Well... let's talk about Birds of Prey: And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn. Why are we talking about this movie? Because our guest, Vash Trent, insisted, that's why!

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Transcript

(Subject to Error)

00:00
Sam Alicea
I mean, I think that, like, for me, this is very hard, right? Because I loved this movie. And I think that everyone who's listened to this knows that.

00:09
Case Aiken
Welcome to certain point of View's another pass podcast.

00:13
Speaker 3
Be sure to subscribe, rate and review on iTunes. Just go to certainpov.com.

00:20
Case Aiken
Hey, everyone. Welcome to another pass podcast. I am case Aiken, and as always, I am joined by my co host, Sam Alicea.

00:28
Sam Alicea
Hi.

00:30
Case Aiken
And today we have a very special guest because this collective here has appeared in crazy costume plenty of time. And today we're talking about the crazy costume movie. Today I've got Vash Trent joining.

00:41
Vash Trent
Hey. Hey. Or hey. Or hello. I don't know what to say, but.

00:46
Sam Alicea
Yeah, no, that's all right. Yeah, just. Just use words.

00:50
Vash Trent
I'm so glad you're here, Sam. This is going to be great.

00:54
Sam Alicea
I am so glad you are here, my dear friend.

00:58
Vash Trent
Don't dear friend me. We're going to have a long.

01:02
Case Aiken
Oh, God, this is going to get. The three of us have known each other for a long time. We have been part of a cosplay group. That only happened because Vash is amazing. He is a legend in the cosplay community around New York. And whenever we can come up with a fun idea, he's always been down to make it somehow way better than we ever could have anticipated. And so it seemed appropriate to have Vash on now that Sam is a permanent part of this show. And the movie he wanted to talk about is one that I don't understand. We are talking about Birds of Prey and the fantabulous emancipation of Harley Quinn.

01:34
Sam Alicea
Which is a great movie.

01:36
Vash Trent
Which is a what movie? No, it's great. And also, you know what the biggest thing about this is? Not that I really was like, I was bored out of my mind during this movie, but I want to know, what did you guys like? Because I'm watching, not to see if I can like it, but to see what did other people like? Because you two aren't the only two crazy people that said this was a great movie. So I'm just kind of like, well, what do you guys see?

02:03
Sam Alicea
Did you watch it? Because I know you fall asleep on things.

02:06
Vash Trent
Wow.

02:08
Sam Alicea
Did you watch this?

02:10
Vash Trent
Not only did I suffer through this movie, I suffered through it twice, and both times on purpose, which is crazy.

02:16
Sam Alicea
I mean, were your eyes open, though? Were you paying attention? Were you doing other things? Were you building a huge model of the X Men mansion?

02:25
Vash Trent
Maybe I was putting together some cabinets today, but I was definitely able to pay attention. And I remember during the first time I watched this ridiculous movie that I watched the whole thing. No, I might have been doing stuff then, too, but either way, I got the gist of the movie in the first 7 seconds and I was like, oh, this is going to be terrible. And it was.

02:45
Case Aiken
What do you mean, the gist of the movie?

02:49
Sam Alicea
The entire plotline. This is how Vash watches movies.

02:52
Case Aiken
I feel like the title gives the gist of the movie pretty well. So that's what I'm curious about.

02:57
Vash Trent
Well, that's the thing. Well, first of. Okay, okay, I get it. Like, Margot Robbie wants to be Margot Robbie, but this movie reminded me of Halle Berry's Catwoman, where it was more so like, hey, we've got this great star who's really hot and everybody loves her. She sells tickets. Let's wrap a movie around her. And I feel like that's what this did. Now you guys are way more into the whole, well, storyline this and actors that, which I'm not. I don't want to take up all the talking time here, but I feel.

03:32
Sam Alicea
Wait, but you will.

03:34
Vash Trent
I don't mind, but I don't want to. I feel like when I was watching this movie, my thought was they just took a whole bunch of names out of a hat and said, make a story, not caring about where they got the names from or what the names were about. I mean, I can go on, but I want to hear your thoughts.

03:55
Case Aiken
Sam, why don't you go?

03:57
Sam Alicea
I love this movie. I think it's great. I think that the changes they made to any character were fine and warranted. And I think that all the characters were amazing. And I think that it was a beautiful story about a woman struggling to find herself and become the beautiful villain she was always meant to be. Slay it. Antihero. And along the way, meeting lots of friends who were kick ass and wonderful and supportive and it was phenomenal.

04:33
Vash Trent
Okay, so she's obviously drunk. That's not even a reason for liking it. That was a mild attempt to pull something together about this movie.

04:47
Sam Alicea
The whole reason for liking this movie.

04:50
Vash Trent
Honestly, it might be the whole reason, but it's not.

04:53
Sam Alicea
No, it is the perfect reason. First of all, just on a basic.

04:57
Vash Trent
Level, everything about this movie is basic level.

05:02
Case Aiken
No, wait. Hold on. Wait.

05:03
Sam Alicea
No, the choreography, the fight choreography is phenomenal.

05:08
Vash Trent
No, it was.

05:08
Sam Alicea
The shots are phenomenal.

05:10
Vash Trent
No. A group of villains, not villain. A group of henchmen. Which, first of all, who still has henchmen in the 21st century?

05:16
Case Aiken
A group of henchmen Batman villains.

05:18
Sam Alicea
Yeah, there's like a whole.

05:20
Case Aiken
If anyone has henchmen, it's Batman villains.

05:23
Vash Trent
Okay.

05:24
Sam Alicea
Like henchmen. But then she's a union. A union. In the Harley Quinn cartoon, there's an entire union for henchmen. It is a thing. It is always a thing.

05:36
Vash Trent
I will allow henchmen. For the sake of this conversation, I'll allow henchmen. But when you said the fight choreography, did you see how she was hitting him with a baseball bat? But the other 19 guys were just standing there waiting for their turn. And I'm like, I get it.

05:49
Sam Alicea
Wait, how is that different than any other Batman movie or any other movie, period? Like, seriously, people always wait for cap to punch the one guy. Are you fucking kidding me?

06:00
Vash Trent
No. Cap throws his shield at other people while he's choking somebody or kicking somebody. There's multiple things going on. And I'm not saying that they don't. But what I'm saying is, in comparison, the fight scenes in this were pretty lackluster, if you ask me. Not one kick was thrown or punch was thrown. Wait, is that right? You throw a kick? Kick was.

06:22
Case Aiken
That's totally wrong.

06:23
Vash Trent
What is Kit? Not one kick was launched. What do you do with a kick?

06:26
Sam Alicea
What about the moment with the huntress at the end when they're going down this and she realizes she did a split, held herself up.

06:37
Case Aiken
Everyone has certain moves that they pull out more of. Black Canary kicks a lot. So that's a starter. They all punch a bunch and also just, like, immediately. And there's a pretty brutal kick very early in the movie that breaks a guy's.

06:55
Vash Trent
Jump kick. That was cute. Yeah, that was cute. I like that. Yeah.

06:59
Case Aiken
So here's why I like this movie. And this is not just, like, the good, because we can go for a little while, at least on all the goods. But I will start off by admitting that part of this is rose tinted glasses. This is the last movie I saw in theaters in the before times, okay.

07:16
Sam Alicea
Oh, yeah, the before times. I remember those.

07:20
Case Aiken
So that's right. There is a big part of it for me, just in terms of general warmth towards this movie. But I really liked this movie when I saw it, when I didn't know that were about to go into lockdown and it was going to be a total shit show. So for me, I think that it is a very effective use of taking, like, a 60s style Batman world updated for a modern aesthetic. The city of Gotham feels like the 66 Batman show, but in 2020, and it's bright and colorful. And zany and there's henchmen and all of those things are great. And then you get into character performances and there are so many great ones in there. I mean, for me, probably the one that I keep coming back to is just being so goddamn good. Is Ewan McGregor as Black Mask.

08:03
Case Aiken
He is.

08:04
Sam Alicea
Agreed.

08:04
Case Aiken
So good where he makes the girl. Well, he's just so good at being, like, this creepy rich boy villain. It's just delightful.

08:13
Sam Alicea
Absolutely. You can tell he had fun with it, too.

08:16
Case Aiken
Oh, yeah. But the scene I keep coming back to in terms of, like, man, that was like, a great villainous scene was when he's at the club and he gets angry about, like, I forget the specific point in the plot, but he gets angry and hears another table laughing, and he goes over and he forces that woman to get up on the table and start dancing, even though it's silent. And he's, like, rocking to a beat as he's doing it. And it's such a terrifying delivery of that because he bounces to this rhythm a little bit and then says a word and then continues bouncing perfectly to the beat that no one can hear. It was so nice just having that really creepy, over the top kind of, again, 66 Batman villain updated for 2020.

08:59
Sam Alicea
Yeah, absolutely.

09:01
Vash Trent
Yeah. I was never so bored with a villain in my life. What exactly did he do that made him okay for me? And again, this is just me. I'm not saying that everybody has to have this opinion because we all know how I am in what I do and do not like with movies. This villain, I'll never remember him. I don't feel he did anything that would make me say, oh, you know, who was a good villain? The guy from. And not even that, because I don't like this movie, but because I don't remember him at all. I do remember in rogue one when Darth Vader showed up in that hallway and slashed his way through what the imperial guard, what do you slash his way through?

09:47
Case Aiken
But Darth Vader's not the villain of that movie.

09:50
Vash Trent
He's not the villain of that movie. He was the villain of that scene. And my point is, I'll remember that. I don't remember.

09:58
Case Aiken
Sure. But an interesting thing talking about this movie is that it is so Batman adjacent that it's hard to separate that from the Batman movies, where the villain is always the main point. In this case, the main characters, like the protagonists, are the thing that we're supposed to pay attention to and care about and spend a lot of time with. They go out of their way to explain that Roman Cionus is not very good at his job, that he is dumb, and that he's only getting by because he inherited a shitload of money and that now that he's cut off, he's desperately trying to steal more money so that he can continue living this lavish lifestyle. He's not a good villain. He's not an effective villain, but he is a creepy villain and it's an effective performance.

10:47
Sam Alicea
I agree. And I also think that with him, the important thing is that he's kind of the embodiment of the fuck boy. Right? The Wall street fuck boy. Which it kind of goes to this whole theme of a lot of the times he does do things equally terrible to lots of different people, but a lot of the people you see him picking on are women or weaker men. And I think that it goes into this idea of Harley thinking that this kind of psychopathic kind of guy owns her and finding out that's not what she wants to do. I think it's also apt that she's got a villain that's not like super duper villainy with powers because it's not who know, like, it's. You've set up someone who's going to be what she needs to tell the story, not just someone who's.

11:47
Case Aiken
Yeah, like, harley is not intimidated by him, but she's also not going to be intimidated really by, like, it's Harley Quinn.

11:55
Sam Alicea
Yeah, she's crazy.

11:56
Case Aiken
It makes me think of in the League of external Gentlemen, when Mina Murray is confronted by Mr. Hyde. I forget if this happens in the movie, but it does happen in the comic where he goes, you're the only one who's not afraid of me because I think you've seen something worse. And she's like, yes, I have. That's Harley to a certain degree. Who's going to scare her? No one fucking scares her. She's crazy.

12:19
Sam Alicea
And she was in love with the Joker, who was abusive on so many.

12:24
Case Aiken
Levels on top of all that. Yeah, the actual problems of the Joker relationship. But the Joker is the worst of the Gotham villains, so no one's going to stack up with him. And that's not what this movie is about. This movie is about her kind of reminding herself that, yeah, sure, she might have been fucked over by the literal worst, but even if she didn't succeed in taking the Joker down, which is a different movie they could have made, no one competes with Harley Quinn in this universe. And that's why we also have a cartoon series that is equally effectively doing that basic message. Harley Quinn is never scared of anyone in those movies. Even fucking Lex Luthor doesn't scare her.

13:06
Sam Alicea
Yeah. She's always pretty confident that all of those crazy fuckers are not as crazy as she.

13:14
Case Aiken
Yeah. And I love how much they play up the psychiatrist part of it. Like, the fact of the matter is she goes into great detail explaining why all these people are not that intimidating or really that deep.

13:25
Sam Alicea
Yeah.

13:25
Case Aiken
But the other actors are also, generally speaking, pretty good. Like Mary Elizabeth Winstead. I don't normally like, I think she's fine, but she's not like an actress that I'm like, oh, fuck. Yeah. But, you know, like, as Helena Bertinelli, as the huntress, as the crossbow killer, I loved it. It was so great having her be so awkward and not able to effectively deliver lines. Everyone always cuts her off. She always kills the person she's trying to give a delivery to. It just never works for her. She doesn't go with the usual. The news reports have named her and so she takes the name kind of thing. It's such a perfect, like, yeah, she is socially awkward because she hasn't interacted with anyone as an equal in her entire life.

14:10
Sam Alicea
Yeah, I loved that kind of thing. She's just like, okay, I will fist bump you as. Yeah, just so awkward. Just like, this is how I human now. Okay.

14:21
Vash Trent
Yeah, she was okay.

14:24
Case Aiken
Journey Smollett Bell was a take on Dinah Lance that I actually rather like. Dinah Lance is a character who is so weird, but you don't realize it because they've actually done a really good job of kind of smoothing it over. But it's like one of the weirdest comic characters in that she is the only character. DC had that when they did the crisis on infinite Earths in 1986, that her origin story became more streamlined. Everyone else, it was like, well, we have to figure out why this character was there or this character was there. They invented Iron Monroe, who was basically like a golden age Superman knockoff so that they could explain why Superman wasn't there in the. They had to shoehorn all these weird scenarios in, like, hawkman.

15:12
Case Aiken
The golden Age Hawkman continued working well into the thanagarian spy came and then the actual Silver Age Hawkman showed up because they decided to reboot him from scratch. And there's all these characters that were to explain, like, the Legion of superheroes. Oh, well, Superboy was always a part of the Legion of superheroes, but actually that Superboy was from a pocket dimension created by the villainous time trapper. To fool them into thinking that they had an ally who was actually like, a silver age version of the character, even though we all know the real Superman never was Superboy. And so this character was just a puppet used by him and then blackmailed into betraying the Legion, but ultimately, he couldn't do it because it was pure heart, and he died saving the Legion of superheroes.

15:49
Case Aiken
And that's why he's the great hero that they are based. Like, the crisis fucked up a lot of characters, but you know who that didn't fuck up? Black Canary, because Black Canary was fucking insane. Black Canary was a golden age superhero from the 40s who just randomly showed up in the Silver Age books, which shouldn't have happened because they were two different worlds. And then it was like, oh, it's my daughter. It's fine. And then it turned out it wasn't her daughter. It was the mind of the mother transported into the body of the daughter, and she had traveled to a different world, and that's where she hooked up with Green Arrow and decided she was going to stay. It's such a weird story. And then when crisis happened, they were just like, well, yeah, it was all one world.

16:30
Case Aiken
So, like, yeah, Black Canary was a superhero, and she had a daughter. This is the daughter. That's it. When you tell people that it used to be complicated, they're like, how did it used to be complicated? It seems so simple.

16:43
Vash Trent
It wasn't. It really wasn't.

16:44
Case Aiken
There was, like, a coma involved. Like, she was brain dead, and then her mom's brain possessed her body, and then it developed metahuman powers, like, all kinds of weird shit. So the portrayal we get here perfectly fine, perfectly in line with what we saw. They referenced the fact that she had a superhero mother. They referenced the fact that she's got a power. That's cool. Black and Arie had a lot of weird jobs before she really became a big superhero. Like, at one point, she was a florist. I don't think anyone really cares that much about that part of her. So this worked pretty well.

17:10
Sam Alicea
Plus, it works out that then Harley Quinn gets to say the pun at the end that she had a killer voice because she was a singer in a club and blah, blah.

17:20
Case Aiken
So that was pretty good. Rosie Perez is Renee Montoya.

17:23
Sam Alicea
Loved it.

17:24
Case Aiken
I love Rosie Perez. I know. I think she did a great job with this character. I think it was a good part of the general message of women getting shit done with crybaby boys, holding them back, which is every major male character in this is that.

17:38
Sam Alicea
I love that you sounded like an 80s cop all the time.

17:42
Case Aiken
Right. And it's very meta and on purpose. So I love that part. Christmasina as zazz. Okay. So I do prefer a serial killer zaz. But I do think he did a good job keeping it creepy. And so I think it worked. And I like him as an actor, and I think him playing the sort of henchman character worked fine. And it wasn't that weird for, like, it didn't feel like they were shoehorning a character who's totally different into the wrong part. The only one where that happens is with Cassandra Cain. And I understand. I agree with fans who are like, this is weird. And honestly, the reason why it's weird is just that the character is so different. Like, it's just a totally different character.

18:25
Case Aiken
For one thing, she was mute for a good long run of her comics, and learning to speak was a big part of her, and she's an assassin, and ultimately, that character is too close to the huntress that we have in this. Agree. Like, I know if you're going to use Cassandra Cain, you have to make her somewhat different, but this is very different and doesn't fit the character at all.

18:45
Sam Alicea
And they could have named her anything.

18:48
Case Aiken
Yeah. Even if you want to go with other characters who were Batgirl, because Cassandra Cain was Batgirl in the late 90s, early two thousand s. If you want to go with a different batgirl because you want to have a batgirl in it because, like, birds of Prey were founded by Barbara Gordon, and they have not figured out how they want to handle her yet in the movies. But if they want a Batgirl involved, you know, who works actually fine. Stephanie Brown, her father was a super criminal. She could very easily be set up to be trained to be a pickpocket. And while her dad's in jail, which is why she's going from foster home to foster home, it would fit the character actually fairly well as long as she goes straight at some point in the future.

19:30
Sam Alicea
Right? Yeah, that works.

19:34
Case Aiken
Or it could just be an original character. Like, you don't even need to use a name because pickpockets are a hard villain to use in comics generally, because it's not exciting for a superhero to be like, that guy stole that guy's watch, I'll go beat him up. Like, that is a weird dynamic. It's not a blue laser in the sky.

19:52
Vash Trent
You bring up a lot of interesting points. I half agree, half disagree. The whole Renee Montoya thing. I don't read Batman. I don't read DC, really, but I know her from the cartoon. Yeah.

20:06
Case Aiken
Which is where she first showed up.

20:08
Vash Trent
Right. That's what I thought. And I feel like Rosie Perez as her. I'll allow it, but I don't think it's anything to give an award about, like, she did it, but who couldn't have? I don't really think there was much there, but that's just me at the same time. Well, you know, now think about it. Everything that I was going to say, you've already said my biggest issue with this whole thing was what they did with Cassandra Cain of the Bat family. I felt she had the most interesting story. And when you have somebody with that story that makes you say, wow, this person has a great story, let's make a movie about her, and then you don't put anything about that story in the movie. It's kind of like, well, I don't get that. You said, oh, this girl is great.

20:55
Vash Trent
She was an assassin. She didn't learn any language. Then she learned how to read body language and she's able to kill like that. We put her in the movie, she's going to be a pickpocket. Like, wait a minute. Me as an audience member, I'd be like, well, who's this character? I don't like this character. You know, show us what you found so interesting about. Don't. I don't know. This is why I don't make movies. But if I did, they'd be good.

21:21
Sam Alicea
Well, I wonder if they just kind of were like, oh, well, we'll just give this name, but I'm sure most people won't. Like, do you think that was kind of in the back? I feel like a lot of decisions for the DC universe come down to them just being like, I'm just going to throw this name in here for no reason and just hope people don't get mad. But it feels like an Easter egg. Like it's a lazy Easter egg, but not really. Like they shoot themselves in the foot.

21:51
Case Aiken
Because she is asian in the comics. So I think that there was some desire to have something there. And the cast is very diverse, which I think is a good choice. So I think they were just, like, looking for an asian Batman adjacent character and didn't really care that much about the personality and backstory, which is kind of a bummer because also another character who would work fine, Selena Kyle, or I forget the name of the character from Batman year one, Selena Kyle's little friend, prostitute who is also a thief, that actually probably would have been the best character for this.

22:26
Vash Trent
That would have been great.

22:27
Sam Alicea
Maybe they were worried that wasn't, we all can't remember that character's name, so maybe they were worried there wasn't enough recognition there.

22:35
Case Aiken
Yeah, but at this point, they could.

22:39
Sam Alicea
Have named her Sally, and we would have been like, oh, she's just know.

22:44
Vash Trent
I think I would have liked that better because now I feel like they ruined Cassandra Cain rather than show me a new girl for me to learn to care about. Now they have a girl on screen that I'm like, I don't like her. Yeah, I mean, not the actress. She's fine, but I'm like, oh, this is what they're going to like. What's Cassandra Cain going to be like in part two? She's not going to be a mute assassin. Or if she is, that's going to be interesting. How do you unlearn language?

23:05
Case Aiken
Well, what they could have done to sort of make it a little bit closer to it is that she could have, because when they first introduced her, she's like swallowing the diamond and can't really speak. That could have been the detail to keep her from talking. They decided not to do that. I get it. Again, the character is nothing like the comics. So it's not one where, like, well, if you had a lip service kind of thing, is that going to save it? I think the thing with Cassandra Cain especially is that I think comic fans are particularly precious of the characters they like on their first outing because that has such an impact on a larger public.

23:40
Case Aiken
Like, Cassandra Cain has not been a major player, or she's recently started to come back as a major player, but she hadn't been batgirl for a while at that. Like, there had been a lot of shifts in publication. So having her show up here, it's like, oh, cool. People will find out about this character and maybe she'll be in more stuff. But if it's so wildly different, it changes the way people handle the character going forward. I don't think Thor is ever going to have Blake again, like, ever, because at this point now, everyone's just like, well, yeah, Chris Hemsworth, he's just Thor, always, right. The secret identity part, I think, is going to go by the wayside. Likewise.

24:21
Vash Trent
Can we talk about my girl mystique? There are little girls running around the world today thinking they want to grow up to be like Mystique. And I'm like, no, you don't. She'll cut your throat. You don't know that because the X Men movies make you think she's a good guy and it's going to get you killed. That's what I'm talking about. They completely changed that character, and now people don't realize that's not who we grew up to love. The character they showed us in the screen is not the character that they said, ooh, we should put her on screen.

24:50
Sam Alicea
I mean, I will say that sometimes there are adorable things that come from that. And, for instance, and this is just because it's a shared experience between the three of us, Disney had a cartoon where Doom was kind of like the Roadrunner and would put up signs, and were cosplaying, and case was doom. He was Dr. Doom. And all these little kids kept running up to him to basically get their picture taken, and they wanted to hug him. And it was like, the cutest, weirdest thing to me because I was like, he is a villain, but you all love him. Like, five year old children, like, not afraid of the fact that this grown ass human is in a full costume with their face cover. Nothing. Also, that cape was the best cape vash ever sewed.

25:38
Vash Trent
Wait a minute. What happened to that idea about holding up the shines? Did we actually do that? Because I thought that was the greatest thing we ever thought of.

25:44
Case Aiken
We didn't know about it. When we did the cosplay, were going to do a video about it where that became a thing, and we just never shot it.

25:51
Sam Alicea
Yeah, we just never, ever did it. But it was just such a cute, weird moment for me because I was like, why do all these kids want to hug case? And then I was like, oh, that cartoon. That's why. So I guess Vash is.

26:07
Vash Trent
The problem. Okay, I know people always say vash. They can't leave it. Exactly like the combos. I get that you have to change things for the movie. You have to condense and consolidate. I don't know, maybe. All right, consolidate to get things into a movie, because you can't put 60 years worth of combos in a movie. But, okay, I know we're talking about Harley Quinn, and we'll get to it. But just as an example, X Men, like, you have X Men movies where the main characters are mystique and Quicksilver. I don't get it. They're not X Men. I don't get, like, you have a thousand X Men to choose from, and you choose two people who have never been just. It kills me.

26:47
Vash Trent
So that's to say, with the Kane thing, like, you had a character who's great and you said, but we're going to change everything about it. And to me, that's just like the changing. What's her name? Dinah Lance. Laurel Lance. Dinah Laurel. Laurel Dinah. I don't know.

27:03
Sam Alicea
Just say black canary.

27:05
Vash Trent
Black Canary. I did not mind the changes. I think they made her a woman of color. And not that I'm saying because I'm a man of color, that I'm like, yeah, make her a woman of color. But I'm like, you change something and I'm okay with it. I will admit I didn't care for Michael B. Jordan. Is it Michael B. Jordan as the human torch?

27:23
Case Aiken
As human torch, yeah.

27:24
Sam Alicea
Yeah.

27:25
Vash Trent
Not thang. I loved him as the other people he's played. That's the only role I didn't like him because I was just like, what are you like?

27:32
Case Aiken
Well, that was also a terrible movie.

27:34
Vash Trent
It was terrible. With or without him. It really was. Right.

27:38
Case Aiken
It was a terrible movie. And I always found it weird that it was just like, okay, how can we shoehorn still in a Hollywood attractive white woman as his sister? Okay, we'll add an adoption thing, which would have been fine, but it was just like, oh, it seemed disingenuous, the reasons why you did.

27:55
Vash Trent
Exactly. Exactly. And I was going to say something, and I lost my train of thought because I was going to go off for a minute, but I'm not. I love Michael B. Jordan. I do. I really do.

28:10
Case Aiken
He's not in this movie, though.

28:11
Vash Trent
So let's segue back to the.

28:15
Case Aiken
Race flip. I think, for Black Canary, I think was fine. The only thing that's a little weird is like, oh, but now she's yet another black character who has black in their name, which is, like, a little bit weird. But I think she overall was fine. The outfit that she ends up in at the end is more of a superheroesque outfit. And I'm kind of bummed that we never get her in some variation of the classic jacket with fishnets. More the jacket for me because I was never really a big fishnet person, but I'm totally fine with all the color changes. That sort of work better with her complexion. She's very striking on screen, and so I think that was all great. And they make a point. She kicks really good in tight leather pants, and that's very impressive to everyone.

29:00
Sam Alicea
Yeah, and they mention it. They're very supportive. They're a very supportive group of ladies. You're very cool. You kicked very well in tight pants.

29:09
Case Aiken
That fight is so great, especially when it's like she's got the hair in her face and Harley comes around with, like, a hair tie.

29:15
Sam Alicea
That is the most relatable point of the movie if you're a woman, because there are so many movies where people will unleash their hair for some reason when going into a fight or doing something actiony, and it's like, no, that is the last thing you want to do. I think most recently, one of the movies that confused me the most was Mulan. She's going to go and she's going to face them, and then all of a sudden she releases her hair and it's flowing. And I get it. It looks great. It's a panteen commercial, but that doesn't make sense. Like, if you're a woman, you're going to do something, you're going to put your hair up. And I always have a hair tie on my wrist. So if someone needs an extra hair tie, I've got you.

30:03
Case Aiken
Let's talk about those fight scenes, though, because I agree with Sam, I think the choreography is great. And that last fight in this crazy funhouse was such a perfect, zany fight. It's a little weird that no one ever just shoots them. There's a few spots where people raise guns, but they have plenty of time to get out of the way. But still in a weird, fun house with a rotating turntable of hands and having a roller skating fight. Really good choreography, just in general, they had good segments where we got to each one being able to show off their particular types of skills. And like I said, the hits are brutal. It sold the body weight differences that are sometimes an issue with woman versus man fights. Just because a lot of these actresses are half the size of the guys that they're hitting.

30:59
Case Aiken
And it's like, okay, how do we sell it? And for one, typically when they hit them in such a way where it's like, okay, yeah, you positioned that all your weight was into that shot. Like it was like a proper hit or you had a tool or you had momentum. All those things were really effective ways to sell that. They were doing this damn damage appropriately.

31:16
Sam Alicea
Yeah, there was a lot of momentum movement, and I think that was helped because the camera moves around so much, too, but it keeps it moving and fast paced and really appreciate it. And I love that scene where huntress just starts stabbing someone coming down and when she gets down and you think that the whole group is going to be shocked. And Carly's just like, you are so cool, because she kind of looks up at them like huntress kind of looks up at them like, oh, shit. Because she doesn't really know how people are going to react to her. And they're like, wow. And it's like validation all the way around for her just being a murderous assassin. It's beautiful.

31:56
Vash Trent
I don't know. I watched the fight scenes. I watched every fight scene. And the whole time I was just like, I'm not getting a rise out of this in any way, shape or form. I don't know if it's that maybe because were they trying to be too realistic? And that's what bothers me. If I wanted to see realistic, I would watch the news. I'm here to watch a fantasy movie. Show me them kicking ass. Why is it that I liked not like? Not like. Why is it that I absolutely love the Harley Quinn cartoon, but I didn't like the movie when it's pretty much the same thing? Is it maybe better lines?

32:39
Sam Alicea
That's a really good question. And I feel like it has to do with your brain.

32:44
Vash Trent
It's not me. It's definitely because that cartoon is awesome. I've watched each episode at least twice.

32:51
Sam Alicea
As a good friend of yours who's been friends with you for years, it's you. You're the problem.

32:59
Vash Trent
Wow.

33:00
Case Aiken
Vash, did you ever watch either of the raid movies or dread?

33:04
Vash Trent
I've seen all the raid movies and dread, yes.

33:07
Case Aiken
Okay. Because I felt that was kind of what they were going overlaid on top of a Batman 66 kind of thing. A lot of those fight sequences felt like stuff you would see in that, where the police fight, for example, when they go into the holding area and the sprinklers kick on and then the doors open up and they slowly open after establishing that they all hate Harley to begin with, that seemed like that kind of a fight sequence. And then she gets through that room and then goes into the next space and then comes around a corner and all of a sudden there's people with guns and new sequence. It felt like that kind of staging of just like you're working your way through like a crazy labyrinth of doom.

33:52
Vash Trent
Okay, first of all, that even occurred to me. But that's not my issue. My issue is that, okay, she's going from room to room just punching and kicking. I don't feel like there are movies and tv shows that when a fight scene happens, I'm wowed or impressed and shown something new or the character did something that I'm like, oh, wow. I guess if I really thought about it, that character could do that. Or, oh, wow, look how they like, for instance, in the show the defenders, when Luke Cage and Iron Fist show up in the office and Luke Cage tastes the bullets and Iron Fist is behind him, because it's like, oh, yeah. Because Luke Cage is bulletproof and Iron Fist isn't.

34:40
Vash Trent
But when the bullets stop flying, Iron Fist comes out on the side of him, and the two of them get into their fighting pose, like, let's do this. And you're like, oh, my God, they're next to each other. It was just something.

34:51
Sam Alicea
I am so mad that you have brought up Iron Fist. Who is the. Honestly, I stopped watching that show because it's the worst fight choreography. Like, it was clear to me that guy had never even thrown a freaking punch in his entire life.

35:05
Vash Trent
It was 100% agreed. But in defenders, it got better. And then in Iron Fist season two, it got even better. So I guess they heard something or somebody got fired, or they were like, let's get this choreographer. Because you know what they need to do? Get the choreographer from Iron Fist two onto Black Canary. There's how you could have fixed it. Does that work, or is that against.

35:27
Case Aiken
Oh, wow. That's a take. I don't think that's necessary, though. The actual fight was like, the actual hits were really good. I feel like most emotions were really good.

35:37
Vash Trent
Hey, stop saying that because people are going to think you're crazy.

35:40
Case Aiken
I will admit that the critics did not love it as much as I did.

35:46
Vash Trent
I don't think anybody.

35:47
Case Aiken
They're crazy. I think the structure of the movie was really nice. Doing the different cuts, allowing us to sort of find out more information as it moved around was really good choice. Again, I think the fights are actually really good. That cell block fight is really good. Choices were made, such as having the water, like, having the sprinklers going off allowed them to have mats for them to fight on without us being able to see those details so you could have more impacts on the ground. I thought, good choice. Using a stack of cocaine that they're shooting in to give her superpowers for a minute.

36:20
Vash Trent
Oh, my God. I'm so upset that this is not on video so that the audience can see me rolling my eyes at you, trying to come up with excuses for what could have made this movie good, because these are all excuses. Match on the ground.

36:35
Case Aiken
I think that was clever. Fight staging.

36:37
Sam Alicea
Wait, you want stunt people to get injured? Is that what you're saying? Be injured for your craft?

36:44
Vash Trent
Okay. They could have used green screen or drones or whatever. None of that really matters. I want to see a great fight, and I've seen great fights. So that's what lets me know that it can be done.

36:56
Case Aiken
But they didn't use green screen. A lot of these are locations. The fights and the sets all feel very real in a way that a lot of movies that have become special effects, like love letters, don't. It felt like combat between human beings.

37:12
Sam Alicea
Agreed.

37:13
Case Aiken
As opposed to between two CGI things. And it comes after we've had, at that point, a decent amount of world building that was fun and energetic. Like the chase when Harley Quinn reveals to the world that she and Joker have broken up and she's got the egg sandwich, and she is running through the crowds that are all trying to murder her or hurt her in different ways. And it just becomes more and more zany and crazy in a way that you just don't normally see in a superhero movie. And you really care about that sandwich when it happens.

37:49
Sam Alicea
Which, by the way, is the second most relatable thing of the movie. First, for me is the hair tie. The second is the sandwich. Breakfast sandwich is very important.

38:00
Vash Trent
Agreed. What was it? A bacon, egg and cheese. Right. That looked so good. And I was like, yes, I've had a million of those. And it still looks like the greatest thing I've ever seen in my life.

38:10
Sam Alicea
And I love.

38:10
Vash Trent
That's neither here or there.

38:12
Sam Alicea
I love that. At the end, she finally got her sandwich for me, that was the perfect button into the movie. She got her sandwich. She's happy. She's driving off with the money from the pond diamond. She's living the dream. Harley is living the dream at the.

38:29
Vash Trent
Actually, one of my biggest gripes with this whole movie, which really, when this happened in the movie, I said, that's it. I'm done, is when the old man who owned the store sold her out. And he was like, it was business. All right, then I'm leaving. And she was like, I'm so sad. Oh, well, no. Why didn't she kill him? She's supposed to be so crazy and whatever, and this guy just broke her heart, like the joker has done. And she didn't blow up his van or stab him in the back or she just let him drive off after selling her out. Like, that's not Harley Quinn. Harley's gonna. Harley. And she didn't Harley. And I'm over this damn movie.

39:07
Case Aiken
Because is murder necessarily the automatic response? Because she could have beat him with.

39:13
Vash Trent
Her baseball bat, but she didn't have time.

39:15
Case Aiken
She was running for her life as well. She had a moment to be sad when she found out why it happened. And who's to say she's not going to get back at him some way, but killing him in that moment, one would take time. And two is like a pretty extreme response. Regardless of the fact that she became a target for murder. This is a person that she had a personal relationship with.

39:37
Vash Trent
It's not something you just casually that betrayed her.

39:40
Case Aiken
Yes, I realized. But again, if you're going to kill him, are you going to kill him? Just like she didn't have a gun on her. So what is she going to do? Beat him to death? Which is probably going to be like beating a person to death. Your hands are going to be Sore, you're going to be tired, and it takes a while. If you don't have a good weapon to do, like, it doesn't make sense necessarily just to do it for the sake of being mad.

40:03
Sam Alicea
Yeah. Also, I think that she's also smarter and a little more calculating than that. Harley, although sometimes can be impetuous. She also will plan out revenge schemes. Like she will put things into her back burner. She's still analytical because she's a very highly educated person who is a psychiatrist who's done with sociology. So she will put that in the back of her brain, maybe not act out completely because she understands people's motives. That's why when you get rare moments of her being good, whether it be in this or in her cartoon or in comics or other cartoons, it's because there is a part of her still that can rationalize human behavior and understand certain things. So at the end of the day, it's like she sells people out, too. She does it. She did it with Cassandra in this movie.

41:04
Sam Alicea
It's me or you, kid. I got to live, I got to eat. I got to be what I'm doing. Yeah, he's right. It was like I could see her rationalizing that out. Even if it doesn't make absolute sense to us, it doesn't matter because Harley is unpredictable in that mean.

41:24
Vash Trent
I gotta.

41:24
Case Aiken
I gotta admit, I'm a little concerned that the thought was like, oh, this person betrayed you. Automatic murder.

41:30
Sam Alicea
Well, that is also the way Vash thinks.

41:33
Vash Trent
Yeah, that's how it goes. That was the first thing that crossed my mind. Like, oh, why isn't he dead?

41:42
Sam Alicea
Bash would make a really great villain if he had more time.

41:47
Vash Trent
I am one lab accident away from being a supervillain. Just one. That's all I say.

41:54
Case Aiken
Sam, you brought up a good point about the movie, which is that there's a lot of really good setup and payoff, which is another thing I really appreciate about this movie. Part of that is because of its discontinuous editing. The fact that we see parts of scenes, that we see other people's perspectives on scenes. It moves the whole thing around really well. So we oftentimes will see a person walk into a room and then only several minutes later in the runtime, find out what they were doing when they were walking into the room. There's lots of really good points where we establish things ahead of time. We plant ideas into the audience and then we actually reveal why they were important things like, for example, the killer voice bit, but also things like Cassandra Cain having congestion.

42:40
Case Aiken
And we find out later it's because she ate the diamond. All those things are there and I think make the story more interesting because we're not just being an omniscient viewer, being given all the information as it happens. It is being trickled out to us in bits and pieces to heighten the tension, to make some scenes more exciting, to get action beats and then pull back to find out why that action beat occurred. Like when Harley attacks the police station. And I think it's great. I think that it does a really good job of doing a more modern style of editing than what we frankly see in a lot of superhero movies. It's pretty rare for us to get annie hall or a Tarantino style of edit in a superhero movie.

43:26
Case Aiken
Normally, it's just like, well, the hero is either going, having his origin story or has established himself, and a villain who is his equal and opposite is going to rise to oppose him. And the tension is going to build until we get to the third act and a blue laser in the sky.

43:41
Sam Alicea
Agreed. It's usually pretty linear. It's like a, b, and c happens, and that's why x happens and it's the end.

43:49
Vash Trent
Exactly.

43:50
Case Aiken
Yes, correct. Yes. Linear versus nonlinear. This movie is wonderfully nonlinear, and I adore it for it.

43:57
Sam Alicea
Agreed. Yeah. It's one of the things I think also it fits really well in with Harley's mindset because it's almost like she's talking and then she's like, wait A-I-I have to fill you. Let's, let's jump back for a second. So it's kind of like that very erratic kind of, you know, kind of like distracted brain kind of thing. And I really liked the feel of that.

44:18
Vash Trent
Yeah.

44:18
Case Aiken
And actually there is one other franchise that does that, and I think it is appropriate. Which is Deadpool.

44:23
Sam Alicea
Yeah.

44:24
Case Aiken
Like the characters aren't the same, but we know from going to New York comic con that the boyfriends tend to dress up as Deadpools and the girlfriends dress up as Quinn's. For even though that doesn't make any sense.

44:38
Sam Alicea
And honestly, you usually find a million of them everywhere. All the Deadpools and all the Quinn's.

44:46
Vash Trent
See, that's another one. Like, Deadpool was one of those ones who referenced the screen like Harley Quinn does. And that was great. That was entertaining. His fight scene. Whoever choreographed Deadpool's fight scenes should choreograph Harley Quinn's, because those were.

45:05
Case Aiken
But those were heavy were. Those were effect shots for the most part of him beheading or getting shot or of him losing his legs, losing his arms. The point of Deadpool was, let's show how much horror we can do to a human body. And either they get back up again or they don't. And that's how you know who's the hero versus the villain.

45:28
Vash Trent
Okay, but wait, I hear you. But think about this. Let's look at the fight scene where I think he stuck the gun through the hole in his hand and he turned it or something along those lines. Whoever thought that up has the imagination to think up a good fight scene, whether it was CGI or not, that scene took imagination, and that's what I feel lacked from this movie. Like, the fight scenes. Like, okay, yeah, there were kicks and punches, but there was no imagination in any of the choreography. And I think that, for me, is what was missing.

46:10
Sam Alicea
But you're comparing something that's, like, fantastical, right? That's just like fantasy.

46:15
Vash Trent
One of the things that I'm trying to say is, like, for instance, if I steal your gum, then you're like, oh, my God, you might rob my safe. Okay, no, I just stole gum. But the point is, you have the capability to steal the safe because of what I've seen you do. That's what I'm trying to get across is that whoever came up with the fight scenes in Deadpool, yes, they were fantastical. Yes, they were CGI. But I know I wouldn't have thought of those fight scenes even if I had all the CGI and whatever it takes, a certain level of this would look great. This will be cool. The Russo brothers, how they took Captain America and just said, we just want you to kick everything. And that's what it took.

47:02
Vash Trent
It took that imagination to realize when Captain America starts using his legs, it's entertaining. It looks good. It's fun. Because remember, in the first Captain America the Russo brothers didn't do those fight scenes weren't really good. But in Winter Soldier, it was just like, oh, my God, cap is amazing. They need that imagination on other films.

47:21
Sam Alicea
So what I'm hearing is Vash doesn't like punches. He only likes kicks. And Harley Quinn did not kick enough, even though she was flipping all over the place.

47:32
Vash Trent
Even Black Widow was better than Black Widow's moves. Black Widow's moves in Iron man two were better than anything in this movie. Yes. And not that I'm saying Marvel is better than DC or anything like that, but what I'm saying is whoever thought that up has a good vision for fighting and choreography, and that's what was lacking from this movie.

47:53
Case Aiken
I'm really not convinced that we've watched the same movie.

47:56
Sam Alicea
Yeah, I don't think we watched the same movie at either.

48:00
Vash Trent
Me either. I think you guys watched something different. You're talking like lunatics right now, and I don't get it. It's like you drank the DC punch or the Harley Quinn Punch, and you're not saying, okay, you know what? You're right. This wasn't the greatest movie ever. I've seen better. We've all seen better. And you won't convince me that you haven't.

48:18
Case Aiken
I'm not saying this is the best movie ever. It's not even necessarily my favorite DC.

48:23
Vash Trent
You can't say that.

48:25
Case Aiken
But here's a question.

48:27
Sam Alicea
It's my favorite DC film.

48:28
Case Aiken
While we may have seen different movies, did you listen to the same movie? Because the soundtrack was goddamn baller.

48:40
Sam Alicea
This soundtrack was fucking amazing. This soundtrack was so good. It was so good. I loved this soundtrack. I was bouncing around to everything. It was amazing.

48:52
Vash Trent
You know what was great about this movie? The key grip. Oh, he was great. The key grip. Oh, yeah. You know what? More key grip.

49:02
Sam Alicea
I'm not going to bad talk anyone on the crew.

49:04
Vash Trent
That's right.

49:06
Case Aiken
Now, are you trying to pick a fight with the unions right now? We're not picking fights with the unions on my show right now.

49:11
Vash Trent
No. What I'm saying is you guys are pulling shit out of. Can we curse on this thing? Or you could just bleep it out. Yes. You guys are pulling reasons out of your asses for this movie to have been good. Like, you're pulling at strings or straws. You're pulling at stuff.

49:26
Case Aiken
Grasping at straws.

49:27
Vash Trent
And I'm just like, why? Why are you doing that? Grasping at straws. See, this is why I keep you around, Case.

49:33
Case Aiken
Vash, you did a. What aboutism just now and tried to bring up a different specific aspect of a film, as if that invalidated focusing on aspects of, like. I have it on good authority that the soundtrack is great from people who I trust for music. I really like the soundtrack. And I'll bet you, and I'm going to leave a spot right here that our editor, Matt, also will agree with us.

49:56
Sam Alicea
Yeah. What do you think, Matt? Let us know.

49:59
Speaker 3
Hey, Sam, in case. Thanks so much for asking. I think comparing a soundtrack's power and purpose for a movie to the key grip, while the key grip is definitely very important on set, is an oversimplification and an undermining of the impact that a soundtrack has on a movie. And that's no exception to how important the soundtrack is to Birds of Prey, which is only second to Scott Pilgrim vs.

50:24
Case Aiken
The world.

50:25
Speaker 3
As far as a soundtrack that reminds you of the movie as you listen to it is an excellent example of not only the movie, its flow, its characters, but it is so representative of the world and the characters within that world that it is a flawless addition to this movie and absolutely a key and important part of Birds of Prey. Also, I mean, the tracks are all wall to wall bangers. Every song just absolutely slaps. So there's that, too.

50:56
Case Aiken
Thanks. That's what I thought.

50:57
Vash Trent
Thank you, Matt. I appreciate that.

51:00
Sam Alicea
We appreciate you, Matt.

51:02
Vash Trent
Okay. No, but seriously, back to this crappy ass movie.

51:06
Case Aiken
We got to pivot, because we do actually need to continue, because right now, it's me and Sam loving this movie and Vash not loving this movie. And first up, I think that we should acknowledge that.

51:20
Vash Trent
I feel like I need backup. Like, it's not fair.

51:22
Case Aiken
Well, we should acknowledge that critics didn't love this movie. And I think that there is a good reason why. Outside of that, it was marketed terribly and came out at a really bad time. Like, it came out for me. Perfect time for it to be locked in my memory as the last movie I saw in theaters. But it came out in the death period of movies, like stuff released in January, February.

51:43
Vash Trent
Don't even act like that's the reason this didn't do well. Don't even try it.

51:47
Sam Alicea
It was also not supported. It wasn't really advertised very well. There are several reasons why. Because people are sexist. That's why. No, they knew it was terrible.

51:59
Vash Trent
They were like, this is crap. And they were like, how do we bury this? If I was a CEO of whatever.

52:06
Sam Alicea
I laughed at so much of this movie. I love this movie. I love it.

52:11
Vash Trent
Yeah, but you like dumb stuff like this. This is your thing.

52:17
Sam Alicea
It is so smart. It is so smart. It is so well done. It is so well acted.

52:23
Vash Trent
None of them sentence are true. None of them.

52:26
Sam Alicea
All of them are true. It is so well acted. It is so much fun. It is the perfect lady movie. I saw this in theater as a girl's day out with my girlfriends and it was like absolutely wonderful. We left, leaving this film left theater like on cloud nine because we enjoyed it so much. And were sitting there having such a good time watching all these women from different backgrounds like kick fucking ass and do it in a way that was gritty, brutal and realistic while also having completely off the wall, zany, ridiculous comedy happening at the same time. It was like, honestly, I love this movie. This is in my top five of the current DC movie universe.

53:23
Vash Trent
For me, how could it not be in the top five? There's only five.

53:29
Case Aiken
This one's, I think, considered the 8th because we've got man of Steel, Batman v. Superman, Wonder Woman, Suicide Squad, Justice League, Aquaman, Shazam. Yeah, this is eight. And then 9th is Wonder Woman 84.

53:45
Sam Alicea
Yes.

53:45
Vash Trent
Everybody in the world knows that DC has only made two and a half good movies. They did Batman with Michael Keaton, the Dark Knight, and everything in Batman returns that Michelle Pfeiffer was part of. That's it.

53:59
Sam Alicea
Okay, see, I'm not counting those films. I'm counting like this decade. Like I'm counting like the reboot. I'm not talking about history.

54:07
Vash Trent
It's still only two and a half good movies.

54:09
Case Aiken
It's the DCEU. It's this current push of productions. But I will say that again, while critics didn't love it, even if we did, it only made 201,000,000, which sounds insane that I'm saying it that way on a budget of 100 million, which means that it's probably only about breaking even. Once you get into release costs that go into it, usually the shorthand is you take double the production budget. So while it made its money back and probably had a small amount of additional money, it was not a raging success. And I think a big part of that was also that it was r rated. And I don't think it needed to be r rated. In fact, of all the DCEU movies, this is probably one that ends up needing it the least.

54:57
Case Aiken
And they kind of go out of their way to be less lethal. Like the police storming fight where she's got the beanbag guns and the glitter. Like, that's a very fun way to have an in character reason for her not to be murdering people with a gun and the fact that we end up with some very brutal breaks and a couple extra f bombs pushed it into the r category. When I think that you could have preserved the majority of this and had it be PG 13.

55:24
Sam Alicea
Agreed.

55:25
Vash Trent
And what would that have done?

55:28
Sam Alicea
It would have allowed more people to be able to see it or feel comfortable taking their kids to see it. Things like that.

55:34
Vash Trent
I don't know, because when I saw the trailers, I was like, oh, no, I didn't see the trailer thinking, because at the end of the day, I know we laugh and we joke and stuff, but we all know that any superhero movie I'm going to go see, no matter how good or bad. But when I saw the trailer for this, I was like, and not because it's DC or not because it's a girl or Harley Quinn or anything, just because when the Batman versus Superman trailer came out, I was like, oh my God, this is going to be great. Because the trailer looked good. The movie was terrible, especially since we didn't even get to see Batman meet Superman until an hour into the movie. But that's for another podcast.

56:12
Vash Trent
On another day, I saw this trailer and I was like, this does not look the least but interesting. And it wasn't, and you know it.

56:21
Sam Alicea
When I saw this trailer, I put it on my calendar to go see.

56:26
Vash Trent
I put it on my calendar to not go see.

56:29
Sam Alicea
We could not be more opposite on this. I was so like, oh my God, I actually want to see that movie.

56:37
Vash Trent
I can't figure out why. You haven't even explained. You haven't made me understand why. You just keep saying it was good. It was good, but it wasn't because.

56:45
Sam Alicea
In general, I have been kind of turned off by Harley Quinn. In general. I loved her in the cartoon when I was a kid and the Batman cartoon, and I love the cartoon right now. But from years of going to Comic Con and seeing so many people dress up like her and just kind of like this idea of people on the Internet posting her and putting together and just kind of being turned off by how people kind of could consider that relationship romantic. Personally, I was just know, I'm not really sure about Harley, blah, blah. And then she kind of know in the comics got together with poison Ivy and I was like, oh, intrigued now. And then I saw the trailer for this film and I was just, I'm in.

57:35
Sam Alicea
Like, I was really super surprised how in I was after watching the trailer for this because I have literally, my friends have been like, oh, my daughter wants to dress up as Harley Quinn. I've been like, why? She's not a good role model. Your child should not be dressing as of like. But I loved this movie. I loved it so much, and I wanted to see it right away. Absolutely. Look at. I wish this was a video, Kurt, because I wish people could see Vash's face.

58:10
Vash Trent
I'm just disgusted.

58:14
Case Aiken
All right, Vash, go ahead. Here's the fun part. Because the podcast isn't about us, like, bitching or praising a movie. The podcast is about us trying to constructively criticize in a way that could be utilized if someone were theoretically making the movie at the time and thus, hypothetically, in future writing purposes. Remember, mistakes and possible solutions. It's a thought exercise in terms of narrative development. So let's get into pitches. But before we do, I think we should roll an ad for one of the friends of this podcast from the CPOV network.

58:52
Speaker 3
Hi, I'm Matt, aka Stormageddon, and I'm the host of CPOV autographs@certainpov.com. It is a bi weekly interview series where I interview folks from all over the arts, from writers, comedians, magicians, musicians, even actors, historians, podcasters, pretty much anyone who's willing to chat with me for a little bit. If you like interesting conversations with even more interesting people, go to certainpov.com or wherever you get your podcasts. And remember, music is life, and life is good.

59:22
Vash Trent
Cool.

59:23
Case Aiken
Yeah, we've got so many fun shows@certainpov.com. Lots of fun stuff, like the one you just heard. So in light of that, as the guest who is here and who brought this movie, even though we dramatically tried to convince you not to bring this movie, but you adamantly wanted to talk about it, I wanted to complain about.

59:46
Vash Trent
It, not try to fix it.

59:47
Case Aiken
Well, in a situation where you were either the writer, if you were the director, if you were a producer, if you were the editor, what would you do if you were trying to make this movie more critically acclaimed and more marketable?

01:00:01
Vash Trent
Well, I just want you to know that from this point on, this podcast is going to be about three and a half hours at least, because I don't even know where to begin. I definitely would have fixed the whole Cassandra Cain situation. I would have either, a, made that a different character or B, done something different with that character, one of the two. Because I don't like when you put a character in a movie and then don't put in why that character is so good, for instance. And I know we're supposed to be talking about Harley Quinn. And I'll get back to that. But in X Men Apocalypse, when Cyclops Gene and Nightcrawler are running through the base and they get surrounded by all the guards, and I hit my friend on the shoulder. I said, this is it.

01:00:48
Vash Trent
This is when they're going to finally show us how great Cyclops Gene and Nightcrawler are and they're going to be the greatest X Men ever. What do they do? They call Wolverine for help. And I was like, what? And on top of that, it was Hugh Jackman. I was like, him again. Anyway, I don't like when they don't show you why you love the, this. I love Cassandra Cain. I was very excited she was going to be in the movie. And then I watched the movie and I don't see Cassandra Cain. I see some broad who's saying, yes, I'm Cassandra Cain. Maybe in the part two they'll say she wasn't Cassandra Cain. She saw her name in a phone book. Here's the real Cassandra Cain here. She's a mute assassin.

01:01:29
Vash Trent
That's what I'm hoping for, but I'm not going to take up all the time. I know I'm the guest, but I'll let you guys talk, too, because I know I'm just a one sided opinion, but that was my second biggest gripe, my biggest being the store owner that she just let drive away, because I definitely wouldn't let that happen. You betray me, you die. You die. And it's not going to be an easy death either.

01:01:50
Sam Alicea
So mostly you'd kill that guy and change one character.

01:01:54
Vash Trent
How? He didn't die. How did he not die? I don't get it. I don't get it. I've seen this movie two times. The second time I watched it, which was earlier today, much to my chagrin, by the way. I'm sitting here watching, I'm like, oh, he about to die. And no, he drove off into the sunset and I was like, why am I not only watching this, but fights? I can't get past that. That really bugged me. I think those are my two biggest gripes, other than the fact that the villain was non. What's, what's the word for non? Memorable. Like, you're not going to remember them. The villain was forgettable. The villain was forgettable.

01:02:35
Sam Alicea
You forgot that word.

01:02:37
Vash Trent
You're having a good time.

01:02:38
Sam Alicea
It was forgettable.

01:02:39
Vash Trent
Really good time, aren't you? I hope you're.

01:02:42
Sam Alicea
No, go ahead. I'm sorry. So the villain was forgettable. I am having a good time. Thank you for coming on our podcast.

01:02:53
Vash Trent
Sam.

01:02:53
Case Aiken
How about you? Do you have things that you would do in some mean?

01:02:59
Sam Alicea
I think that, for me, this is very hard, right. Because I loved this movie, and I think that everyone who's listened to this knows that. I think, if anything, I might tighten up some of the sequences. Even though I really enjoyed the fight scenes. I think a couple of them went on a little long, and clearly they went on longer than a vash attention span could go. So maybe just shorten them up by a couple of minutes here or there. Also, I agree with you on the rated r. Really, pg 13 would have been fine. There was no reason to kind of push the Deadpool envelope on this one. I think it would have been perfectly fine and marketable. I really liked the diamond is a girl's best friend moment, but also, I wasn't sure if it was completely necessary.

01:03:50
Sam Alicea
Like, it was, like, a fun thing. And I do, as I've said before on this podcast, I do think that Joker and Harley Quinn are one of the few villains that can go into musical numbers. And I always support musical numbers, but I think. I'm not sure how much it really served the film. It was like a fun moment and kind of gave us a moment into our psyche, but I don't know if it had to go on as long as it did.

01:04:17
Case Aiken
I loved it and also was pretty short, so I wasn't that worried about that.

01:04:23
Sam Alicea
Like, you're like, leave it alone, Samantha. Leave it alone. And then I guess if we're talking about more marketable, I really enjoyed, as you and I talked about the jumping back and forth and kind of that thing. But I think that possibly was very jarring to other people. So maybe make it a little more linear, even though I personally think that's boring. That's not my personal thing, but I think in terms of marketing for the general public, I guess maybe. No, I take it back. I liked it too much. Forget it. This movie was great. Thank you for letting me watch it again, Vash. I watched it, like, three times since you picked it.

01:05:04
Vash Trent
There's something wrong with you.

01:05:06
Case Aiken
No, there's nothing wrong with her. It's a great movie, and she made the right choice to watch it multiple times.

01:05:12
Vash Trent
You saying that sounds like one member in an insane asylum, saying the other member is not crazy, like you're in the same boat. You can't say there's not something wrong with her.

01:05:22
Case Aiken
Well, I mean, we're clearly an Arkham together. It's fine because I also really like this movie. And like I said, I would make it pg 13 or try to get it to pg 13 because unlike the Deadpool movies, where part of the joke was like, how gruesome and violent it was. And so you have a lot of wounds and so forth that are going to push the envelope of an r rating anyway. This movie didn't really require it. There's two very graphic pairs of legs being broken. And aside from that, there isn't a lot of violence that couldn't be shot in such a way that it wouldn't be a pg 13. You don't necessarily need close up shots on the mask scenes or, like the black mask cutting the faces off of people.

01:06:05
Case Aiken
And most of the other fight stuff is just normal fight stuff. It's like punches, kicks. Yeah, sure. There's this whole thing about Harley Quinn oftentimes doing throat jabs to silence men who are trying to say stuff to her, which I think is a perfectly fine expression of the sort of frustration that this movie generally has. But I think that would just sort of help get more butts in the seat because then you can more easily get teenagers in. And in a lot of cases, I think the humor of this would be good, and I think it, frankly, would be good for a lot of the young male comic fans to have a strong female empowerment movie for them.

01:06:40
Sam Alicea
I feel like if this was a Joker film, this would have been super popular.

01:06:44
Case Aiken
Yeah. And I was thinking about this, like, the Suicide Squad Joker plot, which I think is terrible in that movie, would work better in this movie. It would have to end with Harley rejecting the Joker, but it would fit better because that movie just didn't need it. It was just way too much shit. And this movie could fit in better in part because of the crazy editing. The other things I was thinking about, again, Cassandra Cain, I think you got a totally different name now that we've said it. I think that the girl from Batman year one is the best choice because that's actually the only canonical pickpocket I can think of that we really care about outside of Jason Todd trying to steal the hubcaps off of the Batmobile when he was first introduced post crisis.

01:07:23
Case Aiken
But, like, yeah, Cassandra Cain is just not that character. And there are fans who aggressively are protective of that and fans who also just latched onto quotes. Like Gail Simone loved this movie when she saw a preview screening of it and she went online and said, hey, I love this movie. It was annoying that Cassandra Cain wasn't the Cassandra Cain from the comics and fans took that snippet and used that in all this hate media about birds of prey. So I think get rid of that.

01:07:48
Sam Alicea
Right?

01:07:49
Case Aiken
And then I think that they missed a golden opportunity because they weren't familiar enough with animal physiology to have a fun joke in there, which is that the hyena Bruce, they're like, very cute. Bruce is a delightful hyena, but also Bruce is a girl. Yeah, because male hyenas don't get that big. Female hyenas usually are in the ballpark of 30 pounds heavier than male hyenas. And that, I think, would be a really fun detail because female hyenas also have, like, the weird. This is such a weird thing. So for a long time, people thought that hyenas were universally hermaphroditic because they have enlarged clitorises. Clitoris. Wow, that's a weird word to say out loud when you're not used to saying that out loud. And it's so pronounced that people thought that they were phalluses.

01:08:33
Case Aiken
And so it would not be weird because scientists literally thought that they were looking at males only to discover, oh, no, wait, those are actually females. So for Bruce to be revealed to be a female and yet another one of this girl power thing would be a really funny gag at the end of the movie.

01:08:48
Sam Alicea
That would have been amazing. I think, actually we should just make that head cannon. Bruce is a female hyena.

01:08:53
Case Aiken
It has to be just based on the size. Otherwise it has steroids. Because again, male hyenas are like labrador size. Female hyenas are like that. They're in the ballpark of like a panther.

01:09:07
Sam Alicea
Well, you heard it here first, folks. Possibly that Bruce is a.

01:09:13
Case Aiken
No and no one dead, clearly. But that's just the thing about hyenas, which I love. And again, I think that it was a missed opportunity to have a joke of her being like, we found because at the end of the movie she finds Bruce. And so you could have had a shot of her taking it to a vet and being like, bruce is a girl and just rolled with like, it would have been really fun.

01:09:34
Vash Trent
Maybe in part two when they reveal the real.

01:09:37
Case Aiken
I mean, there's so. There's so many fun things you could do with the. Like, it is annoying that the birds of Prey, it takes so long to get them together and that they're not really the focus because Harley Quinn is the person telling the story. So I think the title change that they made during the later part of theatrical run to change it to Harley Quinn Colon Birds of Prey. As much as I like the original title and how long winded it is, it does change the focus to be on Harley Quinn, which is what this movie is about.

01:10:03
Sam Alicea
Right.

01:10:03
Case Aiken
But in a future Birds of Prey movie, a Renee Montoya who becomes the question would be a lot of know. I actually rather enjoyed the huntress and black canary costumes that we see at the very end of the movie, especially the goggles that huntress has is really cool. So I could really dig a future Birds of Prey movie.

01:10:23
Sam Alicea
Agreed.

01:10:24
Case Aiken
Focuses on them. So that's all fun and fine. And I would like to see sell the movie as being a Harley Quinn PG 13 movie that everyone will enjoy and then shock everyone with. Like, man, that violence is really extreme. Except that violence also happens in fucking Power Rangers, too, so it's not really that violent. Yeah, and just roll with it.

01:10:46
Vash Trent
I forgot about there was a Power Rangers movie.

01:10:48
Case Aiken
Well, yeah. I mean, I was thinking more just like the live action shows because that's the same deal. Or the original. Like you said, 66 Batman has Batman's punching everyone, and the only thing that they're doing to keep the contacts from happening is they have the POw and bam effects occur to block the actual camera shot of someone getting punched in the face. Well, so if you needed to make that work.

01:11:10
Vash Trent
Fuck.

01:11:10
Case Aiken
This is the movie where it would fit. Like, Harley Quinn could be envisioning pows and blams in her head while fight sequences are happening. And you could hide some of those hits if you had to.

01:11:21
Sam Alicea
Yeah, you could.

01:11:22
Case Aiken
And I think it would be a lot of fun.

01:11:24
Vash Trent
So at the end of the day, this is a terrible movie. I do have a trivia. Not a question, but something that I know you guys probably already know it. Did you know? Because we all know. I love the 1966 Batman tv series. Matter of fact, I could probably recite every episode. I'm a really big fan. Did you know that Yvonne Craig was. They were like, she can be Batgirl, but she's not allowed to punch anybody. She's only allowed to kick or hit them with things, which is why she kept going bookcases on them and hitting them with gloves and stuff. And she could kick, but she was not allowed to punch a man.

01:12:03
Case Aiken
I think I've heard that before.

01:12:04
Vash Trent
Or just not allowed to punch. That's what I know.

01:12:07
Case Aiken
Yeah, that sounds familiar. It's kind of like how I forget the name of the show, but it was like the Cosby cop drama that he was in. He wasn't allowed to shoot a white man unless another white man had already shot the guy. Man. Racism and sexism in tv used to be a big problem. Still is.

01:12:25
Sam Alicea
Who would have thunk?

01:12:27
Case Aiken
Hopefully it's less so. Very good.

01:12:30
Sam Alicea
Fingers crossed. Well, at least we have a birds of prey movies to help with that.

01:12:37
Vash Trent
Can we get to the real subject here? I want one of those microphones, and I want it now. Like right now. I'm so jealous. The two of you look like you're on it. Do you guys take pictures like this? Just take a picture because you guys really look like you're a podcast, especially with your headphones on. Case. Like, you guys look like almost like, what's the guy's name? Howard Stern and whatever. You're in a real podcast for a second. When we first started this, I was like, oh, my God. I'm not prepared for this. I want to be a part of this now.

01:13:11
Case Aiken
Well, I think we'll have to have you back on. We do have all kinds of wonderful shows@certainpov.com that deal with all variety of subject matter, like our newly added show comics Quest, which is a general dive into comics not so much as the history, but more as like, a reading list. Like, here are really good stories that if you want to tell your friends about a comic and be like, oh, I want to get into comics, where do I start? This is a show that goes through and introduces you to ones, some from the big two, some independent publishing. Great stuff. We also recently added panelology, which is a weekly roundup of what just came out. Alex has been a part of the network with the Rob Thomas. No, not that one. Rob cast for a long time now.

01:13:53
Case Aiken
And it's great that we finally brought over his other show into our fold. So that stuff you can find@certainpov.com. You can also find a link to our discord server there. We're having this call on discord right now. You can come just talk with us directly, share memes. It's a great time. So that's what I'm doing. Sam, what have you got going?

01:14:11
Sam Alicea
You know, socially distancing, wearing, know, like a cool person. That's what I've got going on, Vash.

01:14:20
Case Aiken
Plugs. What plugs you got?

01:14:21
Vash Trent
Right now, the biggest thing I have going on is my transformer Instagram account, trigger happy 77. It's trigger happy, but with two Q's instead of two G's because the two G's were taken, which. Who the hell is trigger happy 77? Matter of fact, now, I didn't think about it. I'm going to look that up and see who has that name.

01:14:41
Case Aiken
But anyway, I have a feeling that is someone's probably a little bit maga.

01:14:46
Vash Trent
Oh, you might be right. You might be right. My Transformers collection is growing. I'm taking pictures and putting them on the Instagram account. Follow me if you like. If you're into Transformers, even if you're not, and you want to see just what's going on with me, that's all I've got going on right now.

01:15:03
Case Aiken
I feel like we should wrap up this episode. This has been another pass. You can find it@certainpov.com. Sam, take us home.

01:15:10
Sam Alicea
Sure. Next time on this show, we'll be talking Highlander two, the quickening. But until then, if you enjoyed the show, pass it on.

01:15:25
Speaker 3
Thanks for listening to certain point of views.

01:15:28
Case Aiken
Another pass podcast. Don't miss an episode.

01:15:31
Speaker 3
Just subscribe and review the show on iTunes. Just go to certainpov.com.

01:15:54
Case Aiken
He lives in New York. He knows what Kavech means.

01:16:03
Sam Alicea
Are you tired of watching your beloved characters being tortured by careless authors? Are you sick of feeling like they could have swapped out all of the painful action and the plot would remain untouched? Subscribe to books that burn the fortnightly book review podcast. Focusing on fictional depictions of trauma, we assume that the characters reactions are reasonable and focus on how badly or well they were served by their authors. Join us for our minor character spotlights, main character discussions, and favorite non traumatic things in the dark books we love.

01:16:31
Speaker 3
Hi, I'm Matt, aka Stormageddon, and I'm the host of CPOV autographs@certainpov.com. It is a bi weekly interview series where I interview folks from all over the arts, from writers, comedians to magicians to musicians, even actors, historians, podcasters, pretty much anyone who's willing to chat with me for a little bit. If you like interesting conversations with even more interesting people, go to certainpov.com or wherever you get your podcasts. And remember, music is life, and life is good.

01:17:01
Case Aiken
Cpov certainpov.com.