand that you're living on this special Amazon island, but have like one phone.

[30:00] Just have one phone for emergencies where you can call Diana directly rather than like shooting an arrow and hoping that she sees on TV.

Stuart Wellington

[30:11] Because, I mean, they didn't even have that Howard Shore score.

[30:14] So, like, you can't be sure that you're going to capture her attention.

Elliott Kalan

[30:17] Yeah, because that's what she was listening to on her headphones when she's busy, you know, fixing whatever artifacts she's looking at at the moment.

Stuart Wellington

[30:25] Yeah, she's preparing for RPG night that night.

[30:28] I feel like that's like the hidden story because they make a joke about how nobody knows what she does when she's not at work.

[30:33] I feel like she's got a very active, like, Zoom RPG life.

Elliott Kalan

[30:41] She's the guy who has that photograph online of his Lola Bunny collection where it's just every Lola Bunny merchandise in a room somewhere.

[30:47] And that's what she spends her life on.

Stuart Wellington

[30:48] I can't believe you're talking about Dan like this and you don't even call him by name.

Dan McCoy

[30:51] Anyway, so we're back in that science building.

[30:54] Star Labs.

[30:55] We're trying to see what the Parademon stole.

[30:58] You see Joe Morton.

[30:59] He's the scientist there.

[31:01] Didn't learn his lesson from Terminator.

Elliott Kalan

[31:04] Dr. Silas Stone.

[31:05] You know when you see him in a movie, you know that he is up to some bad science that he means good with, but it's going to turn out bad.

Dan McCoy

[31:12] Yeah.

[31:13] So, so they're like the people are like looking for the mother box.

[31:18] They're like, what was this looking for?

[31:19] The mother, the box that it was in was empty.

[31:22] So they're like trying to say like, oh, like what was he looking for?

[31:25] He's looking for this thing that was stolen already.

Elliott Kalan

[31:27] And the Parademons kidnapped a bunch of employees to find out if they knew where the mother box was.

Dan McCoy

[31:32] Yeah.

[31:32] And there's a funny scene where the cops like.

[31:35] So you're saying that.

[31:36] What?

[31:36] There's a scene where the cops like, what do you guys do here?

[31:40] And he's like, oh, we study alien technologies, but you see that a big sweeping shot at the outside and the whole like roof of the complexes is open.

[31:48] Like this alien ship is on perfect view for all.

[31:53] So I don't know why this is a big secret.

Stuart Wellington

[31:56] I just think it's interesting that you're storing a box in another box.

[31:59] I think it's just kind of weird, right?

[32:00] Well, I mean, is it weird?

Elliott Kalan

[32:03] It seems like the most efficient kind of story.

[32:06] To be honest, of all the ways that mother boxes are hidden from from dark side sight in this movie, that was the best of them.

[32:12] Considering both the Amazons and the Atlanteans put theirs on displays prominently on pedestals in the middle of open rooms.

[32:19] And the Atlantean one, as we'll see, just has big open archways to the endless ocean.

[32:24] Like you could just walk in and take that mother box, which Steppenwolf eventually does.

[32:27] So at least the humans are putting it in a box.

Stuart Wellington

[32:30] I mean, previously before that, though, they just like buried it in the fucking ground.

[32:35] That was ridiculous.

[32:35] In the shallowest grave.

Elliott Kalan

[32:37] Yeah.

[32:37] Like a raccoon could dig that up.

[32:40] It wasn't even like, let alone a treasure hunter.

Stuart Wellington

[32:42] That's like the grave you dig for your enemy that you want to be found.

Elliott Kalan

[32:46] Yeah.

[32:47] So Dan, who has that mother box, though, as we see?

Dan McCoy

[32:49] Well, Joe Morton has taken it home to fix his, I mean, find out later.

[32:54] It's for Cyborg, his son.

[32:56] It's a way that like he has brought his son to life in the form of this cyborg being.

Stuart Wellington

[33:06] Yeah.

[33:07] He was like, mother box or pet cemetery.

[33:09] I guess I only have access to one of those two things.

[33:11] So I'm going to use it.

[33:12] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[33:14] Which of these can I write off as a business expense?

Stuart Wellington

[33:16] That's true.

[33:17] But cemetery, they're going to catch you.

[33:19] Because if it's spelled with an S, they're like, some kid wrote this.

Elliott Kalan

[33:24] So, but Dan, okay, Wonder Woman, it's time for her to find that beacon arrow.

[33:28] She's just going to walk into an arson scene, an ongoing arson investigation, and no one

Dan McCoy

[33:32] stops her, right?

[33:33] This is the problem with this arrow scenario, because she goes in, there's no one at this

[33:38] arson, like this is on the news that there's arson at this important site.

[33:43] She finds the arrow that would have been taken, presumably as evidence, and she takes it and

[33:48] she puts it in an arrow-shaped hole on the wall so she can get a secret room where she

[33:53] can learn all sorts of important exposition.

[33:56] And it's like-

[33:57] That's a fucking mummy shit, dude.

[33:59] That's bullshit.

[33:59] This is like stuff that only works by movie logic.

Elliott Kalan

[34:02] Because it's like-

[34:03] Again, it's not real life.

[34:05] This is movie life.

[34:07] Yeah.

[34:07] The world only exists for these characters to achieve their superhero existences.

[34:12] Yeah.

[34:13] You know, every character-

[34:14] The cosmos was created by a god who said, hmm, I want to see some superheroes fighting some

[34:18] super baddies.

[34:19] And so he created billions of years of evolution and cosmic, whatever, cosmic slot to get to that

[34:26] point in history where Wonder Woman could pick up this arrow that was meant for her, stick it in a wall slot, and get some amazing-

Dan McCoy

[34:32] Like she's in a LucasArts adventure game.

[34:35] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[34:36] Fucking Nathan Drake is like, oh my god, it's so easy to find.

[34:40] I was hanging from a ledge for like 10 minutes.

Elliott Kalan

[34:44] And this, yeah, not quite even Sam and Max hit the road level difficulty in this puzzle.

[34:50] And so she can see all these paintings of ancient parademons and dark sides and stuff like that.

Stuart Wellington

[34:54] Yeah.

[34:54] Now, is that how she learns all about this shit?

[34:56] Because she's going to explain the whole deal to Bruce Wayne in a little bit.

[35:00] Is this how she learns it all?

[35:01] Or did she like grow up with this info?

[35:03] Like, because if she learned all this shit from just like fucking freezes and shit, like that's wild.

Elliott Kalan

[35:09] I mean, one, she is an archaeologist, but that's a good point.

[35:13] I don't know.

[35:14] This is one of those things where it is the biggest danger facing the entire Earth, and yet it has been kept a secret for thousands of years.

[35:21] So I don't know if they told her or not.

[35:23] Amazons all seem to know that the mother box is important and they've got to protect it, which is why it's, again, on a pedestal in the middle of an open room with a big open door in a cave.

Dan McCoy

[35:30] I take it as this is a story that all the Amazons know.

[35:35] And the fact that now she is like getting the key to this thing, she realizes like the danger is upon us.

[35:41] But that's just me, my brain trying to like rationalize the movie.

Stuart Wellington

[35:45] I do like that.

[35:46] They're like, we are going to hide this thing.

[35:48] So we're going to put it on a pedestal in the middle of a room so it can be easily stolen.

[35:52] And we're going to hire people whose only job is to stand next to a piece of wood and they're going to blast it with a giant sledgehammer when somebody steals it.

Elliott Kalan

[36:02] Yeah, that was, it's not the most efficient way to protect a thing.

[36:04] Now, Dan, this is a useless tangent.

Dan McCoy

[36:06] And like, who would take that job?

[36:07] It's crazy.

Elliott Kalan

[36:08] I mean, in the Amazons, I think you're kind of, I think you're voluntold to do things.

[36:12] I don't think you'll fly for the positions.

[36:14] I think the queen of the Amazons is just like, hey, guess what?

[36:16] You stand here your whole life in case we need you to hit that thing with a sledgehammer to close this gate, which you will be stuck behind and you will die in the cave.

Stuart Wellington

[36:23] And that's the thing.

[36:24] Like after, when you get that job, you're like, just itching to blast that thing because you're like, you've trained your whole life to blast that piece of wood with your sledgehammer.

[36:31] And even though you know it's probably not the right thing for you, you're like, well, that's what I've been trained to do.

[36:35] So I'm going to do it.

Elliott Kalan

[36:37] Think about how many centuries of Amazonians have just stood there their whole lives, never hitting that thing.

[36:42] Oh, man.

[36:42] Now, Dan, this is, again, this is a nonsense tangent.

[36:44] Dan, just because you said this is a story, I imagined that when Wonder Woman explains all this, she did it in the form of a parody of the theme song to The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.

[36:53] Uh-huh, yep.

[36:54] And I think it would go a little bit like this.

[36:56] No, no.

[36:56] This is a story all about how the Earth got switched, turned upside down.

[37:00] And I'd like to take a minute, just sit right there, I'll tell you all about Darkseid and his power demons and the anti-life equation.

Stuart Wellington

[37:04] I thought you were going to go in the direction of, this is the story of a world.

[37:08] I can't go any further than that.

Dan McCoy

[37:10] Yeah, for the best.

[37:12] Okay, so there's a boat crash, Aquaman saves someone.

[37:16] You know, this is not really important, it's just showing Aquaman doing stuff.

Elliott Kalan

[37:20] Aquaman saves a man's life and then he is such a dick about it.

Dan McCoy

[37:23] He's like, hey, stay out of the storm, douche.

[37:26] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[37:26] And then he walks into some sea foam, it's super emo.

Dan McCoy

[37:31] Nick Cave of the Bad Seeds play, slow-mo, slow-mo, emo, FOMO.

Elliott Kalan

[37:37] Really, the Bad Cave is the one that the Amazons keep that mother box in because it crumbles like instantly.

[37:42] Yeah.

[37:43] So Aquaman swims down.

[37:46] For a second I thought the band was called Nick Cave and the Bad Caves, which is crazy.

[37:49] I know it's not called that.

Dan McCoy

[37:52] Anyway, Nick, Aquaman, anyway, Nick Cave swims to the-

[37:55] Anyway, so Nick Cave goes to Atlantis.

[37:56] To reclaim his throne.

Elliott Kalan

[37:59] He's like, they're like Nick Cave, you're meant to be king of Atlantis.

[38:02] And he's like, but someone's got to sing these murder ballads.

Dan McCoy

[38:05] Fuck, did we just write the perfect movie?

[38:11] Anyway, so Aquaman swims down, he sees his old trident, you know, Volko shows up.

[38:18] That's Willem Dafoe.

[38:20] Let's just call him Willem Dafoe.

[38:21] Volfe, Sea Dog, Willem Dafoe from the Lighthouse.

[38:24] I guess reprising his role from the Lighthouse.

[38:26] Yeah.

[38:27] Yeah.

[38:28] Glory to Christ.

[38:29] So they're talking in an air bubble, by the way, which is something that was established by Zack Snyder,

[38:36] but then forgotten in Aquaman.

[38:38] But they're chatting.

Elliott Kalan

[38:39] I'll tell you why it was forgotten in Aquaman, because it is stupid for a race of beings that live underwater.

[38:44] A medium that transmits sound very well.

[38:46] Whale sounds can be heard around the world.

[38:48] To have to create air bubbles every time they want to have a conversation.

[38:52] So imagine you've got your headphones on.

[38:55] Yeah.

[38:55] Your significant other is standing in the other side of the room.

[38:58] Maybe you're doing the dishes, and they're looking at something on the computer, and they go,

[39:01] hey, is it okay for me to go make this appointment for Wednesday?

[39:04] And you go, what?

[39:05] And you create an air bubble.

[39:07] And she says, oh, just for Wednesday.

[39:09] Like, you need to do an air bubble every single time there's something like that.

[39:12] Yeah, and you're like, I need the whole sentence.

Dan McCoy

[39:15] You know, just repeating for Wednesday.

[39:17] I don't know what you're saying.

[39:18] You know, like, there's so many divorces underneath the water just because of the...

Stuart Wellington

[39:22] Yeah.

[39:22] You would think that they would be, that they would develop, like, elaborate, like, sign language or hand gestures,

[39:28] like, or just, like, gestures in general, like the Belters and the Expanse series.

Elliott Kalan

[39:32] Yeah.

[39:32] There's something about, I remember watching a little bit of the Aquaman movie and just thinking about

[39:35] what a folly it is to set a movie underwater where every single character will constantly need CGI

[39:41] for their hair and clothes to move in the water.

[39:44] It's so unnecessarily, like, it's such a huge thing forever.

[39:47] It's as dumb as having to erase Henry Cavill's mustache for this very movie.

[39:51] We haven't even got there yet.

[39:52] We haven't even gotten there yet.

[39:53] Okay.

[39:54] So, Willem Dafoe's like, you're meant to be king.

[39:55] And Aquaman's like, no, don't wanna.

Dan McCoy

[39:57] Yeah.

[39:58] Meanwhile, Steppenwolf, he talks to Desaad, is that...

Elliott Kalan

[40:02] This is Desaad, who in the comics is Darkseid's kind of chief torturer.

[40:06] He's one of Darkseid's right-hand men, and he's the one who tortures information out of people.

[40:10] There's a great scene in The Forever People where...

Stuart Wellington

[40:12] That's not Granny Goodness.

[40:13] I thought Granny Goodness did some of that shit.

Elliott Kalan

[40:15] Granny Goodness is the leader of the female Furies, and she teaches, she kind of indoctrinates

[40:20] the young of Apocalypse, which is the planet that Darkseid rules in the ways of Darkseid.

[40:26] There's a great scene in the comic The Forever People where The Forever People have been kidnapped

[40:29] by Desaad, and they're being tortured, but his headquarters is inside of a Disneyland-type

[40:34] theme park, and so everybody who sees them screaming assumes that they are, like, enjoying the ride

[40:38] that they're on.

[40:39] But anyway, so here Desaad is kind of like Darkseid's major domo.

Dan McCoy

[40:43] Yeah, and I like the effect they have for him.

[40:46] He's sort of like a constantly melting piece of rock.

[40:51] He's melting into magma, or I don't know if I'm using the right words geologically, but

[40:56] he's like this, yeah, mag-man.

[41:00] But so he...

[41:01] That's the right term.

[41:01] That's the technical term.

[41:02] He's a mag-man.

[41:03] So Steppenwolf is reporting to him.

[41:06] You know, he's like the middleman between Steppenwolf and Darkseid, and Steppenwolf's

[41:10] like, hey, can I come home?

[41:12] And Desaad's like, refers to some sort of like, some kind of like betrayal in the past.

[41:18] I don't think they get into detail here.

[41:21] But like, Steppenwolf can't come home until he finishes, like he conquers 50,000 worlds

[41:25] for Darkseid, I think it was.

[41:27] It's a ton.

[41:27] Yeah, it's a lot of worlds.

[41:28] It's a lot of worlds.

Stuart Wellington

[41:30] That's some fun student loans level shit right there.

Elliott Kalan

[41:32] And I've...

[41:34] That follows you your whole life.

[41:36] Steppenwolf tries to start a business.

[41:38] He tries to buy a house.

[41:39] No, man, you got to conquer those worlds.

[41:41] It never goes away.

Dan McCoy

[41:42] I've seen this in some reviews of this new cut of the movie, and I agree.

[41:48] Like, Steppenwolf was so boring as a villain in the original cut of Justice League, just

[41:53] because he was like a cipher, like CGI creation.

[41:57] Here, he's sort of like the sympathetic, like middleman guy, where he just like, he just wants

[42:01] to go home to his family, and part of his job is conquering the earth to do that.

Elliott Kalan

[42:06] I don't know if he's necessarily sympathetic, but he has a motivation.

[42:10] He has a motivation, yes.

[42:11] He feels like a...

[42:12] He feels like...

[42:12] A point of view.

[42:13] They gave him...

[42:14] Yeah, they gave him the second dimension of a character, whereas in the original version,

[42:17] yeah, he had one dimension, which was that he's a big dude who hits things with an axe.

[42:22] Like, that was it, you know?

Dan McCoy

[42:24] So, Wonder Woman...

Elliott Kalan

[42:26] And if you're gonna put in your movie a big dude who just hits things with an axe, make

[42:29] it a Gamorrean guard.

[42:31] Anyway, Dan, continue.

Dan McCoy

[42:32] Good point.

[42:33] Wonder Woman visits Bruce, I think, at Superman's, like, old ship.

[42:40] They're warning...

[42:40] She's warning him about people coming, bad guys are coming.

[42:44] We get into this video game cut scene.

[42:46] Like, seriously, the CGI looks so much worse in this sequence.

[42:49] Yeah.

[42:49] I do not know if it's just, like, Warner Brothers, this is, like, where they, like, drew the line,

[42:53] like, no more money for this thing.

Stuart Wellington

[42:55] This is the big, like, historical...

[42:58] Yeah.

[42:59] ...alliance of men and elves shit.

[43:00] Yeah.

[43:01] Although I will say that David...

Elliott Kalan

[43:01] Yeah, and Dan loves it, because Dan always wants backstory.

[43:03] Dan loves backstory, so he would love in this scene.

Stuart Wellington

[43:05] And, man, fucking David Thewlis looks so ripped, right, as Ares?

[43:09] Like, holy shit, has he been fucking pushing plate?

Dan McCoy

[43:12] Yeah.

[43:13] And so, like, you know, you got your Atlanteans, Amazonians, humans, everyone's trying to fight

[43:19] Darkseid.

[43:20] And we even get a Green Lantern in there.

[43:22] Darkseid, sorry.

[43:23] Darkseid, yeah, you get a member of the Green Lantern Corps zipping around.

[43:27] I actually kind of like that.

[43:28] That was a nice way of having other DC stuff in there without winking too hard.

[43:34] But, you know, like, Darkseid's deal, he's like a swarm of locusts.

Elliott Kalan

[43:40] To have that Green Lantern there, it felt not like an Easter egg, but like, yeah, this

[43:44] is part of this universe that's here.

[43:46] But you're saying Darkseid, he comes to certain planets and he just kind of destroys them,

[43:50] right?

Stuart Wellington

[43:50] Yeah, and like, he shows up and he starts doing all the dirty...

[43:53] He wants to get his hands dirty, he starts kicking and swinging his blades and doing all

[43:58] kinds of battles.

[43:59] And that's kind of boring, because I like Darkseid as, like, I'm not super familiar with the

[44:04] character, but I played him a lot in Injustice 2, which meant a lot of eye lasers.

[44:09] And I remember him from that Mr. Miracle comic I don't like that much.

[44:12] And he doesn't do a lot of kicking in that either.

Elliott Kalan

[44:15] No, Darkseid is very much in the comics.

[44:17] And there's a reason they made Darkseid the villain in these movies, because he is the best

[44:21] of the...

[44:22] The DC universe has basically three great villains.

[44:24] Lex Luthor, who they've already wasted as a...

[44:28] With Jesse Eisenberg's non-character.

[44:30] The Joker, currently mired in Jared Leto's inanity.

[44:34] And Darkseid.

[44:35] And Darkseid is like much more of a...

[44:38] He's the boss.

[44:38] He usually doesn't go and hit people over the head and kick people.

[44:42] He's usually the guy who is in charge of everything.

[44:45] And he's got a lot of strategy problems here, which I'll get into.

[44:49] For instance, Wonder Woman explains that they put together three mother boxes, which causes

[44:55] the unity, which then wipes out basically everything on a planet and makes it unlivable for anyone

[45:01] except Darkseid and his folks or something like that.

[45:04] And I don't know why Darkseid, if that's what he has to do to win, put those three boxes

[45:09] together on the surface of the planet, he goes to the one spot where all of his enemies

[45:12] have arranged to be.

[45:15] And then decides to just wade into them kicking and punching.

[45:19] And he gets taken out by getting hit with an axe a couple times.

[45:22] Like, it's not an impressive showing by Darkseid.

Dan McCoy

[45:24] No, and I have to say, like, so that Crimaster quality you talk about, Elliot, like, I get

[45:32] the feeling that part of the reason why this part of the movie is so bad is that this is

[45:38] actually the part that Zack Snyder's heart is not in.

[45:41] Like, this feels like the shit that the studio's like, okay, we have to, like, there has to

[45:45] be some justification.

[45:46] We gotta get Darkseid in here.

[45:47] You know, like, give us the Lord of the Rings battle or whatever.

[45:50] And, like, Zack Snyder in this movie seems much more interested in, like, slow motion shots

[45:57] of Aquaman entering the ocean.

Elliott Kalan

[45:59] See, here's where I would disagree with you, Dan.

[46:01] I think there are two sides of Zack Snyder.

[46:03] There's the side that loves brooding, slow-mo, emo stuff.

[46:06] And there's the side that loves big CGI battles where a lot of people are, like, hitting each

[46:12] other with axes and hurling lightning bolts at each other.

[46:15] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[46:15] And I think, look, you take the good, you take the bad, you take it all, and there you

[46:18] have Zack Snyder's Justice League.

[46:20] Yeah.

[46:20] This is a—but I think this is when it's—some ways this movie is playing into its strengths,

[46:25] and this way it's playing into one of the weaknesses.

[46:27] But it is—there was a certain point where I was just like, I'm just watching colors and

[46:31] shapes flying around the screen.

[46:33] That is okay.

[46:34] Like, this is—

Dan McCoy

[46:35] That point was when you turned the movie on.

[46:39] You hit play on Zack Snyder's Justice League.

Elliott Kalan

[46:42] This is a big, epic flashback with no characters that we've seen before.

[46:46] It doesn't really make sense.

[46:48] It's not that exciting, but it's certainly big and loud.

[46:51] And at a certain point, I just—I was, like, pummeled by it.

[46:54] Yeah.

[46:55] But it was hard for me to—like, I like the Darkseid character so much, and I like—and

[46:58] I love the fourth world New Gods material that he comes from so much.

[47:02] So I was, like—I was just disappointed to see Darkseid be, like, just a bruiser, you

Stuart Wellington

[47:06] know?

[47:06] Yeah.

[47:06] Yeah, I mean, that was the thing.

[47:08] Like, I'm a sucker for this, like, big fantasy backstory bullshit.

[47:12] But yeah, like, Darkseid seemed kind of boring.

[47:16] Like, he didn't really feel like a—like, and then—like, he seems like, in—from my

[47:20] experience in the books and whatnot, he's, like, this, like, implacable monolith.

[47:24] Like, Darkseid is.

[47:26] Like, he exists and is not—you can't fight him.

Elliott Kalan

[47:31] And they just battle him.

[47:33] That's one side of it.

[47:34] But also, like, Darkseid, like, he's—and maybe they'll get into this.

[47:38] Like, he's a character who is an implacable monolith of evil, but he's also a guy who has

[47:44] a—he has two sons.

[47:45] One is a disappointment, and the other is his greatest nemesis, Orion.

[47:49] And he is obsessed with finding this thing that will allow him to conquer all life in the

[47:54] universe, the anti-life equation.

[47:56] And in the comics, it becomes almost kind of like a sad obsession that rules his life now.

[48:00] Like, his life is—is—is ruined because he can't break his addiction to trying to discover

[48:05] this thing.

[48:05] His need to control the universe has controlled him.

[48:08] And now he is no longer—he's a—he's a servant to his own desires.

[48:11] Me and gambling.

[48:12] Yeah.

[48:13] Well, anyway.

[48:14] Or me and Popeyes.

[48:15] Anyway.

[48:15] But it's—to me, as Wonder Woman says, this was the Atlanteans before they went underwater,

[48:20] but all their armor still has fish fins on it.

[48:22] So it's like, I don't know, dudes.

[48:23] Maybe they just love water enough already.

[48:25] Just don't put that detail in.

Dan McCoy

[48:27] So even though, like, Wonder Woman explains it all at great length, it still doesn't make

[48:34] really all that much sense.

[48:35] Who cares?

[48:36] It's—it's the Justice League movie.

Elliott Kalan

[48:39] Um, and like—

[48:41] The important thing to know from it is, there are these three boxes.

[48:43] The Atlanteans got one, the Amazons got one, and the humans got one, and Darkseid's looking

[48:47] for the three of them.

Dan McCoy

[48:48] Yeah.

[48:48] And the thing is, like, these are really the sources of, uh, Darkseid's, like, world-draining

[48:55] might in certain ways.

[48:56] Like, I mean, like, he's still got power, but, like, like, these are very important items.

[49:00] And, uh, I guess, like, even though—like, I understand they were in retreat, but Darkseid's

[49:06] forces seem really cool in just, like, forgetting them on Earth.

[49:10] And then, like—

[49:11] Yeah.

[49:11] Like, yeah.

[49:13] Doesn't anyone get back to say, like, hey, uh, we left your boxes back there.

[49:18] Maybe send, like, more people this time to go get them?

Elliott Kalan

[49:21] I think everybody's—everybody's just embarrassed that the planet-shaking battle for Earth lasted

[49:26] roughly five minutes before the leader who was in front got chopped with an axe by Ares

[49:32] a couple times and was dragged away, wounded by his parademons, and everybody else was like,

[49:36] g-g-g-get out of here!

Stuart Wellington

[49:38] Yeah.

[49:38] That's what happens.

[49:39] I talk a lot of shit, and then, uh, in Street Fighter, and then my brother just hits me with

[49:43] a couple of Ken-style Shiryukens, and I'm fucking done, and I'm like, oh, no, I hope nobody

[49:47] saw that.

Elliott Kalan

[49:49] I will say, uh, the shots—I do like the shots of those spaceships, uh, kind of, uh, with the

[49:54] sun behind them.

[49:55] Uh, and it is exactly the image I think of already when I listen to the Overkill song,

[50:00] Power Surge.

[50:01] Anyway, continue, Dan, on to the next part.

Dan McCoy

[50:03] Good point.

[50:04] Good point.

[50:04] Okay, part three.

[50:05] Beloved mother, beloved son.

[50:07] We are in Central City.

[50:09] Oh, wait, I forgot one part.

[50:11] So, like, Bruce has, like, gotten Wonder Woman on the idea that they gotta assemble a team.

[50:15] You know, some kind of World Avengers or something.

[50:18] Anyway, beloved mother, beloved son.

[50:20] We're in Central City.

[50:22] The Flash is late for a job interview.

[50:24] He talks fast because he is fast.

[50:28] Uh, uh, there's a, uh, he has a job interview to be a dog walker at some sort of pet-oriented

[50:35] larger service.

Elliott Kalan

[50:36] It's a pet store that seems to also have a comic book spinner rack in the front of the store.

Dan McCoy

[50:41] Yeah, it's unclear.

[50:43] So, but anyway, as he's walking in, there's a, uh, cute woman, uh, walking out who gives

[50:49] him a little, uh, like, you know, a little flirt eyes or whatever.

[50:53] They seem to have a connection.

[50:55] She gets in her car.

[50:57] She's having trouble getting it started.

[50:59] And, you know, uh, meanwhile, the Flash is, you know, just being hilariously awkward trying

[51:04] to get this job, uh, not, not doing so great.

[51:06] But he sees out the window that this truck driver who has dropped his delicious sandwich

[51:13] in his wheel well.

[51:15] I'm gonna jump in here.

Stuart Wellington

[51:15] I'm gonna say 100%, if you're directing a movie and you need somebody to drop a burger

[51:20] and totally ruin everyone's fucking day because I'm trying to reach for my burger that I'm

[51:25] eating while doing an important task.

[51:27] I can do that job.

[51:28] I'm great at it.

[51:29] You want to be sort of a Jughead figure.

Dan McCoy

[51:31] A catastrophic Jughead.

[51:34] I think that would be great casting.

[51:36] Thank you.

[51:37] So anyway, this guy's, you know, he's driving a semi-truck.

[51:39] He wants his hamburger.

[51:41] Yeah.

[51:41] You know, it's gotten out of his hands.

[51:43] I get it.

Elliott Kalan

[51:44] Well, just because it's on the floor of a semi-truck under his feet doesn't mean he's

[51:48] not going to keep eating it.

Stuart Wellington

[51:49] I would say, I would say five second rule, but I feel like it's like five minute rule at

[51:53] this point.

[51:54] Anyway, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[51:55] So this semi crashes into the car.

[52:00] You know, everything freezes because the flash, of course, has gone into fast motion.

[52:04] He has got to run and save this woman from everything.

[52:10] There's a hot dog that's floating in the air.

[52:12] He puts it in his pocket.

Elliott Kalan

[52:13] Because the truck also hit a hot dog stand.

[52:15] This is not a cloudy with the chance of meatballs type town where food falls from the sky.

Stuart Wellington

[52:20] So, and there's like-

[52:21] Yeah, it's not a side effect of the speed force.

[52:23] Now, like we've seen a lot of, we've seen a lot of superhero movies that have like super

[52:28] fast characters now.

[52:30] And there's something about like a guy who's super fast where he has to like, it feels like

[52:35] the flash at this point has to like turn it on where he has to be like, oh shit, I got

[52:39] to be fast now.

[52:40] Yeah.

[52:40] And then all of a sudden lightning hits everything.

[52:43] And every time he steps on anything, the fucking pavement shatters and his clothes rip

[52:48] off.

Elliott Kalan

[52:48] The thing that he literally steps out of his shoes, he rips through his shoes.

[52:53] But the thing about the flash's powers, and I think you're right, Stuart, he has to turn

[52:56] it on because he's harnessing the speed force, right?

[52:58] Yeah.

[52:58] Like it's not, he's not Quicksilver who just has fast feet.

[53:01] But the, I've never understood how when you're super fast, apparently you also become super

[53:07] strong.

[53:07] So like you're able to pick up things that you know, like huge stones that you normally wouldn't

[53:12] be able to lift.

Dan McCoy

[53:13] Yeah.

[53:14] Yeah.

[53:14] That I don't, I mean, I think there's some support, like they're trying to get some sort

[53:18] of idea of like, you've got so much kinetic energy that like, I mean that like lifting things

[53:23] doesn't make much sense to me.

[53:25] I kind of understand the idea of like, even if I'm not sure it actually works, like moving

[53:31] like a bullet around cause you're, you know, going at the same speed as it or whatever.

[53:36] Oh, sure.

Elliott Kalan

[53:38] I mean, to be honest, I mean, I really have no complaints about how the Flash, if I'm

[53:43] going to complain about the Flash, it's going to be the fact that I think his characterization

[53:45] was inspired by the Bazinga t-shirts that looked like the Flash logo.

[53:50] Yeah.

[53:50] Since they're really, really pulling a Big Bang Theory with this pre-characterization of

[53:55] the Flash.

Dan McCoy

[53:56] Look, everyone, I will say, I think everyone's doing like their best as actors.

[54:01] They're all doing pretty good jobs.

Elliott Kalan

[54:03] I'm not blaming the, I'm not, I'm not blaming Ezra Miller, the performer.

[54:07] They're doing a great job.

[54:08] It's the, it's the, it's, this is a, this is a character conception and writing thing where

[54:12] like, you got to have your, you got to have your awkward character and I guess it's going

[54:16] to be the motor mouth.

Dan McCoy

[54:17] Yeah.

[54:17] Well, anyway, as we all know what happens in these situations, the Flash saves the girl

[54:24] he was making eyes at.

[54:25] He rushes back to the job interview.

[54:29] Now he's got a hot dog in his pocket.

[54:31] So dogs love him.

[54:32] I guess he's hired.

[54:33] Anyway.

[54:35] I mean, it's kind of a fun scene.

[54:37] I, the worst I have to say about it is the music choice is kind of weird.

[54:40] Like it's a very slow Hallelujah style song.

Elliott Kalan

[54:43] Well, that's, again, that's Zack Snyder.

[54:45] Everything is, even a fun scene is, is, has, is scored as if a character is trying to save

[54:50] someone from the Holocaust and failing.

[54:52] God.

Dan McCoy

[54:52] Oh, God.

[54:54] Whoa.

[54:56] Um, so, uh, an Atlantean, uh, gets his mind read to show where the mother box is.

[55:03] By a little spider that lives in Steppenwolf's sleep.

[55:05] Great.

[55:05] I like this guy.

[55:07] Uh, Lois Lane continues to be sad.

[55:10] Um, you know, there's a scene where like now Wonder Woman and bats are getting the band together.

[55:16] They're figuring out who they're going to go.

[55:18] They're splitting it off.

[55:19] Uh, so we get a bit of a cyborg flashback.

[55:22] Uh, he's a, uh, a great football player, but he's also a hacker.

[55:27] So he's in trouble at school.

[55:28] He hacked some, um, like a neighbor's, uh, grades to improve them because her mom died or something.

[55:37] Like, like she was having, like, she was so distracted that she wouldn't have done well.

[55:41] And her mom's standing up for him.

Elliott Kalan

[55:44] He's a star athlete, a genius hacker, and also a warrior for social justice.

[55:49] And his mom speaks only in kind of like, um, like, like mom, like poster quotes, you know?

[55:58] Yeah.

[55:58] Later on, she's, she's like, she's like, you're so great now.

[56:01] I can't wait to see how great you'll, what you'll, how great what you are will be or something.

[56:05] I don't remember what it is.

[56:05] But she, she talks mainly in inspirational aphorisms.

Dan McCoy

[56:08] Yes.

[56:09] And her mom, yeah, he's, so he's close to his mom.

[56:12] His dad, however, does not there to see him win the football game, which is of course,

[56:18] uh, the saddest thing that can ever happen.

[56:20] Movies have taught us a father missing a football game.

[56:24] Uh, and the movie goes into, uh, underline this.

[56:27] There's a car accident after the game where the mom dies and the son almost dies, uh, but

[56:32] for his dad's intervention.

[56:34] And, you know, that's why you don't miss these football games because everyone's going to die.

Elliott Kalan

[56:40] Later on, he says to his dad, mom would, would be with us if you had been there.

[56:43] And I'm like, I don't, does your dad emit a force field that keeps cars from hitting your car?

[56:47] Yeah.

[56:48] I don't understand.

Dan McCoy

[56:49] I guess it was because they were kind of like arguing about him at the time, but that seems

[56:52] like a really roundabout blamey way with, uh, anyway.

Elliott Kalan

[56:57] So his, his dad, who is Silas Stone, the scientist from Star Labs is guilty of many things,

[57:02] but I don't, I don't think that he's not being at the football game directly led to the car crash.

[57:06] I'll say that cyborg.

Stuart Wellington

[57:08] Yeah.

[57:08] So, and he saved his son, turned him into a cyborg.

[57:12] Uh, and he is not happy about this.

Dan McCoy

[57:15] Yeah.

[57:15] This, yeah.

[57:16] The cyborg's not happy.

[57:17] He's trying out his new powers.

[57:19] Uh, he's connected to the net like a, like a lawnmower man of some kind.

[57:24] Um, and I gotta say that, I mean, like, I don't know.

[57:29] Like, I liked a lot of this stuff just because he was such a non-entity in the original cut.

[57:35] And I'm like, oh, okay.

[57:36] There was a story here.

[57:38] Like, there's, there's interesting stuff here.

Elliott Kalan

[57:40] Um, it's definitely, it's definitely an improvement.

[57:43] Uh, I think it's very funny that his dad chooses to leave him a cassette taped message in which

[57:46] he's like, look, the only way I could save your life was to turn you into a lawnmower man who

[57:51] can control all of the world's military and financial power with, with, but a thought.

[57:56] So you're a robo god.

[57:57] Now the responsibility is on your shoulders for the entire world to be okay.

[58:01] Deal with it.

[58:02] 18 year old son.

Dan McCoy

[58:03] No, that, that is totally like, because we see him like, yeah, he's like told us to manipulate

[58:10] the world's finances would be child's play to you.

[58:13] And like, this is all visualized in, you know, cyber land.

[58:17] And now he is, yeah, he is God.

[58:20] He's making choices about people's morality and rewarding them, uh, because he's like looking,

[58:26] he's like cyber stalking this woman, uh, you know, over various security cameras, watching

[58:33] her like do virtuous things, but being beaten down by her life.

[58:37] And he's like, well, I'll give you a hundred thousand dollars.

Elliott Kalan

[58:40] What's amazing to me is it turns out all of the closed circuit television cameras in Gotham

[58:44] are linked to the same database that's searchable by name.

[58:48] And that edits the footage for you to give you just the most pertinent information to deciding

[58:52] if they deserve a hundred thousand dollars or not.

Dan McCoy

[58:55] That will help you.

Stuart Wellington

[58:55] Yeah.

[58:56] And he, and he, but at the same time he has all this power, but he also, you know, he

[59:01] looks like a robo man.

[59:02] So like, he's bumming, right?

[59:04] Like, he's like, uh, he's like hell boy.

[59:07] He's like, I wish he didn't look like this, you know, like, I would think like, if you could

[59:12] do all that shit, like who cares, man?

Dan McCoy

[59:16] Honestly, this stuff is interesting and it's just getting sort of like ruined by Zack Snyder's

[59:20] need to like lay it on as thick as possible.

[59:23] Cause it was impossible for me to watch this without being like, okay, number one, you're

[59:27] just stalking this woman.

[59:29] And number two, like, like the message does seem to be like, now I am God and I decide

[59:35] who is virtuous, you know?

Stuart Wellington

[59:36] Yeah.

[59:37] Now I just joked around about him being like, like, why would he care about what he looks

[59:42] like?

[59:42] But part of it is because his character feels so like out of touch with humanity in a way.

[59:49] Like he's like, I'm talking to this plane.

[59:51] I'm talking to this thing.

[59:52] Like, uh, so it seems like he's already transcended his humanity.

[59:56] So it seems weird that he's hung up on being this now.

[1:00:01] You know what I mean?

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:03] Well, I'd say that he is in the process of transcending his humanity and he's not there

[1:00:07] yet.

[1:00:07] I think it's that painful time when he is, he is turning into the post-human that he will

[1:00:11] be, but he still has the, he still has the mind and the drives of a human and he misses

[1:00:17] those.

[1:00:17] It's the old, um, it's, you know, the old saw about the king and the peasant where the

[1:00:22] king has all the power, but the peasant can go do whatever he wants, whenever he wants,

[1:00:25] you know, that kind of thing.

Dan McCoy

[1:00:26] Yeah.

[1:00:27] I mean, also, I think maybe it's...

[1:00:29] Maybe.

[1:00:29] Is that an old saw?

[1:00:31] Look, I don't use that old saw.

[1:00:32] It's not sharp enough.

[1:00:33] You're not going to be able to cut through that wood.

[1:00:34] Get a new saw.

[1:00:35] It's a rusty saw.

[1:00:36] I mean, I just wonder if it's like also one of these cases where like he believes himself

[1:00:41] to be a robot, not a true man anymore.

[1:00:45] So he, he leans into that, whether like unconsciously or consciously, who knows?

[1:00:51] We're, we're psychoanalyzing this character.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:53] We're psychoanalyzing the character Cyborg, who is a, a teenager who was brought back to

[1:00:58] life using an alien box.

[1:00:59] And his dad was like, the only way I could bring you back to life was to give you boot

[1:01:03] jets so you can fly.

Dan McCoy

[1:01:05] So you look like a real Iron Man.

[1:01:07] Anyway, the Flash goes to visit his dad in jail.

[1:01:11] Daddy issues all over.

[1:01:13] Dad has been put away for falsely, question mark, being accused of killing mom.

[1:01:19] And the dad is like...

Stuart Wellington

[1:01:21] Who's his dad?

[1:01:21] Is that, is that Billy Crudup?

[1:01:22] Is that Jim Caviezel?

[1:01:24] Who is that?

Dan McCoy

[1:01:25] No, it's Billy Crudup.

[1:01:26] I think I got it wrong last time.

[1:01:30] Dad is like, please live your life.

[1:01:33] Stop coming to see me.

[1:01:34] Stop living for you.

[1:01:36] For me.

[1:01:37] Sorry.

[1:01:38] Anyway, the Flash goes back to his lair, all sad and...

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:42] Okay, here's, I've got a problem with the Flash's lair.

[1:01:45] Let me talk about the Flash's lair for a second.

[1:01:47] The Flash has, goes to an abandoned train yard or something because again, this is Central

[1:01:52] City, which is kind of like a downtrodden blue collar industrial town in the DC universe.

[1:01:56] And he's got his lair, which is, it should be Batman's lair.

[1:02:01] Like Batman's lair is ridiculously high tech.

[1:02:03] And the Flash's lair should be like a computer and like a bookcase.

[1:02:07] But he's got so many screens and the screens are up higher than you can see or they're

[1:02:12] behind other screens.

[1:02:13] And I was like, what does he need?

[1:02:14] I don't understand what this, this seems beyond the capabilities of a guy who is scrambling

[1:02:19] to get a dog walker job.

[1:02:20] Well, also he has that fancy outfit.

Dan McCoy

[1:02:22] That's the, that's the more crazy thing.

Elliott Kalan

[1:02:24] He has a outfit with display lights underneath it.

[1:02:27] Yeah.

[1:02:27] Like you would have in a museum.

[1:02:28] But I have to assume that he's stealing all this stuff using his Flash powers.

[1:02:32] Like there's no way he can buy it.

Stuart Wellington

[1:02:32] But if he's stealing all this stuff, why is he working so many jobs?

[1:02:35] If he's, if he's comfortable stealing stuff, why doesn't he just break his dad off prison?

Elliott Kalan

[1:02:40] Yes.

[1:02:40] He has a very elaborate and complicated set of ethics for different situations that we

[1:02:45] do not get into in the movie where some things are worth stealing for a greater good and

[1:02:49] some things are not.

[1:02:49] Some laws exist.

[1:02:50] And who makes those decisions?

[1:02:52] The Flash makes those decisions.

[1:02:53] And do you trust the Flash to make those decisions?

[1:02:55] This guy's pulling hot dogs out of the air.

[1:02:57] I don't think so.

[1:02:58] Stuff in his pockets full of hot dogs.

[1:02:59] So he'll steal a hot dog out of the air and he'll steal a TV, but he won't free his own

[1:03:04] father from jail.

[1:03:06] Flash, you've been busted.

Dan McCoy

[1:03:08] Yeah.

[1:03:08] Okay.

[1:03:09] Well, anyway, the Flash goes back to his lair.

[1:03:12] Bruce Wayne's there.

[1:03:14] He introduces himself as such.

[1:03:16] And the Flash doesn't know who Bruce Wayne is, which is weird.

[1:03:19] It's like, like you didn't know who like Elon Musk was or whatever.

[1:03:23] I don't know.

[1:03:25] But anyway, Bruce recruits the Flash for his super team.

[1:03:33] The Flash.

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:34] Wait, another moment.

[1:03:35] They want to show that the Flash.

[1:03:36] This is a classic thing in the Flash now that he uses up a lot of energy.

[1:03:39] So he's always eating high calorie food.

[1:03:41] They walk out of the Flash's headquarters and he's got a whole box of pizza.

[1:03:44] And it's like, we didn't see him bring that pizza with him.

[1:03:48] So that's gross pizza that's just been sitting on a table for hours, maybe days.

Stuart Wellington

[1:03:53] I think they've addressed that like, he just has to turn that speed force on.

[1:03:57] Then he can go get a pizza.

[1:03:58] He can go steal it like he stole all of his stuff.

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:01] Yeah, that's a good point.

[1:04:02] He's just stealing pizzas left and right like a Ninja Turtle.

Dan McCoy

[1:04:04] Yeah.

[1:04:05] Well, anyway, the Flash is desperate for friends.

[1:04:07] So he goes with Bruce.

[1:04:09] He's like, what are your superpowers again?

[1:04:11] And Bruce Wayne says, I'm rich, which was in the other cut too.

[1:04:14] But I thought that's a pretty funny line in both of them.

[1:04:17] Yeah.

[1:04:17] That's a great line.

[1:04:18] That's a fantastic line.

Stuart Wellington

[1:04:20] And I feel like there should have been a moment where Barry Allen's like, okay, so if you're super rich, can you buy a lawyer to get my dad out of a job?

[1:04:28] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:04:30] Maybe we can do a trade.

Stuart Wellington

[1:04:32] Also, buy Ma Kent's house for her, please.

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:36] And Bruce Wayne is like, I can buy the house.

[1:04:37] I can't buy a lawyer.

[1:04:39] I can hire a lawyer.

[1:04:40] And Flash is like, you knew what I meant.

[1:04:42] Come on.

[1:04:43] Yeah.

[1:04:44] We're getting to one of the highlights of the movie, right?

[1:04:47] When Alfred mansplains to Wonder Woman how to make tea.

Dan McCoy

[1:04:50] Yeah.

[1:04:50] I mean, like, yeah, the joke being that Wonder Woman is making tea and Alfred is British.

[1:04:56] So even though he personally would not like a cup right then, he cannot stop looking over her shoulder and giving her pointers.

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:04] This is one of those scenes where usually in a non-four-hour version of a superhero movie, it ends up on the cutting room floor.

[1:05:11] But it's four hours.

[1:05:12] Shove it in.

[1:05:12] Sure, we'll have the tea lesson.

Dan McCoy

[1:05:14] Yeah.

[1:05:14] But also, so Wonder Woman's on, like, doing computer stuff on the screen.

[1:05:18] Oh, a hacked message comes in.

[1:05:21] It says, meet here now.

[1:05:22] And it's in a ransom font with, like, all different letters, even though Cyborg controls the internet.

[1:05:29] And he could just do it in one font.

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:32] He's cutting up magazine websites and pasting them together.

[1:05:35] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:05:36] It's like she started up one of those old ads before a DVD that's like, you wouldn't steal a DVD, would you?

Dan McCoy

[1:05:44] But so Wonder Woman meets Cyborg.

[1:05:47] She asks him for help.

[1:05:49] And he's like, fuck the world.

[1:05:51] And tries to be like, I shut myself off.

[1:05:55] She tries to be like, I shut myself off once.

[1:05:57] And seems like she's going to convince him to reengage with humanity.

[1:06:01] But he flies away back to his own gravestone.

[1:06:05] Anyway.

Elliott Kalan

[1:06:06] Where he buries the mother box, right?

Dan McCoy

[1:06:09] Is that what happened there?

[1:06:10] I missed that part.

[1:06:11] I believe he buries the mother box.

Elliott Kalan

[1:06:13] Okay.

[1:06:13] He buries the mother box under about an inch of dirt at his mother's actual grave.

[1:06:17] Because what is a coffin but a mother box for some people?

[1:06:22] Yeah.

[1:06:22] Thank you, Stuart.

[1:06:22] Thank you for applauding that.

[1:06:25] There was a – when Wonder Woman was like, I lost someone once and I shut myself off for a while.

[1:06:30] I wanted her to turn to the audience and be like, do you buy that as a reason I didn't do anything about World War II?

[1:06:35] Yeah.

[1:06:35] Do you buy that?

[1:06:36] Because I was really into World War I and then I didn't help anybody else ever again.

Dan McCoy

[1:06:40] Yeah.

[1:06:40] And I also didn't do anything until 1984.

[1:06:44] And then everyone seemed to forget when I saved the world because now people are confused by me now in the present.

Elliott Kalan

[1:06:52] Anyway.

[1:06:52] It's pretty funny that in the previous movie, Batman learns about Wonder Woman from that old photograph from World War I when he – there was probably footage of her from the 80s doing her stuff.

[1:07:01] You know?

Dan McCoy

[1:07:02] Okay.

[1:07:03] Well, parademons take Joe Morton away.

[1:07:06] We see J.K. Simmons as Commissioner Gordon.

[1:07:12] People think that – you know, there's drawings of these parademons that looks like Batman.

[1:07:17] He's like, I'm talking to him tonight.

[1:07:21] Yeah.

[1:07:21] Bring me pictures of Spider-Man.

[1:07:24] Ham.

[1:07:25] Ham.

[1:07:25] Christmas ham.

[1:07:27] Anyway.

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:28] Batman and I have a hangout planned for tonight, so I'll bring it up to him.

[1:07:34] Our game night is tonight.

[1:07:35] Me and the bat.

Dan McCoy

[1:07:37] So the Flash, Wonder Woman, and bats are all together.

[1:07:40] We get a CGI amber herd underwater in a different scene.

[1:07:46] I mean, I'm just – you know, we're so near the end here.

[1:07:49] The end of the middle.

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:50] Steppenwolf goes to Atlantis, and he fights Mira and Aquaman, and he beats them up, and he steals the mother box.

[1:07:56] And Aquaman is like – and Mira is like, hey, you need to help people.

[1:08:00] And Aquaman's like, well, I never knew my mom, so no, and leaves.

Dan McCoy

[1:08:03] Yeah.

[1:08:04] And this is the point when Audrey saw Justice League in the theater in 4D.

[1:08:08] A bunch of water got squirted around.

[1:08:11] Oh, fun.

Stuart Wellington

[1:08:13] Oh, that would have been awesome.

[1:08:14] I wish somebody squirted water on me while I was watching this.

Dan McCoy

[1:08:17] So anyway, now Seven Wolf has two boxes, one to go.

[1:08:22] Yeah.

[1:08:22] They're looking for the third.

[1:08:24] And that brings us into part four, Change Machine.

[1:08:27] It's not about quarters, guys.

[1:08:30] Is it?

[1:08:31] Maybe.

[1:08:32] I don't know.

[1:08:32] Gordon.

[1:08:33] Commissioner Gordon meets Batman and Wonder Woman and Cyclops and the Flash.

[1:08:38] Cyclops is there?

[1:08:39] Wow, it's an intercompany crossover?

[1:08:41] Cyborg.

[1:08:41] Yeah.

[1:08:42] Sorry.

[1:08:42] I just have Cy in my notes, and my brain was – you know, there's a bunch of –

Elliott Kalan

[1:08:47] And you're like, wait, is Cy Young the famous creature there?

[1:08:50] No, no, it's Cyclops.

Dan McCoy

[1:08:51] Is it Cyrus the Virus?

[1:08:53] It's a blah, blah, blah exposition scene, blah, blah, blah.

[1:08:57] I don't know.

[1:08:58] This is like – they're like, go someplace and fight people.

Stuart Wellington

[1:09:00] And now that Steppenwolf has two boxes, he turns his hideout – like, he creates a giant energy scrotum over his hideout, and it looks really cool.

[1:09:10] Over Chernobyl, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:10] It makes a big energy scrotum so that he can –

[1:09:13] I don't know.

[1:09:14] Which can, I assume, retract when it's cold.

[1:09:16] So the Commissioner Gordon scene, they're basically telling us information we know, but he gives them information that helped them find the nest of parademons where they've kidnapped the Star Labs employees.

Dan McCoy

[1:09:26] Okay, that's what's good.

[1:09:27] So there's a big fight scene.

[1:09:28] I don't – it's so fucking – like, there's nothing interesting about it.

[1:09:32] They're just fighting, you know, fighting, fighting, fighting.

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:34] In my notes for this scene, this is where I wrote, getting bored of this now.

Dan McCoy

[1:09:38] Yeah.

[1:09:39] Yeah.

[1:09:40] So –

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:41] And Batman calls – Alfred is like, I'm going to need the Nightcrawler.

[1:09:45] And I was like, Nightcrawler?

[1:09:46] Yeah.

[1:09:46] That would have been amazing, right?

[1:09:48] But no, it's some kind of – it's just kind of like a walking tank, like in Ghost in the Shell.

Stuart Wellington

[1:09:52] Yeah, it's like a spider tank that has guns on it.

[1:09:55] So Batman's like, well, the tank's the one that has the guns, not me.

[1:09:58] I'm not a coward.

Elliott Kalan

[1:10:01] I'm still not using guns.

[1:10:03] I'm using buttons.

[1:10:04] And the tank is firing them, you see?

Dan McCoy

[1:10:07] Anyway, they basically, like, lose this fight.

[1:10:11] And, like, an underwater pipe cracks.

[1:10:15] And, you know, like, they would drown, but except Aquaman shows up in a thing that's, like, honestly unclear.

[1:10:22] Like, like, Audrey was like, did he break the pipe open?

[1:10:25] I'm like, no, no.

[1:10:26] I think the pipe just broke and he's there to save them.

Elliott Kalan

[1:10:29] And he's there with the power of the plot needs him to be there.

Dan McCoy

[1:10:32] Yeah.

[1:10:33] And so he saves them, blah, blah, blah.

[1:10:35] That's great.

[1:10:36] Whatever.

[1:10:37] So Steppenwolf touches the mother box and he's like, oh, shit.

[1:10:41] Like, they're all here.

[1:10:42] And there's crop circle patterns.

[1:10:45] And this is like –

[1:10:47] Yeah, go on.

[1:10:49] Actually, you say what you're going to say and then I'll say what I was going to say.

[1:10:51] Well, this part is kind of confusing because, like, Steppenwolf is, like, being like, okay, well, we wanted the anti-life and that's on this earth.

[1:11:00] But it's, like, it's hard to tell, like, what he was supposed to have known about what is on earth at the beginning of the movie versus now.

[1:11:09] Because I guess he only knew that there was one box here before and now he's like, it's all here.

[1:11:15] I don't know.

Elliott Kalan

[1:11:16] Somehow – so here's – so this is a confusing sequence.

[1:11:19] He touches the box and he sees something that Darkseid saw back in the other flashback.

[1:11:26] And he realizes this planet is the planet that defeated Darkseid thousands of years ago, which you'd think they'd know that if there's already mother – he's looking for mother boxes on the planet.

[1:11:36] Why would he think they're there if he didn't know that this was the planet that they left a bunch of mother boxes on?

[1:11:43] But what he learns is that earth is also the location of the anti-life equation, which they don't really explain what it is in this movie.

[1:11:51] But I'll tell you what it is, Dan.

[1:11:52] If it's the same in the comics.

Dan McCoy

[1:11:53] Well, I mean, the name seems self-explanatory.

[1:11:55] But sure, go on.

Elliott Kalan

[1:11:56] Well, they say anti-life is here.

[1:11:58] In the comics, the anti-life equation is literally, like, a mathematical formula you can possess in your mind that gives you the ability to control the conscious minds of living beings.

[1:12:07] And so Darkseid, he wants the ultimate control, which is control of the thoughts of all the beings in the universe.

[1:12:13] And he's always looking for the anti-life equation, which will give him that control.

[1:12:16] Seems like a huge fucking pain in the ass.

[1:12:18] It is a big pain in the butt.

[1:12:19] That's a lot of responsibility.

[1:12:20] And when Orion gets it in Walt Simonson's run of Orion, which is fantastic and I recommend it to anybody, it is a pain in the ass and it's a big responsibility.

[1:12:28] But so that's – so this is a – he kind of, like, half explains this stuff to Desaad and Darkseid.

[1:12:34] But it is unclear, yeah, if they didn't know that this was the planet they left their mother boxes on, why was Steppenwolf looking for mother boxes on this planet?

[1:12:42] What's that all about?

[1:12:43] Yeah.

[1:12:43] Alfie.

Dan McCoy

[1:12:44] Yeah.

[1:12:45] So anyway, so that all happens, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

[1:12:49] We go back to where, like, Superman's ship is.

[1:12:53] They're, like, talking about strategy.

[1:12:57] Cyclops.

Elliott Kalan

[1:12:57] Oh, and Cyborg has brought over his – Cyclops is also – could be there.

[1:13:02] Cyborg brings over his mother box.

[1:13:04] So him burying it as mom's grave was meaningless.

[1:13:07] It didn't matter.

[1:13:07] He just dug it right up again in the neck, like, a couple hours later it seems.

[1:13:10] Yeah.

[1:13:11] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:13:11] So, like, I'm imagining Cyborg in the rain clutching at his mom's grave the way Cyclops clutches at Jean Grey's grave, right?

[1:13:20] Yeah.

[1:13:21] Yep, exactly.

Dan McCoy

[1:13:22] Well, anyway, Cyborg explains what his whole deal is, and he's, you know, like, oh, this is alien technology revitalized me.

[1:13:32] They're, like, oh, this is – the mother box is a matter manipulator.

[1:13:36] We can maybe bring Superman back to life because we got so destroyed the last time we tried to fight.

[1:13:43] Uh-huh.

Elliott Kalan

[1:13:43] Well, he says the mother boxes seem to have woken up when Superman died.

[1:13:48] They heard his scream, and they woke up almost as if they were afraid to conquer the world for Darkseid when Superman was alive.

[1:13:55] That, like, the mother boxes are afraid Superman can defeat them, so we got to bring him back.

Dan McCoy

[1:13:59] Yeah.

[1:14:00] And then also there's a weird scene in here where Martha, Superman's mom, visits Lois, and they have coffee, and Lois hasn't been to work since Clark died, and Martha's, like, come back to the living.

[1:14:15] And then she leaves, and it turns out she's secretly the Martian Manhunter.

[1:14:19] And you're, like, so was she the Martian Manhunter the last time we saw her in the movie, or was that real Martha Kent?

[1:14:26] And, like, why does the Martian Manhunter feel like he has to take the form of, like, Lois's dead fiancé's mom to talk to her?

[1:14:36] Like, I don't understand.

[1:14:37] I'll raise you one more, Dan.

Elliott Kalan

[1:14:39] I'll raise you one more.

[1:14:39] Why does the Martian Manhunter feel like he needs to get involved in Lois's career and emotional development?

Dan McCoy

[1:14:45] Yeah.

[1:14:45] So that's weird.

Stuart Wellington

[1:14:47] Maybe he's, you know, he's the ultimate chess master.

[1:14:49] That's his superpower, right?

Dan McCoy

[1:14:51] So I have no idea whether this is going to pay off later, which is going to be a really strange interlude in the movie.

Stuart Wellington

[1:14:58] Maybe he's got a bounty contract on Superman, and the only way he can find Superman is by getting Lois to, like, figure his shit out.

[1:15:05] I mean, if you've got a...

[1:15:06] Overcomer trauma.

Dan McCoy

[1:15:07] If you've got a Jones for John Jones...

[1:15:11] Perfect.

Elliott Kalan

[1:15:14] You did it?

[1:15:15] Excellently done.

Dan McCoy

[1:15:16] Anyway.

[1:15:17] Excellently done.

[1:15:17] So, anyway.

[1:15:18] So, we end this chapter on the heroes contemplating using the box to return Superman, saying there's no us without him.

[1:15:28] Guys, I'd like to do something...

Stuart Wellington

[1:15:30] Next chapter, sometimes dead is better.

Dan McCoy

[1:15:33] Yeah.

[1:15:33] That's all.

[1:15:33] Oh, God.

[1:15:34] I'm going to do something unprecedented in Flophouse lore.

[1:15:37] A new segment called Middle Judgments, where you don't necessarily say what you think overall, because how can you?

[1:15:45] But if there's anything that you wanted to say that didn't fit into the rest of it...

Elliott Kalan

[1:15:48] How can you know after only watching the first two and a half hours of the movie?

[1:15:52] But I agree, Dan.

[1:15:53] We've got to see how it plays out in the last hour 40.

Dan McCoy

[1:15:56] Yeah, I mean, I just wanted to say, like, my thing with it so far is that I think, you know, tentatively, like, I'm kind of enjoying it.

[1:16:07] It's definitely, like, in the traditional senses of the word, it's probably a better cut of the movie, just in the sense that, like, feels like a coherent vision, rather than something that was cobbled together by a studio, which the other one definitely felt like.

[1:16:24] It is super self-important.

[1:16:27] But, like, at least it kind of looks neat and is less mean-spirited, weirdly, than the previous couple Zack Snyder superhero movies.

[1:16:35] But I do think that it is hard to understand without actually having seen the theatrical cut.

[1:16:41] Like, this works.

[1:16:42] That's the theory I wanted to say before.

[1:16:44] Like, this works as well as it does kind of in relation to the previous shitty cut that we saw that moved the story along, told us quickly what things were, and, like, prepared us to, like, lower our standards.

[1:16:59] Anyway, so that's my theory.

Elliott Kalan

[1:17:01] I would disagree that it is only clear if you watch the other movie.

[1:17:06] I think if you don't watch the last two Zack Snyder movies, it's obviously incomprehensible.

[1:17:11] But I think that they're actually doing a better job of making it a coherent story and coherent characters and things like that.

[1:17:18] But what you can do when you have this much time to play around with it.

[1:17:21] I mean, it's an interesting case study because, like, there is no world in which a four-hour cut of a superhero movie would be the first cut released to theaters.

[1:17:32] I mean, maybe after this one is a success in some form that will lead to, but there has to be a first one, and it was only going to happen on a streaming platform and not in a theater.

[1:17:42] I think that, yeah, it's a much clearer look so far at Zack Snyder's vision.

[1:17:47] And once I do not – once I stop trying to compare that vision to reality or find any sort of meaning in it, I can enjoy it more as Craymaster-type art spectacle.

[1:17:59] You know, Craymaster has some meaning to it, I guess.

[1:18:01] But once I stop trying to puzzle out what is this movie about because it's not about really anything.

[1:18:05] But it is a – I feel like he is taking so far characters and using them as metaphors, but they're not really metaphors for anything.

[1:18:14] Like, it's – I feel every Marvel movie is kind of about a pretty simple idea about, like, never give up or, like, you got to take care of each other.

[1:18:22] And this one, I don't know what it is about other than that sometimes when aliens attack, you got to build a super team.

[1:18:28] Like, that seems to be the lesson of it.

[1:18:29] And so I'm enjoying it on a purely style level.

[1:18:33] But if you asked me, like, oh, is this – was there a reason to do a four-hour Justice League movie that takes itself super seriously?

[1:18:41] I would have to say not entirely.

[1:18:45] But we'll see.

[1:18:45] Maybe the last hour 40 will convince me otherwise.

Stuart Wellington

[1:18:49] Yeah.

[1:18:49] I mean, I think the – from what we've seen, this is clearly, like, a better version of this movie.

[1:18:58] It's not particularly a high bar to clear because the original was not very good.

[1:19:04] The first one was bad, yeah.

[1:19:06] And the – I think the two previous Zack Snyder superhero movies, Man of Steel and Batman v Superman, they felt so impatient in a way.

[1:19:15] Like, he clearly knew what he wanted to do.

[1:19:18] And he felt forced to, like, throw in shit to just, like, to get to the points that he wanted to.

[1:19:24] Like, and so it never felt like it did the homework to get to the emotional payoffs that he was expecting to hit.

[1:19:34] And I don't know if he's doing that yet, but at least the movie makes a little bit more sense than the previous movie or the previous version.

Elliott Kalan

[1:19:43] Somehow this movie is feeling less – even though it is constant emo sadness, it's feeling less bleak to me than Superman v Batman where – and maybe it's just because it's about characters, heroes starting to work together rather than that movie, which was so much about them hitting each other in the face with filthy urinals.

[1:20:02] You know, like, there isn't anything in the movie that speaks, so far at least, to me with so much disdain for humanity as some of the scenes in Batman v Superman.

[1:20:13] And it shows you that, like, you can make a movie feel more bleak by adding humor to it.

[1:20:19] Like, the last Justice League cut felt really grim to me, and it's partly, I guess, because the contrast between the Joss Whedon humor and the, like, grim stuff.

[1:20:28] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:20:28] The lack of color in every scene.

[1:20:32] That's the same possible.

[1:20:34] Very strange.

Elliott Kalan

[1:20:36] But stay tuned for our final judgments in the next episode of The Flophouse Watches Zack Snyder's Justice League for Reals.

[1:20:44] Part two.

Stuart Wellington

[1:20:45] That we are contractually obligated because we are film people on the internet.

S4

[1:20:55] Hi, I'm Bez.

[1:20:57] And I'm Teresa.

[1:20:58] And we're the hosts of One Bad Mother, a podcast about parenting.

[1:21:03] Parenting is hard, and we have no advice.

[1:21:06] But we do see you doing it.

[1:21:09] Honk if you like to do it.

[1:21:11] What was this?

[1:21:11] Didn't we have a bumper sticker a while back that was like, honk if you did it?

[1:21:16] That's what it was.

[1:21:16] I think it was honk if you're doing it.

Stuart Wellington

[1:21:19] Why did we not ever make those?

[1:21:21] Those are the likes.

[1:21:22] We did make them.

S4

[1:21:23] I think they're still in the Max Fun Store.

[1:21:26] Honk honk.

[1:21:27] You're doing it.

[1:21:29] Thanks, Bez.

[1:21:30] So are you.

[1:21:31] Each week, we'll be here to remind you that you're doing a good job.

[1:21:36] You can find us on MaximumFun.org.

[1:21:39] Honk honk.

[1:21:40] Toot toot.

Stuart Wellington

[1:21:44] I started listening to Oh No, Ross and Carrie shortly after I broke my arm.

S4

[1:21:47] I couldn't get my book started.

Dan McCoy

[1:21:49] I was lost.

[1:21:50] Honestly.

[1:21:51] I knew it was time to make a change.

S4

[1:21:53] There's something about Oh No, Ross and Carrie that you just can't get anywhere else.

[1:21:58] They're thought leaders.

[1:22:00] Discoverers.

[1:22:01] Founders.

Elliott Kalan

[1:22:01] I'd call them heroes.

S4

[1:22:03] Ross and Carrie don't just report on French science, spirituality, and claims of the paranormal.

[1:22:07] They take part themselves.

[1:22:09] They show up so you don't have to.

Dan McCoy

[1:22:11] But you might find that you want to.

[1:22:14] My arm is better.

S4

[1:22:16] I wrote an entire book this weekend.

[1:22:18] It's terrible, but I did it.

[1:22:20] Just go to MaximumFun.org.

[1:22:23] Thank you, Ross and Carrie.

[1:22:25] Oh No, Ross and Carrie is just a podcast.

[1:22:27] It doesn't do anything.

[1:22:28] It's just sounds you listen to in your ears.

[1:22:29] All these people are made up.

[1:22:30] Goodbye.

Dan McCoy

[1:22:30] Okay.

[1:22:31] Well, the Flophouse is sponsored in part by Squarespace.

[1:22:36] With Squarespace, you can create a beautiful website to turn your cool idea into something all sorts of people can see across the internet.

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[1:23:10] Head to squarespace.com slash flop for a free trial.

[1:23:13] And when you're ready to launch, use the offer code flop to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.

Elliott Kalan

[1:23:22] Now, Dan, I had – I don't want to interrupt.

[1:23:24] That was a great read.

[1:23:26] Thank you.

[1:23:26] I had an idea for a website, and I was hoping Squarespace could help me with it.

[1:23:29] Please, please.

[1:23:30] I was kind of inspired by the hullabaloo around the Snyder Cut.

[1:23:35] And that's why I'm starting my own service.

[1:23:37] It's www.snydercuts.com.

[1:23:40] Snyder Cut's beef.

[1:23:41] Snyder Cut's beef brings you steaks three to four times larger than your average steak.

[1:23:46] Rather than that pink or red, it is a uniform gray, and it comes with a special marinade that tastes like ashes and tears.

[1:23:54] That's www.snydercutssteak.com.

[1:23:56] That's beef that brings you all the qualities of a Zack Snyder film in the form of a cow.

Dan McCoy

[1:24:00] You know, this is the first time I've ever suspected you of pre-writing one of these because it's a little too good.

[1:24:07] All off the dome.

Stuart Wellington

[1:24:09] Off the dome, Dan.

[1:24:10] You're saying there's a bonus service that if somebody orders enough beef that they'll also get Snyder Cut's hair where he will cut three to four extra inches off of your hair, and it will be gray at the end of it.

Elliott Kalan

[1:24:23] Yeah.

[1:24:23] Well, strangely enough, he cuts more off your hair, and yet your hair is longer than when you started.

[1:24:27] Snyder Cut's hair.

[1:24:28] He actually adds extensions to the hair.

[1:24:30] It does turn your hair gray, and when you look in the mirror, you'll be overcome with sadness, and in the mirror in this case is the ocean.

[1:24:38] So that's Snyder Cut's hair.

[1:24:39] That's if you have a membership at SnyderCuts.com.

[1:24:43] Snyder Cut's, your place for sad beef.

Dan McCoy

[1:24:46] Well, that's really useful, Elliot.

[1:24:48] Now, why don't you do an ad for someone who's actually giving us money, not a made-up product.

[1:24:54] Hey, I would love to, Dan.

Elliott Kalan

[1:24:56] Hey, now more than ever, storytellers—this is—our episode is also brought to you, this episode, by Storyblocks.

[1:25:02] Storyblocks, now more than ever, storytellers and content creators like Zack Snyder are challenged with producing more video content at a higher quality than ever before.

[1:25:10] Sometimes you've got to take a two-hour movie and turn it into a four-hour movie.

[1:25:13] Well, keep up with that growing demand from your rabid online fans with modern video content without sacrificing your vision, the way Snack Snyder didn't have to, with stock media from Storyblocks.

[1:25:25] Storyblocks is dedicated to being the world's best royalty-free stock media subscription service.

[1:25:29] That's right, royalty-free.

[1:25:30] It's an ever-growing library, over one million high-quality stock assets, including 4K HD footage.

[1:25:35] And there's templates, there's music, there's sound effects, everything.

[1:25:38] Here's the thing.

[1:25:40] They've got affordable subscription plans and tools.

[1:25:42] With the Storyblocks Unlimited All Access Plan, you get unlimited downloads of everything in their library.

[1:25:47] It's royalty-free.

[1:25:48] Pay for the subscription.

[1:25:49] Use the footage.

[1:25:50] It's yours to use.

[1:25:51] You don't have to give them another dime after that except to continue subscription, which you're going to want to do.

[1:25:56] Even if your subscription ends, if you're foolish enough to let your subscription lapse, everything you've downloaded is yours to keep.

[1:26:03] For those of us who were lucky to watch the Flophouse live Teen Wolf show, you may remember Dan's wonderful intermission song about having to pee, set over Storyblocks footage.

[1:26:14] It was beautiful.

[1:26:15] So why don't you be like Dan, go have a pee, and then explore the Storyblocks library and subscribe today at storyblocks.com slash flop.

[1:26:23] That's right, that's storyblocks.com slash flop.

Dan McCoy

[1:26:27] That sounds wonderful.

[1:26:29] I don't know if any, if you, if you guys have personal plugs, do you have anything personal?

Elliott Kalan

[1:26:35] Hey, we're talking, we're talking, well, this is a little personal.

[1:26:38] We're talking about comics, so I might as well mention again, Maniac of New York, number one and number two from Aftershocks Comics, written by me.

[1:26:45] They're on comic shelves now.

[1:26:47] Maniac of New York, number three, comes out April 14th, so ask your comic store for it.

[1:26:51] These have been selling fast.

[1:26:54] If you are, you want, you watch Zack Snyder's grim take on the Justice League, and you want my grim take on commuting in New York, get Maniac of New York.

Stuart Wellington

[1:27:03] And not to plug digital comics or anything, but if you can't, if you're having trouble finding a comic shop or a specialty store where you can get the book, it is available on Comixology, so you can get it digitally.

Elliott Kalan

[1:27:14] Yes, it is available day and date on Comixology.

[1:27:16] So if you're having trouble finding a store near you or if the stores near you are sold out and you just cannot wait for a second printing in case there is one, the second printing of number one, I don't know if it's sold out yet, but it might be close to.

[1:27:28] They are available on Comixology, and you can read them on your own home tablet.

[1:27:33] Just watch out because it might scare you so much that you drop the tablet and it breaks.

[1:27:37] Oh, yeah, you'll shatter your tablet.

[1:27:39] Yeah, it's a shatter tab read.

[1:27:42] Uh-huh.

Stuart Wellington

[1:27:44] And yeah, I'll recommend my bars.

[1:27:46] Check out my bars.

[1:27:47] Hey, have you ever heard of Brooklyn, New York?

[1:27:49] Well, I have because I live there and we have bars here, two of them.

[1:27:53] Hinterland's Bar and Minnie's Bar.

[1:27:54] Please come by.

[1:27:56] We need your help.

[1:27:57] If you're...

[1:27:58] The weather's getting better.

Dan McCoy

[1:27:59] Yeah.

[1:28:00] I mean, if you're nervous about indoor stuff, if you're not vaccinated yet, they both have lovely backyard areas.

[1:28:10] Uh-huh.

Stuart Wellington

[1:28:10] But I've been vaccinated, baby.

[1:28:13] Check me out.

Dan McCoy

[1:28:13] I'm going to live forever.

[1:28:15] Now, let's make it clear that you are one of the groups designated to be able to get the vaccine.

[1:28:20] I feel...

[1:28:21] Yeah, I didn't, like, break in and steal the vaccine.

[1:28:23] I feel like there's so much, like, internet shaming of people, like, based on, like, the weird, like, uneven outroll of this stuff.

[1:28:33] And we all understand that it's difficult and we all want it as soon as possible.

[1:28:38] But we also want to make it clear that, you know, we're doing our part by getting vaccinated legally as soon as we can.

Stuart Wellington

[1:28:46] No, I dressed up like fucking Mr. Six and I went to the fucking place and I was like, please one vaccine for an old man.

[1:28:54] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:28:55] The vaccination works best when everybody gets it.

[1:28:58] So everybody, if you can all get it as quickly as you can, legally, that would be great.

Dan McCoy

[1:29:04] Hey, you know what?

[1:29:06] Why not?

[1:29:06] I'll say this.

[1:29:08] I'll plug a thing.

[1:29:11] My own personal Instagram I keep private because, you know, you gotta have at least some parts of your life that you don't expose to the world.

[1:29:19] But...

[1:29:20] OnlyFans.

[1:29:21] You can look at my cats.

[1:29:23] I have a new cat Instagram.

[1:29:25] It's called Archie underscore and, the word and, not ampersand, Panda.

[1:29:31] Archie and Panda.

[1:29:33] Elliot looks very skeptical right now.

[1:29:35] Yeah, well, he doesn't like cats because they make him sneeze, which is, you know, perfectly...

Elliott Kalan

[1:29:38] Excuse me, I like cats when they are Judi Dench slathered in CGI, just not in real life.

[1:29:45] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:29:47] So that's all important plugs.

[1:29:52] Yeah, equally important plugs.

[1:29:54] Hey, why don't we do some letters from listeners?

[1:29:56] This first one is from Dan, last name withheld, who writes,

[1:30:02] If by internet decree you couldn't flop movies anymore, what other form or forms of terrible media would you pivot to in order to keep the podcast going?

[1:30:13] Elliot, would you tackle the later super problematic comics of Frank Miller?

[1:30:18] Stuart, wouldst thou engage in melee combat with the works of Burzum?

[1:30:24] Is that Burzum?

Stuart Wellington

[1:30:27] Well, that's an orcish term, but it's Burzum, yeah, yeah.

[1:30:31] Burzum.

[1:30:33] Yeah, no, probably not, but go on.

Dan McCoy

[1:30:35] Dan, would you quantifiably determine the most off-putting literary sex scene?

[1:30:41] Do you have a specific album, book, painting, or dare I say it podcast already in the chamber for day one, episode one of Flophouse 2.0?

[1:30:49] I'd love to hear what else you'd flop if movies were suddenly off the table.

[1:30:54] Stay safe and stay cool, cool dudes, Dan, last name withheld.

Stuart Wellington

[1:30:58] I'm going to jump in there, Dan, last name withheld now.

[1:31:00] At least, I was too busy thinking, so I didn't hear what you suggested for Dan,

[1:31:05] but I think the things you suggested for Elliot and I are more problematic than just artistically bad.

[1:31:12] Like, it feels weird, like, as much as I, like, you suggested that I talk about, if I like heavy metal,

[1:31:21] and you suggested I talk about a foundational second wave black metal artist who is a murderer and a racist,

[1:31:29] like, no, I don't want to do that, I don't want to single boost that shit.

[1:31:35] But, like, I'd talk about bad heavy metal, but I feel like if I was going to talk,

[1:31:41] I'm hesitant to do more, like, pop culture critique,

[1:31:46] but I guess, I mean, we kind of use it as more than anything as a jumping off point to be silly boys.

[1:31:52] But I feel like if I was going to pick a medium that I am passionate about, like I am about movies,

[1:31:58] I'd probably pick, like, comic books, like, I'm very passionate about comics,

[1:32:03] but I don't know what specific, I don't have a specific one queued up that I'm like,

[1:32:08] I can't wait to roast Chris Ware's fucking Acme Novelty Library.

Elliott Kalan

[1:32:14] The novelty has worn off, Chris.

[1:32:16] Yeah.

[1:32:17] Yeah, I think if for some reason the law came down that we can no longer do a podcast about bad movies,

[1:32:23] I might take the time to try to do something not based around bad media,

[1:32:28] so I don't have to, like, subject myself to things that I know are not quality.

[1:32:33] Yeah.

[1:32:34] Like, when there's, I only have, I'm getting older, I only have so much time in this universe,

[1:32:38] I've got to, why spend on that?

[1:32:40] That being said, what comes to mind right off the bat,

[1:32:43] long-time listeners know that there's a particular song

[1:32:45] that I think is the worst song ever written, and I hate it,

[1:32:48] and that's Kokomo by the Beach Boys,

[1:32:50] and I could see doing a podcast, maybe a whole series,

[1:32:53] taking that song apart and pointing out why it does,

[1:32:56] why it should not exist and also why it's problematic.

[1:32:58] It's gross that it's essentially a song about a rich, old, or middle-aged man

[1:33:02] trying to tempt a young girl to come with him to a mythical island

[1:33:06] where, you know, she'd be at his mercy.

[1:33:08] But on top of that, if I couldn't do a music podcast,

[1:33:12] you know that the thing I'd love to tear into

[1:33:14] are all those municipal sculptures of Robert Indiana's love.

[1:33:19] Not a fan, don't like it.

[1:33:21] There was a summer I had to walk past that damn love sculpture in Midtown Manhattan every day

[1:33:25] when I was working in Midtown Manhattan.

[1:33:28] It was the worst moment of my day every time I had to walk by that thing.

[1:33:32] Oh, man. Oh, man.

[1:33:32] Somebody put a nickel in L.A.

[1:33:33] Somebody hold him back.

[1:33:35] And I know that it is very privileged of me to say that the worst moment of my day at that time

[1:33:39] was looking at this sculpture for a moment as I walked past it.

[1:33:42] Obviously, there were worse things going on in my life.

[1:33:44] I was depressingly lonely and at a terrible place.

[1:33:47] But it all seemed to come to a head when I would pass by the love sculpture,

[1:33:51] a huge sculpture winking its eye at me about the thing that, at the time, I felt I would never receive.

[1:33:56] So, Robert Indiana, who died a few years ago, you just got roasted.

Stuart Wellington

[1:33:59] Oh, wow. Tap dancing on his grave.

Dan McCoy

[1:34:02] Yeah. I mean, yeah, I kind of agree with Elliot in that, like, I don't want to commit myself to more bad shit.

[1:34:13] Like, well, the thing is, like, about movies, like, they're kind of perfect for this sort of format

[1:34:19] because the time investment is lower than reading a terrible novel.

[1:34:29] And meanwhile, like, I don't know, what am I going to do?

[1:34:32] Like, do a...

[1:34:34] The Museum of Bad Art is a great place to go, but I'm not going to do, you know,

[1:34:39] more than five minutes of material on, like, a bad painting someone did.

[1:34:45] Like, I think I would do something, rather than bad, I would just, like, do something where the fun of it was

[1:34:53] how obscure and unimportant to anything going on in current day life it is.

[1:35:02] Like, I'd be like, oh, let's do a podcast that goes through all the little Lulu comic books, you know?

[1:35:08] Like, let's pick something very esoteric and just, like, focus on that because what the hell does it matter?

[1:35:15] Like, when it comes down to it, like, podcasts that I enjoy are more about, like, the people who do them than the topic.

Stuart Wellington

[1:35:22] I feel like our next podcast is going to be Dan baking stuff and we're all together and then we all get to eat it

[1:35:27] and eat on mic, which is what people love.

[1:35:29] Everyone loves it.

[1:35:30] People love that sound, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:35:31] Everybody gets to hear the yummy sounds.

[1:35:33] Yeah.

[1:35:35] Final letter.

[1:35:37] Well, that's it.

Elliott Kalan

[1:35:38] You heard it.

[1:35:38] That's the announcement.

[1:35:39] Our next podcast, The Bakehouse.

Dan McCoy

[1:35:42] Final letter for this episode.

[1:35:44] In Flophouse Mini, number four, I had an epiphany while listening to Stuart's description of the Fast 9 trailer

[1:35:51] in which Vin Diesel, quote, catches a car while surfing on top of another car.

[1:35:57] We're all familiar with Ding Dong Gate.

[1:35:59] In this Fast 9 trailer, we have yet another instance of Stuart's interpretation of events diverging from the on-screen reality.

Stuart Wellington

[1:36:07] Here we go again.

[1:36:09] Mama mia.

Dan McCoy

[1:36:10] And it occurred to me, it occurred to me, is this how Stuart always sees the world?

[1:36:16] Looking through Stuart's eyes, does everything appear just one notch cooler than it actually is?

[1:36:23] Think about this.

[1:36:24] It would explain so much, it may be the grand unified theory of Stuart, John, last name withheld.

[1:36:31] I think that's a pretty good theory.

Stuart Wellington

[1:36:34] Yeah, I mean, it's possible.

[1:36:36] I mean, it's also weird when I'm like, always right?

[1:36:40] Yuck.

Dan McCoy

[1:36:43] Okay.

Stuart Wellington

[1:36:44] Well, thanks for writing in.

[1:36:45] I'm glad that you enjoyed those trailers and the movie, Cassapreak.

[1:36:55] Real pro, this guy.

Dan McCoy

[1:36:57] Just like pivots.

[1:37:00] Okay, well, I guess that whimper means it's time to move on to the final segment of the show,

[1:37:06] which is where we recommend a movie.

[1:37:09] Say you don't have the four hours to spend on a recut version.

Stuart Wellington

[1:37:13] Oh, you don't know what Elliot's going to recommend.

Dan McCoy

[1:37:15] A recut version of a...

Elliott Kalan

[1:37:18] The thing that really got to me was seeing people on Twitter being like,

[1:37:21] hey, the Zack Snyder cut comes out tomorrow.

[1:37:23] I guess I'll watch the original tonight so I can compare the two.

[1:37:26] And it was just like, how much time do you have on your hands?

[1:37:30] Yeah.

[1:37:31] You can watch six hours of two versions of the same movie.

[1:37:35] Back to back.

Stuart Wellington

[1:37:36] I saw Fellowship of the Ring seven times in the theater,

[1:37:40] but I was also in college and didn't have a particularly active social life.

[1:37:45] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:37:46] Well, the movie that I'm going to recommend proves that I couldn't complain about other people wasting their time.

[1:37:54] I'm going to recommend a little movie from 1993 starring one Drew Barrymore,

[1:38:01] and it is called Doppelganger.

[1:38:04] This movie is ridiculous, and I really loved it.

[1:38:09] It feels like...

[1:38:11] It is definitely like an American giallo type thing.

[1:38:16] It is like a Brian De Palma movie pumped up to 20 with, I don't know,

[1:38:23] Showtime, After Hours, production quality.

[1:38:27] Drew Barrymore in the lead,

[1:38:29] playing someone who's supposed to be possibly threatening during that period where they tried to sell Drew Barrymore

[1:38:35] as if she wasn't inherently sweet and lovable rather than...

[1:38:40] They tried to make her menacing.

[1:38:44] And it's a very strange movie that you think might end up with a conventional twist or two,

[1:38:55] and it gets much weirder than you think it would be.

[1:38:59] And I don't know.

[1:39:01] I honestly can't tell whether I'm recommending it as a good, bad movie or movie I legitimately enjoy.

[1:39:08] It really straddles that line.

Elliott Kalan

[1:39:10] I feel like, Dan, that you kind of live that line a lot more than the rest of us,

[1:39:15] and I admire you for it.

Dan McCoy

[1:39:16] I'm always, you know, I'm just trying to...

[1:39:19] That's where I want to be, man.

[1:39:20] I'm looking for that next high.

Stuart Wellington

[1:39:22] Yeah, that razor's edge.

[1:39:24] Yeah.

[1:39:25] So about a week or so ago, I was caught in the grips of second vaccine fever.

[1:39:34] That's right.

[1:39:35] About 12 hours after getting my second dose of the Moderna vaccine, I was very feverish and sick.

[1:39:41] And that lasted like 12 hours, and I had the chills, and I was bumming.

[1:39:45] But you know what helped get me out of it?

[1:39:48] I watched a movie from 1992 called Sneakers.

[1:39:52] I'm recommending Sneakers today, guys.

[1:39:54] I watched Sneakers, and I ate some Chinese food, and I felt much better afterwards.

[1:39:58] Because you know what?

[1:39:59] Sneakers is great.

[1:40:00] And what a cast we have here.

[1:40:02] Bobby Redford.

Elliott Kalan

[1:40:06] Are they there with you?

[1:40:08] It's like you're saying it's like they're going to walk out on stage.

[1:40:10] Here they come.

Stuart Wellington

[1:40:12] All the stars.

[1:40:14] Bobby Redford.

[1:40:15] Dan Aykroyd.

[1:40:16] Sidney Poitier.

[1:40:18] Shit.

[1:40:19] So many people.

[1:40:21] Mary McDonald.

[1:40:22] River Phoenix.

[1:40:24] Not a lake.

[1:40:25] David Strathairn.

[1:40:26] We got the whole river.

[1:40:26] David Strathairn.

[1:40:28] You know what?

[1:40:28] A young Donald Logue with very long hair.

[1:40:30] And I'm into it.

[1:40:31] Ben Grimsby himself.

[1:40:33] Ben Kingsley.

[1:40:34] Oh, baby.

[1:40:35] And you know what?

[1:40:36] It's super fun.

[1:40:37] It is like a high-tech espionage thriller set in 1992.

[1:40:43] And it has technology that is appropriate for 1992, which is really great to see.

Elliott Kalan

[1:40:48] Yeah.

[1:40:48] Set in 1992 because it's from 1992, right?

Stuart Wellington

[1:40:51] Yeah, yeah.

[1:40:52] It's not a period piece.

[1:40:53] Unless, in a way, it kind of is, right?

[1:40:56] Although they never address what I'm doing in 1992 when I was 12 years old, which is probably

[1:41:01] not much.

[1:41:02] I was probably going to soccer camp.

[1:41:04] But, um...

[1:41:05] This is my favorite reoccurring new bit where Stewart expects every movie from the past

Dan McCoy

[1:41:11] to address where he was personally.

[1:41:14] I mean, I'm the audience, dude.

[1:41:15] They gotta play to me.

[1:41:16] Yeah, you're right.

[1:41:17] I mean, if Justice League has taught us anything...

Stuart Wellington

[1:41:20] I'm putting five bucks into the fucking slot and they're giving me a ticket.

Elliott Kalan

[1:41:23] Yeah, release the Stewart cut of sneakers.

[1:41:26] Come on.

[1:41:27] Get it out of your vault, Warner Brothers.

Stuart Wellington

[1:41:30] So, yeah, you know, sneakers is great.

[1:41:32] Give it a shot.

[1:41:34] Thanks.

[1:41:35] Elliot?

Elliott Kalan

[1:41:36] I am going to say, if you're tired of watching four-hour movies, why not try a tight 81-minute

[1:41:41] movie that takes place almost completely in real time, but it doesn't call attention to

[1:41:46] that.

[1:41:46] That's right, everybody.

[1:41:48] I'm talking about the Alan Juan Western, Silverload.

[1:41:51] So, this is a movie from 1954, directed by the great Alan Juan.

[1:41:55] It was one of, I think, his last movies, possibly, but I don't remember about that.

[1:41:59] Anyway, John Payne is a...

[1:42:01] Silverado?

[1:42:03] Silverado.

[1:42:05] It's that one.

[1:42:05] No, it's called Silverload.

[1:42:07] That's L-O-D-E.

[1:42:08] Silverload is the name of the town it takes place in.

[1:42:11] John Payne is a man who came to this town two years ago and quickly enamored everybody

[1:42:17] in it.

[1:42:17] He's about to get married on the 4th of July when a federal marshal, played by Dan Duryea,

[1:42:24] comes in and says, this man's wanted for murder.

[1:42:27] He's under arrest.

[1:42:28] Me and my men are going to take him.

[1:42:30] And people have to figure out in the town who are they going to believe.

[1:42:32] This man that they've come to love but only have known him for a little bit of time,

[1:42:35] or this guy who has the paperwork that says he's a federal marshal, but seems a little

[1:42:39] suspicious.

[1:42:40] And John Payne has to go and basically prove his innocence and stay alive while these guys

[1:42:45] are wandering around the town.

[1:42:46] And it is a real tight, fun movie.

[1:42:49] There's some really amazingly kind of choreographed, synchronized scenes using this western set and

[1:42:55] very few edits.

[1:42:57] It's just super fun.

[1:42:58] And guys, is it in color?

[1:42:59] Yes, it's in color.

[1:43:00] So don't worry, you anti-black and white people.

[1:43:02] You can watch it in color.

[1:43:03] That's Silverload.

[1:43:05] And it may still be available on Amazon Prime just to watch for free if you have Amazon Prime.

Dan McCoy

[1:43:11] Well, those sound like...

[1:43:12] That's three movies.

[1:43:13] Three movies.

Elliott Kalan

[1:43:14] Three movies that are, I think, about the combined runtime of Zack Snyder's Justice League.

Dan McCoy

[1:43:19] Yeah.

[1:43:19] Speaking of Zack Snyder's Justice League, I hope you have enjoyed...

[1:43:23] We hope you have enjoyed this first half of the Flophouse's version of Zack Snyder's...

[1:43:30] The Flophouse cut of Zack Snyder's cut.

[1:43:32] Oh, no.

Elliott Kalan

[1:43:33] We've been watching Zack Snyder's Justice League, which is a different movie.

[1:43:40] They're a league that's searching for justice.

[1:43:42] First, they have to figure out what justice means, but it's all part of Zack Snyder's

[1:43:45] brand vision.

Dan McCoy

[1:43:46] Zack Snyder's Just Ice League, which is not a zombie team that he belongs to.

Elliott Kalan

[1:43:53] Not to be confused with George Lucas's Zuckus League, which is the movie he made about the

[1:43:57] bounty hunter Zuckus.

[1:43:58] Of course, he's the partner of Forlom.

[1:44:00] You'll see him in Empire Strikes Back for a half a second.

Dan McCoy

[1:44:02] Yeah, exactly.

[1:44:04] Anyway, point is, that's the first part of our coverage of Zack Snyder's Just Ice League.

[1:44:10] I'd like to thank, before we go, Jordan Cowling for doing all of our production work, making

[1:44:17] it sound not crazy and awful, hopefully.

[1:44:21] Thanks to Maximum Fun, our network.

[1:44:25] Go to MaximumFun.org to check out all the other great shows on the network.

[1:44:30] If you feel so inclined, please leave us a review on iTunes or tweet about us or tell a friend

[1:44:37] who says, hey, I'm thinking about getting into podcasts.

[1:44:42] And you say, probably you shouldn't do a podcast yourself because there are too many podcasts right now.

[1:44:49] But here's one to listen to.

[1:44:52] Yeah, the Flophouse should be the one that you recommend.

Stuart Wellington

[1:44:56] Or you should encourage your friend.

[1:44:58] Tell your friend to follow their dreams.

[1:45:00] Yeah, why not?

[1:45:00] Make a podcast.

Elliott Kalan

[1:45:01] You know what?

[1:45:02] The barrier for entry is so low.

[1:45:03] What do you got to lose?

[1:45:05] Dan, don't step on people's dreams.

[1:45:06] But if your friend is interested in making a podcast, don't recommend the Flophouse to them

[1:45:10] as the thing they should make.

[1:45:11] We're doing that already.

[1:45:12] Yeah, we're already doing that.

[1:45:15] Because your friends will probably do it better.

[1:45:17] And that will make me feel bad.

Dan McCoy

[1:45:18] Yeah, no, just tell them to listen to it as just like, you know, research.

[1:45:23] But research where they have to, you know, support all our sponsors.

[1:45:29] Anyway, for the Flophouse, I've been Dan McCoy.

[1:45:33] Oh, thank you, Dirty Dan McCoy.

[1:45:35] It's me, Stuart Willington, saying goodbye.

Elliott Kalan

[1:45:38] And this is the first half of Elliot Kalin.

[1:45:40] You'll see the second half of Elliot Kalin in our next episode.

[1:45:42] Your butt?

[1:45:45] The end.

[1:45:47] Yeah, my butt.

[1:45:48] The end.

[1:45:58] What?

[1:45:59] Oh, no.

[1:46:00] I watched Tom Clancy's Justice League.

S4

[1:46:02] Ha ha ha ha!

[1:46:05] Ha ha ha ha!

Elliott Kalan

[1:46:08] Because he puts his names on a lot of stuff that he didn't actually write.

[1:46:12] Woo!

S4

[1:46:16] MaximumFun.org

[1:46:19] Comedy and culture.

S5

[1:46:21] Artist owned.

[1:46:22] Audience supported.

Ep. #338 - Zack Snyder's Justice League

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