PREVIEW： Comics Corner #15 ｜ Deadpool and Wolverine Review
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Summary
Harry and Conner are joined by Harry to discuss Deadpool and Wolverine. They also discuss Black Panther 2, Doctor Strange, Guardians of the Galaxy and the future of the MCU as a whole, and much more!
Transcript
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Hello, and welcome to Comics Corner. I am your host, Connor, joined by Harry.
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We decided to do an impromptu discussion of Deadpool and Wolverine, because it's out,
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we watched it, and the MCU is in the rapid process of imploding.
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Quite, and I think this made some self-aware mockery of it, and I think that it is an interesting
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linchpin, because it is at once a respectful goodbye to the sort of Fox films of our childhood.
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The earnest attempts at building a Marvel Universe.
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It was surprisingly respectful to all but Fantastic Four.
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And I think the MCU itself, as we've seen with recent events and their scrapped plans for
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Kang Dynasty and their desperate attempt to make Robert Downey Jr. Doctor Doom, it doesn't
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The whole thing is dead, and I think if there's one thing I can definitely praise this film
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for, is that it was shockingly free to say whatever it wanted about the rest of the MCU
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He had quite a few jabs at recent attempts being fumbles.
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There was an entire monologue at one point where their major action set piece featuring,
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and this is going to be full of spoilers by the way, featuring all the Deadpool variants.
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He just came out and said, look, the multi-fuzz isn't working, please, for the love of God,
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Yeah, I will say, this is the first time I've watched a single Marvel product since
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the second Doctor Strange film, which was rubbish.
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I did a review for it on the website that you should check out.
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And I will say, I was very hesitant to go into the cinema to even give Disney money.
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You're memory-holding the fact that we got forced to see Black Panther 2.
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I've managed to erase that whole part of my life.
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How could you forget the water bongos that opened the borders?
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How could I forget the solution was to dry his back out?
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We watched Guardians of the Galaxy 3 as well, didn't we?
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But the problem we have is they're all ultimately forgettable.
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As you can tell by the fact that I forgot all of them.
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The only reason I think Doctor Strange was a bit more memorable for me was, one, because
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And you could tell how constrained he was in that project.
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Although, he still managed to get a little bit of his flair in that.
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The only decent film that they've made since, blimey, maybe Guardians 2, I would say is
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Why have I managed to completely erase all of these films from my brain?
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That was the only multiverse film that worked, because it was the jingling keys of, don't
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Don't you remember the Sam Raimi Spider-Man films?
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And the amazing Spider-Man films, which I really like.
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And even the third Sam Raimi Spider-Man film has gained quite a lot for me, just by contrast
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to all of the other MCU rubbish that they've been putting out ever since.
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And that includes the scene, you know, where Peter accidentally punches MJ right in the face,
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So this is something that the prequels have taken on an aspect of.
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Retrospectively, these were earnest attempts at making innovative films.
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And while the quality may not have been excellent, except Revenge of the Sith, because that's
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pretty good, the films were not actively insulting their audience base.
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So while there were a few missteps here and there, while the CGI wasn't great, while the
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characterization might have been more shallow than better films or even...
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Prior films, in the case of the Star Wars trilogy, they weren't alienating and taking for granted
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the people that watched them and that had built up the franchises to such an extent where
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Even the prequels in themselves, even though they faced so much criticism, built up enough
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of an extra dimension to the Star Wars universe outside of what had been presented in the original
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trilogy, that it created so many spinoffs and a new lore and a new fan base all of its own of people
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around our age who had so much more to sink their teeth into than anything that has been released
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And although I have criticisms of this film, which I think we will get into shortly, I appreciated that
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they brought back many characters that lots of people had had reverence for, that they had
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nostalgia for, and they didn't denigrate them like they did Luke Skywalker drinking alien
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Lots of them got their moment, including Channing Tatum's Gambit, who never had his moment.
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Was Channing Tatum in the works for doing a Gambit film at the end?
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You didn't know about the cancelled Gambit movie?
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I was going to say, it must have been cancelled when Fox got bought out by Disney, correct?
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Because I was able to pick all this up by the fact that all Gambit is talking about, they're
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all going, yeah, we need to reclaim our past, or something that may have happened, you know,
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So what happened is, after X-Men Origins Wolverine completely tanked in 2009, Channing Tatum had
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been lined up to play Gambit, but he had a scheduling conflict.
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And so what ended up happening was, ahead of Deadpool being created and Hugh Jackman retiring
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as Wolverine, Fox was scrambling as to how to continue the X-Men universe.
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They'd already had Days of Future Past in the works, so that was a success, and they
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were setting up Apocalypse and wanted to include Gambit in Apocalypse.
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But Channing Tatum said, I want to do a heist movie, a small, low-budget, mutant thief
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film, because my dad's Cajun, I can do the accent, and I really love Gambit in the X-Men
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And so they were trying to develop a Gambit movie for ages, and it had three different
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directors attached, including right up until the deadline of 2019, when Disney bought
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So what it sounds like is that it was a typical Fox disaster.
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And so Gambit, Channing Tatum never got to play Gambit, and now the film has given him
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the opportunity to have a pretty good send-off and a pretty faithful adaptation of Gambit,
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given by the display of his powers in his costume.
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Yeah, I mean, there seemed to be a lot more respect for most of the comic book characters
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featured in this than, again, most of the recent Marvel slop that's been coming out.
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None of this to say that the film isn't complete slop.
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Ask me three or four months from now, I probably won't be able to remember a single thing that
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happened, except for maybe one or two of the gags, because I think one of the good
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things about the Deadpool films, one of the things that kind of work in its favour, and
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this is the same with the first and the second one, which are also, may I say, they were very
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successful, kind of broke ground in allowing for Fox to go to the R-rated direction that
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Both completely forgettable films in terms of the actual plot and characters, other than
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So there was a lot in this film that I was glad that you didn't really need to remember,
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The rest of it, straight out one ear, even one ear out the other.
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Brian Reynolds joked that they didn't focus test.
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Well, with the audience, which is why we didn't bring them back.
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But one of the good things about it is the fact that Deadpool as a character is so rapid
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fire with the jokes, and the film itself is so rapid fire with all of the jokes that
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it throws out, that if one joke doesn't work, if three jokes in a row don't work,
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as sometimes happens in this film, there will be one less than a minute later that might
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And there are plenty of little funny gags here and there, a few funny bits.
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I mean, my favorite part of the entire film was the montage where he's going around trying
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to find the different Wolverines, particularly Cavalry.
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And Patch from the comics and the Crucified X-Men cover.
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They had John Burns, Wolverine fighting the Hulk.
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They had one from Mutant Massacre with the obvious 90s hair, which was interesting.
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I do want to pick up on the Cavill one, because I think this entire film is taking the piss
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I know The Rock was very proud of it until it came out, and then he wasn't all of a sudden.
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He kept saying that the hierarchy of power in the DC universe is about to change in all
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And then when Cavill shows up, Ryan Reynolds says, don't worry, we'll treat you much better
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Everyone is aware that they wasted an opportunity to keep Henry Cavill as Superman.
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And Netflix wasted the opportunity to keep him as Geralt in The Witcher as well.
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Sadly, Cavill has kind of jumped from one project to another that's completely wasted
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Although I still stand that I still enjoy Batman v Superman.
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And the interesting thing about Cavill is, he's very much like Ryan Reynolds, in that he has
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a deep reverence for all the characters he wants to play, he wants to be involved in
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the script writing, he wants to ensure that they're faithful portrayals, and the absolute
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hacks at the top of the production companies keep falling out with him because they want
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to insert total current thing year bollocks into their productions, which clashes with
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And that's why these things get tied up in production hell.
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The on-current-year thing, one of the other jokes that stuck with me and that I found was
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funny was that there is a tiny little bit of nod and a wink towards the audience here
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and there, where, for instance, Cassandra gets up out of her wheelchair and he goes,
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oh no, ableism, we're going to get cancelled for this one.
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Yeah, he says the woke mob and Wesley Snipes, who I really was not expecting to show up
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So I actually saw quite a few people on social media freaking out about that and saying how
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the film was trying to direct itself towards the right-wing mob and try and win them over.
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No, what it's trying to do is actually win nerds over people who like these stories in
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the first place and don't want them censored unnecessarily.
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But one of my favourite jokes near the beginning was that little party he's got where all of
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There's the older white gentleman he's speaking to and you cut into the middle of their conversation
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and he goes, and that's my opinion on abortion, free markets, general healthcare, all of these
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And he goes, and I won't talk about them again.
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Yeah, it was a reference as well to the fact that he didn't want him to have speaking lines
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in the first film because he's one of the mercenaries that shows up at the bar
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and dead one and then immediately cuts away from political topics other than to ridicule
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the people that constantly want to talk about it.
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And if they are courting the right wing, then good job because it's about to become the
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highest earning rated R film worldwide, already has the highest opening box office domestically
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for a rated R film, is on track to make well over a billion after a couple of years of total
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And the weirdest thing about this is that one of the writers for this was worked on She-Hulk
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So I can only hope that Ryan Reynolds drowned out her contributions.
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It might be one of those things where this person, I'm assuming woman, she, yeah, where
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she maybe provided a script draft that then got reworked and reworked and reworked and reworked.
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Or it might be that she contributed to things like Cassandra, who was, for me, easily the
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I think the inclusion of the TVA at all is the worst part of the film because there is
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a bit of schizophrenia about this film where it critiques the multiverse, it critiques the
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Marvel Cinematic Universe's missteps, but then ties itself inextricably into Kang, Loki
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seasons one and two, the time variance authority, has diverse black women show up to be the
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Oh yeah, there is quite a bit of diversity in the film that's obviously just part and parcel
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Yeah, so it grafts itself onto the failures of the MCU while ridiculing it.
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So even though it was entertaining in that it said all the things that I liked, it's bound
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up in a continuity which is ultimately going nowhere.
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Well, the thing was, it felt as though that was probably a part of the making of this film
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If you want to make the next Deadpool film, Ryan, and if you want Hugh Jackman to be part
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of it, so you need the big Disney books to get Jackman back in, which is a joke they make
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right at the beginning of the film where he's saying, you know, I thought the Disney money
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would have brought you back, then you're going to have to tie it in.
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But at the same time, it feels like it's an attempt to try and carve out its own little
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space for this as well, because it's set in a distinctly different universe.
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Something like that, as opposed to 616, the sacred timeline, as they were calling it, which
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might have been established in Loki or something, but I don't care.
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Well, no, I know 616 is the normal Marvel universe, but the fact that they're calling
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it the sacred timeline felt really out of nowhere for me.
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But by the end of the film, this universe, which in a very meta sense, Paradox, the real
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antagonist of the film until Cassandra shows up, is essentially playing the part of a heavy
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handed and impatient editor who wants to eliminate, cut the whole thing out so that he can save
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himself some time and presumably save everybody a load of money.
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He wants to act as the heavy handed editor to say, nobody ever cared about Deadpool.
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Even really the X-Men films, people only ever really cared about Wolverine, which for the
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Bryan Singer ones was probably true because he was treated as the main character anyway.
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So they're allowed to have their own wacky adventures with a new Wolverine packaged over here
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It'll probably be the case where if they want to bring Deadpool in for some big crossovers
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with more Avengers in the future, then they'll do that.
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But if there's more Deadpool films in the future, I'm hoping that this is indicating that they'll
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So I don't think there are meant to be more Deadpool films in the future, but I do think
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this is setting up his inclusion and some of the other X-Men's inclusion in Secret Wars
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They'll probably turn Secret Wars into Avengers VX-Men under the rubric of some overarching
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And if they do end up wanting to do more, or if Ryan Reynolds convinces them to do more,
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They have that little space allotted in the corner for them.
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I don't think they'll take much convincing, given it's their only profitable entry for
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But on the weird point about 616, if I remember correctly, Marvel's mainline cinematic universe
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was called Earth 616, first in Spider-Man Far From Home by Mysterio, who was bullshitting
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The whole Mysterio, Spider-Man Far From Home, that whole thing was a bait and switch trying
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to make it sound like, oh, we're doing the multiverse, oh, we're not actually doing the
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multiverse, and then the year after they go, we are doing the multiverse.
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And Mysterio was correct, even though he was lying.
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Just ignore the contradictions, ignore that it's a massive plot hole.
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Okay, well, speaking of multiverses, I think we have to address the other main character.
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Sorry, there was one other funny thing, one other joke, which was with the TVA, to be
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fair, which was when he's in the base of operations, when he first gets there, and Paradox is trying
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to convince him to come over to the sacred timeline, he starts playing like, oh, here's
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what could happen, and he sees Thor crying over Deadpool and Deadpool's...
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Yeah, they switched him out with Loki in the Dark World footage, and I don't think they're
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going to use that in Secret Wars, but I suppose it would be a funny callback if they decided
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Speaking of someone who's probably going to be in Secret Wars now, someone we referenced,
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how did you feel about how they handled Wolverine?
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Because I was very trepidatious after the love we showed for Logan.
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Yeah, I love Logan, I'm kind of mixed on this, because one, I'm very, very, very, very glad
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They would go out of their way at the beginning to show that the sacrifice that Logan made
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at the end of his film was an actual sacrifice, and that he died for real.
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And then they desecrate his grave, and then Deadpool uses his corpse as a weapon, and he
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even uses the claws for himself to defeat all of the TVA guys who are there, which is
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I did object, as I did in Black Adam, to the gratuitous use of random pop songs that didn't
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necessarily pertain to the fight sequences they were laid over.
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He's been doing that ever since the very first one.
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That first one that starts with the large action sequence set to pop music.
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I think they could have chosen better songs, at least.
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I wasn't really paying that much attention to the song choice myself, because it just
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became a mush of awful music, which I hate anyway.
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So I was paying more attention to the action that was on screen, which was fine enough.
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So yeah, there is that part of me that says, oh, I should be annoyed at the desecrating
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But at the end of the day, I don't really care as much anymore.
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I don't really have anywhere near as much investment in this.
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As far as I'm concerned, Logan acts as the full stop for the Fox universe.
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And this is a small epilogue addendum that's been put onto the end of it, which is somewhat
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Honestly, the very fact that he's actually dead and they kept him dead in the first place
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The rest of it was like, well, yeah, this is what Deadpool would do.
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It's not trying to be anything more than it needs to be.
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It's not trying to be a lofty statement about humanity.
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It's not trying to hammer you over the head with a message other than Deadpool's a guy
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Also, here's another Wolverine who's in the same dilemma because he's the worst Wolverine
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So it's a simple message, a simple story outside of all the time travel bollocks.
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I was like, yeah, of course they were going to do that.
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