Another Pass at Black Widow

This time on Another Pass, Case and Sam are joined by Cly from Point in Progress to revisit Black Widow. They talk Scarlett Johansson, Florence Pugh, the Red Room, dysfunctional found family, the ghost of the Winter Soldier, the problem with Taskmaster, and how the movie could have done more to reframe Natasha’s sacrifice in Endgame.

SUBSCRIBE: Apple Podcasts • Google Podcasts • Spotify • iHeartRADIO • Stitcher • RSS

Another Pass Full Episode Originally aired: July 24, 2026

Music by Vin Macri and Matt Brogan

Podcast Edited by Sophia Ricciardi

Certain Point Of View is a podcast network brining you all sorts of nerdy goodness! From Star Wars role playing, to Disney day dreaming, to video game love, we've got the show for you! Learn more on our website: https://www.certainpov.com

Support us on Patreon! patreon.com/CertainPOVMedia

Join us on Discord: https://discord.gg/wcHHer4

PODCAST SHOWS: ▶ Another Pass - https://www.certainpov.com/another-pass-podcast

⏱️ YouTube Chapters

00:30 Welcome and Guest Intro

01:58 Initial Thoughts on Black Widow

03:27 Taskmaster

10:58 The Red Room Problem

12:31 Natasha’s Ledger

14:36 Why This Movie Came Too Late

17:25 Yelena and Natasha

21:45 The Midquel Problem

29:25 The Widow Ending

37:09 The Widows as Soldiers

42:19 Red Guardian

47:23 Melina

51:17 The Winter Soldier’s Absence

01:01:50 Marvel’s Four-Quadrant Problem

01:06:24 The Accents

01:09:34 Fun and Games Promo

01:10:36 Another Pass Begins

01:11:43 Cly’s Another Pass

01:17:50 Yelena and the Widows

01:19:42 Replacing Taskmaster

01:21:20 Sam’s Another Pass

01:28:56 Natasha as a Leader

01:30:36 Blip and Post-Credits Fixes

01:32:22 Melina, Trauma, and Structure

01:36:48 Final Thoughts

01:41:14 Cly’s Plugs

01:45:21 Sam and Case’s Plugs

01:47:12 Patreon Shout-Outs

01:48:58 Next Time: Highlander II

01:49:09 Credits

Transcription

00:00
Sam
Like, go back there, face the fact that she failed the first time, help free the girls, not do it on her own. Because Yelena is very important. I do think it's really important for her journey to be the person who disperses the ridiculous serum. But I think it's fine. It's a Marvel movie. Whatever Serum up.

00:21
Cly
We've bought into 5 million other serums. We could have this one too, I guess.

00:25
Sam
Exactly right. Yes.

00:30
Case
Welcome to certain. Welcome to POV's Another Pass podcast with Kase and Sam where we take another look at movies that we find fascinating but flawed. Let's see how we could have fixed them. Hey everyone and welcome back to the Another Pass podcast. I'm Case Aiken and as always, I'm joined by my co host, Sam Alicea. Hi, Sam, how are you doing today?

00:57
Sam
I feel like a person in a very red room.

01:02
Case
Yes, yes, a very red room indeed. And like a room that should have been what, like out two years earlier or something like that. Maybe maybe three years earlier in the. In the timeline. Does that sound right for that red room?

01:15
Sam
Yeah, yeah. Maybe two, three, you know, maybe even phase one. Phase one? You know, like maybe, maybe not the exact storyline, but maybe something. Maybe Phase one. Maybe some backstory. Yeah, maybe. Maybe some backstory on the red room in Phase one. But yeah, for sure.

01:32
Case
Yeah, yeah, totally would be great. Because today we are Talking about the 2021 Scarlett Johansson led Black Widow film. And to have that conversation, we are joined by Sly from Point in progress.

01:43
Cly
Hello. I am so excited to be here to talk about a movie that I personally loved. I know it's not a great movie, but we're here to talk about why this could have been a great movie.

01:58
Case
Yeah. Okay. So were talking before we got into the recording about this one, which is like where we're all kind of coming from on this one. I don't like this movie that much.

02:06
Cly
That's so valid.

02:07
Case
I'm just going to be blunt about that. And it's not because of the pieces. I think the pieces actually add up to a pretty good sum, but I think the timing for it kind of sucks. And I think there's a couple elements that just sort of take me out of it. One of it, which is just Ray Winston's terrible accent in this movie. Yeah, but there's a bunch of like little pieces. But then there's like so many things I really like about it. And I was thinking about it in general where I have a much warmer opinion of this movie now that Thunderbolts has Come out.

02:39
Sam
Yeah, I could see that.

02:40
Case
I think Thunderbolts does a really good job of redeeming some of the. Not redeeming, per se. Well, actually, yes. Redeeming. Redeeming Taskmaster, for sure.

02:48
Cly
Like, Okay, I will say I have very strong opinions on.

02:57
Case
Taskmaster died early in the movie. Just a spoiler on that one. But the very brief minute we got with it's like, oh, this is much more like the Taskmaster that I was looking for when I heard the Taskmaster was going to be in a movie. And then we got this movie. And I don't fundamentally hate the character. I do despise the fact that they use the Taskmaster name. It's just a very different character, and I don't think they get anything out of it. Sorry, we're in the negative section already.

03:27
Cly
That's fine. I have a lot of Taskmaster thoughts. Do you want to continue with those there or say, let's get into the Taskmaster?

03:33
Case
Because Taskmaster is the character that a lot of people glommed onto when they were talking about negatives of this movie.

03:39
Cly
Yes. I will say for reference, for the lovely folks at home, if you do not know who I am the world's biggest Echo fan, and this is relevant. I'll get there. I support women's wrongs. I love an emotionless, unfeeling, totally badass, completely confident character. And when this came out, we didn't have Echo in live action, and I was getting a lot of the same feelings I get about that character via this iteration of Taskmaster, which I get why people hate. However, I glommed onto her so hard, and I absolutely adored her. So I was devastated, you know, about 20 minutes or whatever into Thunderbolts when they did just straight up spoiler.

04:30
Case
The character that's only on the poster and not in any of the trailers dies early in the movie. Sorry.

04:35
Cly
Yeah, so at that point, I wasn't really on the Internet that much, so I did completely miss any of the clues that I was about to be heartbroken by that. However, like, Taskmaster being the name they chose for this character makes sense at the time as what they were trying to do, which is draw in a very specific type of audience to this movie that necessarily wouldn't be the target audience. And I think that's where they went wrong. Because my biggest problem with Marvel, the MCU as a whole, is they try to make every single project for every single Marvel fan, and it doesn't work. You can tell specific contained stories for a Specific part of your audience. And I think you'd find a lot more success that way.

05:27
Cly
And so by throwing a taskmaster into this movie, that's this, you know, gritty story, heavy, like women's rights empowerment, like brainwashing. What does it mean to lose your. Your family and your connection to the world kind of story and trying to make it, for no offense to anybody, the dude bros. By throwing a Taskmaster in there, you're not gonna make anybody happy.

05:59
Case
Yeah, that's totally fair. Taskmaster as a character is antihero, has been the lead of many a comic series, but those comic series are like, Deadpool adjacent.

06:07
Cly
Yeah, huh. And that's not the audience they were trying. Okay. That's the audience they thought they wanted to be able to entice with throwing that name onto this character. And what they actually got instead is a lot of people livid that they, you know, completely ruined this character they love so much. And meanwhile, I'm in the back being like, I support women's wrongs. I love her. She's great. She's not really a taskmaster, but I'm here for it.

06:38
Case
That's okay. So there's a few parts here because I do want to say the gender flip's not my issue. Like that, like firmly on that one. Like that. That has no bearing on this. Aside from the fact that Echo then sort of occupies the same space because Echo has the same gimmick of being like, oh, I mimic all of your moves. The things that I have problems with. I was trying to put my finger on it for this watch because, like, fundamentally, the brainwashing story, I think, is an interesting story. The trauma that's being inflicted on this character as well as everyone else. The story of this movie. And I like those elements there. It's the. Why does it bug me so much that they're using the Taskmaster name and like, the.

07:19
Case
I was trying to think about that because, like, using a character, a name and a. Like an iconography for a character isn't by itself the end of the world to, like, reframe it just to make, you know, fit the universe of it all.

07:32
Sam
But.

07:33
Case
But, like, why was this so. So polarizing? Yeah, why was it so polar? But why was it so far afield of, like, where my tolerances were? And I was trying to think about that and I was like, oh, it's because Taskmaster is a terrible character for this movie. Like, yeah, like, Taskmaster is an interesting rival to the Avengers because Taskmaster is a human that can do all these cool moves up against, like, gods. And Taskmaster. Being played as the Terminator in this is completely selling short the central gimmick. Like, the central gimmick should be, oh, hey, Taskmaster is able to pull off, like, a win against Thor because Taskmaster was smart and clever and able to do all these, like, cool acrobatic moves and like, got, you know, somehow succeeded in this whole situation. And also, the name Taskmaster trains. Trains bad guys. Not.

08:25
Case
Not actually is an active bad guy themselves. Normally just going off of the whole the name thing. It's not a Taskmaster. But, like, my point on the. On the power set is that it's. It's just being pitted against the wrong exact type of people. Not to mention the fact that, like, they had to, like, shoehorn in a bunch of gimmicks because they're from the comics. Like, the sword, for example, which is, like, there's no one who they are aping that motion style from. And they weren't able to do some of the trickery that the comics do where it's like, Taskmaster goes to do, like, this cool flying kick, and you see, like, a silhouette of Spider man, like, in the background, like, as he's doing the kick and doing things to sort of indicate the iconography of, like, what characters he's imitating.

09:05
Case
They do some of that, like, obviously, like, the Black Panther's claws popping out and like, using a shield is like, obviously Captain America. But aside from, like, the weapons happen to be the right choices, like, they're limited in how much they can tell us because there's just not that many fucking characters in the mcu. Like, there's a lot of characters in the mcu, but there's not that many. And especially there's not that many.

09:25
Cly
There's not a lot of recognizable characters with distinct moves that you will be able to recognize on another character.

09:34
Case
Exactly. Like, if this was a scenario. I mean, like, Christ, like, if this was a scenario where it was, say, the Defenders and it was like the Netflix MCU stuff where at least all the characters are street level and like. Sure. Well, even then, that starts because Jessica Jones and Luke Cage are so high up there. But, like, I'm thinking Daredevil and Iron Fist are good characters for Taskmaster to Ape as well. But just the thing in this movie is that the, like, this drone that is coming for them that can't be stopped, that, you know, is so goddamn terrifying, could have any gimmick. It's just needs to be.

10:09
Case
It just Needs to be tough and like, the computer controlled stuff that, like, makes it, like, able to, like, shrug off all kinds of wounds and keep coming for you and all that stuff, like, that's invented for this movie so it doesn't matter which character it's being applied to.

10:21
Cly
Yeah, valid.

10:22
Case
Yeah, yeah. Like, it's like, that's the thing that bugs me about it because it's wasting a character that could be used in a really cool way, but the circumstances have to be so different from what this movie is doing. And so that's the part that, like, gets me about this character because, like, I kept on being like, wait, But I don't mind all the things that, like, feel kind of broken about it, like the mind control stuff. Like, I, I, I do have some concern that they go too far with the character. But maybe that's also just that, like, the general mind control technology is kind of like, fucked up in this movie and, like, kind of doesn't make sense after. Or like, at least the pheromone stuff doesn't really make sense.

11:02
Cly
It doesn't make sense and it's not set up well within the universe. And yeah, it feels like the mind control aspect of this is really slapped on the top of what is a very interesting concept when you look at, like, Mileena's generation and how you iterate from that. And if we had gotten more from any of that, it might have worked. But all we really see is the original Widows and what type of control was exerted over them. And then this weird mind control thing with these things, this antidote thing, and the way they react to the world after breaking from that mind control. It just doesn't work narratively as a character as it should. When we're thinking of the Red Room story. The Red Room has to exist as a character within the narrative. And that was distinctly lacking.

12:15
Cly
It was this thing hanging over our heads for so long that to finally set it up and try to tell a story and not let the Red Room exist as a character within the narrative, I feel like, did us a real disservice.

12:31
Case
Yeah, you know, it's a thing where we talk about the Red and the Scarlet Witches letter or Scarlet Witch, sorry, Scarlett Johansson. This happens all the time in the nerd world. But the Scarlett Johansson Scarlet Witch thing just likes in the brain sometimes. Yeah, no Black Widow has all this red in her ledger. I enjoy that they bring that back in this movie after that being a thing from the first Avengers movie.

12:55
Cly
I have thoughts about ledgers.

12:57
Case
Yeah, sure. I'm happy to hear it. I just enjoy a callback is what I'm getting at there.

13:01
Cly
I enjoyed the first callback, and then they proceeded to repeat lines about ledgers, I think two or three more times throughout the movie, and it did not work for me personally. This idea of a ledger could have been so interesting. This idea of a ledger could have been so interesting if they fleshed out, like, what does the ledger mean to Natasha? How does that shape who she is as a person, and how does that influence the way she sees the world and how she moves throughout the world, instead of it just being a throwaway callback reference multiple times? This could have been a narrative focus of the movie. Play with ledgers and what they mean. Play with the dysfunctional found family and what that means and let those guide the story. I think could have been such an interesting.

14:01
Cly
Again, it's all about the narrative promise and then what we actually got. I see so much narrative promise in this movie, which I love, but none of it's fulfilled, which is the disappointing thing. So, like, really fleshing out this idea of what does it mean to exist with this internal ledger and how that shapes the way you move throughout the world could have been a driving theme of the narrative, and it wasn't. And so that disappointed me a little bit.

14:34
Case
No, that is totally fair.

14:36
Sam
I also think that because it's been so long since those first movies where you actually do kind of get a little bit of the narrative, you kind of, like, there is some build up to her guilt, like, over the things that she's done. But it's been forever, which is why in our cold open, I'm talking about phase one, because I think that, you know, this is the tragedy of this movie. Because I'm with you. I actually really do like this film. I'm less like Kase. I really did not have a problem with Taskmaster. I really care about Taskmaster. I'll be honest with you. I'm not even, like, huge fan of them in the comics. I don't care about him.

15:15
Cly
So.

15:17
Sam
So for me, it was fine. It was fine. I was like, just name it something else.

15:21
Cly
Just name.

15:22
Sam
Just name the daughter something else. It's still tragic. Still tragic that her dad was like, well, she's dead. Let's keep what it is and put a microchip in it. But I will say that the biggest. The biggest tragedy of this film is that it wasn't something that was given to us sooner, that Natasha's story and that. That her. That this is kind of like a It is literally a post mortem, but, like jumped into the future, too, to confuse. To jumped into the past to confuse you more. Right. So it's like an after the fact side story that is told to you kind of like as a shoehorn to explain this character that we should have always had explanation for. This is a phase one character.

16:12
Sam
This is not, you know, so, like, for me, the biggest tragedy of this film is not getting it sooner. Now, would we have necessarily gotten all the dynamics that we got? Maybe not. Because maybe. Maybe she doesn't right away have this story and then it's really just more focused on the Red room. Maybe they don't. Because, you know, let's be honest, Elena is amazing and we need her to move forward with the rest of the MCU project. Move forward from all the older actors. Hashtag pursuit of still making money. And so we've got this wonderful performance, like Scarlett Johansson and Florence Hu together. They're great. They make so much. They're doing heavy lifting in some of these scenes. They do so much for. For the sister relationship. And you really, like, believe it and you believe the hurt that they've had and this estrangement.

17:10
Sam
This kid that was older and this kid that was younger and one that believes and one that is just angry that it wasn't real and knew it wasn't real the whole time. And that's a wonderful dynamic. And kudos to both ladies for pulling that off for us.

17:25
Case
Well, wait, I want to give a special props to Florence Pugh. Florence Pugh is so goddamn good. Both in this and then everything, but. But this and in Thunderbolts.

17:35
Sam
Like, has been also in the Hawkeye.

17:38
Case
Oh, yeah. And the Hawkeye. Yeah, like, she's great. I had such trouble remembering. And this will tie into, like, when we get into pitch territory. The scene from Hawkeye where we see her get blipped is so fucking good. And I was so mad when I realized that it wasn't in this movie. Because when I went to go back and watch this movie, I was like, yeah, that blip scene's in this movie. All right, cool. I'm looking forward to it.

18:00
Cly
Yeah, it just. The trauma of the characters and their relationship and how it shapes that sisterly dynamic is so fascinating, especially with Natasha, who was old enough to know how fake everything is and understand the role she was playing. And then Yelena being young enough to not remember anything different. These are her formative memories. This is what she remembers as being. Being real and true. And then Yelena loses that, you know, when they have to go back. And how that shapes her as a character. That devastating loss of this perfect life and Natasha seeing it as just another thing to happen to her a brief few years where she was living this lie, and the way they both perceive that time and especially perceive that time in how they interact with each other is so fascinating.

19:03
Cly
And again, it is almost entirely up to the two actors doing all the heavy lifting on that.

19:11
Case
Yeah, no, Yelena is such a great addition in this movie and does a very good job of not feeling. My reference point is a character that is a parody of this, which is dawn from Buffy, where it's the introduced little sister that it's like, wait, where'd the little sister come from? And, like, they do a good job in this movie of being like, oh, okay. No, this all makes sense. And it fits in for why Natasha didn't, like, go after her, because she doesn't really fucking care.

19:38
Cly
And she also thought everything had worked itself out. She's like, I did my one thing I needed to do to free myself, and I freed everybody else, so everybody else should be fine off doing whatever they want.

19:52
Sam
And I will say, it's not that Natasha doesn't care. It's that Natasha knew this was a mission. She knew it wasn't real. This is not her first mission as a child. Like, she. She makes a statement that she's been abandoned by a mother before. She's already played the child, you know, kind of spy before. It's just that she knew. She knew about how the Christmas presents were fake, but she was just excited to do it. Right? She was. She was staging all the holidays, and she knew, you know, and. And so Yelena was just saying so young that she just thought that was something fun she was doing with pictures. But, like, that is, you know, what is also said to her, like, when she says she's. She's so young, she doesn't know. She's like, you. You started when you were younger, right?

20:41
Sam
So, like, And. And Yelena, six. Natasha is, you know, so. Gosh, that's, you know, crazy. So, yeah, you just move on because that's what you're taught to do. We move on. My parents are gone. Those weren't even my real parents to next mission, you know, so that's also part of just Natasha's trauma. And also, like, she doesn't want it to be real because these people abandoned her anyway.

21:05
Cly
Right? Yeah. She's like, this was no different than any other mission I went on. I had this few couple years in this one place. And then they left me the same way everybody else left me. So I'm moving on with my life.

21:21
Case
Totally. There's really strong character work going on in here, and they're doing their best considering, like, as we pointed out, like, we jumped into negativity or I jumped into negativity. I came out swinging. And I apologize for leaving too harsh on that one, because we didn't really set up what this movie was, which is that it was a prequel midpol MCU project that came out post Endgame.

21:45
Cly
So it was set up as a. What did you say? Midquel. I love that. Yeah, that's great. Yeah, it was set up as that and then released, like, what, three or four years after when it was set up within the timeline. So we're already doing time, like, five years.

22:03
Case
Because it's set in 2016. Because it's set before. It's before Infinity War. Oh, 2019. Crap, you're right, because 2019 is when India came out.

22:11
Cly
Yeah. Okay. So for context, my experience with the MCU was I started watching WandaVision midway through WandaVision, having seen maybe two films within the MCU, and then proceeded to watch everything during. During COVID So my concept of timelines, it's very messed up.

22:34
Case
Oh, yeah, no, totally. It's. It's super weird. But, like, that. That just hits home that this movie came out in such a weird time and, like, in retrospect, like, could fit in better, but it does. It does the original sin of what a bad prequel slash Midquill does, which is that if you're going to do a movie that is a prequel, if it is set before, like, the timeline of the things that you're doing, it needs to either elevate the stakes or recontextualize the stakes.

22:59
Cly
Yeah.

22:59
Case
And I think that the. And this is going to come down. This is a spoiler for my pitch territory. The biggest thing that we don't get out of this is seeing Natasha deal with a personal interaction that gets blipped, and that is Yelena being blipped is not really addressed in this movie. Like, it's. It's covered in the. In the post credits, but it's not like a thing. Like, if. If the movie ended and we. We were left to remember this, and then we got to see Yelena and getting blipped. Even if we don't see Natasha's reaction to it would help us sort of, like, convey the fact that Natasha's motivation for fixing things in Endgame, at least, is in part about trying to get her right.

23:39
Cly
You have to set up some sort of stake to connect to where you are grounding yourself within this narrative. And I feel like they tried to do that with the beginning. Right after the credits, they really hook on to the narrative ladder where they want to be. And then by the last, like, eighth of the movie, we've completely untethered from the timeline and what it means to connect to this grander story. And so having something at the end that did tie us back to rehooking onto that. I don't know why I'm on a narrative ladder analogy here, but re establishing that grounding connection to the overall arching narrative would have really brought up a greater resolution to this film.

24:38
Cly
I have a lot of problems with how they tried to resolve this movie that we can get to later, but 100% not having that recontextualization of. Why is Natasha so determined to fix things?

24:54
Case
Yeah, Yeah. I mean, this is the same problem that they had with Captain Marvel. Frankly, it's another movie where the pieces are pretty good. Another movie I loved, like, look, Men of Steel. Captain Marvel was one of the first episodes that we did, and, like, I enjoyed it, but it was, like, one of these ones where I'm like, but it's missing a thing that. That really needs to do, which is it really needed to elevate the stakes going into in game. And this one needed to. Because it's post in game. Like, it needs to sort of recontextualize the stakes of it. Like, it need. Like, it just needed to give a bigger emotional hook for why Natasha cares. And, like, that mission could have been accomplished. It does a lot in this movie.

25:33
Case
Like, if it was something like in Ant man and the Wasp, where at the very end of the movie, they get blipped, and you get to see that as sort of like a setting of the stage of going into endgame. Like, you know, like, Natasha trying to catch up with Yelena or something or any of the characters and finding out that they got blipped would have been a really good sort of hook there into, like. Well, what is. Like, what is the point of this movie? Because otherwise, it's just to do a Black Widow solo movie. Because we don't really learn that much about her. Like, we see, like, a mission that she did.

26:07
Case
You know, we see a modern story with her, and it's great to see a solo outing with the character who has, you know, done so much but never got her own solo movie. But we're just not setting up, like, bigger things. For the character and bigger things. I don't mean, like. I mean emotional things for the character. And that's my one big regret about this. And the timing for it all.

26:31
Cly
Yeah, the timing was absolutely the strongest thing affecting how people reacted to this movie. And there's not much we could do about that. It was just how the cards fell and the stakes we got. But if we had a magic wand in order to shuffle this around, I mean, ideally, I would have loved to have all of the Phase one characters get a solo film in Phase one. That would have been smart. But what do I know? But even getting this, at least pre the Phase four of it all, I actually. I don't know what the phases are. Is this when I'm outing that I'm a fake Marvel fan?

27:21
Sam
It's fine.

27:21
Case
The phases get real weird after three. So, like, one, two and three are very clear, and three is.

27:26
Cly
The three ends with Endgame. Okay.

27:29
Case
And then. And then four and five are really blurry because four, I think, was just the TV shows.

27:34
Cly
Yeah. It's big question mark. Everything post like Covid is just like, I don't know, we're throwing things out. Whatever they come out.

27:41
Case
When Doomsday comes out, it's going to be the scenario where it's like, okay, everything between Endgame and Doomsday was a thing, and that's how they're going to chronicle it. But, like, in the time we're living currently, it's just this, like, nebulous, like, I don't know, we're in the Doomsday saga.

27:58
Cly
Yeah, it's like something like mid Phase two to early Phase three, I think, would have been the time. It would have been a much different story. We wouldn't have gotten this story by any means. But having a solo film with this character earlier on, I think would have set up a world where we could have gotten a similar story to this around this time, where we can really dive into Yelena and the Widows and, you know, what does it mean for her to be the White Widow? And what does it mean for the Widows to exist as an independent entity post brainwashing? And what do we do with them?

28:43
Cly
I have a lot of feelings about how they left the Widows at the end of this film, but if we had set up a solo film with this character previously, I think we could have gotten a much stronger narrative of what does it mean to actually take down the Red Room in this time frame, and it would have filled in a lot of those gaps that we couldn't with this movie because of the fact that it was simply the one and only solo film we would get with this character ever. Because.

29:22
Case
Right.

29:23
Cly
How things worked out.

29:25
Case
Yeah, let's talk about that ending for a second there. Like, you mentioned it. And, like, I. I also find it strange where it's like, Yelena go off and free the Widows. Like, where. Like, where it's like, shouldn't that be your job, Natasha?

29:38
Cly
Right.

29:38
Sam
Like, because. Because ultimately, right, this film should be about Natasha taking real responsibility, right? For, like, kind of running away and not properly ending this. Because when she didn't check to make sure that her enemy was dead, that the body was there, that she didn't check that the Widows actually got away, she didn't check that other girls were freed. She didn't actually, like, take accountability, you know? Like, she didn't actually, like, free anyone. She didn't do anything. Right. This is like, she feels. The whole point is that she feels responsible and she wants revenge. Right. And so her.

30:22
Sam
Not personally, her deciding to turn herself in to basically then go back to save the Avengers, rather than, like, kind of at least set up an operation to, like, make sure that Elena and the Widows are safe before, like, kind of running off with the government kind of puts you in a. In a weird situation because it kind of is still her doing. It's still Natasha being Natasha, if that makes sense. Like, she blew a bunch of stuff up. Like, in the beginning of the movie, Yelen is like, so you blew it up and that's all it did. Like, well, it wasn't easy. Oh, and did you find the dead body? Like, are you sure he's dead? Right? And it's like, well, right. And so, like, she didn't actually finish it or see it through.

31:19
Cly
It's Natasha running away from her problem again. Yeah.

31:22
Sam
It's handing it off to someone else. So it's all. It's almost like she didn't actually, like, have as much of a learned journey as we would have liked. Like, regardless of whether we see the blip or we see any of that stuff happen, that is, like, for me, the biggest flaw, because I just feel like there needed to be more of a handoff of this responsibility. If you're giving this to. To Yelena and you're. And, you know, even if it's like, even just, like, five extra minutes where the Widows are, like, not you, her. She's our leader. That would have been at least something, because then they're choosing that. Right?

32:06
Cly
Like, right.

32:07
Sam
There could have been that moment of, like, no, you left Us. But she's actually the one that came back. And then. Then you. They're basically crowning her, right. Their new leader. Because honestly, when you've been in a mind control cult, it's not like you're gonna know what you're gonna do with your free will right away.

32:27
Cly
Yes. Okay, that's. That's such a problem.

32:32
Sam
So, like, you know, so basically like Natasha saying to the girls, them going, what should we do now? And her being like, go, be free.

32:44
Cly
They literally make your own choices. Stolen.

32:49
Sam
Yeah. From their parents. Right? Yeah. And like. And like, put into this life. And they've never known anything else. They've only known this regimen, never mind the whole, like, actual mind control plot of this. But even if you were just in the mindset that all of these girls have been trafficked to become assassins in a secret organization where everything is decided for them and they have to learn to kill, that is horrific enough. That is horrific enough. And also, those are not girls that are going to make decisions on their own. They were not raised brainwashed.

33:32
Cly
They only know how to follow orders. Yeah, exactly.

33:35
Sam
And so in that moment, there's like. In that specific moment, Natasha should have been like, we get out. Where's the escape routes? And there should have been, like, dialogue like that. Because instead of saying, be free, go off, do your own, be a loner. Because that's the other thing, Right? Natasha's a loner at the beginning of this film. She can't be a loner anymore. Oh, I'm getting into pitch territory. But what I'm saying is that at that point, she should have embraced her, the girls in term. Not like literally, but in terms of leadership and taking the leadership roles that she doesn't actually get to do in really any of the Avenger films, which she should have gone to do in this film because this is her solo film and she is a badass assassin who is very good at strategy.

34:25
Sam
And she should have gotten all of those girls out and, like, basically created an army and then she could have handed it over to Yelena outside. But because we don't get that, because she's just like, go, be free. It doesn't feel like Natasha actually hits any of her growth points. And because this movie is written after she's passed away, we already know that. Like, it's like this weird thing where it's almost like a consolation prize for never really getting a real Take charge Natasha.

35:02
Cly
And like, when we're looking at the concept of the Widows, we're taking these trafficked, kidnapped, brainwashed young girls who have only known structure and regimen, and we're freeing them, and you're having Yelena free them, which, in the context of the story, Yelena just broke free of her own brainwashing, like, five seconds ago and is still figuring out how to exist in the world as a human being. Natasha's been free of this for a while, and so she has the context of how to exist in the world as you know it. And Yelena isn't quite there yet. She could get a handoff very quickly and be set up. But this is, you know, Yelena is also a traumatized, young, brainwashed, kidnapped girl.

35:56
Cly
And so she, you know, releases them of the brainwashing chemical, whatever, and he's like, you know, you can make your own choices now. Be free. And I know, you know, the MCU is great on that, you know, USA military propaganda, but if we're looking at it in the context of another group of people who often are kind of brainwashed, developed into killing machines, and then just released out back into the world after their service with no support, it really is giving an allegory for the U.S. military.

36:36
Case
Yeah.

36:39
Cly
And so, you know, we're taking these highly trained, highly skilled people who only know how to follow orders and just releasing them into the world with no support, no backup, no way to figure out how to live or how to figure out what they want to do and make their own choices and just kind of drop it up and being like, good luck.

37:02
Sam
Not to mention all of their trauma.

37:04
Case
All of the trauma, Right.

37:06
Sam
All of the trauma,.

37:09
Case
Yeah. The US Military comparison is really interesting. So to date this, because this episode's going to drop in several months as of the time of us recording it. Dan Olsen just put out a video on Jarhead and the sequels that the directed DVD sequels that Jarhead had, which is a movie about the US military and specifically Marines. And so the original movie, which is a Sam Mendes movie based on a memoir of an actual soldier who was traumatized and, like, at the end of it all, like, never even fired his rifle in warfare, but went through all this trauma just for the sake of it. It's so interesting to.

37:44
Case
To compare that with the Widows, because, like, yes, the Widows are like, thoroughly in the space here, and, like, it's in my brain talking about, like, oh, yeah, we're fucking up people on purpose just. Just so that they can be our weapons. Now, this does create a scenario that is probably not the right choice to make, but considering when this happens in the timeline. This is between Civil War and Infinity War. It would make a lot of sense for Natasha just to be like, all of you Widows. We could use your help right now because we need to be a clandestine group of Avengers operating in secret. And that could have been a cool setup for what was going on with the Avengers in the meantime. And by the Avengers, I mean Steve Rogers Avengers.

38:27
Case
That side of the Civil War could have been a cool thing where they all got linked up with the Widows and were running around in these networks of espionage and so forth, that Black.

38:36
Cly
Widow and Natasha has the skills and knowledge and experience of being espionage agent within a greater system. Now, I'm not saying the US Government is the end all be all of how you should run things by any means, but she would know how to set up an espionage system that could work underground. This pseudo black ops special forces rehabilitation program for the Widows that Yelena could lead and be, like, I don't know, some ranking captain of or whatever. And that could have been a really interesting setup for future projects. And we could get a Widows TV show after that. And seeing how they're working in this Agents of SHIELD Esque style, that would have been really cool. But we don't set up any of that here.

39:33
Sam
Yeah, yeah.

39:34
Case
I mean, again, not that I'm trying to say that, like, we should create, like, a paramilitary organization of super spies. Like, I think it'd be cool. But, like, in terms of the timeline, it does make a lot of sense. Like, all of a sudden, you have access to all these people who have, like, exactly the tools you need. Like, you know, again, a thing to sort of, like, build on. And it would have been cool if this came out in a different time where they had the idea of making multiple Black Widow movies, but it came out post Covid, just barely mid Covid. Yeah, yeah. Well, it did get a theatrical, if I remember correctly. Like, theatrical.

40:13
Cly
Shang Chi and Black Widow were, like, summer 2021, if I remember correctly.

40:20
Case
That sounds right.

40:21
Cly
It was still, like, you could only buy, like, you had to have three seats between any other booking in theater kind of deal.

40:30
Case
Yeah, yeah, I remember that. For Shang Chi, I saw Black Widow streaming. I did not bother to go to theaters for it. Bother's the wrong word. I didn't. I saw it streaming because it was streaming, whereas Shang Chi I saw in theaters because it was my honeymoon, and it was, like, a great time to go to a movie because that. That was a good time. You know, compare that with, like, Eternals, where I Had to, like, wait for it because I was like, I'm not going to a theater for.

40:57
Cly
I saw Eternals twice in the.

41:00
Case
That first Jesus. And I love the Eternals, like, as.

41:03
Cly
A character, a special pre screening, like, put your phone in a bag type deal. It was this big deaf event in Seattle. It was so cool. I had a great time. But yeah, no big fan of Eternals.

41:18
Case
Okay. Loving this conversation. And when I throw out a joke about some of these, keep in mind, I love the Eternals. Like, I can talk for so long about, like, the cool nature of Makkari Makari teaching Hyperion how to heal his eyes after he burned him out from using too much of his flash vision. Like, cool stuff with those characters. I. And the movie is artistic and interesting and has problems, but I like a lot of it, but it has problems. When I say I love Eternals. I should talk about the property, the Eternals, like, the movie has. The movie, I think, is. Is interesting and has a lot really going for it. But like, this one, like, I don't think the sum of its parts is an elevated experience. I think that it's.

42:03
Case
The things I like about the movie are the pieces I like about the movie, which is the same for this.

42:07
Cly
I think what your fans are learning about me very quickly is something I admit to with my whole trust, and that is I love bad movies.

42:19
Case
Well, again, I don't want to say that this movie is bad. I. Because I think this movie is underrated overall. Like, I, I, I don't love it in the pantheon of Marvel movies, but I think it's a perfectly fine Marvel movie with a lot of good things going for it. Like, one of the great things going for it, which we haven't talked about yet, is David harbor as Red Guardian. I really enjoy him at, like, I'm.

42:41
Cly
So glad somebody does.

42:44
Case
Okay, again, this might be a scenario where I'm coming at it post thunderbolts where, like, he was fantastic in that and like, he's a shitty dad. Like, but you know what? He's, he's goofy and he's fun and he's a nice, like, bruiser to have on their team throughout this whole movie. And it's fun when we get the face off with Taskmaster. Like, that I thought was fun.

43:03
Sam
He tries. He's bad at it, but he does. Actually, one of my favorite scenes is him and Elena. Him and Elena in the bedroom where he's trying to cheer her up, but he's telling this really weird story about his dad that doesn't quite connect to it. And I was like, yeah, that. That feels right. That feels real. For this, like, narcissistic, kind of, you know, hyperbolic guy who was just always a spy. He's like, oh, I'm gonna cheer up. Let me talk about my dad fishing and somehow and her just being like, really? Like, how is this my dad? Basically? Which I just really like that.

43:48
Cly
Yeah. I will say my biggest problem with this entire movie is Alexei as a character.

43:54
Case
Okay.

43:55
Cly
I think they were trying to do way too much with him. There was a lot that could have worked, but instead they try to make him play this loving, doting father figure and the comic relief character and this, you know, washed up Russian bruiser character. And it was. They were pulling on way too many strings and none of it connected for me, I'm like, if they made him the comic relief, sure, fine. You need some levity in this movie. If they made him this, like, rejected, bored, deep cover, you know, trying to do what he can for this government, he can. Loves Russian character and the apathy and the boredom and just wanting to punch somebody and go back to being the hero and this figurehead, that was everything he was promised that could have been interesting.

44:56
Cly
But they tried to pull on all of those things into one character, and at least the writing for me did not land. Like, I couldn't stand anytime he opened his mouth, I. It just infuriated me. I will say, I love the first 50 minutes of this movie. And then we get to the prison and I'm sitting there and first of all, I'm like, why is everybody speaking English? We're in a Russian prison and every single person here is speaking English. And that just took me out of it. I don't mind watching, you know, I don't mind reading my words on the screen. That's fine. It could not be the, like, 10 minute sequence, or I think it's closer to eight, or whatever that it was if they were all speaking in Russian, especially because nobody in this movie speaks Russian. But that's fine.

45:49
Cly
But there was exactly one time that Alexei opened his mouth. And I genuinely enjoyed the line that came out of it. And it was when he was like, little Natasha all indoctrinated into the Western agenda. That was the perfect line. No notes.

46:11
Case
I want to shout out this one just because, like, I'm weirdly into people who are very large or very small. Olivier Richters has a cameo in this as Kodiak. He's the giant dude that sits down to arm wrestle Alexei. And it's just so nice to see him on a movie. He's playing Zangief in the upcoming Street Fighter movie. And he's just so big. He's so big. He, like. I first encountered him on an Instagram post where he was standing next to the guy who played the mountain from Game of Thrones, and he was like a full, like, two heads taller. And I was like, oh, my God. Oh, my God, there's such a giant person. Like, it's so amazing that these people exist.

46:50
Cly
It's so fun.

46:53
Case
So I just wanted to shout out that one because it's just like a fitness model that I follow on Instagram.

46:58
Cly
Incredible. One of the direct quotes from my notes when I was watching this movie was, this man is so unserious. And they could have done something interesting, but no, we had to have comic relief in the girl power movie.

47:15
Case
Yes, I see your note about that.

47:19
Cly
That's my feelings about Alexi.

47:23
Case
That is fair. Also want to call out Rachel Weisz.

47:28
Cly
I love her.

47:30
Case
Yes, yes. Hard not to love her, generally speaking.

47:33
Cly
Perfect. Absolutely perfect in this film.

47:36
Sam
No, no.

47:37
Case
Like, love an autistic queen in this movie. Yes.

47:42
Cly
I love an autistic, brainwashed queen who's just living on a farm with her pigs, you know, special interests up the wazoo. And she's perfect. I loved every single thing about her. No notes. That's my girl. She's perfect.

48:04
Case
I love that I made the note and then I see your notes and I'm like, oh, yeah, no, we're on the same page on that one. Which is good because we've been very far afield for most of this movie.

48:13
Sam
Finally, something you can agree on.

48:15
Cly
Yeah. At one point, I did just take a. A picture of the screen on my laptop when she pulls out the sniper and said, God, she's so hot. Like, damn, I love her so much. She is so Russian and so autistic, and most of the time, Russian. Coded characters and autistic coded characters kind of have this weird overlap, but she distinctly embodies both of those characteristics so well. And she, you know, she's very good at playing her role and putting on this facade and engaging with the things that she finds interesting and not really caring about the things that aren't interesting to her and just disregarding them. And, oh, my God, I love her so much. She's. She's so perfect, and she's, like, so unfit to be.

49:12
Cly
Play a mother figure to anyone because of her own trauma and, like, the way she exists in the world. I would have loved to see more of that. Especially, you know, Yelena desperately clinging to these parental figures that are the foundational memories of her life. And Mileena being like, you know, brainwashing looked very different in my generation. I'm really fucked up about it. I'm just here, I'm doing the best I can and trying to stay under the radar, and I cannot be emotionally available or a parent figure to you. Sorry.

49:52
Case
Yeah, just. Just. Great character, great performance. Wanted to shout that one out because so goddamn strong in this movie. I'm like scared to say anyone else because it's like, okay, it's like going to be like on my opposite, or am I on the same.

50:06
Cly
I'm having a great time regardless.

50:08
Case
No, that's. That's good because like I. Like I said, I. I enjoyed this movie. It's just one where there's like a lot of things that are bothersome to me about it.

50:18
Cly
Yeah.

50:19
Case
And so I come out swinging because I. Because there were things that just kind of bugged me and because it disappointed me. Like, it didn't do enough for. For when it came out. Like, it was hyped up as like, finally we're getting a Scarlett Johansson movie. Like, right, Not. Not a Scarlett Johansson movie, but like, finally a Scarlett Johansson led MCU movie. Like, like fantastic. I think this episode is dropping right after we did our Lucy episode.

50:40
Sam
So hilarious. Oh, my God.

50:45
Case
So just in terms of the timeline, like some. Some weirdness there, but you know, it, like I said, it doesn't elevate the stakes. It doesn't change the stakes. It just makes it feel like we are doing a solo outing and we are, you know, like I said, kind of wasting a character in the form of Taskmaster on that one, which is. And again, when I say wasting a character, I don't mean in the movie. I mean the comic character like, that they're referencing for a character that would have been more effective if it was anything else. Like, you know, because, like, the role the Taskmaster is playing in this is the Winter Soldier.

51:17
Cly
Can we talk about the Winter Soldier?

51:19
Case
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Please go. Because I know you've got notes about that, so.

51:22
Cly
I do. I was writing out all the comic book characters to keep them fresh from my mind. And one of the characters I listed as existing within this movie was the ever present ghost of one Winter Soldier. Because when we are telling a story about the Red Room, we have to grapple with the fact of the Winter Soldier's existence within and around the Red Room. And this movie decidedly does not do either of those things. And so we're completely ignoring the fact that by nature of existing in the same government and in the same super secret program of this time, that the Winter Soldier and as we see in the comics, would be involved around, at least in training agents in the Red Room.

52:19
Cly
And of course we don't see any of that or any allusions to that in this film, but it is this ever lingering haunting ghost every time, especially when we're in the facility. The way we see how the characters are moving throughout the world and the kinds of training they are seeing, it just very brings to mind all of the connections between how the Winter Soldier exists in this universe and how his training and his movement works within the context of history. And not giving space to explore any of that just kind of haunts the narrative a little bit, which is fine. That's a choice that I made. I would have probably made a different choice.

53:09
Cly
But operating under the assumption that you couldn't get the Winter Soldier appearing in this film, Taskmaster is very much slotting into the antagonist role in a way that would have been effective with a Winter Soldier like character, but would not have made sense at all for the timeline of the story.

53:35
Case
Right?

53:35
Cly
The timeline just totally shoehorning falls into.

53:39
Case
Because at this point, Bucky is in stasis at Wakanda getting therapy. So we're not getting that Winter Soldier appearance there. And frankly, we already got that version of the Winter Soldier. But what fucking sucks is that Captain America, the Winter Soldier. The movie depicts the Winter Soldier doing the exact same goddamn thing the Taskmaster does in this movie, which is being the Terminator character. And that's why it's kind of a bummer where it's like the Taskmaster is just the same shit, but just like with like a little bit of a gimmick. But like, could. It could have had any other gimmick. Like could have had something that was like visually interesting to like follow like throughout the whole movie.

54:16
Case
Whereas, like there are good moments with Taskmaster's powers, just not like nothing that really like sells the fact that this is the compelling character for the movie.

54:25
Cly
The biggest thing that we even get to see of Taskmasters, like quote unquote, power set is the like hud, like analyzing of the movement that we see like from within the helmet, which is very brief and like maybe once or twice and that, I mean, you know, we're working with the constraints of the medium, but if you don't think you can do a true two character Taskmaster adaptation? Why is this the character we're bringing into this medium?

54:59
Sam
It. Right, right.

55:02
Case
And again, it doesn't necessarily have to matter. It's just that it's not doing it any favors, right, By. By being, like, so divorced from the comic character. And then, like, again, the. The fundamental problem with this movie isn't Taskmaster, but Taskmaster is an easy one to glom onto for, like, well, what is a problem with this movie? Like, yes, test a task. A problem with this movie is Taskmaster. The. The problem with this movie is not Taskmaster.

55:30
Sam
Right. I mean, I think it would have been like kind of. Kind of, again, pitch territory. But it could have been. It could have been better if instead of saying that this is a task, that this is Taskmaster saying that he programmed his daughter with all the knowledge from the old training footage of, you know, the Winter Soldier, and kind of like, she fights just like him. You know him, right? You know, and you faced him, you know, something weirdly strange and villainy and kind of like, you know, one of our greatest agents and kind of left it at that. And yeah, I think that would have been. I think that would have been better. Also. Just back to the prison thing.

56:18
Sam
I know that part of Alexi talking about Captain America was to kind of, like, show that he will tell tall tales, but someone. I think it would have been hilarious if someone had brought up the Winter Soldier and then him, like, lose it about how annoyed he was about that guy, because, like, that guy definitely would have stolen his thunder. And I think that was a misunderstanding.

56:43
Cly
They would have been contemporary.

56:45
Sam
That would have been. That would have been great because, like, technically the Winter Soldier would have been in the game for longer and. And I'm pretty sure that everyone would have compared him to him. And I'm pretty sure that Alexi's the kind of guy who would have a chip on his shoulder about that. And I think that's a missed opportunity. Even if it's a throwaway line of hate that guy. That would have been really nice for me, and it would have been fun because clearly the guys are sick and tired of him telling his lies, telling his stories, and also beating them in arm wrestling. Like, you're just a bully at this point. And so, honestly, it would have been really great to see some razzing other than just like, I don't even think he was active at that time.

57:32
Sam
Be like, well, what about the Winter Soldier? He was active. Do you know him? And be like, that guy. I hate that guy. I just think it would have been nice for me just to have a.

57:40
Cly
Little shout out because we do get to see him telling these tall tales about these legendary face offs with Captain America while he was still frozen. But when you think about the Winter Soldier in the timeline, they both got knockoff super soldier serum, so they'd be operating around the same power, strength, set level, whatever. But the Winter Soldier is a tall tale. It's a fairy tale character. It's a nightmare, a boogeyman that you're telling your children about out of, you know, this cautionary tale that's a fable, you know, he doesn't really exist to the greater world. He's a rumor. And that's the space he's supposed to occupy during that time is this, you know, legend. And Alexei is operating as the figurehead. He is the face.

58:35
Cly
He is the propaganda Captain America equivalent, being the face of the government and being the mouth and the big powerful man standing and posing and getting the action figures and stuff. And so while his, I wanted to say antonym, but that's wrong. His opposite is the Captain America in so much of his public Persona. But his true antagonist in his mind would be the Winter Soldier because they're operating in such a similar space but in completely different public viewpoints.

59:19
Sam
Yeah. And I don't want to stop him from boasting about the Captain America stuff because I think that is funny and true to the character. And also I think that he, because he's the figurehead. Right. He's got to be. So like, I'm, you know, I'm against Captain America. Right. Like, it's like he has got to stand off of that. But I just think it would be funny if the Rising would happen just to bring a little Bucky in, because it's weird that they really only acknowledge him once. And it's really about mind control and basically like brainwashing. And you only get that from our autistic queen one moment. Name drop at the family table.

01:00:01
Cly
Yeah.

01:00:03
Sam
And that's really it. That's the only mention of this outside world with a character that would be so intrinsic to their mission and also their, you know, spy culture that is built around the Red Room and things like that. So I, I again, we can't have Bucky in this film. But I do think that there should have. He should have been mentioned a couple more times because it feels very much like someone just like remembered.

01:00:30
Cly
Oh yeah, Bucky would have been here. Bucky Would have been around.

01:00:35
Sam
We should probably write something about him, because, you know, that doesn't necessarily fix Taskmaster, but I do think if maybe they just named it something else and had her have the father say it's mimicking that, some people might have been with that too. But I do see you had a different solution. You said have them kiss. Have Natasha and Taskmaster kiss.

01:01:04
Cly
Oh, I did say that. Whoops.

01:01:06
Sam
I think that's hilarious. I love it. I don't know if I really would have fixed it for the Taskmaster fans.

01:01:13
Cly
I don't think it would be funny. It would have been great. I do ship it in a really toxic way. You know, Natasha did attempt child murder on her.

01:01:22
Sam
Yes.

01:01:23
Cly
So I'm not saying it's the healthiest. However, I would have personally loved to see them kiss.

01:01:32
Case
Well, kissing aside, because I think that would be. I think that would please a very large sect of a specific audience, but not the broader audience Marvel was trying to do, as Sly pointed out that Marvel was trying to be for everyone in this one.

01:01:48
Sam
Yeah.

01:01:50
Case
And I think that gets back to a fundamental problem that this movie has, which is that it wasn't allowed to be niche like it was trying to be a four quadrant blockbuster.

01:02:00
Cly
Yeah. And that's a huge problem with the Marvel of this era in general. Everything was trying to be a four quadrant blockbuster. And when we get specificity in stories, when we get something niche and deeply emotional and connected and resonant, more people can relate to that than just shoehorning everything that everybody might like into one movie. And I think they finally started to get the memo on that. A couple projects in after this. But this was really true.

01:02:45
Case
A couple projects in, you know, a full, like 15 years into the run.

01:02:50
Sam
They did kind of start that way because my dear friend Kase from several years ago, back in phase one of the mcu, one day when were getting ready for a Comic Con event, he was going on and on about how each one of the Phase one Marvel movies were just a takeoff of a well known, beloved genre of movies. Spy movies, Espionage.

01:03:15
Case
Phase two. Phase two. Phase two.

01:03:17
Sam
You're right.

01:03:17
Cly
Phase two.

01:03:17
Sam
Phase two. Look, it's been forever, so. And, and so he pointed this out, and honestly, those movies, they're great because, like, literally they're like, what does. What kind of movie does this character lend itself to? And then they wrote that kind of movie. Right. They wrote a heist movie for Ant man, and it was fun and it was.

01:03:41
Cly
Thrived. Yeah, right.

01:03:42
Sam
And it was. And. But it was very specific. And, and because it was a fun movie that fit the spirit of the character. Because, like, that's really important. Right? You don't have to necessarily always be comic book perfect, but if you understand who the character really is and then pick something that really goes along with them, we can make something great. And, you know, unfortunately, not all of those have the massive PL you want. Like, sometimes it really works out right. But, but it's being afraid to take that risk to make something really specific that a lot of the later half, anything after Phase three and four start to have. They just kind of become more and more generic as the Marvel universe goes on.

01:04:35
Cly
And that's what really lends itself to the projects that are widely adored within this universe is when they step back from the idea of a superhero as a genre and truly embrace the tropes of the genre that suit that character the best and lean into it. People are going to like it because they may not be staying true to the, you know, word for word comic accuracy of the character, but they are embracing the essence of the character. And that's going to be truer and more relatable to anyone than trying to make everything palatable. And this movie has so many, you know, fingerprints of trying to be palatable to everyone all over it. And if we got a gritty grappling with grief and trauma and spy espionage brainwashing playing with the.

01:05:39
Cly
At the very end when they're trying to bring down the red room, we get these heist flashback moments that could have been great scattered throughout. I love a non linear story, but if we had take the elements of those genres and really allowed this movie to exist within it would have been stronger regardless of how they were trying to approach these characters.

01:06:09
Case
Yeah, it's a little too blockbuster and not enough spy movie.

01:06:14
Cly
Yeah, it's fucking Black Widow. She's a spy. Give us the espionage.

01:06:24
Case
It's a shame. It's a shame. Last thing I want to talk about before we take our break. Accents. Accents. I mentioned this at the top. Like, they're so bad in this movie, but Ray Winstone's the worst as a villain. It's just like, so it's so unfortunate that the character who is supposed to be the big bad of this movie cannot keep straight. Hate a Russian accent to save his life. He's a great actor. I'm not trying to like on him overall, but just in this movie, it's just like, just decide on an accent, go with it. Like we're already dealing with the fact that most of these characters should be speaking Russian. And, like, the shorthand for how we're getting around it is that they're using a Russian accent when they're speaking English like that.

01:07:08
Cly
But.

01:07:09
Case
But, man, just all over the place in this movie in general. Just gonna say that. But Ray Winston in particular is the worst offender in this.

01:07:19
Cly
Scarja's Russian is also pretty rough. And we only get a couple words of her actually saying things in Russian. But it's bad. I had a lot. I was like, her Russian is worse than mine. And that's saying something because I have practically no Russian.

01:07:40
Case
But practically no Russian is way more than my Russian. So, like, I'm gonna take. I'm gonna trust you on that one.

01:07:47
Cly
There was one moment that, like, at the very end when she's. They're having the, like, touching moment, whatever. And Natasha's like, the like, subtitles say forgive me, but she says is vinit, which is short for, like, isvinitia, which is like, I'm sorry, which. Which in context has a very different emotional resonance to that movie, is this apology, which is such a hard thing for a character like her to do. And then the English is like, forgive me, which is her demanding something. And I don't know, it was just a weird dichotomy in my brain of the word choices there in various languages.

01:08:37
Case
Yeah, yeah. This movie is made for a Western audience, or I should actually retract that. It's made for an audience that can listen to it in one language. So, like, regardless of if you are putting it out throughout the world, you're just dubbing it into one language. You're not spending a lot of time on multiple languages. And I guess that makes a certain degree from a, like, financial standpoint. But like Disney, you could have afforded this shit.

01:09:04
Cly
Yeah. Give me the entire Frison sequence in full Russian, at least.

01:09:11
Case
The prison sequence. Yeah, yeah, just.

01:09:13
Cly
I mean, the family talking in English makes sense because they were stationed in America and so they be used to it. Like, Ohio. They're speaking English at home so that they can speak English all the time and sound like, you know, the American spies, they're meant to be. But the prison sequence is where it was, like, the most egregious to me.

01:09:34
Case
Yeah, but that's a lot of what we've wanted to talk about the movie in general before we get into pitch territory. Because, like, we. We talked about, like, fixes a lot already. So why don't we take a break and shout out one of the shows on our network. And when we come back, we are going to talk about what this movie could have done to be a little bit stronger at the time of production. Video games are a unique medium. They can tell stories, immerse us in strange, fantastic worlds, blur the very boundaries of our reality. But at the end of the day,.

01:10:06
Cly
Video games are fun.

01:10:08
Case
Whatever fun is to you. I'm Jeff Moonan.

01:10:10
Cly
And I am Matt, AKA Stormageddon.

01:10:12
Case
And on Fun and Games, we talk about the history, trends, and community of video games. It's a celebration of all the games we play and all.

01:10:21
Cly
All the fun we find within them.

01:10:22
Case
And there's so many more games out there, so we hope you'll share in that conversation with us. Fun and Games podcast with Matt and Jeff. Find us on certainpow.com or wherever you get your podcasts and happy gaming. And we're back. All right, so, Sly, here's the deal. We have an ethos and we have a rule on the show. The ethos is that we are trying to be realistic to the time of production. And that means that we are kind of stuck with this being a 2021 movie. So we can't do the Magic wand scenario and fix everything. But in our pitch territory, the. The goal is to try to speculate in ways that could have been realistically done to fix them. But the rule that we have is that I am not allowed to go before Sam.

01:11:04
Case
So as our guest, you have the opportunity to pick the order here. Just know that I can't go before Sam. So, like, Sam can go first and I can go second, you can go first, and then Sam can go second. And however that. That shakes up whatever scenario makes the most sense to you, but throw it out there, I'm going to note that I have thoughts, but not, like, I don't have, like, a huge pitch for this one. I'm just going to say that I.

01:11:29
Cly
Am totally okay going first. I have lots of thoughts and feelings.

01:11:34
Case
Please do. Because if you don't mind us, like, interjecting where we have particular thoughts, then I think we. This could be a big, cumulative kind.

01:11:41
Sam
Of pitch, a little collaboration.

01:11:43
Cly
Yeah, I'm just gonna go via my bullet points because that makes most sense in my brain. I didn't really structure these out in a logical way, but that's fine. So my first thing is with the character of Alexei, obviously I've done tremendous taste. I think if you turn him into this apathetic, disinterested, washed up Russian hero, brawler father figure, that he could have been. And you can really then see the switch flip in that character from when he is the personality, when he's playing the Red Guardian and playing it up and having this gregarious, outgoing, like, I'm the face of the Russian government attitude. And then this board dejected, I was shipped off on this fuck ass mission to middle of Nowhere USA and I'm stuck with this family.

01:12:40
Cly
And I could be out there punching people and living up the life and partying and stuff. And having a clear delineation in that character, I feel like would have been a stronger choice for me personally. I don't really love the role he's playing within the story of being more of this always on comic relief character. We talked about the ledgers a little bit previously, but actually fleshing out the ledgers as a concept, really cementing what does this ledger mean to Natasha? How does it influence how she goes throughout the world would have been a strong narrative focus for this film to follow through. If that's a reoccurring theme of like, what is she doing? Why is she doing it?

01:13:24
Cly
And how does that affect how she sees the way she moves throughout the world in this, you know, good, bad, black dread, how the ledger interacts with her life.

01:13:38
Case
Yeah, I want to tag on to that one because I think you're totally right that the ledger could have been a really interesting thing for the characters. Like, like it's supposed to be guilt, you know, like there should be so much guilt about like every. Everything that like Natasha did before she became free and became a SHIELD Agent and now is on the run again. You know, like, there's the whole scene in Winter Soldier where it's like all, are you ready for all your secrets to be revealed? She fires back with, are you? But that is supposed to give you pause. She's got a lot of baggage, she's got a lot of secrets that are now made known by the release of the SHIELD Files.

01:14:19
Sam
So.

01:14:21
Case
Having a scenario where we are forced to put a face on some of that ledger beyond just the taskmaster, which is the representative in this movie, but dealing with the fact that everywhere she goes, she remembers where she killed a person.

01:14:36
Cly
Right?

01:14:37
Sam
Yeah.

01:14:38
Cly
And that could play up into the structure of it all. Really diving into the heist sequence esque flashbacks that we see in a small snippet of this film and really play with the timeline of this story. And you can have these moments where we visit a bunch of countries really rapidly. At the top, we're in Ohio or whatever, and then we're in Cuba and then we're in Morocco and then Norway and then Budapest, and, you know, we're hitting all these different narrative, like, places in her story and being able to take a moment where she's taken back to somebody she's killed there or a moment she's had there, and just these quick little snippets of. It doesn't have to add a lot of dialogue, it doesn't have to add a lot of time.

01:15:26
Cly
But really grounding this character in this story of being like, I have memory and history here and how is it affecting current me?

01:15:36
Case
Yeah. Like, if every time it's, like, brought up, like, oh, we could go to Budapest, and then she just remembers immediately, like an assassination, and then that's it, you know, like, we just get, like a black and white shot of her, like, killing someone or just the face and like before a bullet goes,.

01:15:51
Cly
A snippet of that. The hotel or the apartment or whatever when she's outside waiting for Drakov to get home or whatever.

01:16:00
Case
Right.

01:16:00
Cly
Like a snippet of that, A snippet of the vents. Like, just like these little things that give an ounce of context that we can recontextualize later when we get more of the story of what's going on.

01:16:13
Case
Yeah. That would really lead into the PTSD that she's experiencing and sort of make it more acceptable for the, you know, fucking off of responsibilities that we get in this movie.

01:16:25
Sam
Right.

01:16:25
Cly
Yeah. Show us her trauma so that we could be empathetic when she has a trauma responsibility.

01:16:32
Case
Exactly. Yeah.

01:16:34
Cly
Speaking of that, like, really diving into the dysfunctional found families as a theme that is such a niche scenario that we don't really explore in a lot of media, is both dysfunctional families and found families being one cohesive unit. Know, these are four people with four very different agendas and four very different world experiences and perceptions of the world. And what does it mean for them to be together in their first, you know, cohort unit, and what does it mean for them to come back together, this, what, like, 20 years later or whatever, and bringing even more baggage together and how they. They. How their perspectives of the world conflict with each other and how that interaction really shapes what they believe to be the right course of action kind of thing?

01:17:29
Cly
You know, we get hints of it here and there, but letting that be another driving force would have, I think, given the narrative, a great jumping off point personally for me and me alone, give Natasha her child. Where was Liho? Why Has LIHO never been mentioned? I want to see Leo so bad.

01:17:50
Case
I mean, that's such a hard thing to introduce in the movies.

01:17:53
Cly
It is. And it wouldn't really make any sense, but you know, like, Yelena gets the lucky look alike dog and I'm just like, even a reference to liho, like at some point. That one's a selfish one. Could it work? Probably not. That's fine. And then with Yelena, I really. And this is more colored by existing in a post Thunderbolts world. I really wish they would have given her a chance to set up her being a hero and having agency within this film, giving a jumping off point to get to what we see of her in future iterations. Have her work with the Widow, set up a program, let them have agency, but also let them how to exist in the real world with network, with connections, with support.

01:18:49
Cly
Allude to a way where these girls will have a way to rehabilitate and become full functioning humans outside of the brainwashed existence they've known. They don't really have to spend a lot of time on setting that up, but giving us just something to latch onto in this vein would have been such a satisfying rapid bow on the end of this movie that I felt was really missing for me. I wrote figure out why everyone hates Taskmaster and make them love her as much as I do. I think from our conversation we've established don't call her Taskmaster. First of all, that's a big part. I think she should have existed almost in the same exact way in this movie without the name Taskmaster. You know, give her literally.

01:19:42
Case
Can I throw out one as a suggestion? Crimson Dynamo. So this one, they. They punted in Iron Man 2. So like, the Crimson Dynamo character is fused with Whiplash. So. And everyone just calls him Whiplash, even though he's like, clearly supposed to be the Crimson Dynamo. So use the Crimson Dynamo name, which is already a legacy name anyway. So there can be multiple Crimson Dynamos. So that doesn't matter better. And then have it be like Russian Iron man coming to kill. Like, and. And then that plays with the Terminator thing even better. Like, and it doesn't need to be full on, like the power level of Iron Man. Like, it can be like a little toned down so that it's, you know, it's a little jankier. It's like not quite as good. It doesn't have.

01:20:20
Case
It doesn't have Tony Stark, who could build this in a lab with a.

01:20:23
Cly
Pile of scraps in our brain communicating with the interface anyway. So, like, you can be a little. It's fine.

01:20:29
Case
Exactly. But go with the Crimson Dynamo name. Like, it's. It's gender neutral, so, like, not an issue there. Like, like, you've got an armor so you can, like, hide the. Hide the reveal that. Oh, it's actually a female character. When we. When we want that reveal to occur. I think it covers all the bases that we really need, especially because, like, the character just needs to be, like, unstoppable. When it needs to be unstoppable. And then, like, the one time that, like, someone puts up a fight is Red Guardian. And then you could even do, like, a callback to Civil War.

01:20:56
Sam
Yeah, yeah, that'd be nice.

01:20:58
Cly
Out of a great.

01:20:59
Sam
I mean, and you can still have this heartbreaking story of, like, yeah, just an unfeeling dad who made the best of the worst.

01:21:11
Cly
The worst of the worst.

01:21:12
Sam
It's the worst. Best decision he made, I guess. Like, she got to live, but also at what cost?

01:21:19
Cly
At what cost?

01:21:20
Sam
At what cost? And does that. That plot point actually is kind of like. Like, I. I don't mind that. Right. Like, I don't mind him being so terrible that, like, he'd even use the opportunity to use his own daughter for an experiment after she was terribly, like, hurt and maimed. Like, that's. I think that actually is good because it goes to, like, how sick he is. But yeah, I mean, like, I. I think going back to the. The Black Widows, and I know I've said this before, I think we just have to have. I think you're right. We have to have. Have a bigger moment at the end. I think Natasha definitely should take charge inside, like, getting them to make sure that everyone's properly evacuated and like, out of. Out of there. Yeah, Let her be a leader. I want to see that.

01:22:13
Sam
I want to see. This is a person who not only has, like, Red Room experience and knows exactly what these girls lives were like, but also. So she has Avenger training. Right. Like, so she's run a lot of missions. So I want to see her take point and, like, tell people what to do and kind of make Elon second in command. Getting everybody out of there. Right? Getting them out, and then maybe realizing that our lovely Crimson. I'm sorry, what was the Crimson Dynamo. Yeah, my brain is not fully working tonight.

01:22:48
Sam
Crimson Dynamo is still in prison, and because of her guilt going down there, releasing Crimson Daimo, which is a mistake and yet the right thing because we've already explained the ledger and we know how guilty she is, and this is why she's doing it, and kind of still let things progress the way it is. But then when they're on the ground and everything has happened. And I would also, like. I know we've got a lot of, like, action stuff happening, like, a lot of, like. Like falling through the air and stuff like that. And I do. I do love when she jumps after Yelena with the thing. Like, I wouldn't change that at all, but I think it would be nice to also have, like, let the widows get a little action in against their oppressor. Like. Like, let's lead a battle.

01:23:40
Sam
Like, we don't maybe need all the impossible explosions on the very human body that is Natasha. So I think maybe the widow is working together, like, at her lead and her behest, like, just, like, working as a team to take the structure down and hunt him down. I think that's, like, ultimately, like. I mean, because Yelena is really the person that finishes the job, right? Which is fine. She can. She can be.

01:24:07
Cly
I love that for her, and I.

01:24:09
Sam
Love that for her. I love that for the sister's journey too, right? Because Yelena finishes the job for her and then Natasha saves her. And I think that's fine. I love that moment. But I would like to see the black widows in general more involved. Like, I'd like to see them move kind of as a unit together, underneath Natasha, to kind of have, like, this fun thing. And then at the end, because we're just talking widows still, everything you said, that applies, but at the end, you know, as. As the calvary is coming in, as Natasha says, you know, I think her family, all of her family, her found family, the widows and her mom and her dad and her sister should be, like, with us. And she's like, no, you go together. I'll be in touch. Right? So, like, we know.

01:25:07
Sam
Know that this is not like a. Whatever. There's something I have to take care of. I have to face. I can't keep running away from things. I have to face this. Because the whole movie is about not. Should be about not running away from things. Which is why she goes back with.

01:25:25
Cly
Right, her handlers.

01:25:27
Sam
Because here's the thing. In this version of the movie, we don't really understand that. That fully. Like, there might be a subtext that Scarlett Johansson understands, because I do genuinely think she does, but it's not said to the audience why she's going back. Like, for a moment, I was just like, there's a jet. Just get on the jet. Like, go. Like.

01:25:50
Cly
Right. But really playing into that idea of, like, this is her finally stop running. And she's like, I still have something more I need to accomplish for me, so I'm going back to them. But I will be in touch. Like, I'm committed to these people and to this family. And having that moment be more clear in her being, like. Like, this is something I have to do would have been much stronger.

01:26:16
Sam
Natasha, right. The beginning of this movie, she has run away because everything's falling apart with the Avengers. And she's just like, I. I don't know where I stand. I'm just hiding. I'm hiding from. From everyone and everything. Right? She goes off the grid. She's living in a Winnebago. Like, she's. She is not. She's basically paying someone to help hide her, change her identity, do all that stuff. Literally running.

01:26:47
Cly
She's taking the helicopter of some random TV show host in Russia.

01:26:53
Sam
Right? Right. She is running away from everything. And so. So to have her take, like, go back there, face the fact that she failed the first time, help free the girls, not do it on her own, because Yelena is very important. I do think it's really important for her journey to be the person who disperses the ridiculous theorem. But I think it's fine. It's a Marvel movie. Whatever. Serum up.

01:27:21
Cly
And we've bought into 5 billion other serums. We could have this one too, I guess.

01:27:26
Sam
Exactly. Right? Yes. And so. And so. And then Lee and take this role and ownership of like, I'm going to get you girls out of there. And then realize that there's someone she left behind that she owes a debt to because she used them as collateral. So she sends everyone out to finish the job and then goes back. Because this is all about making her ledger. Right? And. And doing the right thing and taking responsibility and accountability for all the things that she's done to be a true hero. Right? Because, like, she's a poser. She's a poser, right? Like, that's the thing.

01:28:06
Cly
Is that poser who poses. Yeah.

01:28:08
Sam
This is her facing that she's a poser and not a real frickin hero. That's what this movie should be. And so I think if you have her take, I think this movie could be so much better. Even if we don't do all the other things. If she just took control and led the Widows, this movie would be like 10,000 times better. Because it's her accepting being a hero. It's her taking responsibility for getting them out and it's also her kicking some of her antisocial behavior, which she should already know not to do because she's been an avenger for so long. But she was hurt. Right. So we're back in. We're back at our trauma. Right. When someone triggers you regress a little bit. And that's what this movie is. And so I.

01:28:56
Case
But here's the thing. What you're saying would also indicate the progress that she sees by Avengers Endgame. Because in Endgame, she is the coordinator for everyone.

01:29:05
Cly
Yeah. She is leading everyone.

01:29:07
Case
Yeah. So I think what you're saying makes a ton of sense that they missed an opportunity to show her stepping into that leadership role.

01:29:15
Cly
Yeah, absolutely.

01:29:16
Sam
And I think that it would. It would be really nice to recontextualize everything. And even if we don't get a moment of the blip, which I would like at least for her to call one of her parents and. Or have a phone call and pick up and just be like, what happened? And it's like, it's Elena. She's gone. Yeah, I heard. You know, and like, just have that like, emotional kind of moment. I know that they wanted to end this on a. I feel. I don't know for sure because I wasn't in the writer's room, but I feel like they wanted to end this on a more positive bookend feeling because this is in terms, like the last time we're going to see this character. Right. Because they've already ended her.

01:29:59
Sam
And like, again, if this movie was released earlier, maybe it would have ended differently. But I think they ended in a way where she's, you know, got her coordinator haircut on and she. She's saying to her friend that she's going to go back, she's going to break some people out of jail and everything. She's going to right some wrongs. Right. And then they leave it on the fireflies and the tree, just like how she looked at it as child thing like that. And I think we can still have the fireflies and the tree, but leave it on a little sadder and have her learn underneath that tree.

01:30:36
Case
You can do a mid credits scene and then a post credits scene, like the post credit scene. And you could. And you can tie them together by like focusing on the two sisters reactions to each other's deaths.

01:30:47
Sam
Right? Yeah.

01:30:48
Cly
Your sister.

01:30:50
Sam
Yeah, I like that a lot.

01:30:52
Cly
Yeah.

01:30:54
Case
Like the mid credits can be Natasha finding out that Yelena's dead and being traumatized. And then the post credits can be Yelena coming to terms with the fact that Natasha is dead.

01:31:02
Cly
Yeah.

01:31:03
Sam
And vowing to hunt down Clint Garden.

01:31:06
Case
Right. Because.

01:31:09
Cly
Yeah, yeah.

01:31:11
Case
I mean, like that part you can't get rid of because that's the marketing part of it all. So if the mid credits is the emotional punchline or it's a post movie scene, but pre credits finale part, and then we get the post credits with the Hawkeye teaser.

01:31:27
Cly
Yeah, no, I think that would have worked out wonderfully within the structure of. We've had mid credits before this. So they already have the language to do that and to have Natasha reacting to, you know, she gets a call, she's like, what is it? It's Yelena. She's gone. Would have been a great setup for, you know, transitioning into the infinity, blah, blah, whatever. And then having that end credits moment, being the Yelena taking on the responsibility, you know, coming to terms with Natasha's sacrifice and what that means and, you know, setting up the Hawkeye of it all would have been a great, you know, bow on top of the bow I already put of the widows on this present. We have so many bows. It's great.

01:32:17
Sam
Hawkeye and future.

01:32:20
Cly
Yeah, exactly.

01:32:22
Case
Yeah.

01:32:22
Cly
A couple of things more that I would like to have seen out of this movie is, especially in the midsection when we're on the farm, really exploring Mileena's trauma in regards to the red room and how that shapes her character and how the brainwashing affects how she is showing up in a parental figure in this family unit. And we see glimpses of that here and there mostly in the performance. But I would have loved to dive more into the dichotomy of what her red room conditioning experience was like versus the chemical conditioning that we're seeing throughout the film.

01:33:02
Cly
And I think that would have made the whole red room sequence a little bit more emotionally resonant because we've seen how it's escalated over the years since Natasha thought she ended it and how it's gotten progressively worse and what that means for all the girls she abandoned by not actually shutting down the program. I think that would have been really interesting. I already mentioned the timeline again. I love a non linear film. And so I would personally chop this film up a little bit, make it a little bit more nonlinear, add some of those flashbacks.

01:33:40
Cly
Having these PTSD moments of her remembering experiences of her past in the various locations we visit, really diving into some of the more heist sequences, both at the beginning and the end, I think would have made a nice bookend of the action at the top and at the bottom of this movie, personally. More forehead touches. We got one or two. Not enough. It's such a great intimate moment intense conflict where you can have this deep connection, and we can see it with it setting up Yelena breaking her brainwashing. Have something like that in that widow moment and have it being the same, like, you know, mildly reoccurring theme of the forehead touches would make that the ending one even better, which is already a great moment. And then just better Russian. We have the budget for a dialect coach. Right.

01:34:43
Cly
We could get that in there. We could shoehorn. It's a better Russian.

01:34:48
Case
Yes, yes. That I think we could have made happen. I'm so frustrated that they did.

01:34:54
Cly
Yeah. There is not a lot of care done with the Russian in general in this universe and in this film specifically. And I get that this is mostly for a Western audience who has a very specific view of what it means to be Russian, especially in an action film context. And we're playing into those tropes and those narratives a little bit, but just overall, could have done with a more graceful hand and, you know, allowing those characters to be more fleshed out in the groundedness of the Russian language. And, you know, that would have contributed a little bit more to connecting with the culture slightly. But, you know, who am I to speak on behalf of. Of Russians?

01:35:54
Case
Again, better. Better position than most of us, definitely,.

01:36:02
Cly
When we're offline. I'll tell you the extent of my Russian education, but it just overall.

01:36:09
Case
Well, you have words in Cyrillic in your notes, and that's.

01:36:12
Cly
Most of them are just names. Like, Dreykov looks weird. And in Latin characters, it just looks better in Cyrillic. I don't know what to tell you.

01:36:23
Case
I'm just noting that compared to where I would be going, it'd be phonetically, like Dreykov.

01:36:31
Cly
But, yeah, no, overall, I love this film. Again, I don't think it's an excellent film. And those are all the little nitpicky things that if you brought together, could have made a. A really strong film even in when it came out.

01:36:48
Case
And on that note, I don't have a lot more to add because I've already talked about, like, how I, like, the biggest thing for me is, like, that connection to the blip would have been a huge thing for it. And then, like, the taskmaster stuff is, like, the big problems that I have with it. Sam, do you have things that you want to throw on or have we kind of.

01:37:04
Sam
No, I think it's really good. I mean, like, I. I look, I'm. I'm less like Kase. I liked this film. I don't really think that it takes that much to fix it for me. Other. And, you know, give Natasha a real. Like, a real. I feel like it's an action film, but I want. I want her to. I want her to take charge. I want her to end up where she's going to need to be and. And take responsibility. And I. And I love the idea that she's going to. I love the idea about her facing, like, the guilt and the trauma because she. In a lost space. Right. And. And that sometimes just brings up things for you. So I. I agree with the chopping things up a little bit or adding some flashbacks just to kind of.

01:37:52
Sam
Oh, no, I killed people, you know, Exactly.

01:37:56
Cly
Just like that.

01:37:57
Sam
Yeah.

01:37:58
Cly
Oh, no,.

01:38:00
Sam
It wasn't my fault. But it was. And so I just think that. Yeah, I. I think that this would be really good. I think this movie is an enjoyable film for me, actually. Like, it is, for me, a sweeping chore. This is something that I put on when I'm sweeping and I'm mopping, because I don't really have to pay attention too much to the mop or the broom. It's basically doing its job with just my motion, and I can watch some really great set pieces. I. You know, and the moments that I don't like. That's the perfect time to, you know, go empty the dustpan and come back.

01:38:40
Cly
Right.

01:38:40
Sam
So this is. This is. This is not the worst movie the MCU ever made.

01:38:46
Cly
So. Very true.

01:38:51
Case
But not by a long.

01:38:53
Sam
Not by a long shot. No.

01:38:55
Case
Yeah, it's. It's underwhelming to me. And that's the worst thing I would say about it. Like, didn't do enough. Again, Like, I came out hot. But I. I don't hate this movie. I just think that it's squandered a lot of potential.

01:39:11
Sam
Yeah. And it's late. I would have loved it to be earlier.

01:39:15
Case
Yeah, yeah. And part of that squandering is because it came out too late and it, you know, it lost the momentum of having a really cool story with, like, one of the biggest actors that they had in this fucking franchise. Especially before the movie.

01:39:28
Cly
Movie.

01:39:29
Case
The movie started. Like, it's one thing to be like, oh, well, Chris Hemsworth is a big star now. But, like, he wasn't when this all started. Scarlett Johansson was a huge star when this started.

01:39:37
Cly
She was a huge get for the franchise because, you know, they brought a lot of people in who we consider Big names now. And so looking back, you're like, wow, you got all these big name star power. But going back to the context of when they were hired, not necessarily the same thing for all of these people, but, you know, she's been a household name long before this franchise even got off the ground. So.

01:40:05
Case
Yeah, so just, you know, they, they didn't treat their awesome starlet right and they gave her a pity movie at the end. And that sort of is the thing that sucks about it all because, like, yeah, because you can feel that they weren't trying to draw bigger connections to the world like that. That's the thing that kind of sucks about this movie. But again, I don't want to be like, I, I never want to be, like, overly negative about a movie if I can help it. And like, I came out a little hot just because, like, there are some things that bug me about this movie. But like, I, I do maintain that the pieces of this movie are very good and I enjoy a lot of the things that are going on in this movie.

01:40:45
Case
It just doesn't come together in a way that like, scratches all the itches that I need it to scratch.

01:40:50
Cly
You came into this a little hot, and I came into this being like, the first 50 minutes of this movie are a perfect movie and I feel like we evened out along the way.

01:41:00
Case
Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Where it's like, yeah, the first 50 are really good, but like, there's like a couple, like, things to tweak.

01:41:05
Cly
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

01:41:07
Case
Yeah.

01:41:08
Cly
But I think we have collectively created a perfect movie and so I'm happy with the that.

01:41:14
Case
Excellent. Excellent. So sly. Where if people enjoyed your commentary on this movie, can people find you and follow you?

01:41:21
Cly
Well, if you like me personally talking about comic book movies in general in a different universe, I do have a podcast called DC Graduates and it is myself and my co host Carlos going through all of the DC Animated movies canon currently on our Elseworlds season. So we have a lot of seasons beforehand. You can pretty much jump into any movie episode wherever you want and have a perfect time. If you really want all of my Marvel hot takes throughout the years, you can check out the show that D.C. graduates was the spiritual successor to, which is MC University, which after I watched all of the MCU movies for the first time in 2021, I then went back with my good friend Mario and explored all of the non MCU movies in that show.

01:42:25
Cly
So MC University, if you want more of my hot takes, and especially if you want to hear about what characters I think should kiss, definitely check out the 2005 Fantastic Four episode of MC University. We talk a lot about characters kissing.

01:42:43
Case
I'll have to check that one out.

01:42:45
Cly
It's a good one. You can find me on all things point in progress, timeline wise. There's a lot of interesting things in the works that I really hope have come out. So just check out YouTube.com pointinprogress and hopefully there's some really fun things going on over there, but we'll see.

01:43:04
Case
Yeah, that's the weird part about podcast time, which is that I just did the math and it's like, this is gonna come out in the summer, but late summer even, and we're recording this in January.

01:43:14
Cly
Yeah. So there's a lot of fun things that I've definitely done. Go check them out.

01:43:20
Case
And what's wild, we've had to reschedule this a couple of times. I have kept this in the same slot even with the rescheduling. So we have recorded a bunch of episodes that are going to be dropping after this one. And it's like, oh, my God, this format. Currently we're monthly and it is really easy to get a backlog of episodes because they just realize we have up until November recorded as of January.

01:43:43
Cly
That's incredible.

01:43:45
Case
Which is just insane. But, yeah, so this will be dropping well after we. We were talking about it, but. But everyone should check out all the stuff that is on point in project, point in progress. So, Sly, thank you so much for coming on and for having me and bringing your insight into this one. I really, I. I think that we did come to a really good balance point on this movie.

01:44:05
Cly
Yeah, no, I love this movie. I love talking about this movie. And I'm so glad that you have this really cool show format where I can talk about all the things that would have made this a great movie.

01:44:17
Case
Excellent. Excellent. I'm so glad. Did you drop your socials? I forget if you said that.

01:44:20
Cly
Oh, I didn't. I did not plug myself. Hi, I'm Sly. You can find me on most places at slyclone Embassy. The place you could find me the most, honestly, is Storyground. So if you're a big reader, find me on storygraphlightcloan. Don't do much outside of the show anymore. So point in progress. And then, you know, if you want to hear me talk about books, that's where you can find me.

01:44:48
Case
Excellent. Well, people should be checking that out and supporting you like. It's been wonderful having you on and wonderful getting to know you in the podcast space. I've been on your show a couple one time. Podcasts are weird. We've interacted so much. But no, it's wonderful having you on and so glad that we got a chance to finally do this after two reschedules. So I'm very glad, yeah, very glad that this occurred. Sam, where can people find you and follow you?

01:45:21
Sam
Well, they can find me here every time an episode drops and I am always lurking on the Discord. I may not say anything, but I see what you're saying. I see it. And if you have any complaints, any at all about. How about any of the characters that I talked about today, but specifically the fact that I said that I don't really give two flying craps about Taskmaster, you can find KSAT and give all your complaints to him.

01:45:52
Case
Oh, feed me those complaints. I just, I just need it. Pump it into my veins, motherfuckers. I'm. I'm ready for him. Bring it on at Kase Aiken on most social media platforms except for Instagram, where I'm holding on 4 dear life to my aim screen name from high school, which is quetzalcoatl5q u e t Z A L C o a T L5 because I was pretentious in high school, you can find me there. Or if the social media thing isn't your thing and you want a more personal kind of direct connection to a person, check out the Discord server for certain point of view. It's a great place to chat. All three of us are regular contributors.

01:46:28
Cly
There, I would say. A great place to hang out. Highly recommend Discord. A fun one.

01:46:35
Case
Yeah, it's a good old time and so like, you know, you can tag Sam and she'll actually respond if you tag her and if you just say anything, I'll see it because I am obsessive and I check every channel all the time but the Discord server, which you can find links at our website or in the show notes. So if you go to certainpow.com or if you look at the show notes here, you can find a link to that Discord. Otherwise you can check out other stuff I'm working on at the Certain POV YouTube channel, which is Certain POV Media. You can check out the other podcast I do, which is Men of Steel, which is a Superman and Superman adjacent love letter show and you can check out the stuff that we are trying to put out there.

01:47:12
Case
Hashtag content wise on our Patreon. Our Patreon has been going strong for the past few months. We love all them. We try to put out cool stuff for our patrons. We put out sneak peeks at the things that we're working on, even at the free tier. I do essays on a nerd topic and on a D and D topic once a week. Check those out if you want to. You can find that@patreon.com certainpovmedia and if you contribute at a high enough level, you get a shout out at the end of every episode. And so we've got some executive producers to shout out right now. So I would like to thank Micah McCaw, Carter, Sean Muir Lee, Gregor Memento Young, Logan Crowley, Joe Mastropiero, Casey and Nancy Aiken, Adam Sampter and Keith Letinen for being just awesome people who help us continue this show.

01:48:00
Case
And so without people like them, this would not be possible. And we very much appreciate it. On that note, thank you everyone for tuning into this episode. We should shout out another show on our network. Point in Progress is a good one, and DC Graduates is a good one to shout out, even though you're not part of the network. I'm going to shout out Long Live the Legion right now because I recorded with them earlier today, which is a great show about the Legion of Superheroes. So you should definitely check that out, especially if you are looking to get into extremely niche Byzantine comic book lore. The Long Live the Legion podcast breaks down one of the most complex timelines of a comic book series ever. I think we're on reboot number six now.

01:48:46
Case
Incredible for a series going back to the goddamn 50s with Superboy. That's a, that's a cool series to check out, but then you should come back and check out our next episode. Sam, what have we got coming up next?

01:48:58
Sam
Next time we'll be talking about Highlander 2 the Quickening, but until then, if you enjoyed this, pass it on.

01:49:09
Case
Thanks for listening to Certain Point of Views, Another past podcast. Don't miss an episode. Just subscribe and review the show on itunes.

01:49:18
Sam
Just go to certainpov.com Netherpass is a certain POV production. Our hosts are Sam Alicea and Kase Aiken. The show is edited by Sophia Ricciardi. Our logo and episode art is by Kase Aiken. Our intro theme is by Vin Macri and our outro theme is by Matt Brogan,.

01:49:39
Case
CPOV certainpov.com.