This week: We talk Iron Man in preparation for next week’s Iron Man 2 premiere. We dive into two new Firefly episodes, War Stories and Trash. And we run down the week in geek including Stephen Hawking’s anti-alien sentiment, lots of nasty Iron Man 2 reviews, Patrick Stewart’s latest Wil Wheaton story, Ebert’s 3-D dis, and Dianna Agron’s latest movie casting.
iron man and firefly… this is the dream cast.
War Stories: Yes, Book’s Shon Yu exposition in the beginning is a little odd-sounding, but it’s necessary. Serves a lot of writerly functions:
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Introduces Shon Yu, and conveys the idea that the wider world (not just Niska) have heard of him. If Niska had been spouting Shon Yu in the later scene and we hadn’t heard of him previously, it would have felt more made-up, and also deprived us of the “Duh-duh-dunnnnhhh!” moment when Niska asks Mal “Have you ever heard of Shon Yu?”.
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Conveys the idea that Shon Yu is the philosopher of sick bastards, since Book speculates that the Alliance “doctors” (who are proven sick bastards) might have been enthusiastic readers of Shon Yu. So we know that since Shon Yu is the philosopher of sick bastards, Niska must be right up there–and since he’s got a book-philosopher to quote, he fancies himself a more intellectual sick bastard than your everyday mob thug.
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Adds to the subtle pile of clues that Book has a past, that he has had some experience/knowledge of the Alliance, sick bastards, and their philosophical underpinnings. (Actually a whole lotta that later when he shows off his Alliance hardware know-how and he shoots respectably).
Trash: I am totally with Team Chuck on this one: I believe the whole crew planned from the beginning to have Inara head off Saffron at the pass. Mal and Zoe are planners; way back in the pilot, they anticipated being double-crossed on Whitefall and sent Jayne up to disarm Patience’s henchmen. Since they knew very, very well what Saffron’s MO was, they had to have expected a doublecross after a doublecross, and laid in insurance accordingly.
GWC 216: Chuck vs. Iron Man
Oh crap next week Matt Fraction? So jazzed. So very very jazzed.
Re: Ebert. I stopped following him after he started bashing Kick-ass because of what seeing that could do to children. Meanwhile in the past he praises like Pulp Fiction and other ultra violent movies even though children may see that too. He’s just so out of touch with 2010. That made me lose respect for him way more than the video games thing cause he’s said that in the past and he has zero ground to stand on so it doesn’t matter.
For a long while I had it fixed in my head that Objects in Space and Out of Gas are my favorite episodes.
But after a recent rewatch of War Stories I gotta but that up to number 1 for me.
War Stories has some really really significant deep character moments in it.
We find out another layer of Mal and of Book and of Wash …and very cool and shocking, the thing at the end with River and her freaky badass killin’.
both great points. Shon Yu is a fictional creation in Firefly of course. I think they made that clear Shon Yu existed after the exodus of Earth that Was.
Though, Shon Yu (or Shan Yu) is the title of the leaders of Hun (Xiongnu) in ancient east asia. The Han Chinese tend to protray Shan Yu as barbaric bastards…
I also think Mal planned how to prevent Yo-Saf-Brig from double crossing them with the crew before letting her out. Then, separately, they planned the details of the heist later with Yo-Saf-Brig.
There are only two thing that really didn’t go with the plan. First the victim showed up and revealed to be a husband. Second, Mal losing his clothes…
The nice thing about Egbert is that he reviews movies on their own terms. He’s not afraid to endorse a Big Splody Action Flick if it works as a Big Splody Action Flick. The problems arise when he has the completely wrong idea of what a movie is trying to be. Kick-Ass, with its superheroes and tweener heroine seems ripe for this kind of misunderstanding.
Sean, Chuck, I gotta disagree dudes, I not only agree with Stark but I agree with the Stark charcterization during the build up, the event, and aftermath of Civil War. I can’t think of a counter argument to his position that’s valid.
You DON’T have to reveal your identity poublically
You DON’T HAVE to register, you can quit
You get training if you need it
You get insurance if you frak something up
You get allies
The public gets peace of mind that you’re not all jackasses running around like morons
One man has the knowledge of the identities. Tony Stark and what did he do to protect it? Man made himself a vegetable. He’s still not right from it, his chest rig, which he had to get back, takes care of his involuntary bodily functions!
Do I agree with everything the pro side did? Clor/aka Ragnarok? No, absolutely not but Thor took care of that. At the same time though Anti wasn’t exactly pure as the driven snow, working with super villains? C’mon.
Stark ain’t a bad guy, Pro side aren’t the bad side or the wrong side.
That’s how it starts, Sean: One weekend, you’re wearing sleeves. Next thing you know, you’re walking around wearing pants. I guess the pants get us all eventually…
i wish in the coming Avenger movie, they will do the whole civil war bit to establish the Avengers. Because that would be a deeper story than most superhero articles. And I wish they would do it in the spirit that neither side is evil and explores what escalated the disagreement to war.
hmm… Joss is in charge right? i think he can do this right and kill a few beloved heroes.
I’m going to try to check out some Marvel Digital Iron Man before the movie this week. Does anyone have any suggestions on which ones to start with in relation to the Iron Man 2 movie?
Another classic podcast full of awesomeness. One big error in the upcoming D-bag arc. Winn Adami is NOT a D-bag!!! Winn is an Evil POS of epic proportions. Just wanted to clear that up. 
Regardless next week will be epic with Iron Man 2 and Winn. Fletcher is amazing! Few performances fill me with physical anger, like I want to reach through the screen and cause them pain. Everything she does is for her benefit which she has convinced herself is the same as the “Prophets”. She rationalizes her actions in their name and takes pleasure in the results no mater how it effects others. There are few others in the Trekverse that compare in evility.
I’m gonna kind of agree with you:D
Stark take the registration side after trying to stop it as much as possible but, and this is a big but, at some point nothing can do.
Imagine that the school at the corner of your street blow-up because ‘‘Super-Heroes’’ are shooting a reality show. The public want something to happen. We are not talking about the avengers anymore but thousands of wannabe heroes, mutant, altered-human, mastermind, etc…
So it is a lesser evil kind of choice.
Do you help make it as right as possible as Default Prophet listed OR do you defend the principle of freedom on witch America as been built on.
I don’t see a good answer here but Captain America finally did what he tough was right for the common people ( like Sean ).
This is what make ‘‘Civil War’’ great, no right or wrong just a morale debate that super-heroes are not use to deal with so they do what they are use to do. Trow punches (or color beams:p) at each other until someone with enough leadership says ENOUGH.
Just the core story ( 1 trade ) worth it so much.
I think I’m going to have to disagree with Hawking on the whole aliens thing. I have that kind of grandiosity.
Hawking takes examples from humanity’s history as an example of how an encounter with a technologically superior alien society might go down. My problem is that he is comparing apples and oranges.
In humanity’s past, some humans were able to tie a few planks of wood together and float across a body of water to establish contact with technologically primitive civilizations. This requires no skill; ants do it. In general, if you’re doing something that a bug can do, I’m not impressed (unless you’re a bug).
Sailing across an ocean and sailing across interstellar distances is as different as me walking to my neighbor’s house and me jumping to the moon. The problem is that I don’t think Hawking is taking into account the scientific advances in morality that would necessarily accompany advances in technology requisite for interstellar space travel.
In order to travel between the stars, or between galaxies, you must have technology on a level that makes 21st century humans look like cavemen trying to grasp the concept of fire. You have to harness energies that physicists currently describe with words like “infinite”, “exotic”, “negative”, “theoretical”, and “tubular” (maybe not the last one).
If you can harness these energies, you have two powers:
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Travel between stars.
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Blow your ass up.
As Carl Sagan put it:
The sky calls to us. If we do not destroy ourselves, we will one day venture to the stars.
That is to say, if the aliens don’t get their shit wired pronto, they’re not going to be making contact in the first place.
I can see this becoming it’s own thread but…oh DP and NW…yeah, gotta take the Cap side on this one…
First, the point to having a secert ID is that it’s SECRET. yes, you don’t have to do what Parker did at a news conference (Im sorry, Stark manipulated hi8m, pure and simple, even Cap called him on it), however, someone in the giverment would know. There would be a LIST. This list could be revealed and (as we see with Spider Man later) could adversely effect them and everyone around them.
Second, “you can quit”, so basically what you’re saying is that whiole “great power/great responsibility” thing is null and void if you dont do what we want you to do. Old lady geting mugged? Cant do anything cuz youre not registered. Skrulls show yup? Sorry pal, put away the tights…
Third, Stark made himself a vegetable AFTER the Skruull invasion adn AFTER Osborn took over and demended the list. Is there were no Skrulls or Osborn, Stark woudl still have the list in his head and so would anyone who accessed the database before then.
Fourth, do I even ned ot bring up that [spoiler] Strak openly threatened Parker with jial in teh negative zone if he didn’t follow alogn with Starks plan. And the fact he built a maximum security prison in the zone for anyone who didnt agree with him[/spoiler]
Fifth - a lesser evil kind of choice- that’s just it…there WAS a choice. It wasn;t so much that he wanted to mitigate the possible damage, but he actaully went out of his way to become judge. jury and executioned regqarding EVERY super hero in teh Marvel U. Not a few. Not half. ALL of them. That’s not saying “well theres nothing I can do, let me try to slow it down ro control it”. that’s absolute power corrupting absolutely.
Again, all in all, an amazing story…probably the best cross overs Marvel ever did.
but hey - that be just me…
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List is in Tony’s head and that’s it. Always was, always would have been.
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So you’re going to ignore all the times where unregistered heroes helped out and the registers dudes were like “Huh what who? I didn’t see any illegal heroes around here? Bwah?”
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See 1
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A prison for people breaking the law? One where they can’t just escape from like The Raft or The Cube or any other previous Marvel U prison? How dare they!
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If Stark hadn’t stepped up into that role you’d have a guy like Henry Gyrich running the show. Do you really see that as preferable?
Regardless of the points and the debate, I think the real difference with people lie in whether they take the perspective of a super hero or of the civilians in the marvel u.
Nothin but love for ya DP
either way, it was a great story…one that they will have a hard time topping.
[spoiler]cough Negative Zone Gulag cough[/spoiler]
I dunno man I think they topped it during/after Civil War with Annihilation. What a kickass book. That was a great year(s) for crossovers. Civil War, Sinestro Corps, and Annihilation.
well, in the beginning she was just a D-bag… hijacking (or confusing) the benefit of the Bajoran people for benefiting herself.
The only time she turned truly evil is by the end when she decides her gods has abandoned her so she’d work with Dukat, when it’s she who abandoned her gods all along.