Another Pass at The Shadow

The weed of crime bears bitter fruit! The “weed” being the legendary pulp fiction franchise, The Shadow, and the “bitter fruit” being the 1994 box office bomb inspired by it. Do Case and Sam, along with special guest Pat Edwards, dare learn what evil lurks in the heart of this film?

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Transcription

(AI Generated. Subject to Error.)

00:00
Sam
I just want. And I want you to know, before we get into this, I have feelings about this movie. And I fell asleep and it took me 48 hours to get through. It was hard. It was hard. Guys.

00:18
Pat Edwards
Welcome to certain point of views. Another pass podcast. Be sure to subscribe, rate and review on iTunes. Just go to certainpov.com.

00:29
Case
Hey, everyone, and welcome to another pass podcast. I'm case Aiken, and as always, I am joined by my co host, Sam Alicea.

00:36
Sam
Hello.

00:38
Case
And today we are going to find out what evil lurks in the hearts of men, because only one person knows what that is, and that person is Pat Edwards.

01:06
Pat Edwards
Hi, all my buddies. When I'm introduced on, like, a podcast or something, that is a very obscure reference to thrilling adventure hour. I don't know if either of you are familiar.

01:14
Case
I am not.

01:15
Sam
I am not.

01:15
Pat Edwards
Okay. It was a live stage show, but also was a podcast that was put on by Ben Acker and Ben Blacker. They're like prolific TV writers. They wrote a couple of seasons of supernatural. It had a consistent group of actors. Paul F. Tompkins, busy Phillips, Nathan Fillion was in and out a lot. Hal Lublin, a lot of famous, a lot of good voice actors. Mark, Evan Jackson. And they did this live show, but it was on stage, but it was all in the style of an old timey radio play. And they had all these little vignettes, and they had a few that were super consistent, like sparks, Nevada, martial on Mars. So it was like kind of like space opera. It was like a western on Mars. And the Martians were stand ins for Native Americans, and he's the marshal of the whole planet.

02:07
Pat Edwards
And they would do this thing beyond belief, which was Paul F. Tompkins and Paget Brewster. She was in, like, crazy criminal minds. She's been a ton of stuff playing this roaring 20s or thirty s New York socialite couple who can see ghosts and battles supernatural things. And they would always start at the beginning of that segment. They would go, who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? And then one of them would go, as long as evil is carrying the Martini, Drake. Because they're thinking Trey. Because their thing is, they were drunks and they would always be, like, shit faced while they were fighting ghosts.

02:41
Case
I mean, that fits very well with what we're talking about today. Yeah. Because today's movie is a superhero story with a three drink minimum. Today we are talking about the shadow.

02:52
Pat Edwards
Yes. I'm so excited. Sam is not as excited as I am. That's okay. Don't worry. I brought enough excitement for everyone.

03:02
Sam
I appreciate that you did. And I will say that there are things that I did like about this movie. There were just not enough of them for me to be excited about this.

03:15
Pat Edwards
Should. Should we do the genesis of why this episode is?

03:19
Case
Yeah, yeah. If we're lucky, this will come out at about the same time. So let's find.

03:23
Pat Edwards
Okay, so we're going to go off of not release schedule, but recording. We myself, Pat, I'm part of a podcast on the same network, certain POV. Let's rewatch. And we did the shadow for that. And while I was watching Shadow and I made this joke on the rewatch episode that halfway through I stopped being part of let's rewatch and started being part of another pass because all I could think about was how I would make this awesome. Because there are so many little pieces that I would love to just rearrange. And I just want to talk about this movie more because there's so many choices that were made that I'm like, why did you do that 1000%?

04:05
Sam
This movie, I feel like this is a movie where there was a hat with possible outcomes when they were writing it, and they're like, okay, what are we going to have them do next? And they're like, I don't know. Stick your hand in the hat. And they pulled it out and they were like a bomb. That's what's going to happen next. That's how I feel this movie was created. I don't feel like they even thought about it. They didn't even try to be like, well, why would he do that? Why would he do that? Let's not spend time talking about that. Let's just do it. I was like, yes. What the frail? This is someone's fever dream. This is a very beautiful. It is such a beautiful. The sets are awesome, and they do such a good job at creating a world.

05:01
Sam
I mean, it doesn't necessarily feel like authentic New York, but it feels authentic in the sense that everything in the design fits right. So everything in the movie fits together, and it feels like an error and like a comic unto itself. But then they just make these batshit crazy choices, and you're like, why?

05:26
Pat Edwards
Yeah, I agree with you. I think it looks great and it's consistent throughout.

05:32
Sam
Costuming is great. Costuming is great also.

05:35
Pat Edwards
I say costuming is 99% great. There's one area, there's a big one that we'll talk about.

05:41
Sam
It may not be, like, culturally accurate for a lot of people.

05:47
Pat Edwards
That, too.

05:48
Sam
And the prosthetics whether they were.

05:52
Pat Edwards
We'll just say that the costumers almost hit it right on the nose, but not quite.

05:56
Sam
Oh, I like that. But I will say that I thought that everybody looked really good all of the time.

06:06
Case
Yeah, 100% on that.

06:08
Pat Edwards
The cast is bananas.

06:11
Sam
Ian McKellen is wasted.

06:14
Case
Well, yes, but also, Ian McKellen was very not early in his career, obviously, but he wasn't as well known to american audiences at that point.

06:23
Sam
He's got like four lines.

06:26
Pat Edwards
Case, do you have that stuff, like, ready or in front of you at all just going down the line? No, the cast, because you got Alec Baldwin, Ian McKellen, Tim Curry, and then tons of recognizable faces and people. You've seen the actor who played Shiwan Khan, he's been in stuff. He was the bad guy in the second rush hour movie.

06:47
Sam
Yeah, I think he was also in John Loan. Yeah.

06:51
Pat Edwards
Peter Boyle, Jonathan Winters, tons of recognizable faces.

06:57
Case
Yeah. I mean, there are movies where we sort of have to hold ourselves back from saying, like, oh, yeah, we need to recast this part. But they cast that person for cloud or for name recognition or whatever. This movie, I don't feel ever needs to be recast per se. I think every single person is like, yeah, that's a 100% solid choice to be in that part. And it's actually kind of an incredible get.

07:22
Pat Edwards
And then I love the aesthetic of this movie. And I don't know if you did research on that case. It comes at that time in the 90s when they were just. Because Batman, the first Batman had come out in 1989. And you know how it's that great adage and we talk about is that studios love to take the wrong lesson from successful movies, and they're like, oh, people want pre war, pre World War II era adventure movies. So we're going to give them the Phantom and the Rocketeer and the Shadow and Dark man and all those. That's. What about Batman? Is that pseudo 1930s aesthetic. That's what made Batman great, right?

08:07
Case
Because all the studio heads at this point were like, oh, yeah, when I was a kid, I liked Batman. I liked Dick Tracy, I liked the shadow, I liked Phantom. And all the studio heads are like, yeah, that sounds great. We'll green like that. Because that's what kids like, right?

08:20
Pat Edwards
Yes, kids love kids of the 90s. Love pre war aesthetic.

08:27
Sam
Yes.

08:28
Case
I mean, some of that is not untrue. I'm a nerd. I acknowledge this.

08:40
Sam
Shocking no end this podcast now. I can't believe the news. Go on. Kay, sorry, breaking news here.

08:48
Case
But I used to track down, like, the pulp fiction adventures of the Shadow. And I have a whole bunch of the radio shows on CD and cassette, and I was very into it. And in the ballpark of probably this movie is the thing that got me to first seek it out just based on timing of things. But I was very into the idea when the movie was announced, I was like, oh, that's really cool. And I don't know. For me, finding out about a superhero that people have forgotten about, I get really excited. That's just the thing I like to do. I like to do research.

09:18
Pat Edwards
Yeah, Shadow's like super OG. I mean, the creator of Batman cited Shadow as an influence on Batman, the supposed creator of. Okay, sorry. Yes.

09:29
Case
The person who claims to have created. Absolutely. And there's some interesting conversations to be had about the origins and then the perpetual fandom of the respective characters. How familiar are the two of you with the franchise as a whole, not just this movie?

09:50
Sam
I mean, other than knowing that it was like a radio mystery. I haven't really listened to the old stuff, but I do know that much.

10:00
Pat Edwards
Just because of our episode on Rewatch, I am. Because I hosted. Hosted it where I was the person who did the research. I was the research jockey for that episode. So strictly for that, I now know a lot more about the shadow than I did, like, three weeks ago.

10:14
Sam
Full disclosure.

10:15
Case
Yeah. So for the people who are not familiar with it, basically what happened is that the shadow was created initially as announcer for a radio series, kind of akin to the crypt keeper from Tales of the Crypt. So they would do, like, crime stories, and he would narrate the opening and closing kind of stuff. And kids were really interested in that. People really dug that idea. So the producers were like, hey, why don't we try to flesh out this character a bit? And so I say kind of sort of created pulp fiction, at least as we sort of define it, because I would argue that pulp Fiction has always existed and continues to exist.

10:48
Case
But what usually people refer to when they talk about pulp fiction started around this time where it was like very cheap paperbacks that people could buy that had some illustrations, had really striking covers, and were often either short stories that were like, exciting adventures or serialized stories that were exciting adventures. And so they had the shadow in that and had a whole bunch of crazy adventures that when they decided that they wanted to adapt it into a proper radio show about the character, they were like, we can't use any of this. So they didn't. And they have basically a totally unique character for the radio show who has psychic powers.

11:23
Case
Now, the weird part about how that all works and how it's like, oh, well, he can hypnotize people, so you can't see him is that it works really well for radio as a narrative device. If you compare the shadow with the Superman radio shows, they actually have almost the exact same structure of every conflict because effectively, the shadow is invulnerable. Like, they can't have violence, really. He's just able to observe, and if he shows up, he can just stop you and you can't do anything about it. And that's always just the shadow. And it's the same deal with Superman. He heard you from afar. He jumped in, I'm going to shoot you. Bang, bang. Nothing happens. And then it's the same actual arcs of how those work.

12:02
Case
It works really well for radio shows, and that's actually why Batman doesn't work as a radio show. They kept trying to do pilots for Batman radio shows, and it just never worked because it's just, you're not getting anything that's interesting about Batman by hearing his voice. Kevin Conroy aside, you're not getting the costume. You're not getting any of the cool, moody, dark drawings or anything like that. You lose all of it. There's no hook. And so it just never really clicked that way. So the shadow continued on to the 50s as long as radio serials about superheroes were popular and went about as long as the Superman show. And that worked that way. Batman didn't, and it did not have the huge pop culture appeal.

12:48
Case
But Batman had more successful loose finger quotes on that one, like movie serials that then later, infamously, the story about how the 66 Batman show happened was that at the Playboy mansion, they decided one night to basically do a mystery science theater 3000 night, watching the old Batman serials and all, just getting drunk and making fun of it. And a producer there was like, fuck. Adults really like making fun of Batman. We should make a show about this. And that's 66 Batman.

13:21
Pat Edwards
So they were intentionally then making it, like, as campy as fucking possible because they.

13:25
Case
Oh, yeah, it was intended for adults to laugh at while the kids enjoyed.

13:30
Pat Edwards
Well, I'll say about the shadow, just if anyone doubts how big of a deal the shadow was in its heyday, fucking Orson Wells played the shadow for a short period of time.

13:38
Sam
Yes.

13:40
Case
And that is the thing that they talk about a lot in this, because everyone's just like, it's a part that was originated by Orson Wells, which is kind of crazy to think about. But, yeah, so the shadow didn't really. Once it had moved on, he had comic books. It never really worked out as much. The shadow benefits, actually, from not being able to see him that much. The COVID after that. Yeah, exactly. It's his thing. And so, as a result, visual media don't really play nice with his power set. But, yeah, so then the character is mostly just known for these taglines and all this stuff. And then you get to the era of people being like, well, let's just make the wrong movies. And, man, did they want to make Batman when they made this. Of all of them.

14:31
Case
This is the one where the score sounds just like the Batman score. Yeah. So Jerry Goldsmith, like, previously had just done Supergirl, and his whole shtick basically was, like, trying to make scores that sound a lot like other superhero soundtracks.

14:44
Pat Edwards
I mean, if you watch this and the 89 Batman, like, close together, you would be like, holy shit. Because it's biting the style very hard.

14:54
Case
Yeah. They even have things that sound like bat sound effects. Like, there's, like, one big swooping shot through the city going to Reinhardt Lane's lab, and the music sounds just like Batman, and there's this skittering sound that's just bats.

15:10
Pat Edwards
Yeah, but should we start? Do we go through the movie kind of play by tight? Because the opening scene. Should we talk about the opening?

15:22
Sam
Yeah, I think we need to talk about the elephant in the room. Appropriation, I think. Because if we're going to talk about the opening scene specifically, which so grandly sets it up, I think we got to talk about that. Yes. His real name is a chinese name. Yeah. And I actually wrote to case at one point. Maybe it wasn't case. Maybe it was actually my boyfriend. I was like, what language is he speaking? Because I couldn't tell what Alec Bolden. Like, what language he was trying to speak. I now know it's Mandarin because later on in the movie, but. Oh, my God. Okay, someone else needs to talk about this.

16:20
Pat Edwards
I think his real name is Lamont Cranston. His warlord name was Yinko.

16:26
Case
Right. And supposedly, and I haven't been able to find much specific IMDb trivia, says that it's not actually words that he says whenever he's speaking, quote unquote, mandarin. Really, it's just sounds, which is terrible.

16:43
Pat Edwards
That's not even worse. How hard would that have been to just hear, say this? That would not have been hard to do.

16:52
Sam
It's rough.

16:53
Case
It was 1994, so I can imagine it being. Well, I say that, but then there is actually a surprising number of asian actors in this movie.

17:02
Sam
It's like they were, like, trying to make up for it, but also not like, I don't know. This whole movie has a hard on for Asia, but not in a good way at all.

17:15
Case
And.

17:17
Sam
It'S weird. It's weird.

17:20
Case
It's a hard part about the shadow when you're trying to adapt him because the opening narration of the radio show talks about how he goes off to the Orient. And that's where he learned the oriental tricks of clouding men's minds with hypnosis. That's baked into the official story. That was what most people know. And again, that's only the radio show. The pulps actually have a totally different kind of vibe on all that. He actually has no superpowers in the pulps. He's just good at sneaking around. So it's different things kind of going on there. But they decided that they were like, let's just play it up. Let's just lean into it as opposed.

17:59
Sam
To doing anything else in the original. I wanted to ask this because I don't know if you know, was he an opium dealer in the original? Do you know?

18:10
Pat Edwards
No.

18:11
Case
So they create a backstory on that one. They actually make it worse. He always was like someone who went off.

18:18
Pat Edwards
He's like a drug warlord.

18:20
Sam
Yeah, he's a drug warlord that is peddling opium in China. And then the monks basically snatch him up to basically balance him out because he knows darkness, so he'll be able to do this. And they give him a good heart, but he knows darkness, so then he can help them fight darkness.

18:46
Pat Edwards
That whole transition is.

18:47
Case
It's terrible.

18:48
Pat Edwards
Yeah, because he has zero desire to be a good guy, and all of a sudden he's down for it. We cut to. Yes. That whole scene is so bananas. From the fucking nails.

19:03
Sam
Just his whole outfit. Okay. The whole outfit. This is the one outfit.

19:07
Case
The other terrible prosthetic in this.

19:09
Sam
The wig. The wig is the worst wig. I was just like, they could not find a good wig for this guy. This is the one place they cut the budget on this wig. I can get a good wig at Halloween.

19:24
Case
Oh, it's not the one place.

19:25
Pat Edwards
Come on. It was really good of them, though. It was really fortunate they were able to lease that temple from Cobra commander, though.

19:33
Sam
First of all. Okay, so did the weird anthropomorphic knife. Is that what convinced him to be a good guy? Did it beat him into submission? Was it like it dancing around in front of him and being like, whoa, the monks got a point. I should be a good guy because of this weird ass fucking knife, which.

19:59
Pat Edwards
Is preview comes the future. The knife was my biggest sticking point for my pitch. I'm like, what am I going to do with this? I literally wrote my notes. What am I going to do with this knife?

20:13
Sam
First of all? Yeah, I also have no idea what I would do with the knife. But was that the thing, guys? Because the monk is like, basically, his master is basically like, you're going to face this knife, and it basically goes after him. And then afterwards, it's like, okay, he's going to be good now. Was it the night? Yeah.

20:45
Case
He's never even excited about the prospect of the powers or anything. That's the weird part. He just transitions from being shown that there are superpowers. So this movie is just completely, like, the exact structure. And to be fair, Doctor Strange ripped it off from this. But the weird part about that with this movie is that there isn't the moment of just teach me, like, when Doctor Strange is like, oh, shit, there's weird stuff. Can I learn? He never expresses an interest in learning. He never expresses remorse or guilt for doing anything. And there's a lot of ways you can make it work. This movie just decides not to do any of it.

21:28
Sam
Yeah, okay. He's also just got an obsession, right? Like, the first date he goes out with the female lead, he takes her to have pinking duck. There's just like a whole bunch of things. Second thing I'm most offended by is the description of my hometown in this.

21:50
Pat Edwards
Movie, the vial den of villainy or whatever.

21:53
Sam
I took a picture of it because I was so mad. I was like. Thus armed, Cranston returned to his homeland that most wretched layer of villainy we know as New York City. Fuck you. The.

22:08
Pat Edwards
Don't. Don't you know, us midwesterners, we're just afraid of the big city out big. It's just full of crime. Don't you know? We just like our quiet mean. I'm a Midwesterner. Just in case anyone doesn't realize that.

22:25
Sam
He can make jokes like this.

22:26
Case
A Midwesterner from the home of Al Capone.

22:29
Pat Edwards
Yeah, I'm originally from Chicago. Not really. I know. That's very different.

22:35
Sam
Take that villainy.

22:38
Pat Edwards
Arguably the most famous real gangster of all.

22:41
Case
Right?

22:42
Pat Edwards
You know, Chicago, that bastion of lawfulness.

22:47
Sam
And calm and no crime, nothing. But just, like, I was, like, watching. Because after watching basically the first half seed and just being like, what the hell am I watching? And then reading that, I was like, oh, no, you don't movie. I can't believe you. I was just like, wow.

23:15
Case
Yeah, that whole opening, because they don't do the work is so frustrating. They do everything but the important scenes of that flashback, and then they do a text crawl, and then they do what should have been just the cold opening of the get it.

23:34
Pat Edwards
Okay. Don't get ahead.

23:35
Case
I know we're not trying to get into pitches yet, because here's the thing. So this movie comes out right after Batman returns and also right after Dick Tracy. So that's where it falls in the sort of history of these pulp fiction adaptations, which, side note, I still can't get over that the only fucking adaptation of Doc Savage we've ever gotten was the fucking man of Bronze in the 70s. But moving on. So I get that they're trying to make things not just beat for Beat Batman. And again, we're talking about movies that come after. It's also beat for beat Batman begins, which is also the same thing as.

24:12
Pat Edwards
I mean, and Iron Fist, both of those rich white guy from New York goes to the far east to learn abilities. It's all fucked up, it's all shitty, it's all racist.

24:22
Case
But the thing is, those at least have a modicum of story structure that makes it important. The whole opening scene, aside from being like, well, we're going to see him meet the. I forget the name of the one who trains him.

24:36
Pat Edwards
Tolku. It's Tolku.

24:37
Case
Tolku.

24:38
Pat Edwards
Yeah.

24:38
Case
It's like, why? Again, as we keep saying, he's shown to be terrible. And I get that was an inclusion that they introduced to sort of like, give him pathos and sort of an arc of being like, oh, he's a bad guy who's trying to take what's bad about him, his dark soul, and make him, and use it as a force for good.

24:59
Pat Edwards
But he's not trying to do that. It was forced onto him.

25:03
Case
Right, exactly. That's the thing. It's forced on him. He's not even excited at the prospect of power that leads him down a path. You could imagine someone who is like a soul like this, finding out about the force and becoming a Jedi and becoming very stoic and restrained because the power itself enticed him and maybe even stays on the correct path. None of that. None of that. It's just like he gets stabbed a couple of times and be like, well, now I'm going to teach you about fucking hypnotism.

25:30
Sam
This is a big issue with me for the movie. I just don't understand because there's nothing in him that is like, oh, yeah, I do want to turn over a new leaf for that kind of thing because Dr. Strange kind of has that, right. Like, he has this loss. He loses his ability as a surgeon. And so he's searching for something because he's lost who he is, right? There's nothing here for. So, like, when. When Khan shows up and is like, join me and we can be powerful, what stops. Don't. I didn't understand what would stop him from taking that sweet deal of using his powers. Like, oh, yeah, okay, cool. Why are we walking this straight and narrow path? I don't understand. There's no motivation.

26:26
Case
This movie starts with the supposition that the shadow is the good guy.

26:30
Sam
Right?

26:30
Case
Even if they try to make him mudied. And I mean, he's a dick.

26:35
Sam
Oh, no, he's fucking awful. He's like a really?

26:38
Pat Edwards
Even as the shadow, even when he's a good guy, he's a dickhead. He's a jerk to his people. Like his indentured servants.

26:46
Sam
Yeah. He's just basically like, I saved your life, so you're my slave now.

26:53
Pat Edwards
Okay. Is the first person, when he came back to New York that he saved, was the first person he saved a jeweler, so he could make those rings?

27:03
Sam
He could make them absolutely 1000%.

27:08
Pat Edwards
So he just followed a jeweler around. I'm going to wait till they're in trouble. They'll be the first person I save. And then I'm like, you're my agent.

27:14
Sam
He probably set them up for being in trouble.

27:17
Pat Edwards
Yeah, he paid someone to mug him or something so he could save them. And then he's like, all right, you're going to make me, like 30 of these rings.

27:26
Sam
Yeah, I don't know. Oh, my gosh. This movie.

27:31
Pat Edwards
Okay, operator. As far as him being rich. As far as him being rich, I thought, I guess he's rich. His family or something. But I was browsing the IMDb trivia. There's like a novelization of the movie and there's extended stuff. Apparently, even though he's a good guy now, he took his wealth that he accumulated as a opium warlord, so his drug money with him back to New York. And that's how he's funded his mansion and his whole system. Yes.

28:00
Sam
It just makes everything so much worse.

28:04
Case
Oh, yeah. When you shine a light on this shadow, it gets less and less substantial.

28:12
Pat Edwards
I see what you did there.

28:16
Case
Sorry, just the side note, also how fucking racist. Like, all right, I have opium fields because I'm in China, the whole opium wars were about chinese people being like. Or the chinese government being like, stop Britain importing opium. Fuck you guys. You're turning us into a drug then. And they're like, no, fuck you. We're going to keep bringing drugs in. That is western imperialist like, rewriting of.

28:38
Pat Edwards
I mean, it wears it on its sleeve when he interrupts. I mean, we'll get to it later. When he's like, you're talking about the US of A, bud later, he's like, it's very, yes, very jingleistic.

28:48
Sam
Even freaking poor Khan. Like, poor Lang has to say this line where he's just like, my mongolian warriors are not very smart, but they're loyal. And I was like, oh, I would have hated to be an asian actor who had to say that out loud. Yeah, I get it. Henchmen aren't usually smart, but also, this whole movie is just so fucking.

29:16
Pat Edwards
How about art? His chief henchman is a white guy in mongolian armor.

29:23
Sam
Oh, my God. Yeah. First of all, I don't even think that's really mongolian armor. It looks so much more like japanese style. It looks so much more samurai. And I decided not generically exotic. I decided not to look it up because I was like, it's just going to make me.

29:40
Pat Edwards
Are you implying that the creators of this incredibly nuanced and sensitive movie did not do the research on what is authentic Jingis Khan era mongolian warrior armor? I don't believe it.

29:56
Sam
I was just like, I have a very clear picture of what Genghis Khan looked like and what he wore, and it's definitely not that. And I was like, and I'm not going to look it up, but how dare I insinuate that? How dare I? They were so responsible with everything else.

30:17
Case
It's rough because clearly what they're trying to do is they're trying to lean in with the very racist radio show overtones, and they're trying to make kind of a joke about it, but in ways that are, like, a little dumb. And if you're not really paying attention, you might think that they're overly serious at most points and just not in good taste. Anyway, the whole thing.

30:40
Sam
Yeah. This entire movie could not be made right now. The way the script is. Like, if you left the script the way it is.

30:47
Pat Edwards
Yeah. It's not. But part of why I wanted, and again, I think we still have lots. We got plenty to dunk on still before we get to pitches. But I do want to preface just kind of like playing out there. Part of why I want to talk about this movie was. I was watching it. I was like, oh, this actually could have been really. I am of the opinion this could have been good. Very good and entertaining. And I think so much was done right from a production. The visuals, the casting. For the most part. I think most movies to deal with here. Right. That's the whole point, is another pass.

31:23
Case
Right.

31:23
Pat Edwards
Another pass of script. In this case. It's unique in that it's like 100% writing. I think the director directing is pretty decent. Cinematography, costumes. I think it's 100% writing is the flaw with this movie. And you don't need to set.

31:41
Case
I would say some acting choices also go into it.

31:44
Sam
Yeah. But I feel like the script doesn't really give them much. I feel like poor Penelope Anne Miller, who played Margot. Margot, she was like a pretty lamp, literally. She's just there to kind of move certain parts of the story doesn't other than they establish that she's got this special power which then they negate kind of in their own way in the very next scene. They don't really give her much to do. She's just very pretty. She's there. She's a love interest.

32:30
Case
I disagree a little bit because I think that the first half of the movie, you're 100% right. Like she's the daughter of the scientist MacGuffin stuff. I think that once she actually becomes aware of who the shadow is and they get to their teamwork because Margot Lane in the radio show was his partner. It was never a like, I don't know who the shadow is. Lois Lane kind of. They were clearly significant others. She knew about his identity. She was his partner. She helped out and everything. And once she's engaged in that, I think she actually does quite a bit. First of all, she figures out where the base is and what's going on with all that stuff. Like she saves his life on multiple occasions. She's the one who actually stops the bomb.

33:15
Case
She kind of is the only actual hero because the shadow is terrible at everything he does.

33:20
Pat Edwards
Not good.

33:21
Case
So that dynamic is great. And once we get to the radio show stuff in play that I think is a really good vibe for the two of them. It also helps Alec Baldwin as Lamont. They have great chemistry once they're actually bickering and there's no secrets between them.

33:38
Sam
I disagree. I felt like it was really wooden. I did not feel anything at like, at all. Go on. Okay. I'm sorry.

33:48
Pat Edwards
I'm going to put you on spot, Sam. If you negating the fact that one of them, I feel like, is much more significant star power than the other. Which one would you keep and which one would you recast if you were Ep of this?

34:02
Sam
That's really hard because I don't think that individually they were bad. Like, I thought that she was good, and I do think that she actually fit the role really well. I just didn't think that together they were good.

34:14
Pat Edwards
I posit that even though he's a very good looking person and a decent actor, Alec Baldwin doesn't have a ton of romantic.

34:27
Sam
Yeah, I don't know.

34:30
Pat Edwards
He's too, I don't know, just like removed.

34:33
Sam
I think he's very good at the threatening parts, which is why I would keep him. He's got the good whisper, threatening whisper thing going down. But, yeah, I think you're right. If it were in concern of the romantic, just because of the chemistry, yeah, I'd probably ditch him and keep her.

34:57
Pat Edwards
Because I actually like her performance in a lot of ways.

35:00
Sam
Yeah, I did too. I thought that she was kind of fun, and I thought that she did for what she had. Really good line. You know, the first half of the movie was just abysmal for.

35:16
Case
Yeah. And I do want to emphasize first half of the movie. I think there's a lot of stuff going on there and the whole movie in general, I think Alec Baldwin was given the wrong. Well, either he was. Either he had a take and he brought it to Russell McKahey, director of Highlander one and two. And the quickening was like, I'm going to play this not over the top, but as goofy as possible. He's very in on the joke of the movie, and I think that was entirely the wrong choice. I think he should have been playing a straight man. The 66 Batman works because Adam west is very much like playing the straight man in a weird world. Like, the people who are devouring scenery are the celebrity guest extras that come in for each episode, like all the villains and so forth.

36:07
Case
But Adam west consistently is playing, like, a very level character. And I think that's what we kind of needed with the shadow. But instead he's going, like, really fucking weird every time. All of his.

36:18
Pat Edwards
You didn't like that last?

36:18
Case
All of his villainous. I mean, the last. A hard one to balance because it is like a thing about the character.

36:24
Pat Edwards
Yeah.

36:25
Case
But from the gibberish Chinese, all of his attempts to be kind of suave, all the interactions with his uncle, all of those scenes, he's a little too smug and cheeky about it. All for a character who's supposed to be tortured.

36:42
Sam
Yeah. Oh, do we know if that's really his uncle?

36:48
Case
That would be an interesting implication, yeah.

36:50
Sam
Well, I guess that's part of my pitch.

36:54
Case
Yeah, that's an interesting question.

36:56
Sam
I just wanted to ask before I pitched it, because I was like, wait, guys, did I miss this part? Did they establish they were actually related?

37:04
Pat Edwards
The police commissioner who just hangs out in tuxedos at, like, fancy clubs, eating prime rib all day, every day?

37:10
Sam
Yeah, that guy. Because I feel like he just friended him to just get the information from.

37:19
Pat Edwards
Oh, do you think he just, like, mind clouded him? He just controlled to be like, I'm your nephew. I'm your nephew, by the way.

37:25
Sam
Yeah. He just believed that permanently.

37:29
Case
I would be down for that, but I would like the text to support that. Beyond head Cannon.

37:34
Sam
Yeah, no, it's just my head Cannon. But I just wanted to know if it would be actually possible. I was like, have we really established in the text, really for reals?

37:45
Case
I mean, it's fair. There's a lot of weird exposition that sounds like it was just lines fed into his brain by a neuralizer.

37:52
Sam
Yeah.

37:52
Case
Where it is. And here's the thing where it could be interesting, because the radio show was very popular, and as a result, they backfilled details from the radio show into the pulp fictions. Even though the pulp fictions had different stuff going. His. His secret identity in the Pulp fiction was a different character. He was named Kent Allard, and Lamont Cranston was at first like a helper, and then I think he then became an alias he would sometimes take up. So you could support that. That Lamont Cranston. Totally fake. However, we also know that Lamont Cranston is the name that they use earlier when he's in his yin Ko Persona. And it's like, you know, my real name. So at the very least, that name, theoretically, is his real name here. I don't know.

38:39
Case
I think it would be a lot more interesting if he was vaguer about it. But I also have some thoughts about how upfront we should have been about who the shadow is and everything from the get go, because, again, this is following the same structure as Batman begins and Doctor Strange and is not doing enough with it to make it really interesting or compelling backstory for the character. Like, why the fuck do we have another student of the same school of mysticism who shows up who they didn't know each other before?

39:10
Pat Edwards
Yeah, because he was already sent. I don't know.

39:13
Case
But speaking of, can we talk about.

39:15
Sam
How he came to the United States.

39:18
Pat Edwards
Yes. Okay. That's a great segue, because I want to talk about Shiwan Khan for, like, a long time. I want to talk about Shiwan Khan.

39:25
Sam
Let's talk about Shiwan Khan, because he is honestly, arguably, I actually really enjoyed him. I did feel like he was in a different movie than everyone else, but I enjoy him.

39:42
Pat Edwards
He was slathered mustard on that scenery and was just numb. Num. He was just.

39:52
Sam
I would actually say that I feel like he, Alec Baldwin and Tim Curry are in three different movies. They are not in the same movie at all. Somehow they're in scenes together, but they are not in the same movie.

40:07
Pat Edwards
I would argue Tim Curry is in two different movies at different points in this movie.

40:12
Case
That's also fair.

40:15
Sam
All right, so go on. Let's talk about.

40:20
Pat Edwards
First off, we talked about how good a lot of the visual thing is. The one thing that is very bad, and this person should feel ashamed of themselves is that fucking beard that's glued on his face is so bad. So bad. It needs to be bigger and fuller if you're going to do that, because it's just that chin strap and it's just like, that is glued on from 15 miles away. I can see that.

40:44
Sam
I think in general, hair, other than the female leads, hair. Hair was an issue on this. Anytime there was a wig or a hair prosthetic, there was a problem.

40:55
Pat Edwards
He was great. My biggest issue with Shiwan Khan is so much about him is inconsistent and not in the actor, the writing, whereas it is he metropolitan and modern or is he of the olden times? Because it keeps seem to going back and forth where it's like, oh, I'm from the far east and I'm not familiar, but he knows what Midtown is and he wants to get. And that's part of my pitch layers. Pick one. Pick a lane. Is he a modern descendant or is he someone from the ancient times? Pick a lane. Stick with it.

41:29
Sam
Yeah. Or at least let him evolve. You can have him be ancient in the beginning, but then let him kind of be like, oh, I realize I really like New York. Have him have a moment where he embraces the modern or whatever.

41:46
Pat Edwards
Yes, 100%.

41:49
Case
Yeah. Pat, I have a similar note because when he kills the cab driver, it's like, oh, he seems very knowledgeable about modern tech. Was kind of strange. And I get it. That part of it is a little bit of a misdirect because he shows up in Genghis Khan's sarcophagus where he absorbs his power.

42:09
Sam
He was absorbing his power. Maybe that's why they never met.

42:14
Pat Edwards
Sam, you say that there's something wrong with that statement. Your tone, like there's something illogical or.

42:22
Sam
Incongruous about that mean, it's. I guess there's just the inference that somehow Genghis Khan had mystical powers to do the things he did, which is just another thing that's like, people of color can't do things that white people can do unless they have magic.

42:40
Pat Edwards
Unless they have magic. Yes. Very racist.

42:43
Case
Their concept of Genghis Khan is like kind of wonky anyway, because he's like, I'm the last to send it to, which is Khan.

42:48
Pat Edwards
Yes, I have a note, which is very not true.

42:52
Sam
That dude was spilling his seed everywhere.

42:55
Pat Edwards
Like, isn't something like 8% of mongolian males can trace.

43:01
Case
No, 8% of the world.

43:02
Pat Edwards
The world.

43:03
Sam
The world, right.

43:05
Case
No, he conquered from Europe all the way to China.

43:10
Sam
That guy was like. And he was like having everywhere he went.

43:14
Pat Edwards
So many people.

43:15
Sam
I will google it right now.

43:16
Case
It's been a lot of time.

43:17
Pat Edwards
I thought it was Mongolians.

43:19
Sam
No, I think case is right.

43:22
Case
Yeah, because remember, the ruling dynasty that was controlling India when the British came were descendants of Gyankhistan, the Mughals.

43:30
Pat Edwards
According to National Geographic, it's 8% of men living in the region of the former Mongol, I guess of the former Mongol empire. So that's a lot of land. It's not just Mongolia. Yeah, but zero. Half a percent of the male population of the world. That's still fucking ridiculous. A lot of people. It's 16 million descendants.

43:50
Case
Which now it could be interesting if they said that only the descendants of Genghis Khan could use it. Interesting. Noting that it's also a little problematic. But at least there would be some sort of through line there or something.

44:01
Sam
Well, that would still be, you know, he spread his seed. So anyway, he was absorbing his power. Maybe this is where he was. This is why Alec Baldwin and he never met is because he had been in that long.

44:27
Pat Edwards
We don't know how long.

44:29
Sam
Like, it's like there was a two year difference. Like one graduated two years before. It's a two year academy. I'm sorry. Seven years. It was seven years. Right. Seven years later.

44:38
Pat Edwards
Yeah, about that. But in general, he was very inconsistent. And this is something I'm looking to fix with my pitch is with his tactics. Whereas if you have this mind control ability, which is so powerful you can make someone just kill themselves like he does with the guard. Which side note why is that reported as a murderer when it's obvious the guard shot himself? They don't know. This is like, mystic, powerful being.

45:05
Sam
Yeah, she'd been suicide.

45:07
Pat Edwards
Yeah. Anyway, but part of me is always like, how does he decide when he's going to use mind power and when he's just going to have a henchman? Because he mindpowers Ian McKellen, and then he has henchmen kill the soldiers guarding Ian McKellen. Well, it's like, why didn't you just mindpower the soldiers, too?

45:22
Case
Why did he even do that? Because he was already controlling McKellen and just have.

45:27
Pat Edwards
I could. The one thing I'll say of that I'll counter is he probably couldn't leave with his bomb thing because they sold to take stuff out of the. But. But that being said, it's like either mindpower everybody. I don't know. It's just like, how do you decide? And then what is the point of the billboard? Why is the billboard the conduit? Why is the smoking billboard the conduit?

45:51
Case
So there's a meta reason for that, because you also referenced the other thing. So the shadow had a lot of advertisements in the radio show, and because this is like old men being like, don't you remember all these things about the shadow, the radio show? One of the things they made fun of is that there were the camel cigarettes, which is why they have the llama cigarette ad in there.

46:12
Pat Edwards
Okay.

46:12
Case
And then the Brooks brothers ad is also supposed. The Brooks brothers moment is like a weird break that's supposed to be a reference to, really, advertisements of the time. Because if you cut out those lines, it works. Just the scene continues. It's just like a weird. And then back to the script.

46:30
Sam
It's basically an Easter egg.

46:32
Pat Edwards
Part of why I like Shiwan Kan as a villain, and I talked about this in our three ninjas episode of let's rewatch, too, is I love villains that know their villains. I know everyone's, like, a good villain, thinks they're the hero or something. I love villains that know they're villains and they're just having a good time. And another example is like, that fucking floor at the end of the climax. Why does he have that tilt of whirl floor?

46:53
Sam
Because in his third, I really enjoyed that floor. That would be one of the positives of this film for me. I was just like, oh, yeah, upping the ante. You're like, you thought you could walk over to my throne. No, you can't. Let's test your balance.

47:15
Pat Edwards
Thank you.

47:16
Sam
Oh, you're going to fall. Yes, you are flat on your face.

47:22
Pat Edwards
If I was a crazy villain, I would totally do stuff like that. Right? Yeah. Why not?

47:27
Sam
Absolutely. Why not embrace chaos? I mean, if you're going to be evil. Anyway, this is all of my theories out there. There is another writing inconsistency with powers, and it has to do with Margot Lane, where she's got this power and it's not super strong, but she can kind of sense what people are thinking, specifically the shadow. And she's kind of sometimes hears things that are going on in people's brains. And the first time, like, kind of tries to make her forget because he's like, oh, she's going to be bad for me. The shadow ability doesn't work on her. Like, mind control doesn't work on her. But then when Shiwang Khan uses it does for a time. So I was like, is he like, are they implying stronger?

48:27
Sam
And that's why it worked, because she goes all the way to basically Alec Baldwin's apartment, goes to Lamar's apartment to murder him, and then snaps out of it while she's. But, like, it's not drawn out enough, like, implicit enough for me. And it just feels like inconsistency rather than it's not like, oh, my God, I feel like there needs to be a line where he was just like he was able to do that to you or something. Just to make it clear that there is clearly, like a power imbalance where to make this villain, like, a real challenge for the shadow because he's.

49:13
Pat Edwards
That is great.

49:14
Sam
Stronger.

49:15
Pat Edwards
I did not ever.

49:16
Case
Yeah, that's how I took it. And we see plenty of evidence that he is stronger because very shortly after that, there's a whole, like, I can't believe he did it. I can't believe he has the power bit with hiding the building. But, yeah, it would be nice if they actually were a little bit more.

49:35
Sam
Specific about that, I think just like along the way because I think one of the things about this film is, for me, I just found the middle of it pretty boring and I actually fell asleep on it, like 40 minutes in. And then I had to go back, rewind, rewatch it. And I think part of it is that because there is inconsistent writing in that middle, there is no build up. And I feel like that would have helped with the build up to kind of build this tension of, like, this person really is stronger than him. And you don't really get that confirmation to almost like, the end towards the final battle. And it's great. The building is really cool. I really like the design of it, but I feel like that, to me, is kind of like a negative.

50:34
Sam
I don't think that the pacing is bad. I just feel like the writing itself kind of drags along.

50:40
Pat Edwards
Yeah. I love the set design. I think. I love the building hotel internally. I love the cobalt club. I love that aesthetic. I think it looks cool.

50:49
Sam
But yes, all of it's really beautiful.

50:51
Pat Edwards
You just have the pieces. And that's why I want to do this. It's like all the pieces are here. You arrange them shittily, though. We need to rearrange. Like, you have good pieces.

51:00
Sam
The weirdest fucking choices.

51:03
Pat Edwards
Yes.

51:05
Sam
So weird. So weird.

51:07
Pat Edwards
What is that? Next time you can be on top. Joke.

51:11
Case
Oh, it's so bad. There's an article about that line being so terrible.

51:15
Sam
I mean, honestly. Honestly, the scene where they wake up. Okay, so I thought the nightmare he had was actually pretty cool, right? So he has that nightmare and he goes to the mirror and he feels, like, weird. And then he rips off its base and underneath it's Shiman Khan. It's like, that's cool. Because there is a moment of like, am I actually him? Right? We've come from the same place. We have the same darkness. Am I him? It's the internal question of all vigilantes, right? Am I truly evil? Do I work too much outside of the law? But then the scene after where he's asking her about her dream, and she's like, building up her dream as if to arouse him.

52:00
Sam
And then I was on the beach and the sun was touching my naked body, and he's doing his Alec Baldwin Ooh, faces, which I just like. And then she's like, what about you? What did you dream about? He's like, I ripped my face off and I was just dying. I was like, I don't know if I hate this scene or I love this scene.

52:20
Pat Edwards
I loved it. Because that scene, my writing style, he said I ripped my face off. And she's like, that's weird. Or whatever. I'm in the. I loved it.

52:33
Case
I enjoyed that.

52:34
Sam
I had such a mixed feelings. I was like, I don't know if I love this or hate this, but I definitely did get a laugh out of me. So maybe it is an enjoyable moment of the film.

52:45
Case
Yeah. I just find it so amazing because I think, Sam, you're right, that it's easy to kind of zone out of this movie and even fall asleep. There aren't a lot of good action beats in this movie. And part of that is the problem of the shadow. Just like his power is that you don't see him. So how do you make an action scene with him that interesting? But I do find it frustrating that Russell McKahey, director of Highlander one, would have such a hard time making interesting scenes occur. But then I also remember it's Russell McKay, director of Highlander two. And then I'm like, oh, yeah, I guess that also makes sense.

53:17
Sam
The quickening.

53:18
Pat Edwards
Yeah, it's the one you're going to do. You guys are doing that after this one, right?

53:22
Sam
Yeah, that's actually on the docket. I'm actually so excited for that one. I can't wait. I mean, honestly, there should have only been one.

53:31
Case
But this is the summer of McKehy for this podcast. But seriously, it's so weird that this movie lacks really interesting conflicts. And I think part of that is that they really want to do some of this sort of invisibility stuff. There are spots where I really like the trickery that they do. I kind of enjoy the scene where he gets pinned to the wall and he sort of works his way out. It could be kind of hokey, but there's like a good drum beat as he sort of pulls himself into reality. I thought that was mostly fine. There was the spot where Tim Curry fires off a bunch of shots and you clearly can see where it didn't just hit the wall. That was a cool bit right there.

54:17
Case
But then there's an okay bit at the opening, what I think should be the cold opening where they're on the bridge and he just sort of appears and punches people in little bits like that. But at the end of the movie, when the Mongol horde goes to fight him, never happens. They just disappear. They leave and they are never seen again.

54:36
Pat Edwards
Yeah, the three, it's like Tim Curry and the three guys, and he sends them off and we never see, like, I was going to bring. That was like, I watched this movie twice and I just realized, does anything happen to them? And I was going to ask, did I miss it?

54:46
Sam
Yeah, I miss because they're not very smart. Like, they're loyal, but they're just not smart. They got lost in the building, guys.

54:55
Case
Well, the thing I find frustrating, I can't speak. It's really bad. It's really bad.

55:02
Sam
I just keep making fun of all. I'm just like, I'm enjoying this episode at least of another.

55:11
Case
So the way the shadows powers work is hypnotism. He doesn't actually go invisible. So I think that they are a little too into, like, we're going to do cool invisibility tricks as an effort to sort of consolidate elements of the radio show with the pulp fiction stuff where he's very good at hiding versus he can be in the room and you just can't see him kind of stuff. It would have been cool if we got stuff where we, the audience, could see the invisible stuff and people were not reacting to it, because I think that's really more how it would work. The idea that you just. The Westworld doesn't look like anything to me kind of situation where people. The building, the hotel. Yeah, sure. Have it be invisible when he's looking at it, but then have other, when he walks away.

56:02
Case
Have it be right behind him when he's in a room with people. You could definitely have times where he's just there. Or what would be really great is have a spot where someone takes a picture and we get to see the actual picture. Shows him in the shadow outfit when the audience didn't get that kind of scene. We should have things like that to sort of make the moments more dynamic. If the whole thing is that he's not good enough to hide his shadow from people while he's clouding their minds. Like having moments where there's a lot of light in the room and so you can kind of pinpoint him because there's two shadows going off. They should have done things like that to sort of make his powers visually dynamic.

56:43
Case
Because the problem of taking on a superhero who you can't see is how do you make him look interesting?

56:48
Sam
Yeah, I think that in the first half of the movie, especially when the first time he talks to his uncle and they're having that conversation, and the uncle's like, I'm going to send. Put a bulletin out on the shadow guy. He's gone too far this time and the lighting changes to put basically his face in shadow as he goes into his hypnotism. I thought that was pretty good. I thought it was like, oh, that gives the audience a visual cue. Like, now he is the shadow and he's doing his thing. I thought that was good. But there's only so many times you can use that in the film. You don't want to outplay that. So I think you're right. It needs a little more visual, needs to be a little more visually dynamic with how they express his powers.

57:47
Case
Yeah, I like the contacts that they use for both him and Khan. They look cool enough. I think they get across the vibe of what they're trying to do in those moments. And the lighting effects there are actually pretty good because we haven't done pros well.

58:05
Sam
I feel like we're thrown in a couple pros.

58:08
Case
Thrown in a couple. But there's a few things I want to talk about because we haven't really talked about Tim Curry. We haven't really talked about Peter Boyle.

58:14
Sam
I love how Tim Curry died.

58:16
Pat Edwards
Yeah. Tim Curry. Peter Boyle, perfect. Don't change a fucking thing.

58:20
Sam
No, he was amazing.

58:21
Case
When he mouths the shadow code words while the shadow is explaining it to the other guy, I'm like, that's perfect. Every moment with Peter Boyle on screen is fucking gold.

58:31
Sam
I love when he and Miss Lane are standing outside and they're in the rain, just like, with umbrellas, and he turns to, and he's like, you know what I really love about this job? The excitement.

58:45
Pat Edwards
Yes. Peter Boyle. Every scene Peter Boyle's in, every headline of his. Don't change it. It's like it is locked in. Don't change.

58:54
Sam
I would say more Peter Boyle.

58:57
Pat Edwards
Yes. I do love the aesthetic of so many people being like, oh, I'm helping this vigilante. I'm in on something. And he's just like, fuck, okay. I just want to have an evening with my wife. But okay, fine, I'll fucking do your bullshit.

59:13
Sam
He's like that with all the other people too. He's just, no, you don't know who he is. Please go. Yes, we'll contact you. Let me get back in my cab. I need to get got. I've got a program to watch. That's his attitude. I love.

59:30
Pat Edwards
Yes, yes. Tim Curry. That turn at the end. I mean, he's great. And he just. Tim curries the fuck out of.

59:44
Sam
Like, I think case and I have talked about this before, possibly on air here on this podcast. Tim Curry is one of those actors that was like, in almost every single movie of our childhood, he was just everywhere at all times. You just turn around and there was like, Tim Curry doing a small part, Tim Curry doing a large part. Tim Curry dressed up like this. And so I feel like no matter what, the nostalgia factor will always come into play where even if Tim Curry is the most Tim Curry and doesn't fit the role, you're still like, oh, it's Tim Curry. I love Tim Curry.

01:00:25
Pat Edwards
I have a firmly of a certain generation. We'll call it millennials. I'm a geriatric millennial, apparently. According to recent news.

01:00:35
Sam
I actually embrace it because my back feels pretty geriatric. So I'm fine with the label.

01:00:42
Pat Edwards
I'll get real vulnerable here on a podcast in public and say, I am 36 and because of 20 years of. I played football from fifth grade through college and power lifted for, like, 20 years. I'm 36 and I have osteoarthritis in my hip. So, yeah, I'll wear that geriatric.

01:00:59
Sam
I earned that just for all younger people. Just so you know, sports can mess up your body long after you're done playing them.

01:01:12
Pat Edwards
But I feel like our generation, we all have at least one, if not like, one or two movies that are like, I adore that movie, and it's Tim Curry's in them, I guarantee it. And for me, it's home alone. Two and clue are my two favorite.

01:01:29
Sam
I love clue.

01:01:30
Pat Edwards
Clue. But, yeah, I'm just looking at his credits right now in this era, and holy shit, that guy worked in the.

01:01:42
Case
Especially the early 90s in this movie. I wanted him and Ian McKellen just, like, shooting the shit, and they didn't do enough of that. I'm mad.

01:01:50
Sam
Agreed.

01:01:52
Pat Edwards
That was a trivia thing I found when we did the is Curry chose this movie because he wanted to work with Ian McKellen. That was why he accepted this role.

01:02:01
Case
And who wouldn't make that? Like, the prospect of an Ian McKellen Tim Curry duo is great, but they don't use Ian McKellen enough. And again, I was saying, like, yeah, he wasn't that well known. But also as a role, they don't use him enough because once Khan manipulates his brain, he becomes like a Renfield to him. It's, like, a little weird that he isn't actually around dramatically helping him more.

01:02:26
Sam
Yeah.

01:02:26
Case
Which is a strange choice.

01:02:28
Sam
And especially since he's such a strong, like, an important asset to Khan that Khan needs. Like, you would think that he'd want to keep him closer. I don't know.

01:02:40
Case
I guess that both of them, frankly.

01:02:43
Sam
Yeah.

01:02:44
Case
And I like the scene where the shadow confronts that in that weird workshop water place. I thought the music worked pretty well. I actually thought it was kind of clever the way curry looked for where the splashes were in the water. I thought the effect didn't look great. I would have rather it been know ripples of water because, again, he's not actually invisible. But I thought the use of shooting at the wall and seeing where the actual gunfire was a good choice. The music was pretty good. When he's, like, shouting about how he'll be a king in the new world, I thought that was a good delivery for that kind of a second tier villain. Like that kind of a lieutenant villain, I thought worked really well right there.

01:03:29
Case
And he knew he can't beat the shadow in a fight because he can't see him. So he just locks him in a room and fills it with water. Good choices. Wish there was more of that fun factoid. That's just the thing. There aren't that many action scenes for a character that walks around holding two guns.

01:03:44
Pat Edwards
Yeah, I just want to put a little money where our mouth is. As far as how prolific he was in a ten year span from 84 to 94, he has 54 IMDb credits.

01:03:56
Case
Jesus Christ.

01:03:57
Sam
That's amazing. See, and that's why, no matter what, anyone who was alive and watching movies during that time, you've got at least something. You've got at least for me, it's clue and legend and like, rocky horror picture show. Those are like, my three go to curry performances.

01:04:19
Case
Oh, shit. Have you guys done Rocky horror on let's rewatch?

01:04:22
Pat Edwards
We have not.

01:04:24
Case
Oh, man. That's a good, interesting one to talk about taking notes for when you come back from paternity leave.

01:04:35
Pat Edwards
Yeah.

01:04:35
Sam
So you can do the time warp again.

01:04:38
Case
Yes. This is not necessarily good because this is a big bad that I'm about to bring up, but it's also kind of good. So I like the costume of the shadow. I think that the trench coat and the scarf that he wears around his face and the hat, those are fucking perfect. I think that they nail what is honestly an easy costume to make look good on screen. They nail it really well. The guns look pretty good. I don't think. He doesn't use them very well, but the guns actually look, they're silver and they're like, it's awesome. I'm sure all of us on our.

01:05:11
Pat Edwards
Pitch have the same thing. Is the nose. Yes. Okay. What you're saying the nose, it's just cover his face with the bandana. Right. Just cover his face with the red scarf and it looks great.

01:05:20
Case
Yeah. Even if you have to have the nose go over it. Have Alec Baldwin's nose. I understand in the lore that they don't explain in this and doesn't exist in other adaptations, that he's clouding men's minds so he looks different. Except that's dumb because there's no point where he would ever be doing that, where he couldn't just be invisible or.

01:05:42
Pat Edwards
Just have his face covered.

01:05:44
Case
Yes, his face is covered. And then it's the worst ADR every time he's talking because they don't have his exposed mouth to catch on the mic. So they adr all those lines, which makes people really curious if it's one of his brothers playing the part and no one is sure which, because people are like, is it Stephen Baldwin? Is it Billy Baldwin? None of them look like. That's, that's the weird part.

01:06:11
Pat Edwards
Why?

01:06:12
Case
Besides just making it over the top look like the pulp fiction? Like this, like, big nosed character. Why do like, he. His face looked enough like it. It would have been fine.

01:06:29
Pat Edwards
Yeah, I think it was like they were just trying, like, this is what it looked like in the pulp. This is what it looked like in the pulps when I was a kid. So we're going to make it look this way. And it's like, I agree with you. If they had just taken the red scarf and have it cover from eyes down, like just below eyes down and had just like, tied tight, so covering, I think it would look fucking cool, man. Like that outfit.

01:06:53
Case
Yeah. And we know it looks cool because at the end of the movie, when he's not doing the face thing and he doesn't have his hat on, he's got the rest of the outfit, though, and he looks really cool.

01:07:03
Sam
Yeah.

01:07:04
Case
Yes.

01:07:04
Sam
I was upset that he didn't have the hat on, though, because I thought that the hat really pulled that ensemble together.

01:07:11
Case
Yeah, no, it totally does. That's why darkwing duck looks just like him.

01:07:14
Pat Edwards
Yeah, no, he looks like this cool noir gunslinger if he doesn't have that dork ass like, nose hanging over his. And I don't know if the three of us, maybe we're having an extra visceral reaction to it. Since the last 16 months, we've been looking at people with their nose hanging out of their max, like, you fucking asshole. What are you doing? I was thinking that though.

01:07:38
Sam
You'Re not protecting yourself or others, you jerk.

01:07:45
Case
I can't breathe with my nose.

01:07:48
Pat Edwards
Maybe that's coloring all of our reactions to it.

01:07:53
Case
No, but it always looked dumb.

01:07:55
Sam
But it's like, just, I actually looked at some before I watched the movie. I looked at some old critics, like, write ups and newspapers. Like, I just looked them up. And a lot of people were like, I don't understand the prosthetic. Like, a lot of movie reviewers were like, it was unnecessary. So it's not just us. Like in 1994, people felt like that.

01:08:19
Pat Edwards
Okay, good.

01:08:20
Case
Yeah.

01:08:20
Pat Edwards
And what's sad is because it will look thing as the cool with it covered.

01:08:27
Case
Well again, even without the prosthetic and having the nose exposed would have been fine. The cape. I know that it's a part of the classic look. I don't think it looks very good on screen, and especially not a big CGI cape like the fucking spawn movie. Every time it's there, I'm like, wouldn't he be cooler with it? Much more streamlined and just that cool ass duster.

01:08:50
Pat Edwards
I don't know if I appreciate that tone, which you said, that fucking spawn movie. Okay. I'm an apologist for the 90s. Michael Jai White John Laguizamo, spawn movie.

01:08:59
Case
I'm just talking about the capes.

01:09:01
Pat Edwards
Okay.

01:09:02
Sam
I feel like I've walked into a fight that. We are arguing about the shadow guys. We are arguing.

01:09:09
Pat Edwards
Sam, would you excuse us for a second? Yeah.

01:09:10
Sam
Stay on track. Stay on track. Okay, listen.

01:09:14
Case
The only good adaptation was the HBO animated series. It had Keith David as the voice of Spawn.

01:09:21
Pat Edwards
I mean, his death was great, but it wasn't really.

01:09:28
Sam
It was so good. He was like, there's your exit.

01:09:32
Case
Yeah, that was good. I've mentioned this before. I like the soundtrack in general. It is very derivative of the Danny Elfman Batman score. Like, it just. It sounds a lot like it, but I think it actually sounds pretty good. The scenes where it needs to have good beats. It has actually really strong brass and drum lines. I'm actually very happy with all that.

01:09:54
Sam
Yeah. I thought it suited the film really well, and I think it served the film. And I think that's the most important part. Even if it may sound like something else and kind of bring that to mind. I think in general, the soundtrack served the action well and the emotion when there were emotions on screen there.

01:10:18
Pat Edwards
Yeah.

01:10:19
Case
But I do have a question for you guys.

01:10:21
Pat Edwards
Okay.

01:10:21
Case
Did you check out the music video for the song they play at the credits? No, the official tie in music video.

01:10:30
Pat Edwards
I mean, the song is ridiculous.

01:10:32
Sam
The song is ridiculous.

01:10:34
Pat Edwards
Tune into the let's rewatch episode of this movie, the shadow, to hear me sing part of that song.

01:10:40
Sam
Please do. Yeah. As it was playing, I was like, what are these lyrics? Now I have to go look up the video.

01:10:56
Case
Yeah, it's so on the nose. And then the music video has, like, dancers, but then intercut with footage from the movie.

01:11:01
Pat Edwards
It's so weird, man. I love that era. Like that ten year block of music videos from movies where it's like I'm going to have the band or the singers in some kind of set piece singing directly at the camera, but then intersperse actual scenes from the movie in there.

01:11:22
Case
Because sometimes you get gold, sometimes you get men in black or even wild west, which, I mean, those are for everything wrong with that movie.

01:11:30
Pat Edwards
Yeah. That music video. That song is great. Yeah. It can't be touched. But then you get things like where it's like, I don't know why this song has been stuck in my head for my entire life, but the Celine Dion song from whatever it was, that Michelle Pfeiffer movie where she's like a.

01:11:44
Sam
Oh, I know what you're talking about.

01:11:47
Case
Yes.

01:11:47
Pat Edwards
Okay. And she's like sitting in a room in the museum full of TVs. It's like my strength. When I was weak. You saw the best. It was me.

01:12:00
Case
Son of a bitch.

01:12:05
Pat Edwards
Yeah. I'm everything I am because.

01:12:14
Sam
Oh, my God. I mean, even like the. What was that song? The prince of Thieves song with everything I do for you. That video was also similar, right? Yeah, just like cuts of the movie.

01:12:34
Case
So the last thing before we shift gears, I just want to call out, I love actually, how much the shadow drinks, how much everyone drinks, but every time he's at the club, they drop off multiple martinis for him. And it's definitely alcohol. None of this Batman shit where it's just like, no, just give me ginger ale, but make it look like it's.

01:12:56
Pat Edwards
Except they definitely waste. I like how when he meets Margot, he orders for her like a $1000 bottle of wine. It's like a Rothschild. And it's like she has. And he's like, let's get out of here and go get. I told you this ridiculous. Let's just go get some duck. Which there's a whole consent thing, which we haven't even talked on, which might be an issue because did he crave peeking duck? Because he could sense that she was craving peeking duck. And he's like trying to, manipulate her to sleep with her because there's a whole consent bullshit problem there to get you. Yeah, that's a whole problem. That is not okay. Yeah, we didn't touch on, but I want to make sure we call that out.

01:13:33
Sam
There's a lot in their relationship that's questionable, but I guess maybe eventually she can read his mind too.

01:13:40
Pat Edwards
She's like, I can read your mind that you're reading my mind. Stop it.

01:13:47
Sam
Can you imagine arguments at home with them, though?

01:13:50
Pat Edwards
They're just staring at each other.

01:13:53
Sam
Intense staring, just angry thinking.

01:13:58
Case
Yeah, that weird butler walks in. It's like, oh, God.

01:14:01
Pat Edwards
You can't storm out from those arguments because you're still going to hear their thoughts across the.

01:14:07
Sam
They'll still know the whole time he'll have to leave. Go to another hotel room.

01:14:12
Pat Edwards
It's like you better take the jet out to LA or something, because I don't want to hear your bullshit thoughts together.

01:14:19
Sam
The farther I can hear your thoughts. Please, you must leave the state now.

01:14:27
Case
All right, well, so I guess here's a good spot for a real ad.

01:14:32
Sam
What? That was a real thing. Okay.

01:14:35
Pat Edwards
Yeah, we did a whole thing. Sam and I did a whole, like.

01:14:38
Sam
Yeah, I can't believe that.

01:14:41
Case
Hang on. And now a word from our sponsor.

01:14:44
Sam
Hey, there, screen beans. Have you heard about screen snark?

01:14:48
Case
Rachel, this is an ad break. They aren't screen beans until they listen to the show.

01:14:52
Sam
Fine. Potential screen beans. You like movies and TV shows, right?

01:14:57
Case
I mean, who doesn't? Screen snark is a casual conversation about the movies and television shows that are shaping us as we live our everyday lives.

01:15:04
Sam
That's right, Matt. We have a chat with at least one incredible guest every episode, hailing from all walks.

01:15:10
Case
We've interviewed chefs, writers, costumers, musicians, yoga.

01:15:14
Sam
Teachers, comedians, burlesque dancers, folks in the.

01:15:17
Case
Film and TV industry, and more.

01:15:19
Pat Edwards
We'd be delighted for you to join.

01:15:20
Case
Us every other Monday on the certain.

01:15:22
Sam
POV podcast network, or wherever you get your podcasts, fresh and tasty, off the presses.

01:15:29
Pat Edwards
No, that's not.

01:15:30
Sam
Can I call them screen beans now? Fine, screen beans.

01:15:40
Pat Edwards
So tune in, and we'll see you.

01:15:41
Case
At the movies or on a couch.

01:15:43
Sam
Somewhere, because you're a whole scream. Demons now you will be mine.

01:15:52
Case
And we're back.

01:15:53
Pat Edwards
Let's do pitches.

01:15:54
Case
Yeah, let's do pitches.

01:15:56
Sam
Pitches. Wait, my. Too much like the other word. Sorry. Pitches.

01:16:03
Pat Edwards
You can. You can say that, Sam.

01:16:05
Sam
That's fair. That's fair.

01:16:07
Pat Edwards
Yeah.

01:16:08
Case
Depends on the context. We can get away with it in certain ways.

01:16:10
Sam
Yeah, if you were dog breeders.

01:16:12
Pat Edwards
Yeah. Yes.

01:16:13
Case
Pitch me your breed.

01:16:16
Sam
King's Charles Spaniel. I just saw a picture of one. That's the other reason why it's in my head.

01:16:26
Pat Edwards
A really crass dog breeder. So I had this german shepherd. Fuck this yellow lab.

01:16:38
Sam
He was just such a beautiful bitch, you know? Like, just the most beautiful bitch you've ever seen. Just ready for him, you know? Please.

01:16:54
Pat Edwards
Don't you fucking dare. Man.

01:16:59
Sam
I'm so punchy after a day of work. Sorry.

01:17:07
Case
All right, so, Pat, you are the one who brought this movie as a suggestion. It was kind of, like, on our radar, anyway. And this summer, I feel like it's just a thing a lot of people want to talk about. I feel like a lot of shows have brought it up. It's having that moment and you had that moment over on let's rewatch. And then we're like, hey, I need to do this movie over here. And I said, okay, cool, let's do it. So since you're the guest, would you like to take the first crack?

01:17:33
Pat Edwards
Sure. I do not want to go after case. I'll say, sam, if you have, like, I need to get this. Will if you want to go, but I just don't want to go after case.

01:17:43
Sam
It's okay. I actually told case he's not allowed to go before me, so he usually goes last now.

01:17:49
Case
Okay, that's true. He's referencing when we did legend and I brought slides.

01:17:54
Pat Edwards
I'm working with case. I'm trying to get case to do some stuff. I'm a professional writer. It is my job and I don't want to go after case.

01:18:01
Sam
Yeah, no, case is just very thorough and it just always sounds really good and it sounds really thought out. And I feel like I don't sound that thought out. I like my pitches, but I think that his are always more detailed than mine, so he's not allowed to go first anymore.

01:18:22
Pat Edwards
Okay. So my pitch, I feel like my first two points are going to be pretty universal across the board, and that's fine. I think we're all on the same page because we all have good taste. A. We're fixing the whole mask situation with his outfit. Right. Like we're going to cover that simple fix. It's going to be the red scarf covering his nose and mouth. But I'm cutting the opening scene completely. Not completely, because I'm cutting the opening scene. We are cold opening on the bridge scene with the mobsters and the professor in the concrete shoes. Okay. And that's going to play out pretty much similar as it already is going to. I think it's a much cooler introduction to the character. A big thing is I'm going to delay the reveal of his backstory of who he was before.

01:19:10
Pat Edwards
He was the shadow quite a bit in this, but we're going to allude to it a little bit throughout. Is his dark past okay. And dark pasts are much more powerful when they're kind of concealed and they're like, I don't want to talk about it. So cut that scene a lot after that. From that point on, from the bridge scene on, there's going to be some similarities. When he's sleeping in front of the fire, same thing. It's early on. He's going to have visions, dreams of his past life as Yin Ko. And it's not going to be super crystal clear to the audience. It's going to be that thing they do where it's just like that dreamy haze, and it's like him battling and it's warriors, and he's going to jump up and be all sweaty and exhaust.

01:19:57
Pat Edwards
And he can still be like, something's coming, but he's like, I haven't thought about that in a long time. But we don't know exactly what his deal is. I say, with Shiwan Khan, as I talked about, we got to pick one. Like, what is he? I have ideas. He is a descendant of Genghis Khan. He's, like, more close. He's been kind of trained for this, though. He's not from New York. He's from the east. He's been training and getting ready and traveling the world looking for biting his time. He's like, I want to finish. I want to be a conqueror. I have this drive in me. And what he is doing, actually, that's how he gets into New York. He ships himself in the sarcophagus.

01:20:50
Pat Edwards
But also I have this idea of, because we didn't talk about it when were dunking on the movie, is, where did those soldiers come from? Where did his henchmen come from?

01:21:00
Sam
I'm like, how did they get there? He shipped himself. But did he ship everyone else?

01:21:04
Pat Edwards
So that's what I want to do is these are like ghost warriors or something that he has shipped in artifacts with him to New York. Okay, so he ships them to New York. And it's almost like, I know it's chinese, not mongolian, but similar to the terracotta warriors. I know, different country, but somewhat similar. He has shipped them, and they're not modern people. He is, like, resurrecting them or using some kind of fell power. And he arrives in New York, and then you have the museum scene. He gets out of there. He resurrects his core group of honor guard. He's drawn to Lamont. He didn't come to see him, but he's drawn to him because there's like, a connection. Okay, they have case. You're welcome to jump in here. I like these TV dialogues, but he has a connection to him.

01:22:02
Pat Edwards
He feels him, senses him.

01:22:05
Case
Well, it's freaking me out because we're really similar in a lot. Okay. Not the terracotta warriors.

01:22:11
Pat Edwards
No, I didn't write that down. But I'm like, he is, like, bringing his army there. He senses him. He doesn't know who he is. He just senses this presence that he has a connection to. So Shiwan Khan doesn't know who he is exactly. And we don't know what Alec Baldwin's backstory is yet. Okay, so keep that in mind. He goes and sees him like he does when they first meet in his lair. He's like, how'd you find me? He tells Alec Baldwin the story. He's like, I once heard about this white man from the west who led a band of warriors and for seven years was one of the most brutal warlords over this it. And kind of alluding to. You don't know anything about that. His name was of like. It's almost like he's learning. It's like, oh, you're Yanko.

01:23:12
Pat Edwards
I didn't know that. But that's cool. I'm interested in that. Now Baldwin is upset because he's been trying to suppress that and not have that come back up. And he has to. Part of this is I want Alec Baldwin to have. And I'll get to that. And when I get to his journey to become the shadow is slightly tweaked in my version, where I'll just cut ahead when he reveals a. He has ptsd from World War I. He was traveling the world just trying to numb his pain. And he kind of fell into this thing. And he was kind of like zonked out, drugged up. And then he was a soldier and he just kind of fell into this when he was over there. He was just traveling the world.

01:24:02
Pat Edwards
He's like, I was looking for anything to find release, find comfort, find some kind of. Whether I was looking for something to either kill me or set me free or find me something. And he kind of fell into this role and I'll get to that in a second. The other thing I want to address is like, the mind control powers, because they're all over the place, right? What they can do, how they work. And I love putting limitations on things like that or challenges for people to overcome. So I like the idea of they both have this similar ability to cloud people's minds or influence people's minds or kind of control them. I like this idea of when one of them, if they're in somewhat proximity, if one of them is using it, the other knows. It's like a radar ping, right?

01:24:48
Pat Edwards
It's like I can feel it. I can sense it. You're doing this. So it makes them have to be really judicial about how they use that because it's like, I like that.

01:24:58
Case
Yeah, it's like Cerebro or something.

01:25:01
Pat Edwards
Oh, Cerebro is going to come back into play here in a second. It's really funny you say that, Case. Okay, what?

01:25:06
Case
Pat and me being on the same wavelength.

01:25:09
Pat Edwards
That's so weird.

01:25:10
Case
Who would ever think.

01:25:11
Pat Edwards
So we're going to get to that. So Khan is fascinated by him, and he's kind of tailing him or observing him. I like the idea of when he shows up. He's got a very robes beard, but he kind of adopts Lamont's style. Like that scene when they're in the restaurant. I love that when he's in the suit. Except I want him clean shaven at that point. I want him shave. I'm like, adopting your style. I'm stealing your style. I like it for myself. I want him to be a little more. And we talked about a little bit from Sam we alluded to. That is, I want him to get a little more like, polished in a western sense. Right? Because polished is subjective. But I'm saying I want him to like, ooh, I like this. I'm going to kind of adopt this.

01:25:56
Pat Edwards
And then he kind of goes, he's wearing the suit, he's clean. Sees. He's fascinated by Lamont. He follows him. He sees him with Margot, and he's also there. He knows she's Reinhardt's daughter, so he mind controls both. I like he shows up at the lab. He mind controls Margot and Reinhardt. By the way, they say it one time, in case I'm confusing anyone, Reinhardt is Ian McKellen's first name. His character in this movie, he's the scientist. He mind controls both of them, knowing it will ping Alec Baldwin. Okay. He's doing one of two things. He's having Reinhardt have his device and leave. But he leaves Margot behind with the instructions to kill the shadow when the shadow is up, knowing the shadow is going to come. Instead of find the shadow, kill the shadow. That is very convoluted to me.

01:26:55
Pat Edwards
Why does he mind control? In the current iteration, there's no reason why he mind controls Margot and has her find the shadow, kill the shadow. In this, it's, oh, you. It just so happens this person I'm trying to meet, and there's a connection, a through line. It's you and Margo. If I use this power, he's going to hear it or feel it and come. I'm setting a trap, okay? And she's the trap. It doesn't work. Of course, she doesn't succeed to kill him. And then you have a similar scene, right? When she shakes out of it and like, oh, you're the shadow. His plan, by the way, is not a bomb because I hate. For me, it's like, well, then what? It's not a bomb then because. So case, what do you said?

01:27:43
Pat Edwards
What Reinhardt and Tim Curry's character have built for him is essentially a cerebro. It isn't. Oh, are we the same? It's all of us. It amplifies his mind. Guys, here's the fun thing. Guys, I did some homework on this. You all are going to love this. We're all going to go crazy here.

01:28:04
Sam
Oh, my God.

01:28:04
Pat Edwards
If he's trying to conquer the world, okay, what do conquerors need? An armor usually, right? Guess what the largest city in the world was from 1925 to 1950?

01:28:16
Sam
Was it a center of villainy?

01:28:20
Pat Edwards
New York was the largest city in the world.

01:28:22
Sam
The center of villainy.

01:28:23
Pat Edwards
Although the center of all villain. Yeah, the wretched hive of scum and villainy. That was New York, of course, right?

01:28:30
Case
Yes.

01:28:31
Pat Edwards
It just so happens, in the era this movie is set, New York is the largest city based on population in the world. So imagine he is going to cerebro it and create an army 10 million strong. Ten times larger than the largest current standing army in the world of that time. This is plan. Instead of blowing it up, every single person of Newark is now his thrall. So that's what the device is going to. So when he meets Khan at the restaurant, okay, Khan is in a suit like he is, but he's clean shaven. He's like. He put together. He's like, I'm adopting this aesthetic. I like it. It's fun for me. All right, this is where. What are we going to do with this fucking knife, right? Because I'm going to say we haven't seen the knife yet.

01:29:29
Pat Edwards
He reveals the knife like he does here, and then that's a huge trigger for Alec Baldwin. It's like, how can you control that? And there's like maybe a brief flash in his brain. Maybe we don't even see it at this point, but all we know is he sees that knife and Alec Baldwin is shook. Lamont is shook. Like, what the fuck? How do you have that knife under your ability? I want him to get out of that situation. Kind of not as dominant as that. How that resolves is he convinces the one guard to give him his gun and Khan fucking runs away. Which, by the way, Khan runs away like three times in this movie. Once his plan a fails and whatever, his henchman gets beat, he warms away. It's like this time, and at the finale, he tries to run away.

01:30:16
Pat Edwards
I want it to be kind of flipped where Lamont has to barely escape from this, and then he's questioning, like, holy shit, can I beat this guy? We don't know, but all we know is he's shook from seeing that knife, right? He's like, what do I do? How does he have mastery of this? Margo's at his house. You kind of leave that first night. She's at his house. The same. I dig it. That's what the dream, right?

01:30:38
Sam
Yeah.

01:30:38
Pat Edwards
The prosthetics are great. The effects are great. When he's digging into his skin and everything, like. Like, kind of leave that as is, and then you have him go to the big sphere. Tim Curry. I want Tim Curry to have an escort, like, guards. And the shadow beats the shit out of the guards. And Tim Curry is putting on an act like, oh, my God, thank you. They had accosted me, and they were forcing me to work for them. He gets too close to him, and Tim Curry, like, stabs him or something, but he's putting on an act where he's like. Because I like the idea of he's, like, he's willingly a participant because he wants power and riches and everything.

01:31:12
Pat Edwards
But it's such a weird, the way they shoot it and the way they do it is just kind of weird and feels, like, awkward to me currently, where it's just, like, he just reveals to this floating voice, like, I've been in on it. I'm going to shoot, and I'm going to turn on this water. Whereas if he. I feel like what would be more authentic is he's got these guards. Shadow shows up. The guards are getting beat up, and his mind is, like, weaseling. A mind is like, oh, I'm going to put on an act. I'm going to be like, oh, my God. I'm this unwilling victim. And they were forcing me to work for them. And the shadow comes up near. As soon as he gets with an arm reach, he's like, boom. Knife to the gut or something like that.

01:31:49
Pat Edwards
And then he runs off, locks him in the room. Margot has to come save him using her psychic ability. So then they have this downtime together, right? Lamont and Margot at his mansion. And when he kind of, like, convalesces from his wound, and this is when he does the full reveal of his past. He had ptsd from World War I because they mentioned it. He was. He's a veteran of World War I. It's like a passing comment. He traveled the world. He fell into this whole thing of joining this cartel, and then he eventually became. He just was like. I just didn't want to feel anything. And there's, like, flashbacks of him leading raiding parties and wars. And then maybe he has a really bad moment, right. Where it's like, before I had a moment of clarity, where what have I become?

01:32:46
Pat Edwards
Or they raided a village of innocent people and he voluntarily leaves. Because that's the thing is, I don't like that he's forced into this. Right. It's weird, because there's no moment of, like, I want to do good. It's no, you're a piece of shit. We're going to make you do good. And there's no him accepting that. Right? It's just like, okay, I guess I'm going to.

01:33:10
Sam
Because that night.

01:33:11
Pat Edwards
Yes. So it's kind of like he wanders the desert in China and he falls dehydrated at this temple. And they bring him in and they see in him the means to do good in the world. He reveals this to Margo and he reveals it in a sense of like, I'm a shitty person. I have a ton of shame about this. And I do what I do now because for seven years, I was a total piece of shit and awful on the world. And I'm trying to make that right. And then they have their kind of intimate moment. They can kiss. It doesn't have to be that. You know what I mean? Kiss. The kiss. She falls asleep in his arms. He carries her to her bed, sleeps on the couch or something like that. And then.

01:34:00
Pat Edwards
Love the whole torn down building ruse thing, right? It looks like an empty lot. Dig that. Keep that. It works really well. We already talked about it. Have my note here. Not changing a thing about Peter Warle. Poito.

01:34:11
Sam
He's fucking.

01:34:13
Pat Edwards
Oh, okay. So about the floor thing at the climax, I had this bit of, like, when he's doing his backstory reveal to Margot in the flashback, his training is shadow. Maybe there's, like a tilting floor in the temple or something like that. Because they would explain why Khan has it. Because, again, there's no fucking reason why Khan had that put in.

01:34:38
Sam
Chaos. Chaos is the reason.

01:34:42
Pat Edwards
But I like the idea of perhaps it's like a recreation of something from the temple. I've had, like, six cocktails. I like that as being a reference to that experience.

01:35:05
Case
Right?

01:35:06
Pat Edwards
Like it's something in the training.

01:35:07
Sam
Yeah.

01:35:08
Case
Like a platform that balances or something. It pivots off the center or something like that, yes.

01:35:16
Pat Edwards
At least there's an explanation for why that exists. And then my last big thing I want to tweak in. This is the final confrontation, I think is weak as hell, where it's, like just Khan running. And then the weird mirror thing.

01:35:32
Case
We forgot to talk about that one, actually. We can quake that destroyed their set.

01:35:38
Pat Edwards
What's that?

01:35:39
Case
Which is why they. There was an earthquake that destroyed their set, which is why they basically just cut to the end after being there initially.

01:35:51
Sam
Weird. Interesting.

01:35:53
Pat Edwards
So, for me, it's like they need to have some kind of straight up fight, and we could do one of two things. You could do the straight up sword fight, but I like the idea of the dagger coming into play, and it's like they both are trying to control it, and it kind of is, like, hopping back and forth between them, like, who's mastering it. And then I also like the idea of they're doing this close quarters gun combat, so they allude to it. When they're in the restaurant, they both shoot at each other, and the bullets hit each other. Right. And they just drop.

01:36:25
Case
Yeah.

01:36:26
Pat Edwards
So they both have this mind clouding mind reading ability. Imagine if they both had, like, pistols and they were really close range with each other, within arm's reach, and they keep trying to shoot each other, but they both can kind of see the. With their mind. See the person's movement coming. So they're just barely dodging it or smacking the gun out of the way. And it's just like they each empty a clip at super close range, and they're barely missing each other because they can see each other's move, like, a half a second before they're doing it. That could be a really cool choreography moment.

01:37:01
Case
I mean, I have basically similar thoughts, but what we are saying is that we should have gun kana. What's that from? Like, equilibrium.

01:37:08
Pat Edwards
Like, the whole.

01:37:09
Case
Like, the gun martial art.

01:37:11
Pat Edwards
Sorry. Blind spot. Oh, wait. I feel like I've seen that. Is that a Christian Bale movie with Christian Bale? Yeah, I think I've seen that one time. Maybe I'm subconsciously pulling that up. Yeah, but this would have been way before.

01:37:22
Case
I mean, either way, cool gunplay is what we're saying.

01:37:25
Pat Edwards
My point is, they need to have more of a direct. You said there was issues, but I don't care what happens. They needed to have more of a direct. They're supposed to be, like, these two warriors trained in the same supernatural warriors trained in the same place. They need to have a direct conflict.

01:37:42
Sam
Like duel honestly, they could have just entered a shadow realm, which you don't necessarily need a set fuck with smoke and shit and just had them do so good. Basically face to face confrontation and fuck. I know he's all about the guns, but maybe we get rid of them. Maybe we do guncotta. Maybe we do part guncotta, part unarmed hand to hand combat. Like, make it, like, a little bit of everything. Scrambling to get the gun, actually give us something. Maybe even have their minds get clouded. He can't see him, then he can't see him, kind of. They're disappearing on each other. I don't know. There's just a lot of stuff that they could have done in a big room with just smoke. I feel like. Yes, smoke and lighting.

01:38:35
Case
Yeah. If they were fighting and we kept cutting between them and each one is the only one on screen, and they see the shadow of the other person. They're actively blocking each other from each other's sight, and they're using visual cues of the room to sort of pick up off of each other.

01:38:54
Sam
I think you could also go into that fight.

01:38:56
Case
You could do some really cool gun choreography, and at no point are both of them on screen.

01:39:01
Sam
Yeah, I think you could also do something really cool with just, like, sound. Because in my mind already, I can just see one of them on screen, and you can just kind of hear the swishing of something and having one of them just kind of look left, right, and then they kind of disappear and the other one appears kind of thing. Because there should be a mind. I feel like this is such anime moment for me, but I feel like it has to be, like one of those crazy ass dragon Ball anime moments where people are just like, it's so intense that even if the action is solely on their faces, it's just going to be that intense. But honestly, that would have been cool. They're in the shadow realm now. They've both ascended to the Shadow realm.

01:39:51
Sam
And what part of them will survive, right? Because the whole idea sort of, although it's not really drawn out, is that there is balance to these two men, right. That they've both known the darkest dark that you can know, but they also know what to be human, especially the shadow. Right. He's got a good heart now, but he knows the darkness that lives in men. So this is a metaphorical battle. Right? Like which wolf do you feed kind of thing. So I feel like that would have been fine. It would have been cool. It would have been awesome to see, actually.

01:40:29
Pat Edwards
Yes, 100%.

01:40:30
Case
All right. So we get the Shadow Gunkata fight. And how do you close it off?

01:40:40
Pat Edwards
I'm not a huge fan of the. Maybe I'm at the wrong one here. Not a huge fan of the de nomad. With him in a sanitarium having been lobotomized. Kill him.

01:40:51
Case
Also a thing we didn't talk about. And that's because it's really fucked up. I remember as a kid being like, that's crazy because he does have psychic powers. But the fact that it's an agent of the shadow and it's not just like an accident that he was lobotomized, that is intentional.

01:41:05
Sam
Yeah, it's really fucking dark.

01:41:07
Case
So fucked up. It's so much worse that it's known.

01:41:11
Sam
Yeah. I feel like it also makes me, when I was sitting there, I was just like, is he really a good guy? Because I was just like. He literally said something, I guess you could say, I guess Aang also makes sure to take away the bending ability of the fire Lord. So it's kind of along those lines. And he didn't kill him, I guess. But I don't know, I was just like, it just seems really messed up. To keep him innocent, you already took away the thing that made him. Right. So why does he have to live locked up, too, also?

01:41:53
Pat Edwards
Yeah. You're talking almost 100 years later. Our mental health facilities, in the way we treat that still isn't great. Not perfect. So that fate of being in a sanitarium in 1930 is probably worse than death.

01:42:11
Case
Maybe.

01:42:11
Pat Edwards
I don't know.

01:42:12
Case
Yeah.

01:42:14
Sam
Especially because most of them weren't actually sanitary.

01:42:19
Pat Edwards
Yes. So I would probably wrap it up. Just saying. They have an epic fight and he killed. He defeats him. He dies because the shadow has shown himself he is not Batman and that he's not afraid to. I mean, he fucking shoots people 90% of the time, so he's obviously not afraid with killing as a method of crime stopping.

01:42:43
Case
Yeah, it is weird that he chooses not to kill this one.

01:42:47
Sam
Yeah.

01:42:47
Case
And I get that there's a brick joke here because earlier he's like, I know a great therapist, and he gives the name, or a great psychiatrist, and he gives the name, and it's the name that gets signed off on the guy's log at the end. Just to emphasize on top of the fact that he has the red ring, that he's an agent of the shadow.

01:43:06
Sam
Yeah.

01:43:06
Case
So I know that it's a callback, but it's so weird that they just fucking cut out a chunk of his brain and leave him in jail, effectively at the end, when he's already murdered all the other people. And this is by far the most dangerous person, even without his powers.

01:43:23
Sam
I mean, he literally convinced Tim Curry to jump out a window to his.

01:43:31
Case
Yeah, that's lots of. That is very much on point for.

01:43:36
Pat Edwards
Are we going to just repeat each other?

01:43:38
Case
I looked at picture this. Terracotta warriors.

01:43:43
Sam
I feel like Pat's version is just the version. That's it, guys. That's our show. It's done. I will say that the only other thing that I thought, and I don't think that it would actually work, but I was thinking that if were to keep the bomb, then I would kind of change Shimon Khan's motivation, which I kind of played with a little bit. And I kind of played with the thought of him not coming to take over the world and not coming to court the shadow, but coming to end the shadow and kind of like just this thought of an imperialist invader kind of thing, like coming to take revenge for opium dens and things like that. I did kind of do that, but I wasn't sure how to work all the other elements I would like.

01:44:47
Sam
And also that gave me pause into figuring out whether I really felt the shadow would be the good guy or the bad guy then. And so there was, like, far too many questions for me to make that my official pitch, which is why my pitch was more like Pat's. But I did play with that idea where it was like, let's say, instead of. Because I feel like what fits best is for him to make a machine that would extend his ability to control all these minds, right. Because that's really what these two men have going for them. Right? But I was like, but what if. Because when I was watching the movie, I kept rewinding the movie, I kept going, but why a bomb? Like, I don't understand why a bomb?

01:45:36
Sam
And so I was just like, I feel like if you're going to do the bomb, which I understand, right, there's, like, this feeling of dread when you think of something blowing up. So I feel like, on the most basic level, again, when they went and picked out of the hat in the writer's room, whoever was writing the script, and they were like, what am I going to do? What is he going to set up? Oh, a bomb. Okay, so we're just going to get a physicist. Cool.

01:46:04
Case
Well, I think there's an impulse when you're writing a thing that's set in an earlier time period and is adapting a work from sort of that time period to try to be clever and insert a real thing. We see that also in Sherlock Holmes, like the Robert Downey Jr. Sherlock Holmes movies, where it's like, oh, we're going to set off. I mean, like, we see that with League of extraordinary gentlemen. I feel like when you're writing those kind of things about stuff that was set in those kind of eras, like, this is right before the atom bomb would be real. So it'd be like, can you imagine if someone came up with what we know would be actually existing five years later, ten years later? Can you imagine if that happened prematurely and it was the wrong hands?

01:46:50
Sam
Yeah, but I didn't feel like there was a good enough reason for that particular villain to want to blow up this city. I mean, I guess you could say, like, he wants people to quake in fear of his powers, but he's in the city. He's still there. He didn't leave. The bomb is going to go off while he's there.

01:47:13
Case
Yeah. He had a plane that he was going to take in an hour and have another hour before the bomb goes off.

01:47:18
Sam
I was just like, what? It's just like, so poor planning. So I was like, for me, I was like, if I were going to keep the bomb, I would want to give him a motivation as to why the bomb, why there? And it would be like, because this is where the shadow is from, this is where he is, and he's done enough damage to us, so I'm going to damage him. So that was my only thing. But again, I don't know what I would do with the knife. And, I mean, the priceless shots of it wiping its own mouth as it challenges the shadow, we'd miss out on.

01:48:02
Pat Edwards
What do we do with the knife?

01:48:03
Sam
Yeah, that thing was.

01:48:10
Case
They were very happy with the CG that they used with it. And I don't think it looks that.

01:48:14
Sam
Actually, I was surprised how not horror. I thought it was going to look like ten times more horrible. I really did. I was going to be like, I'm going to go into this and I'm going to look at this and it's going to be bad. It's like when we watched Beowulf and I was just like, wow, 3d animation has gone so much farther and now this looks like crap.

01:48:38
Case
Yeah, it's better to integrate.

01:48:39
Sam
This wasn't that bad. I wasn't struck automatically with how terrible it was.

01:48:48
Case
Yeah, I mean, it looks like video game art, but metal is a little bit easier to render in CG than people fur or hair, which is what we harped on a lot on that episode.

01:48:57
Sam
Yeah. Hair.

01:48:59
Case
Yeah. It's smooth. And they put just enough grit, enough wear on it that it looked relatively fine. It doesn't quite light. Right. And obviously, the facial animations are weird, but it could be a lot worse. And especially because it's 1994 when this.

01:49:16
Pat Edwards
Came out.

01:49:18
Case
It was better than it could have been.

01:49:20
Pat Edwards
So for me, real quick, case, I didn't want to cut Sam off. Do you want to hear something wild? I guess this is one of those things where I find this very encouraging, like, as a creator and a writer and stuff, where it's, like, not everything you do is going to be amazing. Okay. You just got to accept the fact that if you're going to try and do this shit professionally, you're going to have a couple of ducks. Duds. There are two writers credit on this movie, Walter B. Gibson, who's, like, the character of the shadow. It's kind of like an honorary thing. He died, like, nine years before the movie came out. And then David Kep. That name might not sound familiar, but he is a credited writer on Jurassic park, the first mission impossible and the first.

01:50:09
Case
I mean, he says he wrote this before those movies came out. So even though this comes after park.

01:50:16
Pat Edwards
Yeah.

01:50:16
Case
And Carlito's way, also just throwing out, like, good credits this guy has. I say, I realize not everyone loves Carlito's way, but this is a movie he wrote when he wanted to write movies, and he wrote it on spec just because he liked it as a property. So it took a while for it to actually get made. But, yeah, we never really talked about that.

01:50:38
Pat Edwards
I'm just saying, kids, if you don't follow your dreams, all right, because just know, not everything you do is going to be gold.

01:50:44
Sam
Today you might write the shadow, but tomorrow's why Jurassic park.

01:50:51
Pat Edwards
But literally, he wrote Jurassic park before this.

01:50:55
Case
No, he wrote this before.

01:50:57
Pat Edwards
Okay, that's just funny that Jurassic park came out before this. Right?

01:51:05
Case
Yeah, I said earlier, and I totally agree with you, Pat. Don't show the opening scene that they have in this movie. Don't do it there. Put it. Mostly when Margot reads his mind. That makes the most. Right. Like, I think we all agree on that. That makes a ton of sense. Hypothetically, if you weren't going to do that, if you were hell bent on showing Lamont train, fucking have Khan there, have them be rivals, and have them be rivals over the fucking knife.

01:51:39
Sam
I love that. At this point, our pitches have dissolved into hypotheticals because Pat's put so good. Go on.

01:51:49
Case
Well, no, so I agree. If I were doing it from scratch, I would be like, yeah. So obviously hold the thing for later and go with that because that made the most sense. My notes are all like, yeah, this is a great cold opening. Why isn't this not the cold opening? But if you weren't going to do that and you wanted to show it, have him show remorse, have him be really sad that he killed his mentor guy and then go in and do that. But that's not how I would honestly do it. It's just hypothetically, if you had to keep those scenes, how would you do it? Okay, cool. What I would like to do is have the same cold opening, but I would like to not as soon as the one scientist is gone, be like, all right, it's Alec Baldwin.

01:52:31
Case
Okay, cool. And have him go off and be Lamont Cranston. Because what I would like to do is for a short first act, not reveal who the shadow is. He has this whole network of people who work for him. And I would like to sort of see all of this stuff happening around, like all these people dropping off notes and having people with signal rings and so forth. Because it's actually kind of a cool scene when Alec Baldwin shows up at that scientist's house and they give the codes to each other, that's actually kind of dope. And I like moments like that where agents of the shadow are all kind of interacting with each other. So I would do cold open scene on the bridge and then I would go to the museum and as soon as the sarcophagus opens, cut away.

01:53:23
Case
Optimally, don't show what's inside. If you have to show what's inside. And what should be inside is not a person, but is those coins that we see later and the knife. And because we haven't seen all this stuff and it could be in like a cool display type thing. We don't know what's going on with that. The guard, who is Neelix from Star Trek Voyager, by the way, should just be dead and he should be stabbed. And people are like, oh, my God. Because that way it's obviously a murder. And then we have all these networks of shadows, people walking around passing off notes because they have, like, a cool scene where they're, like, passing off notes in the middle of the street going into act three.

01:54:00
Case
And I want more of that earlier so that the shadow is this network of people communicating with each other. So we can skip that first scene at the club. That's all exposition. It's unnecessary. Unless you just want a big dump. And most of that could be saved for later anyway and can be less awkward. You don't need his uncle being like, I've got some issues with you. It's really weird that you went missing for seven years and I never said anything about that because don't trust that margarine. She hears voices like the peeking duck, by the way.

01:54:37
Pat Edwards
Why would he know that? Because didn't she say when she read his mind? That hasn't happened to me since my friend, when I was a kid or something.

01:54:44
Case
Right. Yeah. Hypothetically, it could be some 6th sense kind of scenario, but regardless, just don't fucking have any of that. Don't do any of those, like, get to the point sort of faster. I want it to be like a mystery about what's going on. And part of that is that we don't see Shawan Khan do the murder at all. He's not in the sarcophagus because he's already there. And in the script, it's implied he's already been there, or at least his agents have already been. So, like, it's weird that he would need to do that. Travel. Anyway. It's overly dramatic just for the sake of having a cool, big ancient sarcophagus scene. But he already had the hotel. It's already been taken over and sort of wiped from everyone's minds.

01:55:33
Case
That's all been set up before he had enough time to install a moving floor. Don't make it confusing to the audience. What's going on. Just have him already be here. And what he was shipping over was the Macguffin metals, that, in the script that they have is what they were using to make an atom bomb. Yeah, but Pat, I love your fucking cerebro thing. I'm mad that I didn't think about it. It's fucking great, the whole building.

01:55:58
Pat Edwards
I thought you did. You were saying? Oh, you just got.

01:56:01
Case
I got where you were going once you started talking. But I didn't mess with the atom bomb part of it, but I love it so much. Like, I'm going to steal that from you because that's so much better. Do it have the building be exactly on the ley line of New York City kind of thing and have it being perfectly structured like the base column or something. Could be an amplifier for their powers. But he needs to use, what is it, residium or what do you call the Macguffin metal, huh?

01:56:29
Pat Edwards
The beryllium sphere.

01:56:30
Case
Well, the beryllium sphere is part of the atom bomb. Part like, the machine that they build has to still come that way. But the material, because they note that coin is, like, radioactive material. Radioactive metal, like, heavy metal, use that. So that's what gets shipped over. That's the thing that gets shipped over. That puts the shadow on his case. And eventually we get the reveal sort of going into act two, but there's a lot of confusion and mystery. Who is the shadow? What's going on? Who are all these people who are passing words on? And we see the shadow in action, but we don't see him without unmasked up at a certain point. Because what we should be following more is she's great. I actually really like her, but I think she should be more important.

01:57:19
Case
I think that when her father gets mind controlled, I think she should. The reveal of Khan should be him taking over her dad's mind and thinking. He takes over her mind, too, but he doesn't to her. And so that's why she's like, why are you acting so weird, dad? She's talking to him while he's being mind controlled and working on this project. The guards are acting really weird. She's trying to understand it. So she goes to the police. The police won't listen to her because everyone's like, everything's fine. Just roll with that kind of stuff. And eventually she goes and confronts him at the club. And that's where we pan over. And sitting at the table with the commissioner is Lamont Cranston. And they don't know each other because we cut those earlier scenes, but we sort of start setting that up there.

01:58:09
Case
That's how they meet in the scenario. So then I would say when the shadow goes to find Reinhardt Lane, the guards are already taken over. They don't need to be shot down with crossbows by fucking mongolian warriors. I don't mind having the mongolian warriors, but I think that they should just not stand out. Like, they should just be outside and about the hotel, and people don't notice them ever on purpose. They're being blocked from everyone's mind so that we can have, like.

01:58:43
Sam
I mean, honestly, if they're ghosts like he suggested, like Pat suggested, then it's perfect because no one will see them anyway because they're spirits.

01:58:54
Case
That would work fine. But I'm not taking pats in this scenario. I'm keeping them as being like his actual agents because I think that's fine. Have visually distinct enemies to fight in the third act. Sure, why not? But have that fight, that's the bigger thing we need to get into act two faster. We need to get them paired up sooner, and then we need to have the actual confrontation in the hotel. Fucking have interesting scenes. The big shots from the trailer that they used is when the shadow first walks into the hotel, and you see his shadow up against the hall of the entranceway. They don't do interesting stuff. One, the guards walk off, and we never see the scene.

01:59:41
Case
Two, the knife fight could be more interesting because the knife should be a cool thing that they're tussling over the whole time and at the very end of the movie. Three, the thing he uses to kill Khan should be the knife. The whole confrontation should be them vying for control of the one physical thing they can use. Because it's not that they're telekinetic, that they're able to mentally control this flying dagger. So it's not that he's all of a sudden able to raise up a shard of glass. It's at the very end of it, he's able to finally conquer the knife. Like, earlier, he was able to get it to stop actually stabbing him, but only here is he now finally able to win it.

02:00:22
Case
And the way I would do that, considering all of the, like, all right, well, we're cutting the opening, so how do we make the knife important, even though they lost the set? And so this makes it a little difficult to be, like, what they should have done, because there's some shots that leaked, which is. So they're in this hall of mirrors, and in the mirrors, you're seeing flashes of his past as, like, a crazy evil warlord in Mongolia. You don't need the mirrors. You can just have it in their heads. We should get some actual gunfight. We should have knives, like, the knife flying around because the knife is cool. It can be a bonus action attack that Khan has after he takes his main action attack. That's fun.

02:01:02
Case
And meanwhile, the shadow is two weapon fighting, so he gets a bonus action attack with his guns. Cool. Roll with that. Have the guncotta kind of scene. And then while this is all going on, show flashes. Show more. We got a bunch when Margot Lane read his mind. But here we actually get the two of them training, and maybe we can actually. I like the idea of them knowing each other regardless. They can know who each other is from that time before. It doesn't have to be like, who are you? It can be like, Shuan Khan. You remember me? I thought you had forgotten everything about your past kind of stuff when they confront each other earlier on, finally, so.

02:01:43
Sam
That we can show them all week. Go on, sir.

02:01:49
Case
Because you can still. I'm going to use the phrase green screen. However you would composite it with the technology they had available. I know green screens existed. I don't know what they actually had to use when they were shooting this. But it wouldn't be that hard to put the Mongolia stuff in the background. And then them standing in front of it. And the mat work they do in this movie is pretty good. So I have to imagine they can do it. It wouldn't be that hard. And you could do a lot of it in just, like, a black theater. But I think we all agree we need a real boss fight at the end. We need many boss fights with the Mongolian horde, which we don't get. And we need a real boss fight. And you can set up all those things inside.

02:02:26
Case
The mental flashes of them training together. We could have a pause in their battle. Where we see them as young men learning the ways of the flying dagger thing and all that stuff. And how Lamont just never got it. He was always pretty bad at it. And then one day, everyone's dead. And he was left without his ability to truly train. And so he returns home remorseful or something. We don't need them just to arbitrarily hate each other. They should actually have some motive. And this could be a moment for Lamont to get vengeance for him being left to sort of figure out his own way. After being set on the right path in the first place.

02:03:10
Sam
I mean, also, technically, the implication, the fact that Khan has the knife. The implication is that he killed the master, that he took this knife that he won over. So there could be. If you think possibly. I mean, I know when I studied martial arts, I definitely had an affinity for my teachers and my sensei's. And that could be a personal reason to not, like someone just putting that out there. That could actually be a thing that they never actually explored. He just kind of was like, yeah, I want it from him. I got it from him. But there was, like, an implication that monk is dead now, right?

02:04:02
Case
Yeah, it's not an implication. He said. He said, it's supposed to be a motivation.

02:04:07
Sam
Yeah, but it doesn't feel like there's no motivation at all for the shadow. He's like, oh, cool. People die.

02:04:16
Pat Edwards
I forgot to. I wanted to use Margo's ability more where it's like she. I wanted Margot to actually be the one who locates the hideout. The hotel monument. I forgot to mention that, too, with her ability.

02:04:30
Case
Yeah, I think that's good. She does enough of the research anyway. She might as well be the one to sort of figure that part out. There's a shot that I actually really like, which we didn't talk about it because it's not that important where when Ian McKellen is showing off the blast radius from the Empire State Building and the Navy guys and the one who's.

02:04:55
Pat Edwards
Played by the Vikings, I have that totally cut out of mine. It's like, there's no point.

02:04:58
Case
Yeah. He makes a gay joke and Shawan Khan not mind wipes him, but forces him, but he's conscious. He's just, like, unable to stop his body from jumping off. It's a weird shot because the tone of this movie is so all over the place. When he jumps, it pans down to the two of them. Like Lamont talking. Yeah, exactly. It happens behind them. And I actually enjoy them noticing and them just like, this is where their banter. I really liked them sort of, like, figuring out what the plan is. And Margot inserting herself into Lamont's behaviors as the shadow, I think, is really good at that spot. And so that scene was kind of more comedic. So I ended up having a good vibe for it because there's sort of like a. What is that kind of element when it's happening?

02:05:50
Case
And then the rest of the scene is comedy. So I'm like, oh, I guess it's funny. Okay, cool. I want more of those moments of them not seeing shit. And like I said, I think the building should be visible in some shots. The hotel should just be there. The monolith, it's invisible to people. But it's not that it's not there. It's just that when they look at it's not there. So when we see it from people's points of view, then it's gone. But when we just sort of get master shots where we, the audience, are in on more information than the people in the scene, those are when the invisibility should. Like, that's why I think it'd be fun for moments in the fight where if Shawan Khan is invisible to the shadow, Lamont's right there. And then we cut to the reverse.

02:06:38
Case
Like, have moments like that. And maybe that way you keep out some of the bloodshed. Like, if they're constantly shooting at shadows, but the other one is, like, responding as if they had just been shot. Or, like, that way we can keep action in this movie without it being too unfriendly to a child.

02:06:59
Pat Edwards
Yeah.

02:06:59
Case
Like, I think we should focus more on Margot for a while. I think we should have more of the shadows network kind of thing. I have notes about how it's like, it's weird to open movies with, like, here's the backstory for our super competent, spooky guy. Like, Batman begins only works because everyone knows who Batman is culturally. It's not the first Batman movie. Like, Batman begins would be a terrible first Batman movie. Not first Batman movie in a series, but first Batman movie, period. If that was the 89 Batman movie, a lot of people would be like, that's a little weird because you actually kind of want the badass to be a badass for a little bit and then find out how he became a badass.

02:07:38
Case
And the shadow should be badass and mysterious and well connected, and we shouldn't be asking, so how did he make these connections? No, it happened before the movie started, and this movie starts before that, and then they skip those steps. So we're left to wonder why how that all happened.

02:07:55
Pat Edwards
We didn't talk about his pneumatic tube system. That's so fucking.

02:08:01
Case
I made a reference to it. I actually dig that fucking scene. No, it's cool. Harry Potter.

02:08:06
Pat Edwards
It's so conspicuous. It's a tube going along the. Outside the buildings. So what? Every time he gets a new agent, he has that. I mean, that's a pretty good way to find out who the agents are. Just follow the fucking tubes.

02:08:22
Case
I think that's why the tubes are so complicated. It's not just a straight shot into whatever the location is. They go all over the place.

02:08:29
Sam
I mean, honestly, after a while you're going to start seeing all these people with the same fucking ring.

02:08:36
Pat Edwards
Yeah, the professors.

02:08:38
Sam
If you're, like, wonderful.

02:08:39
Case
Well, that ties in the cerebro idea better. Because if everyone is like, the shadow is slowly taking over the entire city, too. But he's doing it slowly because he's not as good and he doesn't have technical assistance to mind wipe everyone.

02:08:50
Pat Edwards
He's just as bad. He's taken. Yeah, I'm pretty sure.

02:08:55
Sam
Honestly, based on the fact that he lobotomized someone, I feel like that's true. I don't know if he's a real hero, guys.

02:09:04
Pat Edwards
I do love. The professor is having breakfast with his wife and he's got the ring on, and when it's Alec Baldwin, but he's pretending to be just another same. You alluded to a significant other. We all have significant others. I don't know about you all. My wife, I'm pretty sure, would notice if I suddenly started wearing a big, dark red gemstone ring on my finger.

02:09:33
Sam
Just all the time because he's supposed to never take it off, especially if you would like. So if you never take it off. So do you shower with that ring on? And if you shower with that ring on, your significant other is definitely going to notice that you are wearing that ring all the time. Depending on how passive aggressive they are. They may not say it to you, but they're definitely talking to their friends. He's gotten into this new thing. He's like wearing this ring everywhere, and I don't even know where he got it. And it's kind of gaudy because it's like this giant red gemstone, which I swear it kind of shimmers sometimes. And then he gets all weird and secretive. Do you think he's having an affair?

02:10:19
Pat Edwards
Yes, exactly.

02:10:20
Case
Especially because he probably, like, clutches it and then walks away. Then all the girlfriends will be like, my husband's doing the same thing too. Oh, my God. Imagine if there is a shadow network of shadow wives of shadow minions.

02:10:33
Sam
It's like, what is it? Football wives? Like, they go together. There was like a support club on AOL or something when I was growing up.

02:10:42
Case
Yeah.

02:10:44
Sam
What was going to say? Because my mom was always joking with my dad that she was going to join it, but yeah. Because also he rushed to answer the door before she could. And people get the notes that look like nothing's on them, but then they run out. He didn't specifically get it, but I'm sure some of his other agents have. And I would be like, what the fuck? What is happening? Just go marriages. Honestly.

02:11:15
Pat Edwards
Yeah. Mo's wife was like another bowling club emergency or whatever. He's like, yeah.

02:11:20
Case
Rushes off.

02:11:21
Sam
She does not believe it at all. Like, she does not at all. She has had it with her shit. She's starting an affair of her own. I am fairly sure just from the delivery of that line.

02:11:36
Pat Edwards
All of Shiwan Khan builds a network and it's all. All of his agents are the spouses, the significant others of the shadows who are jilted.

02:11:48
Sam
I've got a secret thing too. So there.

02:11:54
Pat Edwards
Oh, man.

02:11:56
Sam
I mean, honestly, that would be a super interesting because that's the shadow and, like, Mr. And Mrs. Smith, really. And then you have fights amongst people at home. Just have everyone show up, fight their significant other.

02:12:12
Pat Edwards
Oh, my God, what a montage. The final of all the agents are fighting each other in their home while the two hero villain are fighting.

02:12:25
Sam
All of New York City erupted. Apparently it was just couples fighting. But what do you accept from a den of villainy?

02:12:37
Case
Right?

02:12:40
Sam
I'm still so offended.

02:12:45
Case
Yeah, it's hard when it's not like Gotham City.

02:12:48
Pat Edwards
Yeah.

02:12:49
Sam
I mean, it could have been New York City. It's fine. But why you got to make us a dent? A know we got problems, but we're good like anyone else.

02:13:07
Case
Ultimately. So this is a weird movie to talk about. From the standpoint of in the circle of Shadow fans, it's usually regarded as pretty good. It's a fairly solid synthesis of the two main source materials that people would reference, and there's a lot of things to really like about it from all the problems with the prosthetics. He looks exactly like the character does on all the pulp fiction covers. So if you're down for it, there's that. All the casting is great. The visuals are really good. Mikey started off as a music video guy, and so the cool shots are there and the set design is great. And the matte work to make it all look like 1930s ish is really good. But the opening scene is so fucking rough.

02:13:57
Case
I think the opening scene ruins the movie, frankly, in terms of being able to appreciate this whole thing and the hair, because Alec Baldwin is. Yeah, well, that's the thing because Alec Baldwin just is impossible to take seriously. Every time they try to make him like an oriental warlord, it just doesn't really work. Like every time they flash back to, it's like, oh, right, this is dumb. So those are all kind of rough. And Alec Baldwin continues throughout the whole movie to not take it seriously, which is annoying because then everyone else has to sort of do the heavy lifting on moving the plot forward. And so it's just like, oh, I know why a lot of people like this movie.

02:14:33
Case
When I made some jokes about the opening scene, a lot of people came at me on Twitter and other platforms, and I was like, oh, all right.

02:14:44
Pat Edwards
If you're listening, you're fucking wrong. Yeah, K Buds, you're wrong.

02:14:48
Sam
Totally wrong.

02:14:50
Case
And it's also 17 years. No, that's not how math works. It's 27 years later.

02:14:57
Sam
No, 1994 was yesterday. It's cool. It's fine.

02:15:01
Pat Edwards
It was ten years ago.

02:15:03
Sam
Yeah, it was ten years ago.

02:15:06
Case
It was just like ten years ago like that.

02:15:10
Pat Edwards
But.

02:15:13
Case
The metrics for what people were looking for has kind of changed in terms of what's considered good for kids and for adults in the same kind of category. And that's sort of like the rough spot at their end because the movie appeals to a nostalgia for an audience that is not the target demo for what actually is going to come from this whole thing. And it didn't do well. The movie only made 48 million on a $40 million budget, which, once you factor in marketing, is abysmal.

02:15:41
Sam
Yeah.

02:15:42
Case
The greatest tragedy of this movie is that it did so poorly that they canceled what was apparently a great super Nintendo game that the Roms have leaked. And people are like, this is a fucking good side scrolling, final fight style. Beat them up. Which now I kind of want to go on.

02:15:56
Sam
One of the film reviews from 1994, I read the headline was, and I'm paraphrasing, this is not the exact headline, but it was like, the shadow is being made. But who for? Because the whole article was like, why are we doing this old radio story? Why are we doing this? Who is this for? This movie is not that good. The criticism was basically, it's visually stunning and it's casted fine, which we all agree with, but they were just like. But it just gets kind of boring and the plot's not sure where to go. And, yeah, it's okay, but who is this for? Who's this audience? So I just thought it was really funny because that was one of the things they were just like, who's showing up to watch this? Who even knows who the shadow is?

02:16:57
Sam
And just the point that it was just too.

02:17:00
Pat Edwards
The shadow notes.

02:17:01
Sam
The shadow notes.

02:17:07
Case
Yeah. Can I just say, I really like the poster.

02:17:10
Sam
The poster.

02:17:10
Case
The poster is fucking great.

02:17:12
Sam
Listen, I love the great.

02:17:14
Case
The poster.

02:17:15
Pat Edwards
I'm saying the elements are there, the ingredients are there. You just got to rearrange them and take out some of the xenophobia and racism.

02:17:29
Sam
Yeah, I would stay away from the. You could rewrite his origin story. Nobody really knows who's going to know? Who's going to know? And you can rewrite it and you can change it and it's fine. I feel like there are plenty.

02:17:48
Case
They also make it more racist in this. It was vague. It's never like we saw the scenes. It's just, oh, he went to the Orient and learned. Yeah, he doesn't.

02:17:59
Pat Edwards
He could have been like a cell sword, like a mercenary or something like that.

02:18:03
Sam
Yeah. Because I used to listen to the old Superman radio show and look one of those free websites and I was like, there were more than a few episodes where my mouth was hanging open because of some of the things that were said that were inappropriate and racist. And I was like, and honestly, Superman hasn't incorporated those. So I feel like the shadow can learn from that. Let's learn lessons, man.

02:18:42
Pat Edwards
I'm taking my time. As someone who's a Sci-Fi author, I'm actually watching the original Star Trek for the first time ever. Like, bit by bit, I watch an episode, like, maybe a week or once a week or something, but holy shit. Literally in the second episode, there's a line of Kirk being like, I'm just not used to women being on the bridge. I'm like, oh, my.

02:19:06
Sam
Yeah. And there are definitely things. You go back and you're like, oh, this did not age well. And they have their moments, but then there's still things that are redeemable about it. And this movie, it falls in line with that. Although it is definitely really bad. There was just moments where I was like, oh, this makes me uncomfortable. This is inappropriate.

02:19:32
Pat Edwards
The movie in its current form is not a good movie. But that's part of why, because I feel like it's all potential. It's all unfulfilled potential, this movie. And it's like, this could have been a lot of fun and interesting. My mouth hurts. Smiling. That was a lot of fun.

02:19:52
Sam
Thank you for bringing this pile of horse crap to us.

02:19:58
Case
Well, again, it's not a pile of horse crap. It's just the poorly realized lot of.

02:20:03
Pat Edwards
Potential undercooked horse crap.

02:20:05
Sam
Listen, there are nuggets of nutrition in that horse crap. It's still a horse crap.

02:20:12
Case
Look at all those chunks of carrots.

02:20:14
Sam
Exactly. There are some very beautiful carrots in there. Art deco carrots.

02:20:20
Pat Edwards
We're going to sift out the carrots from the horse crap. We're going to wash them off. We're going to wash them really good. Put some tarragon on them, reroast them again.

02:20:29
Sam
Yeah, it's going to be delicious. And then we're going to feed them to puppies because we can't eat them.

02:20:36
Pat Edwards
Oh, my God.

02:20:39
Case
I get why people who are fans of the shadow dig the things that are in here, because a lot of stuff is realized very well. So if you're looking for to see on screen, finally a thing, it happens and it looks appropriate. It's just like, man, it's not exciting enough. And, wow, it's racist.

02:20:56
Sam
Yeah, I mean, again, you know, the show.

02:20:58
Case
Yo, is this racist? Yeah, this is.

02:21:00
Sam
Yeah. Again, I will say that I think that they did a good job, visually of creating a world that feels real and actualized within itself, even if it doesn't look like New York. And New York is not a place in villainy.

02:21:17
Case
I feel like we've shined a lot of sunlight on this but why don't we slip and slide on some ICE over to some plugs? So, Pat, you do a lot of things.

02:21:29
Pat Edwards
Well done, man. Well done. Yeah. Okay.

02:21:33
Case
What do you got going on, man?

02:21:35
Pat Edwards
I am at the Pat Edwards on Twitter. My website is thepadedwards.com. As we've talked about multiple times. I'm part of the let's rewatch podcast on this delightful certainpov.com network. I am a writer. I write novels, my space tripping series. So as of you hearing this, there will be a rerelease, or we'll be on the cusp of a rerelease of my first novel, Space Tripping, with a brand new short story that's never been released before. And then a few months after that, in December, the sequel will come out. So just go to my website, thepatawars.com. Check that out. You can get the first book. The sequel comes out in December. Also, I write on independent fifth edition TTRPG games.

02:22:18
Pat Edwards
The red Opera is one I basically wrote, like, half of that's this epic warlock themed d d campaign based on an album by a metal band. I know it's a lot to unpack there, right?

02:22:32
Case
But you wrote the good half.

02:22:35
Pat Edwards
No, the partner with Rick Heinz is great, too. And then I'm one of many writers on another book called Sirens, Battle of the Bards, which is helmed by Sateen Phoenix, who is kind of a known entity in that world. And when this comes out, I might have something else really cool in the works that case might be involved in as well. So just, yeah, go to thepadedwards.com and check that out.

02:23:01
Case
Yeah. Sam, where can people find you?

02:23:03
Sam
They can find me here. And if you've any complaints about anything I said about this movie today, you can find case at, you can find.

02:23:10
Case
Me on Twitter at case aiken. You can find the podcast at anotherpass. All of our stuff is over@certainpov.com. We've been plugging it, so let's just keep plugging it.

02:23:20
Pat Edwards
Let's.

02:23:21
Case
Rewatch is awesome. I love your show, guys. I'm so glad you're part of the network. When pat and I first met at geeklycon a couple years ago, it was just like, oh, yeah, hang out with this guy.

02:23:31
Pat Edwards
Oh, you have a podcast, dope. All right.

02:23:34
Case
And then I found out that it was hosted by other charming people. And so it's like, wow, how can you have so many charming people one podcast? I don't know. It's amazing. How do you do it. It's great. You should go listen to it. Let's rewatch. It's great also@certainpov.com. You can find links tons of other great shows. You can find a link to our discord server. We're doing this call right now on discord. So come chat, share memes. We did a big overhaul in terms of how we organized everything. So it's much more readable now that we've sort of categorized things by what genre of podcasts that they're working in. So come and hang out, and this will be long after Loki's done. I don't know what the next thing we're going to be like, gushing about, but come check it out.

02:24:15
Case
So today were talking about a Russell McKahie movie. Next time, we're also going to be talking about a Russell McKahey movie.

02:24:21
Pat Edwards
Sam, what is that?

02:24:22
Sam
Highlander two? The quickening. And if you liked this, you know, pass it on.

02:24:33
Pat Edwards
Thanks for listening to certain point of View's another past podcast.

02:24:37
Case
Don't miss an episode.

02:24:39
Pat Edwards
Just subscribe and review the show on iTunes. Just go to certainpov.com. I'm in a great place emotionally here because I've been drinking a good amount of my gin and homemade basil syrup cocktails here, and I just helped feed mama Duck and her babies. They made a nest. I am a born and raised city kid who is slowly as I get older, becoming more and more, like folksy. And I was born Sam. I'm from Chicago originally, grew up there, lived in the city, and now I'm like, the older I get, I've got small kids. My third is due in literally two weeks from today. And the older I get, I'm like, I could do a couple acre, like two, three acres, little mini ranch, and just kind of, and I never in a million fucking years would have thought I would be that way.

02:25:51
Pat Edwards
But I'm doing stuff with wild animals. I saved, like, last summer a whole family of frogs from our window. Well, because it was hot and they got stuck down there like a mama and some babies and, like had Tupperware and it's like scooping them out. I was like, where's my Disney movie about me?

02:26:05
Sam
Mean, I think. I think it's more of a Pixar film. City guy moves to the country, learns to love all the animals. There's going to be something really sad. We're going to be crying at the end.

02:26:15
Case
Yeah, it's like a no word Pixar kind of like short.

02:26:20
Sam
It's actually the relationship of him and the frog, and he nurses him back to health. And then there's the moment where the frog has to move on. The frog and the frog family have to leave.

02:26:31
Pat Edwards
The frog gets frog cancer, but you.

02:26:33
Sam
Save its babies, and then you raise the babies, but then they grow into an adult, and they have to go off to be adult frogs in the world, but you, as their surrogate father, has to let go. Oh, my God. I'm already mean. Fuck you, Pixar. Fuck you. Have respect for Matt, who has to edit this. Stay on track.

02:26:54
Pat Edwards
Side note, while we're on that, all.

02:26:55
Sam
Of this is Matt.

02:26:56
Pat Edwards
That's what's going to Matt, I love you, and I apologize for at least a two, maybe three times in my excitement, I've smacked my mic with my hands.

02:27:04
Sam
I'm sorry I shouted. I love when Tim Curry died. So I'm pretty sure I should also apologize. Right after I said that, I was like, that was loud. I'm sorry, Matt.

02:27:17
Pat Edwards
Should we fix this movie?

02:27:19
Sam
You know what we should do before we fix this movie? Shouldn't we talk about other stuff on our network?

02:27:24
Pat Edwards
I know a really good show on this network.

02:27:28
Sam
Do you.

02:27:29
Pat Edwards
Have you ever wanted thought of a movie you used to love back in the day, like, when you were a kid or a teen or a young adult, and like, hey, I haven't seen that in a while. I wonder if it still holds up.

02:27:40
Sam
Yeah, I have. All the time.

02:27:42
Pat Edwards
Well, Sam, you're in luck, because there's this show called let's rewatch, where that's what they do. They talk about a movie, and they pause the recording, and then they watch the movie. And then seconds after finishing it, they hop back on and talk about the movie and see if it held up.

02:27:55
Sam
That sounds great.

02:27:56
Pat Edwards
Yeah, it's so much fun.

02:27:57
Case
You look at the moving pictures.

02:27:59
Pat Edwards
Yeah.

02:28:00
Sam
And then you talk about them.

02:28:01
Pat Edwards
The hosts are, like, super charming and attractive and great, cool people, all of them.

02:28:07
Sam
I mean, that sounds like a podcast anyone should just tune into, really, even.

02:28:11
Case
If they can't see the hosts, CpOV certainpov.com.

AI meeting summary:

●      The meeting on the podcast "Certain Point of Views" hosted by Case Aiken and Sam Alicea, along with guest Pat Edwards, discussed aspects of the superhero movie *The Shadow*. They delved into character development, inconsistencies, and references to old-time radio shows like "Thrilling Adventure Hour." Pat Edwards shared insights on TV writers and live stage shows influencing storytelling perspectives. They critiqued character portrayals, like Lamont Cranston/The Shadow and Shiwan Khan, praising visual aesthetics but criticizing scriptwriting flaws.

●      Analysis included scenes with dream interpretations by characters Margot Lane and Lamont Cranston, mixed feelings on sequences, and cultural representation concerns. The team agreed on room for writing coherence and character arc improvements for a more engaging experience. Discussions highlighted conflicts related to invisibility tricks and visual dynamics, with enjoyed scenes involving Tim Curry's character and Peter Boyle's performance. Suggestions included enhancing the shadow's powers visually and character backstories.

●      Improvement ideas covered delaying reveals about characters' pasts, enhancing villain motivations, and refining fight sequences for a more engaging climax. Recommendations focused on refining mind control powers, clarifying plot elements like Khan's introduction, and creating a more impactful final confrontation with choreographed gunplay or hand-to-hand combat. The team emphasized elevating storytelling through nuanced character developments, action refinement, and consistency with established lore to craft a compelling review on *The Shadow*, aiming to analyze various aspects deeply in the podcast episode.

Outline:

●      Chapter 1: Introduction to the Shadow (00:36 - 02:50)

●      00:36: Introduction to the podcast and the topic of discussion about the shadow.

●      01:07: Reference to the thrilling adventure hour and setting the context.

●      02:50: Transition into discussing "The Shadow."

●      Chapter 2: Analysis of the Opening Scene (15:14 - 20:07)

●      15:14: Discussion on the importance and appropriation of the opening scene.

●      16:26: Challenges in adapting the radio show's narration about the character's journey.

●      18:46: Transition into analyzing the transition in the movie.

●      Chapter 3: Script and Writing Challenges (26:53 - 33:47)

●      26:53: Mention of the novelization and extended content of the movie.

●      28:33: Critique of the western imperialist rewriting in the script.

●      31:20: Discussion on the unique writing style and challenges in the script.

●      Chapter 4: Pacing and Action Sequences (44:36 - 51:03)

●      44:36: Evaluation of pacing and tactical elements in action scenes.

●      45:38: Concerns about inconsistent writing affecting build-up in the movie.

●      50:34: Reflection on pacing and action scene dynamics.

●      Chapter 5: Pitching Ideas for Improvement (1:15:22 - 1:59:23)

●      1:15:22: Transition into pitching ideas for enhancing the movie.

●      1:27:59: Introduction to a structured plan for improvement.

●      1:34:08: Incorporating backstory reveal and character development in the climax.

●      1:53:07: Proposal to highlight the shadow as a network of people for a more engaging narrative.

●      Chapter 6: Conclusion and Podcast Details (2:15:10 - 2:27:47)

●      2:15:10: Final thoughts on rewriting the origin story and narrative clarity.

●      2:23:12: Podcast organization and overview for listeners.

●      2:26:49: Acknowledgment for the editing process and podcast format.

Action items:

●      **Pat Edwards**

●      Discuss movie choices and rearrangements (04:05)

●      Provide more backstory on the shadow to build tension with Shiwan Khan (49:35)

●      Delay the reveal of Lamont's backstory (01:19:03)

●      Allude to Lamont's past life as Yin Ko through dreams and visions (01:19:07)

●      Define Shiwan Khan as a descendant of Genghis Khan with ghost warriors shipped in artifacts (01:20:10)

●      Introduce mind control limitations, where they can sense each other using their powers (01:24:32)

●      **Sam Alicea**

●      Explore consistency in writing related to Margot Lane’s power usage (47:37)

●      Address inconsistencies in character tactics of Shiwan Khan (44:52)

●      **Case**

●      Have Khan ship himself in a sarcophagus and introduce ghost warriors from artifacts for his plan (01:20:22)

●      Create an army 10 million strong using a Cerebro-like device amplifying minds targeting New York City residents (1;28;02)

●      Implement gun kana style close quarters combat or gunplay choreography between Lamont and Khan at the climax scene for more direct conflict(1;37;25)

Notes:

●      📊 **Discussion on Visual Elements**

●      **Praises for the visual aspects**

●      **Suggestion to maintain consistency in visual style**

●      **Importance of visual cues in scenes**

●      🔍 **Analysis of Plot Structure**

●      **Debate on the clarity and establishment of plot points**

●      **Request for more direct storytelling**

●      🎬 **Action Scene Development**

●      **Brainstorming on making action scenes engaging**

●      **Suggestion to enhance dynamic moments**

●      ⚙️ **Improving Communication**

●      **Emphasis on clear communication between characters**

●      **Utilization of visual cues for interaction**

●      💡 **Content Organization**

●      **Reorganization for better readability**

●      **Categorization based on podcast genres**

●      🎥 **Enhancing Story Delivery**

●      **Desire for early introduction of crucial plot elements**

●      **Avoidance of confusing the audience with storytelling pace**

●      📚 **Reevaluating Audience Preferences**

●      **Observation on changing audience preferences for content**

●      **Discussion on adjusting content for different demographics**