Von Doom Fest - Doctor Strange

Come with us to be land of mystic Enchantment, where we find a haggard figure entering a strangely peaceful chamber. I've searched for months, but now at last my quest has ended. You, old man, Are you the one I seek? Are you called the ancient one? Welcome back to von Doomfest.

I'm father alone with me as always as my pal HB. Say hi to the folks. HB. Hello everybody. Great to be back, looking forward to casting some spells and getting into the after the the nether world with doctor Strange.

HP has the eye of Agamodo. I've got that cape. It's filled with demons. And of course we're talking about doctor Strange in his cinematic appearances and his earlier history with the comics and such, and some of his other live action and animated appearances. Of course, Doctor Strange made his first appearance in Strange Tales, as most of Marvel's best characters seem to have done.

That was Strange Tale's one ten back in July of nineteen sixty three. Doctor Strange himself was created, written and drawn by the Fantastic We haven't really talked about him yet. Stephen did go Steve go oh my god. He really tapped into the psychedelia, to the counter culture. He he gave comics a legitimacy no one saw coming, and that was mostly due to Doctor Stephen Vincent Strange HP.

I didn't know he had a middle name. Well, God, damn it. I guess I'm a better podcaster than you now. Researcher, tell me, tell me about your history with doctor Strange. Doctor.

I don't know what is doctor in French leductor. I think it's the medic Strange. I don't know. My history with doctor Strange is to be To be honest, he was never one of my top tier superheroes. But surprises me.

I thought you were a big Doctor Strange fan. I not to say I don't love the character. It's just in my in my younger years, it was something that I sought out. It was all about We've talked about this already to a degree, Spider Man, The Hulk, Batman, Superman. But later on, when I started to kind of expand what appealed to me or the comics that I was interested in started to expand.

I loved discovering the ditco Doctor Strange. Like you said, that sort of psychedelic way that he had of conveying all these weird, like I said, nether World's dimensions that the Doctor Strange would would go through. It was unlike anything. Really. The closest I could say would be something like Kirby's Silver Surfer, which sort of treads some of the same waters, and that it's all about the cosmos and expanding your mind.

I think that's really key to the Doctor Strange character. Didko did a bunch of Silver Surfer? He did? But when I think of Silver Surfer, the first thing, at the first I think of is Kirby. Well, I think of him because he created him, definitely, and maybe the Surfer himself I do imagine as Kirby's conception of him.

But when I think of the Silver Surfer surfing and being lonely, I think of Steve Ditko's background artwork there, just like I think of his artwork here in Doctor Strange. Although I must confess I've only ever purchased one Doctor Strange comic in my entire life. That was Doctor Strange number fourteen, and that's because it was a crossover with Tomb of Dracula number forty four Where really where Wong is attacked and killed by Dracula, no joke. He drains him, he doesn't bring him back as a vampire. And then doctor Strange has to go and investigate and fight with Dracula.

So he has to go and who he's dead? Wong is dead, yes, and he has to go and rescue him from Dracula. He travel back in time and thwart Dracula from killing Wong. That is a crazy story. No wonder that you remember the exact number issue because that's very specifically.

Love those and you know, Tomb of Dracula is just an interesting comic in general because it's called Tomb of Dracula, which makes him the lead character, except he's the villain. So yeah, every every week it's different sets of characters attempting to kill one thing. But by the way, before we move off of this, the one thing I'd be remiss not mentioning is we were talking about Steve Didko for a future episode. Let's not forget Steve Didko did Spider Man for a long time, and a lot of those early issues that I grew to love that we'll talk about in another episode were Steve Didko drawn. So I almost it's almost like we should do an episode just on Steve Didko fatherm alone, because he touches so many of these.

Characters, we probably should. And you know, I said, that's the only Doctor Strange comic I owned. It's probably the only Doctor Strange comic I ever read. But I'm at least familiar with the character because Marvel is very good at cross pollinating. So we got a lot of Doctor Strange in Spider Man that was during the nineties, a lot of those, but I remember him mainly as well.

First of all, he I don't know if you know this, but obvious, well you know that I was a big fan of Blade but Aide went fallow for a long time because vampires were banished from the Marvel universe by Doctor Strange. And then during the eighties when his powers were failing, some of his spells fell apart. One of them was the banishment of the Vampire, so they all came back later on in the early nineties, Strange joined Midnight Suns and those comics I did read where he's just a team member. But that's like, you know, that's a crazy team of fucking superheroes, where it's ghost Rider and then the other ghost Rider Danny Catch at one point, and Blade is a leader at one point. So it's an insane group of fucking characters.

There was a video game called Midnight Suns. I think it's a team based thing, like you're describing that. I've never read the original comic, but I believe wasn't Doctor Strange in a member of the Defenders at some point. He definitely was. He was an Avenger as well, and a New Avenger as well.

Like that's That's what I'm saying it was. It's kind of hard, no matter what comic you're into in Marvel to not get a little bit of everybody to some degree, and that's certainly true of Doctor Strange. He was a guest Star extraordinaire while maintaining at least one, if not two titles of his own. Yeah, the origin of Doctor Strange I always thought was. I always liked it because it kind of you had everything like he you know, and it's very relatable, right.

He hops asshole? Yeah, who gets Unfortunately, I mean saying he gets taken down a Pegger two doesn't really cover it. I mean he has that's pretty brutal. That's pretty brutal. I mean, he he can no longer do surgery because of his car accident that he's uh that he that he caused or that he he.

Was using those powers for evil anyway, so might as well not have them at all. The powers of medicine. That's correct. He was only doing it for those who could afford his services in the comics. That's true.

That's true. But then he became desperate for any I mean, he still was a selfish asshole looking for any way that he can get back to the you know, the the the High Echalon that he was in. And it's only after he you know, gives himself in service to the Ancient One and dedicates his life to becoming the Sorcerer Supreme does he reach his full potential. I think that's such a great origin. It actually is pretty spectacular, and he's the weirdest of the Marvel superheroes when he Doctor Strange's challenged at a very early time sixty three that what the meaning of a superhero could be.

Because suddenly it's magic, baby, and magic on a grand scale, and a magic that weaves through all of the Marvel universes. Now that's all that's all I got with that. No, but it's a good point because so many of the Marvel heroes, and I can't claim that I know each and every hero that ever walked the Marvel universe. But mostly it's somebody who got their powers through some sort of accident, or somebody who through through great intelligence and skill becomes a superhero like a not Batman specifically, but but someone like like Doctor Doom had no real powers of his own. He just had the armor and he became Doctor Doom.

No, he had magic, well, yeah, he did have magic, but magic wasn't really like the well spring by which all of his villainy took flight, right, I mean he could make those robots he took over Laviria. Oh yeah, No, He's multifaceted in his villainy, but his tendency towards the dark arts often put him in opposition with Doctor Strange. So I've read a bunch of those too. I've probably I've read a bunch of omnibuses at some point. Sure, sure, but you're right.

I mean the fact that Doctor Strange was all about the magic that was his superpower, if you will, was being like the Sorcerer Supreme. And that's I mean, not to draw a direct comparison to DC. But that was the thing that I think stemied Superman the most is when they brought in magic. Magic was the one thing, aside from Kryptonite, that he was ill prepared to deal with, because it wasn't a physical thing that he could he could overpower. It was this, you know, it was magic.

So I think you're right. I think that really put doctor Strange in a class of his own. I believe he is the introduction of magic to that universe. No, I guess Wanda technically, but they were treating her like she was just a metahuman, like she could bend reality rather than tap into some sort of other world or other universes energy. Right, But they but they also, you know, allude to the fact that she was experimented on by a Baron von Strucker or something.

Do you remember that. I think it was an age of Ultron. Yeah. That to me, Yes, she she is delving in the dark arts. But there was always that open question in my mind, like is she genuinely like a sorcerer like Strange or is she just has these latent mutant abilities that that that approximate magic spell weaving?

And I'm not I'm not absolutely. I don't have You don't have that anymore though, right. No, Well, now she's clearly because she has the Dark Tome, and everything that happened in the Multiverse of Madness kind of runs counter to that. He opened the door for magic, and now then now there's magic everywhere. We've got Agatha all along and all the all those Witshes, which I'm hoping are going to be playing a part in the upcoming doomsday.

In fact, I hope all of the magical characters are going to get to have their part in the upcoming doomsday. Although I suspect Wanda Maximov will be sitting out Doomsday. She'll probably come back for Secret Wars. I would assume. She's too powerful.

Man, they made it way too powerful. Yeah, they kind of went off the rails with her a little bit, the way that WandaVision ended and then Multiverse of Madness kind. Of hard like there's nothing to stop her. Really, she had to stop herself. We'll get to it, yeah, exactly.

But yeah, no, I guess to tie up what we were talking about. For me, like I said, I didn't have a lot of experience with the character, but I've since gotten into him a little bit more, and he's kind of a favorite of mine, if you will. I just I love the psychedelia of it. I love the fact that a lot of it takes place in inner space as opposed to outer space, which is kind of a novel concept for a comic. And I just I don't I just I think the characters really cool.

I love the Cape, the eyebag of Moto, the spells, I love the ancient one. It's all really cool. Remember in the seventies when they wanted to make a Doctor Strange movie and they wanted to do it with David Bowie. Also remember in the eighties when they wanted to make a Doctor Strange movie and they wanted to do it with David Bowie. Also do you remember in the nineties when they wanted to make a Doctor Strange movie and they wanted to make it with David Bowie.

I get the sense that maybe just David Bowie wanted to make a Doctor Strange movie and he just, through the decades, just kept trying. I don't think David Bowie was involved at all. I think they just everyone went, Yep, he's the guy. Whatever, whatever happens, let's get him. He would not have been.

Look, I love David Bowie. Anyone who listens to noise junkies or just knows me, he knows that he was my favorite in high school. I love David Bowie. He would not. I was there, I saw it had That's right it in real time, David Bowie would not have been my top choice for Doctor Strange.

Actually, interestingly, Ross, who's one of my favorite artists comic artists, always has been. When he did moder Colors, when he did Marvels, his well, his back up, his stuff is always interesting because it's clear that he picks a specific model for each character, and that's kind of who he goes with. Like, for example, give you an example, like read Richards. His model for Reid Richards is the professor from Gilligan's Island, and it really really works because he's the egghead. Right.

The model for Doctor Strange in his in Marvels was Timothy Dalton. I was going to say, isn't he the guy who should have been from all along, like from the seventies he could have done. Yeah, that's my my roundabout way of saying, I think Timothy Dalton would have made a fantastic Doctor Strange. Timothy Dalton can do no wrong. They wanted him in sixty nine as Bond like the youngest of young Timothy Dalton.

That's a whole other podcast, but he he got done so dirty by James Bond, by by that whole franchise. Because his movies are among my favorite Double seven movies. Story for a different time. Though, Yes, but I do want to keep praising Timothy Duns because every franchise he drops into Ian Liven's well, Well, the Time Lords came back and he was the leader of the Time Lords, and he added so much gravity to what was kind of a still kind of a silly television series that I don't know. I just love that guy to piece.

Look, he had me at Prince Baron in Flash Gordon. What is this? Give me the remote control? A little bit of Brian blessed for the audience. Thank you?

Yes, strange in every iteration. Drawing Wise has always had Mattine Idle good looks. It's kind of weird they went with Bennett Cumberbatch. It is. It was.

It's one of those things where I initially kind of scratched my head and said, well, this is going to work. But I'll be damned if it didn't work Gangbusters. I love him in the park. Well, we'll get to him. Let's talk.

Let's talk the reals. Steven Strange the very first, Yes, Steven Strange. That's Peter Hooton in the television movie from nineteen seventy eight. Now, I did cover this, but not on my show. I covered it on Paul Waller's show, and I don't even know what show that was.

I was, honestly, that's how busy you are. Yeah, I do remember recording it, and I do remember watching the movie and I got to say, honestly, from it for a TV movie from nineteen seventy eight, and we watched some doozies HP you and I of course for superhero TV movies. This was not bad. They change all the names of all of the characters for no good reason other than they did that on television. Maybe this was a copyright thing that there was actually nobody talks about, like they own the rights to the television version of the character because they've renamed him in some way anyway other than that, given the limited budget, given that it's Philip de Guerre who would eventually shepherd the new Twilight Zone, as one of the producers on that series, I say, it's actually worth a look.

Doctor Strange himself is no more than a soap opera actor though, and that's to the detriment of the entire thing. But Jessica Walter is the villain. She's Morgan le Fay. Yeah, that's pretty great. Yeah, but then I mean, we don't get another live action Doctor Strange other than the rumor that I hear David Bowie is going to play them.

It's like every it's almost like, you know, they in terms of like recycling the copyright, they have to like announce that they're going to make another Doctor Strange just so they don't lose the rights to the character or something every year. Silly. You know. He appeared in lots of different animated iterations. I do want to point out the two sort of best voices I heard of him or as him were John Vernon, Oh you can imagine.

Fat, drunken, stupid is no way to go through life. Song exactly, And Maurice LaMarsh did a did a like a parody of Doctor Strange, but did a really good one. But then, of course we we didn't get Doctor Strange until was that phase two. I think it was. Yeah, in Captain America Winter Soldier, they mentioned Steven Strange as one of the targets on their on their list, and everyone in the audience was like, oh, doctor Strange.

But we didn't get into the Doctor Strange movie for some time. It might have been I certainly know later than Phase three. We are terrible podcasters. We're just yes, all. Right, ten years ago.

So so but there you go. He's uh, he made his debut in Phase three, and then of course Phase four was he was in the Spider Man movie and he was excuse me, he was in Multiverse of Madness. So by then they had already introduced Ant Man and Guardians of the Galaxy. How humiliating for the Sorcerer. Yeah, that's the thing.

Let's for just a minute, let's talk about his Doctor Strange's place, his place in the pecking order. Obviously, he's not a top tier hero like Spider Man or even the Hulk or cap. Not in the public consciousness is what we're just. The average person, if you ask them what you know, name as many Marvel heroes as you can. Doctor Strange may not be in the top three or top five for the average person.

But certainly I think he should have probably debuted a head of Hantman, at least as far as I was not that I didn't like a Man. I like those movies just fine, But I think he's a higher tier hero than ANMN certainly. Well, I think ant Man was further along than Doctor Strange because they had that association Peyton. Oh, no, it was right. I'm sorry, You're right, he was going to do it.

Yeah. So I think most of those effects had been designed and the action sequences were ready to go, and I don't think Strange had found either its writer or its director by that. I'm just saying, what when when Kevin Feige and the rest of the brain trust that the MCU are in a room saying, all right, we're gonna plan Phase three here, like who do we want? What new heroes are gonna introduce? Like?

Or Phase two? Let's say, why wouldn't Doctor Stranger have been higher in the in the order like the Batting Order. I think they wasted time with the Avengers that we had for too long. I think they kept reiterating those couple of characters, you know, I mean, we had what three Captain America's two thors two Iron Men by then, possibly three by the time Doctor Strange came out. Yeah, like, we love those guys, but they I guess they you know, they were still founding around on the original model of major studios, which is just keep pumping out part two, part three, part four, and then do the other things sort of peripherally, not realizing that peripherally is all we really want.

Right, I guess that there's your explanation. I supposed to a degree, but it was a little surprising that he didn't show up sooner in the MCU, But I was happy. Look, I I mean, well, I guess we'll talk about the movie itself. But I was well, for fans of tutting, you are in for a treat. Did you say tutting?

That's correct, because every magical move here is clearly a cutting derivative when when they're casting spell. What do I have to what do you mean by tutting? I'm being very patient here, father Malone. You know what tutting is, Explain it for the audience. Then, I'm not sure is a.

Form of dancing. It's like a hip hop or a part of dancing where were you're like walking like an Egyptian yes, kind of like that's where it derived from, but then it became a little more intricate. It's kind of like voguing, but for hip hop dancing. Voking. That's the easiest explanation I can make.

Oh, you mean that's where all the hand movement. Yes, I'm okay, I'm picking up what you're putting down. Yeah, so now, I mean it literally is like what they're doing. So so yeah, anyway, that's neither here nor there. Other than I really like the movements they make when they're casting spells in this thing, Like it's really easy to just have him stand there and wave his fingers around, and instead they've made it more that it's a manipulation that they're doing.

He's got that ring. Yeah, the slinging. The sling ring. We tangled with Doctor Strange ones Pussy we did. Anyway, Scott Derekson, who up until then had just been doing horror movies, excellent choice to do a Doctor Strange movie, because yeah, We're Strange just has always been sort of stepping on the line between the good, sort of lighter superhero fair and the darker ones.

I mean, like I said, I knew him because of his involvement with Dracula. Yeah, it's a very it's a very fantasmagorical movie, and I think appropriately so the fact that they have somebody who has one foot in horror and one foot in sort of this superhero world. I thought it was kind of an inspired choice. I love the look of it, I love the casting. I loved Mad's Michelson.

I thought was an interesting villain. Although they I mean, I guess we see Dormamu, he's involved, but I think I might have preferred, like, you know, like Dormamu or Nightmare or somebody one of my one of the the stalwart villains of Doctor Strange. How has Nightmare not made his way into the fucking MCU man Look? Like I said, I didn't read Doctor Strange, but Nightmare is a huge part of Ghost Riders Methodogragy as well, So like where is he at this point? Where are all the horror villains?

I keep saying it in every episode? I'm sorry, but like, what the fuck? There's a lot to draw from that they're just not touching. But we got three Guardians of the Galaxy movies. Which, to be fair, I like most of them.

I'm not going to put those down. I hear what you're saying. I like that first movie. I like the first one. I didn't love the second one, but I but it was redeemed by the third one.

I thought the third one. We'll talk about it when we talk about Guardians, but I will defend that third movie. I almost cried during that movie. You're gonna have to, well, everyone cried at a certain point in that movie. It didn't make the movie any good.

Of course, there's poor animals, but experimented on falling in love and friendship with each other. How am I not going to be bawling every fucking moment they're on the screen. Come on, brother, But we're talking about we're talking about horror, We're talking about Calias. Now. I agree.

Look, I don't need to have the joker if we're having a Batman movie, you know what I mean? And I don't need the fucking Mandarin and the opening salvo of iron Man. So I'm not necessarily needing Dormamu to be the big bad throat rephrase that cut right there. I'm not expecting Dormamu to be the main villain throughout this entire movie, even though we do get a bit of him at the end. Somehow Kysellius just feels like a mid level stooge.

I agree. Look, I love mad Michaelson. I think he's fantastic. It's not as if he wasn't good. I'm talking about the character.

He's awesome. You you're right. The casting across the board in this first film. It's great. The effects, the mirror dimensions and all that kind of stuff, like they really captured that that that psychedelic aspect of the character.

Really the magic I thought was conveyed really well. But if my biggest criticism is what you're saying right now, which is it feels the villain feels a little mid feels a little bit like you said earlier, where for whatever reason they don't they don't they changed the names of all these villains because they can't. Maybe it's the rights thing, not saying that's what happened here, but it's like they couldn't use Nightmare or Dormamu proper, so they kind of invent this guy Kycilius, who's kind of a stooge, not really like the big bad that I would want out of a Doctor Strange movie. He doesn't seem to have a plan for himself. He's working towards some other thing, Like it's not he's not trying to become the Sorcerer Supreme or something.

He's not trying to bring down necessarily the sanctorums around the world other than to get what he wants. And it's not even really for him. But that could have been interesting if you had actually had somebody who was vying for the power of the Sorcerer Supreme. They bring up Morto, who ends up in the comic. He's an antagonist against Doctor Strange, but they don't really don't do anything with him at all until the very end, when you kind of realize that he's kind of been swayed over to this other side, like as an antag.

I liked him as a as a buddy for an entire film, like I didn't need to see him make the transition. But he does make the transition in this movie, and it's pretty glorious. I'm sad we haven't seen the payoff of that yet. They owe us a third Doctor Strange movie. Don't think you're getting off the hook MCU by throwing fucking your monster.

Rallies at us every couple of years. Here and I'm on record as saying I really really enjoyed a Multiverse of Madness. I don't think it's looked upon very fondly by the majority of MCU fans, But I thought it was fantastic, Sam Raimy, it just seemed like a match made in heaven. Well, we'll get there, because I love that fucking movie. The Cape Man.

The Cape Is. The Cape is like it's like Crypto and Superman. It's like his little sidekick. It's fantastic. They gave it so much personality.

And it fucks people up it like, I mean, they haven't given us the real reason why there is that cape and what's inside of it. I mean I mentioned it at the top of the show. But there's a demon in there. Yes, there's actually that's a demon in Cape. For I didn't I didn't know that.

I thought it was just the magic spell. It was like something out of something. Yes, we all thought that. It's a little darker, just like everything in Doctor Straight. It's just a little bit darker.

Speaking of just a little bit darker, the ancient one. Speaking of interesting casting, let's get till the Swinton. Now here's the thing about casting against race or against Tiper against gender, it's fine if it's till the Swinton. They were basically catering to two different audiences. They didn't want to offend anybody by having and maybe that's just because maybe the Ancient One is a character is a bit of a caricature.

I can't necessarily speak to that because I'm not I'm not qualified to speak to that, but I would say, like, if you're gonna, if you're gonna recast it in terms of race. To your point, I think Tilda Swinton's a great choice because she's kind of she has that sort of David Bowie androgynous kind of thing where she she could be in any should be any race. I don't know. She's so mysterious and elegant and weird in a good way. Yeah, I love her as the Ancient One.

I think it's a bold choice on their part, and it make it kind of makes this particular ancient one Celtic in origin, and that makes me happy. Well, I guess, I mean that's that's as good a reason as any to like the character. I think you're right. I do think that they were afraid of the wizened old Asian man character and how often we've seen that portrayed over and over and over again, and we're unwilling before taking the actual step with shang Chi that like just a one off character in there, it could very well sink the entire enterprise. It could.

And I think part of this is movies are obviously made by committee, and I'm sure that wasn't a decision that was made that was taken lightly. I'm sure they probably, like you know, they they took the safest path they could with that character for a variety of reasons. And ultimately it wasn't that big of a deal to me because I wasn't that wrapped up in the character of the ancient one. And if it and if it's going to keep people from getting offended, like I wouldn't want people to go to the movie be offended by by a caricature of a of you know whatever. So that's fine.

But if but if it had been like, you know, David Hasselhoff or something, I would I would have been deeply offended, not not because of anything about doing with the race, it's just because it's a terrible choice. They should have gotten. Joel Gray, do. You remember that that the song would if what if we find we. Made Wong perfect actor, perfect performance.

Wong has become a bit of a heart drop in the MC and he enliven every time he shows up. Now peripherally it's like, oh my god, things just got great. Wong is here. He was one of my favorite moments in Endgame, the big moment where everybody remateializes and they're going up against Stanos and doctor Strange says something like is everybody here? And Wong says, what you want more people here?

Or something to that effect. It was great because at that point, as an audience member, you're like, yeah, everybody's gonna gotta kick ass, and Wong makes a little quip that just brought the house down. I first saw that actor on Peter Sarah Finowich's show look Around You, which is a parody of like PBS type or BBC at the time, I guess like early eighties science magazine type shows like Nova, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, where he had created a robot called the Medibot that could perform surgery, but it will also was fueled with sprinkled like ice cream springk ice cream sprinkles, which of course in England they call like one hundreds of millions. Meddivot is eating Benedict Waning is the name of the actor.

Benedict Wing is feeding Meddibot. And every time he says Meddibot like to to have him perform some function, Madibot repeats its name, So Meddi but Maddie bod I guess. As a side note, Peter so Finowitz might be the most gifted impressionist of my lifetime. I see clips of him here and there on social media and it never fails to impress me. I saw him do a Darth Vader that was incredible with nothing but like an empty water bottle to reverberate his voice.

I've seen him do the Beatles. I've seen him sing his The Beatles fantastic. Yeah, his Paul McCartney singing is fucking ridiculous. That parody of crazy I Will Will, I'll kill Yeah. It's crazy.

Well, he was supposed to be I we're off track here, but he was going to be in that Yellow Submarine remake that they were going to do that Zamechas. You know they recorded the tracks. Can we just hear the vocal tracks? Can we you know, like somebody ai that that was the one I wanted. I didn't want to see Mars needs Moms.

Yeah, where's our AI yellow submarine movie? Like live action? Quit making younger versions of people meet their older now versions and like and like posing for selfies and give me yellow submarine, you dix or. I told you, Like the big thing now for me is like you know, like night Rider fixes everything in Game of Throne. So it'll be some some scene and then you know, kid will come in and run someone over, or Michael Knight will beat up.

Here comes the A team to fix the hash of those terrorists and die hard. This is the thing. Anybody who's this is a side. Not anybody who's listening to this if they're If you're making these stupid little AI videos and you're having fun with it, just bear in mind somewhere there's a data center that is fueling all of this, that is probably taking all of using all of the water in some small town somewhere against their best wishes. Just think of that when you're making these stupid AI videos.

Yes, but make a yellow submarine. I don't care what wa dah, but please do do that and then never again. Yeah, how many we have to kill to get that yellow Submarine. I'm not interested, okay, anything else with Doctor Straams's first movie. Love Racy McAdams.

Love the fight scenes, Love all the fight scenes in it. I love like battling with magic here is for the first time, maybe not this not silly looking. It looks like an actual martial art going on. It's sort of a lot of it for me. Hearkened back to a movie that has nothing to do with superheroes.

But I'm gonna I'm gonna cite it as an influence for me, which is inception. The idea that you have reality itself is bending. As they're having these fight scenes, Like I said, they're kind of popping in and out of these dimensions, the mirror dimension we've already talked about. I just love him throwing people true doors and they end up in like far flowing parts of the world, like suddenly the Himalayas desert in some desert. Yeah, it's great.

And the effect of the sling ring making the portals is never not cool. It looks awesome. And they they they were so they did so right by the character. They they they are able. Cumber batches a good enough factor where he can convey the asshole and the penitent.

Yeah, and and you you you, you grow with him the character as he discovers these abilities, and by the end you're like, yeah, he he is the Sorcerer Supreme. The ending with Dormamu where it's the time loop that he's created spoiler alert. I love that ending. I thought it was that's what I wanted out of a Doctor Strange movie. It was it was a a a a way out of a dangerous situation.

That's not something that Iron Man would do. That's not something that Spider Man would do. That's some thing that Doctor Strange is uniquely powered to do, which is set up this eternal time loop that he can't possibly win. Dor mom. I love that.

No matter what the quality of the film was, it ranks really high in my estimation because it avoids the pitfall of ninety nine percent of action movies. No matter how clever they are, they always end up with two people punching each other. If you think about it, think of any MCU movie that you love, the two leads end up just in a brawl at the end. Well, even even the DC Universe. I mean that's every movie, you know, the Batman versus Superman.

Well, Snyder doesn't know anything but a fist, so obviously that's what was going to be going on over there. But over at Marvel they had that same problem. Let's use our brains and let me let me be use a little bit of trickery, and let me use this talent I've been cultivating for the entire movie in a way that isn't the most base level possible I wanted to watch. I could watch twenty or thirty minutes more of all of the varying ways that Dormamu dispatches with doctor Strange, and he fucking keeps coming back, and you know, he comes back having felt it. It's it's true, like I said, it's true to the comic, it's true to the character it is, and it to your as you said, it's not just two people hitting each other until one person submits.

And when they are hitting each other and having sort of a melee fight scene, time is spinning backwards and they're running through sets that walls are healing themselves and stuff. It's so fucking clever, man. That's great. The act, the look of it is great, and it got me so excited for the future of this character. In the mcu, Yeah, me too.

I got so excited because it was announced almost instantly that the next movie was called Multiverse of Madness, and Scott Derekson was fully on board and fully excited and announced that now Doctor Strange is going full horror, and we were expecting him to spend a good portion of time, a portion of time in the dark dimension in the Nightmare realm. In fact, Nightmare was mentioned specifically as going to be the antagonist of the film. Then Marvel stepped in that committee you talked about, stepped in and let's appeal this way and that way, and maybe we shouldn't do horror. Isn't it too early to introduce the Midnight Suns because at one point they were supposed to make an appearance, So I don't know.

And then of course Scott Derekson's like, well, peace, I've got a black phone to answer. It was a letdown for sure that Scott Dereckson wasn't because he seemed to be so in tune with the character and giving us a little bit of that darkness and a little bit of that that mind expanding sort of thing that I immediately started to fear for the next movie, Like who's going to direct it? Who could they possibly get that would be on a par with Scott Derekson. I'm setting you up here. This is a that Scott Derekson ends up being replaced by Sam Raimi.

Who No, No, that's what I'm saying. I'm saying it could have been. I was afraid it was. Going to be. Yes, it very well could have been a lesser human, a lesser director.

Instead, they swung for the fences and got one of the greatest directors of all time. Legitimately, let's all say that now, right. Sam Raimi is one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, and absolutely not only for revolutionizing superheroes and making them legitimate with his Spider Man movies, which we're gonna talk about on the next Von doom Fest, but like his career as a fucking horror filmmaker, his career is a drama filmmaker. If you've seen that sports movie he did, He's a fucking great filmmaker. And the fact that they got him, I was like, I was overjoyed, but at the same time trepidacious, knowing that he's stepping into a project that was already shaped and ready to go, and he just needed to put his mark on it, and I believe he did.

I think he did. There are certain flourishes, there's a tone that I think still shines through. It's impossible to know. I mean, this is like, to a similar degree, it's the movie Ai Kubrick worked on that thing for like twenty years or something, and obviously he dies. Spielberg picks it up.

I know they had been working on it together, tossing ideas back and forth. But ever since that movie came out, there's always this debate of, well, how much of it was Kubrick and how much of it was Spielberg? And can you really tell as you're a demarcation where one ends and one begins. Not to say that we have the same thing at work with Multiverse of Madness, but there is a certain uncertainty of where one ends and one beginning. Well, we had already experienced that with the aforementioned ant Man, where Edgar Wright had been talking it up forever and had released early footage of what the effects we're going to look like, and everyone was stoked.

And then the MCU stepped in and said, and you got to add these things, and he went peace and he left. And that's kind of the same issue here, because I guarantee you there was no timelines going to happen when Scott Derekson was taking over. It was just going to be interdimensional fuckery with doctor Strange and a bunch of demons, and instead they wanted to start plodding out. Hey, there's a multiverse of timelines and different different versions of these characters that will all pay off eventually. With Kang, Like, if you didn't tell me who directed it, I might pass a guest and say it kind of feels like a Sam Raimi movie at times.

The dark stuff certainly, and the stuff where Strange has died and he comes back as a sort of undead version of himself with like all the arms, all the other demons kind of clinging to him or creating a cloak around him. That's oh you mean. My My favorite part of the movie the the scene while sitting in the theater watching and I thought, this is effectively a movie for children in which the lead character is puppeteering his corpse who is wearing a coat made of demons, and they're coming to the rescue. I love this. It was that to me was like Okay, this is they They've they've gone there.

I didn't know that they could go quite that dark. But to be fair, before we get there, this my other favorite scene in this is when he's brought before that sort of council, the defenders of that particular dimension, if. You will, all the variants get used to this idea. Folks, You're going to see lots of different versions of these characters. And they're all the being killed in awful, awful ways.

This is again, this is a kid's movie where mister Fantastic is dispatched in a horrible way. He's basically made into like spaghetti essentially and killed. It's it's a horrifying image for somebody to take away. And we do get Baron Mordo the antagonist there they got after each other. Yeah, it's strange, so that that was fun, but yeah, no, I love that sequence as well.

And you know, having suddenly Professor X in the MCU was absolutely bilan this. If they hadn't if they hadn't advertised it months ahead of time, it might have been really cool when that might have. Been the single biggest way that they bungled the multiverse. Springing in the multiverse to the mcu is there was it was too telegraphed, like for me even well, we'll talk about it when we talk about Spider Man, but I have thoughts about No Way Home in particular involving that. But just suffice it to say, I agree with you that there was too much.

I mean because they're trying to drum up interest in the movies. So of course the idea that, oh, John Krasinsky is going to be in this as a as a mister Fantastic variant. And by the way, we're going to have Patrick Stewart, He's going to be there, remember, Professor X. Sure that drums up interest, but it kind of like it doesn't exactly give me that thrilling moment in the theater when they're revealed. No Nor having the new Captain Marvel Nor and I love her to pieces.

She's one of my favorite human beings on the planet. Hayleet well as Captain Britain. It was like, yeah, it's nice that they're there, but like, where's Wolverine if you're going to do this, you know, like, where's fucking Magneto sitting on that council, where's fucking Blade sitting up? Oh? We had to wait another few years for the Deadpool Wolverine crossover.

Another ten years. Ten years, wow, something like that. Who knows, we're terrible podcasts. We're terrible, It is true. But I mean that's kind of where that idea got full flower.

But yeah, I mean having said that, even though I knew that there were all these rumors about, you know, all these other cameos that were going to happen, I still thought it was I still thought it was pretty cool that they were there. It gave me a thrill in the theater. It was a nice dimension to visit. Amongst the dimensions is that they I wish it had been even more multi dimensional, Like you know, we get brief glimpses like transition shots when they're flying in between the different universes, whether suddenly this or that sort of media. Again, like like in the last movie, I could have watched twenty or thirty minutes of that in all the different worlds that they happen upon the pizza Papa, you know, like.

I forgot about that. Well, I'm gonna try some of that pizza on a stick man. That's pretty good. Do you think that's gluten free? Though?

No, probably not Oh it might be you know what, maybe they don't have weed in that tom in that mood. Maybe there are so many possibilities that they never even delve into. My favorite thing upon rewatching Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Matters, which I do more than the original film at this point, is that it feels like a dozen different movies. It feels like Sam Raimi is swinging for the fences in every genre, Like, you know, we have that as you mentioned, the horror aspects of it, but there's also the more fantastic aspects of it. And then there's a sort of a heartrending portion of it with Wanda and and the children that she never had, And there's an entire fucking warfare sequence like they have to they have to defend Camartage against Wanda, and that whole sequence is fucking great.

Man. It's like it's like Lawrence of Arabia for ten seconds. It is. But I agree that they made her way too powerful, like in a very short span of time. Well, she's got the dark hole now, like that that was the end of one division.

We all know that. Well, I think the MCU is all about like who's the next most powerful being? In the universe. That's that seems to be like the race. Yeah we had, we had Fanos, Now we were gonna have Kang.

Now we're gonna have Doctor Doom. After that, I don't know where we go. Maybe Secret Wars. Maybe it'll be the Beyonder again. Who knows, well, after Secret Wars it'll be Doctor Doom again.

Oh you think so? Oh yeah, this variant of Doom is just that's how they're gonna end that. They're gonna have Doom killed Doom. My predict right here, a gang. That's right.

You write it down, Write that down, then send me money when you realize that was right. Doom kills Doom. I just you know, people it was. It's I don't think it's looked at as as fondly as some of the other movies the MCU, But I think people have said that it's it's a clash of styles. But I agree with you.

I think that's a feature, not a bug. I think I love the I love your the way you say that Raimi was swinging for the fences, because he really was. I feel like this was kind of his return to you know, uh, action horror, fantasy filmmaking. All of it, and that's what he's always done. Yeah, he's never been afraid to suddenly do something that is completely off topic, off genre, just to make a point.

And that carried over here pretty well. Like some of the more Raimi flourish as you mentioned, happened, mainly when Wanda is using mirrors to like hunt them down. There's that There's an entire sequence with sudden close ups of candles flickering and the darkness sort of surrounding them, and it's all so fucking Ramy that a blind man could see that Ramy directed this scene, you know, Like and if it wasn't, then it was somebody clearly aping his style, somebody like Edgar Wright. There you go. I wouldn't I probably wouldn't even necessarily know much about Sam Raimi if it wasn't for father alone.

Here he is the first. He's the one who showed me Evil Dead two in high school for the first time. I hadn't really I knew about the movie reputationally, but we actually remember sitting down with him and at his house watching on the big screen TV, and I was hooked. I hirted videotape that I had taped off. But it was but but it was it was like an education because you know, you were you would you would talk about a lot of the things like how cartoony and how you know.

I I had thought Evil Dead two was going to be a real scary movie and I didn't love horror movies at the time. That's what Evil Dead is. For, right, But but yeah, correct. But the thing that charmed me about Evil Dead too, and about Sam Raimi as a filmmaker was that it's it's just so funny, and it's it's there. There's a lot of gore, and there's a lot of gross stuff, and there's a lot of scary stuff that happens, but it's all levined by this sort of a cartoonish way that he has, of of of using you know, Bruce Campbell and the visuals.

It's and and I don't think he's ever I think he's he's carried that with him through all of the movies that he'd done subsequent. Not so heavy on the cartoonishness necessarily, but he certainly lets his camera do that. Still, there's no one like him, and there'll never be anyone like him again. That to say, to tread the line between horror and slapstick comedy is a fine one. Is the greatest understatement I think I've ever made.

Yeah, and he's the only one who seems to be able to do. It only one. It's amazing, he continues to He's cracked the code. And but he's been doing this for going on. We'll see Evil Dead two was what eighty eighty eight, eighty nine, eighty seven, so some forty years.

Yeah, and I contend, I know it's been a while since it came out, but Drag Me to Hell is one of the best horror movies I've ever seen. And and so he can do it all this. Sam Raimi felt he really. Can't that you You talked about that Baseball movie that he did. Was it for Love of the Game?

Was that the name? Yeah, it wasn't Kevin Costner, Yes, it was Kevin Costner. It was okay, And who played his friend? It was the guy who played Steve Brule. I can't even think of his name.

He was in it too, Oh, oh, Steve Barule, doctor Steve Rule. I can't think of his name. Buck now I can't remember his name either, God damn it. John John John McGinn not John McGinley. JOHNSONI y, that's it.

John c Riley, Yeah, yeah, he was in it. He can do it all, didn't you. I think you covered send Help on the round Up when it came out, didn't you. Yeah? I did.

Yeah, And he continues to astonish me like that. That's a straight up thriller. So it look, there's plenty of gar in it, but it's it's unlike his other features, and it hits just as hard and as did A Simple Plan, which is a quiet, little, you know, thriller drama. You know that is for me. That's top three of all of San Raim Sam Raimi's movies.

I that one is so devastating. And it's it's restrained in every way he's not usually. Everyone is so good in it. Billy Bob Thornton is he completely crushes you by the end, and Bill Paxton, Oh my god, it's go see that everybody Simple Plan My goodness. Anyway, we're praising him a lot, but I think I don't I really love I think Multiverse of Madness is one of those movies that I think will will grow in esteem over the years.

I think people will rediscover it and realize what he's Sam Raimi made a comic book. He was very effective at making a Doctor Strange comic come to life. Both films, honestly, and and hopefully they'll give us a third one with now that Cleia is involved, because Cleia shows up at the end his his his actual betrothed he. Does at the end of Multiverse, And hopefully they'll they'll do something. Yeah, it's uh, it's I hope they don't just drop it.

I hope they do something with it, because they did bring back Morto, even though he appeared at the end of the first movie, but then you heard nothing from him until the second movie. But at the end we got an evil Strange. He was all possessed and three. Eyed with the yeah, with the eye. So what the hell?

How are they not going to resolve that before bringing him back to fight doom? That's silly. They need to, They need to, But I look, I'm. They need to. We need a surprise Doctor Strange movie between now and then.

Yeah, really, that was really kind of a big cliffhanger to end it on and not have any any follow up. Is what's going to happen to Doctor Strange. He's he's he's kind of got this curse on him. Now. I'm sure we'll get it through dialogue.

He'll hand wave it away with some some something who knows. When they introduce his character, they'll be they'll be relieving him of that thing at like the last ten seconds of that. Like, now that that's done, you're needed on Earth. Shoot, that could have been bad, all right. I think that's the end.

I know, we can't really discuss this. We're going to talk about the Avengers eventually, so I think we'll delve more into Stranger's role in those, although you know, what role does he have other than I mean, he gave the fucking stone, so he's actually pivotal to the whole thing. He is and and he he is something about having him be there, and and and the interaction between him and Stark where you know, we know through Strange that out of he's investigated millions of possible you know, outcomes, and he knows there's only one outcome where Thanos will actually lose. And that's always on your mind, like, you know, are how are they still untract to to feed him what? It's so tenuous, this idea that any little thing could throw this this this outcome out.

I don't know there's something comforting about him being kind of the voice of reason and authority there, you know, and now a lot of that's cumber Batch. I think he's fantastic in that scene. Yeah. No, I was making fun of him earlier for not having mattin a idol looks, but he's great as the character. I was confused when they first cast him.

I thought, Oh, they're going to make Strange an Englishman in this one. That's that's interesting, and he's like, nope, nope, I'm doing an American accent. Like, oh, okay, you don't have to do that. Though. And by the way, the scene with Doctor Strange and Thor Ragnarok is among my favorite and the whole movie, which is saying a lot because that's one of my favorite Mencu movie.

Well, I can totally agree with that because he's wearing his yellow gloves. That's why you were pretty cularly. It's the only reason I like that scene as much as I do. He's wearing the Lla collapse and I thought, oh man, they're going to really go for this, and then they did not. It's just it's funny to see Doctor Strange and you know, just kind of on a on a regular old day in the Sanctum Sanctorum, like dealing with floor and and Loki.

I don't know something something really amusing about. That doctor Strange. He's on his way to fight doom HB. Until next time. Where can people find you if they're looking for you.

Well you can. You can find me around the weirding Way network like yourself. I co host the Night Mister Walters Taxi podcast with my erstwhile UH co host and best friend in the world here fallom alone. I also host the Noise Junkies music podcast, and. I have a I'm hoping to get on with my with my burgeoning solo career.

You just heard a bit of it. There you go, Well, we'll set it up. Well, we'll set you up there. Follow along, promote me, I will and I have a baby campsite. HP Music plays dot bandcamp, dot com.

As for me, it's midnight Viewing. You're listening to Midnight Viewing with Father Malone and HP. This is Von Doomfest. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls. Try to enjoy that day like