Andy and Evan dive into the rich tapestry of Process Theology as it intersects with the themes of the new flick, "Spider-Man: Brand New Day." Right off the bat, they highlight how the film explores the importance of relationships and community, illustrating that our identities are shaped by our connections with others. As they unpack the film, they delve into Spider-Man's journey of navigating isolation and the healing power of companionship, paralleling it with elements of Process Theology. Evan shares his personal reflections on how this perspective resonates with his own experiences, while Andy adds his insights on the film’s narrative and character arcs. With a blend of thoughtful analysis and light-hearted banter, they invite listeners to consider how the essence of being is intricately linked to the web of relationships that define us all.

Andy Walsh and Evan Garcia dive into the vibrant world of Marvel's latest offering, "Spider-Man: Brand New Day," where they explore the intricacies of Process Theology and its thematic resonance with the film's narrative. The conversation kicks off with Andy expressing his excitement over the film, commenting on its unique portrayal of Spider-Man as a more mature character navigating the complexities of adulthood and heroism. Evan, on the other hand, shares a conflicting sentiment, admitting that while he finds much to appreciate in the film, he also grapples with a sense of boredom during his multiple viewings. Their banter captures the tension between personal enjoyment and critical analysis, making for a compelling discussion.

As the two delve deeper, they examine how Spider-Man's journey reflects the core tenets of Process Theology, particularly the idea that growth and change are fundamental to existence. They connect this thematic element to the film's portrayal of relationships and community, suggesting that the film emphasizes the importance of interpersonal connections in shaping one's identity and purpose. The duo also touches on the various cameos, the integration of X-Men lore, and the implications of Peter Parker’s technological advancements, leading to a rich dialogue about the moral complexities inherent in superhero narratives. Their insights reveal that beneath the surface of comic book action lies a profound exploration of what it means to be human in a world of constant change and relational dynamics.

In the lighthearted yet thought-provoking style characteristic of Systematic Geekology, Andy and Evan wrap up their discussion by engaging with listener questions, inviting feedback, and hinting at future episodes. The episode not only entertains but also encourages listeners to reflect on their own relationships and the narratives that shape their lives, making it a must-listen for both casual fans and long-time followers of the superhero genre.

Takeaways:

• In this episode, Andy and Evan dive deep into how Process Theology relates to Spider-Man's journey of self-discovery and community, which is a fresh take on superhero narratives.
• The film 'Spider-Man: Brand New Day' explores themes of isolation and connection, showing how relationships shape our identities through the lens of Process Theology.
• Evan shares his love-hate relationship with the film, admitting that despite being bored on repeated viewings, he still appreciates its deeper themes and character arcs.
• Andy highlights the clever use of music in the film, particularly how the Spider-Man theme evolves to reflect Peter Parker's journey from isolation to connection with others.
• The conversation touches on how the film integrates Jean Grey into the Spider-Man universe, revealing how well-crafted character arcs can resonate with fans of both franchises.
• They conclude by discussing the importance of storytelling in comics and films, emphasizing how characters grow through their relationships rather than existing in a vacuum.

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Be sure to check out our merch, find extra content, and become an official member of Systematic Geekology on our website:

https://systematic-geekology-shop.fourthwall.com/

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Listen to our other Marvel episodes:

https://player.captivate.fm/collection/fb519d38-2d9b-4f82-b041-81b81613543c

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Listen to all of our episodes with Andy:

https://player.captivate.fm/collection/c86f7a67-357b-4324-bf95-e42cedb9932a

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Check out other episodes with Evan:

https://player.captivate.fm/collection/db75189a-04f3-4129-9a5d-ade41cf863b5

Mentioned in this episode:

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You're like me.

What do you know about me, kid?

You think this is a choice?

Podcasting like, this is a lifestyle?

Is that what you think, kid?

This is a sentence.

Hello, geekologists, and welcome to another episode of Systematic Geekology.

I am Andy Walsh.

I'm joined by Evan Garcia, and we're here to talk once again about Spider Man.

Brand new day.

I finally got a chance to see it, and I have some thoughts.

And Evan had some more thoughts.

So we're gonna have a conversation and we're happy to have you joining us.

Howdy, Evan.

How are you doing this?

Even doing good, man.

Just.

Just excited to talk.

Spider man and a film that I don't really like, but I like a lot.

I'm weirdly kind of in that tension, but.

But.

But I've seen it three times, so it's like.

It's weird.

Yeah.

There, you know, I can see where.

Even if.

Even if it doesn't go where you want it to go or do what you want to do, there's a lot to unpack in this film and a lot to talk about, and hopefully we'll get to get to some of those things.

Cool.

But before we do that, what are you geeking out on?

We'll do a little lightning quicking out on here.

Yeah, I was doing.

What was it.

What was it that I was.

Oh,.

The Ninth Jedi came out.

The series that is the anime, the Star wars anime.

The.

The whole series came out.

Wonderful series.

To me, that's when a Star wars gets very philosophical with the right and the wrong.

That's my kind of Star wars.

And it did it in spades.

It was.

It was beautiful.

It was great.

It covered how I view about nihilism and, And.

And existentialism, and it was able to throw in some Jedi and.

Oh, man.

Pretty good stuff.

Pretty good stuff.

Awesome.

I haven't had a chance to check that out yet, but I've heard nothing but very positive reaction so far.

So I'm looking forward to having a chance to sitting down with that one.

Nice.

I've been, as one might imagine, I've been geeking out on The X Men 97 show, season two.

Yeah.

Just had the season finale yesterday and we won't get into that too much now.

We'll save that.

I think we talked about having a separate episode to wrap that up and hopefully in the next 72 hours, we'll get some more X Men news from.

That's right.

And so hopefully we'll have both of those things to talk about and maybe some More X Men things and who knows what other kind of goodies.

Maybe there'll be some other things out of D23.

Could be more Star wars stuff or who knows?

I don't know.

What we don't know.

Yeah, we don't exactly.

So we're geeking out about the future possibilities that are open to us.

Perfect.

Excellent.

So yeah, thanks everybody again for joining us.

We are always happy to have folks listening to us, listening to us go really deep on what we're excited about, like Spider Man.

And so if you want to rate and review us, if you want to like this video, whatever you can do to boost us so that other people get to share in these conversations as well.

You can also actually share them, right?

You can repost them them on social media, tell a friend, send them a link, whatever you need to do to help people know what you're geeking out about with us.

And you can also support us financially.

You'll find a link to that in the show notes or the description of the video or wherever, however you are watching and or listening to this, you'll find those details.

You can follow that link and become a financial supporter like Jeanne Mattingly, who has been a supporter of us for a while and we are very appreciative of her support and thank you for that.

And so if you signed up and send a little money our way on a one time basis or a regular basis, you can get your own shout out as well.

And you'll get access to the website and there'll be extra content there that as a member you'll have access to.

You'll be able to vote in polls about some of the things that we cover.

You can go to the Comic Book Channel and ask us to cover a comic book in a future episode of Comic Book Catch up, all kinds of good stuff.

So please think about doing that as well.

And thank you to everyone who does or will do that.

We really appreciate it.

It helps to make all this stuff possible in terms of hosting and all that kind of logistical stuff.

It helps.

Those things aren't all free, the software to record and the hosting and all.

So we appreciate that you're helping us to get things out there.

So.

And there'll be a bonus question for this episode that you can look forward to if you are one of those folks who has access to the bonus content.

I haven't preloaded this.

This is kind of an off the cuff episode.

But I will, I'll give Evan a little bit of time to think about it and give you listeners a tease as to what to expect.

The bonus question will be, what other MCU movie would have been improved with the addition of a secret Mutant X Men character?

Oh, that is a great question.

So you can look forward to our answers to that and we can look forward to coming up with those answers and then talking about them.

So with that, we can go ahead and start talking in more detail about Brand New Day.

I suppose perhaps it already feels that way, but definitely from this point forward, there will be some.

There will be some spoilers.

We'll be talking about everything that goes on in the film thematically and plot wise and so forth.

So if you haven't yet seen the film, please feel free to do so.

But hopefully by now you've had a chance since lots of people have seen it.

And also, if you haven't, I pity you or I sympathize with your need to avoid spoilers and the difficulties in doing so.

I don't really know why they kept some of the secrets about this movie that they did, but they did.

And now those secrets are pretty widely around.

So apologies if you were trying to avoid those and either we or someone else revealed them to you before you saw the film.

But anyway, let's talk about it's boiling time.

Yes, let's talk about Brand New Day.

I've been rambling a little bit, but since I haven't had a chance to talk about this film, I'm gonna go for it.

Yeah, my host privilege and ramble a little bit more about how much I enjoyed this film.

Just sort of at the high points.

First of all, we've got Destin Daniel Cretton's name on there as the director.

I absolutely think that Marvel and Sony should do whatever they need to do to stay in the Destin Daniel Cretton business.

This was such a cinematic Spider man movie in a way that the and had such a feel for Spider man as the superhero of Manhattan.

And what makes that distinctive and the flair of just swinging the city that, you know, I think the previous films perhaps intentionally didn't fully explore.

That may have been a deliberate choice rather than just a limitation or, you know, lack of vision or whatever.

I think they were trying to kind of really highlight the parochial nature of Spider man and Peter Parker as high school students or as one high school student.

But yeah, now Spider man is an adult and a man of the world and the galaxy.

Right?

He's been to space and so Manhattan is his playground now and not just his neighborhood in Queens.

Is that a band.

Yeah, so just visually, there was a lot going on that was fabulous.

The action, which was blessed on set by the visit of Jackie Chan himself with former or current members.

Not exactly sure how it breaks down, but folks from the Jackie Chan stuff team helped coordinate with the action and that, you know, that really shone through.

There were some excellent action set pieces.

Spider man doing things that only a spider can or only a spider man can.

And yeah, so that was, that was just really fun to see.

And then, you know, the movie has some real, some real heart and some real, some real ideas in its mind and, you know, is a surprise, but maybe not so much of a surprise.

A secret X Men film as well.

And snuck it in there.

You know, as.

As much as I have been kind of wishing and hoping that, okay, let's just, you know, work on the Multiverse saga and the Avengers and then we'll get to the X Men and do the X Men proper and kind of like have them be their, their own thing or kind of get a fresh slate there.

You know, the reality is that X Men have kind of been seeping into the MCU for a while now.

We had Kamala Khan reveal that she's a mutant with the X Men animated show theme song in the background.

That was cool.

Which was a nice little nod.

We've had Wolverine and Deadpool, or Deadpool and Wolverine as a film with one time a Fox X Men character is coming in and hypothetical X Men character Channing Tatum as Gambit finally making appearance.

And, you know, we've had multiverse of madness.

Yeah, multiverse of madness brought in, you know, Patrick Stewart.

The Marvels took us to.

Oh, yeah, possibly the Fox universe or some other universe with a similar history with Kelsey Grammer's Beast.

So, you know.

Yeah, it's not been a clean break.

It's not been a fresh start.

It is, you know, we're just kind of working them in here as we can and where we want to.

And this was the biggest of that so far with newly cast Jean Grey Sadie Sink serving as the antagonist for much of the film.

And I was nervous for, as an X Men fan, I was nervous for about the first hour.

I don't know, I wasn't looking at it.

Did you know that she was going to be Jean?

You know, I knew.

The same way that everybody else knew that it was heavily rumored, but that they cast a redhead in a role that they weren't specifying.

You don't cast Sadie Sink for a three minute cameo as some character that appeared in three issues or whatever.

You cast Sadie Sink because you have big plans for this role in this film and possibly down the road and being reductive, Sadie Sink has red hair, so it must be a red hair character.

I didn't necessarily buy into that.

But also, you know, it is what it is.

But, yeah, if it wasn't, you know, the whole Mary Jane thing, like, that never really made sense to me.

I saw that.

I remember that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think that would be a huge disservice to Zendaya and to the character development that they've been doing that.

You know, just because her name technically isn't Mary Jane Watson, it's Michelle Jones.

Right.

The idea that you could sneak in another mj, I think would just be.

Would just have been confusing.

So, you know, of the.

Of the names that had been floated around as fan theories slash rumors slash whatever, Jean Grey was the one that made the most sense.

Even though Jean Grey in a Spider man movie.

What.

What would that be like?

Yeah, so I didn't know going into the film, but it was not a surprise.

Right.

That was kind of the most likely scenario.

But, man, I was just like, why are we introducing Jean Grey as the villain?

Is she working with the Scorpion?

Is she involved in organized crime in the Marvel universe?

Like, what.

What's going on here?

This is not how I want my X Men to make their debut in the mcu.

But as soon as they revealed that everything she was doing was to get her sister back, and as an X Men nerd, as soon as the name Sarah came up, I knew that that was the name of her sister.

I wanted to ask you because to me, that was a real deep pull.

I was like, okay, I did not know that one.

That was cool.

Yeah.

You could.

You could read hundreds of issues of X Men comics and never encounter Sarah Gray as a name or a person on panel.

She appeared.

You know, I don't have an exact count, but, you know, she appeared in a handful of.

Of issues.

I think has been name checked more often than actually drawn on panel because she, you know, she disappeared.

And so, you know, that.

Sure that the trauma of that.

The weight of that was something that loomed sometimes over Jean more than her actual presence as a character on the page was really a factor.

So, yeah, so it was a deep cut.

But she recently made probably her most significant appearance in the Jean Grey ongoing title that was published last year or two years ago.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

There was a Jean Grey comic and a big arc in that was the Return of Sarah Gray.

And was it really?

Sarah Gray and what's her whole situation?

So she was fresh in the minds of current X Men readers.

Yeah.

So once it became apparent that Jean was looking for her sister who had been kidnapped by damage control, then it all clicked.

And.

Okay, yeah, you don't come between Jean and her sister, whether it's her biological sister or her X Men sisters.

That made total sense.

And then the way that it unfolded and that Spider man realizes that there's been an error and works with her so that they were no longer at odds.

That's a classic comic book trope.

The heroes have a misunderstanding, they're at odds, and then they work together to resolve the issue.

So in the end, I was very pleased with how.

With how the Jean Grey and X Men of it all was.

Was handled.

Yeah, the, the guys, Christian and, and, and Kevin and I made some slides of it and some reels for it, but they, but they.

I really covered that part.

Right.

Like, they did a great job in, in not sacrificing the Spider man to bring in the.

The X Men.

So, yeah, the way that Spider man served the role of the healing force of the Marvel universe, the hug that everybody needs, the shining light of optimism that everybody needs, that's a good role for Peter Parker to play.

When they did the recent Marvel DC crossover comics, they paired up Superman and Spider man to kind of compare how they serve similar roles in their respective universes.

And that's a big part of it.

And I think that's spot on that both of them are kind of the, you know, when you're having a bad day, when all else seems.

Seems dark and grim, they'll be the one to provide a smile or a ray of hope.

And so I thought it was perfect to have that kind of be the way that Peter influenced Jean Grey in this film.

That was one of my hang ups with it because I was expecting the Brand New Day to be what we got after this movie.

You know what I mean?

Like, I thought that we would already be in the Brand New Day.

I realized what the movie was doing.

I'm like, oh, we're not quite there yet.

So I was so.

So I kind of related to the people that had kind of the same argument with the first season of, with the first season of Ahsoka.

They.

We have already learned all this stuff.

Why can't we go to the version of Ahsoka that we want to see?

And I said, no, you, you, you.

You first kind of need this, this moment to do to, to get to that day.

But that being said, what do you think about the cameos and the other characters in it too?

Yeah.

So you know Florence Pugh, always a delight.

You know that Yolanda character.

Potatoes.

Yeah, Just small potatoes.

Perhaps not the best judge of the magnitude of potatoes, but otherwise an entertaining presence.

Always happy to see her turn up.

To me, that's the secret sauce that I think has been missing from a lot of the Multiverse saga films, is the way that a character that you love from another film can or TV show or whatever can show up for five minutes, three minutes.

In the case of Steve Rogers and Thor, the dark world, like 10 seconds, that little Loki turns back into Captain America for 10 seconds.

Just those little things that remind you that these are connected stories and also that keep these characters fresh in your mind and give the audience opportunities to fall in love with these characters more or again or for the first time.

Right.

And I think that's what people have been missing from these MCU movies.

And why, even as good as this film was the Avengers, Doomsday of It all is a bit like, well, are we excited for this movie or not?

Because there are so many characters that are going to appear in that film that we haven't spent that much time with recently or at all.

It just hit me that it's kind of ironic that we had a whole saga, a whole phase dedicated to, to the possibilities of the multiverse, yet we still haven't seen characters for like five, six years.

It's like, how did that go?

Like, who said who?

Like, I want to.

I. I want someone.

I want to know who is the person that said that they can put Shangshi in something.

It's like, that's insane.

Right?

Exactly.

That's exactly the kind of thing, you know, your Shang cheese, your she Hulks, your she Hulk.

You know, Ms. Marvel, she would have been great, you know, should be popping up.

Hulk, son.

Hulk.

Yeah, you know, Rip, you know, Scar.

Hercules.

Clear Hercules.

Yes.

All of, all of these characters that.

Appeared, only Russell Crowe as Zeus, even like, yeah, you have freaking Russell Crow.

Yeah, yeah.

All these, all these characters that, that, you know, were promised, teased in post credit scenes that so far haven't.

Haven't materialized and who knows if, if they ever will.

I.

What was his name?

Star Fox.

Yep.

Harry Styles is Star Fox.

Yeah, the troll.

Oh, that's right.

Yeah.

Pip the troll.

So they just announced that they're doing a Marvel Star wars crossover.

Yes.

And I proposed a joke online and I took Patton Oswald's character or characters from agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

The, the twins.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I.

And I named one of them Philly and the other one Buster for filibuster.

Okay, so.

But do you get that reference?

Yeah.

From Parks and Rec.

Yeah.

Yes.

Yes.

I was like, come on, this is a perfect opportunity.

Yes.

That's a clever poll because.

Yeah.

That's all about the Star Wars Marvel crossover.

Yeah.

So all those, all those characters, you know, and some of that is, you know, plans changing and whatever.

Some of that.

I would.

Would not be surprised if some of that was still the.

The COVID of it all that, you know, you needed to limit your casts and limit things because people had to isolate and, you know, I don't.

Had to look very differently.

And so maybe bringing in an actor for, you know, three minutes of screen time just didn't make a whole lot of sense because of.

They were all the behind the scenes logistics.

Yeah.

But that being said, what did you like of the ones that we did get?

But yeah, so I.

Right.

Yelena was a lot of fun.

Hulk was.

You know, I think it was a little bit less of an opportunity for.

For the Hulk to shine.

And.

Or maybe I just, I. I really enjoyed Professor Hulk, the smart Hulk from Endgame.

I wasn't mad about him.

Yeah, he was cool.

I'm a little disappointed that we haven't seen more of that version of the Hulk that we've kind of gone in she Hulk.

We saw a lot of Banner, which Mark Ruffalo is charming as Banner, but I did appreciate the smart Hulk, the Professor Hulk of it all.

And then here we're kind of back to Hulk and Banner are at odds with each other and all.

And maybe some of that.

That is Jean Grey messing with his mind as he kind of says.

So it makes sense story wise.

But I still.

We didn't really get to see, I think that character shine in the same way that Yelena really gets to shine.

And then the Punisher, I guess also partly it's the Hawkeye thing from Avengers.

He spends a lot of his time on screen, not.

That's right.

Not really himself.

Right.

True, true.

Yeah.

And then the Punisher, you know, that was, I think, my favorite incarnation of Jon Bernthal's Punisher that we've seen.

Because I'm not a huge fan of the Punisher and I'm not a huge fan of the Grimdark.

Have to murder everybody.

Kind of vibe with the Punisher.

I think he works best in this kind of mode as a foil for other characters, as a contrast to other heroes in the Marvel universe, to remind us what makes them heroic, to remind us of the sacrifices and the challenges of taking the path that Spider man and Daredevil and some of these other guys choose to take.

He's a living, breathing cautionary tale, basically.

Yes.

Yes.

And so I thought that worked very well.

And because he's a charismatic actor, he was charming and a lot of fun.

Let me tell you something.

In this.

In this film, I felt bad.

My daughter afterwards, she's like, no, I need to go and watch that Punisher special and all.

Like, I really like the Punisher.

Like, that's fine.

And you can watch those things.

But let me warn you that that is not exactly the same.

It's the same character, but it's not the same vibes.

Right.

He's.

He's not.

Right.

Not quite as charming, especially in.

In the One Last Kill episode.

Yeah.

But, yeah, so I thought.

I'm trying to think.

I get.

I guess Metzger from Damage Control also counts as a.

As a cameo, as a named entity.

But, yes.

Not one I'm super familiar with.

So the, The Damage control, they are kind of their own kind of cameo, because I didn't realize that they went far back as the first Tom Holland, Spider Man.

Right.

And probably before that, I was like, oh, wow, I completely forgot about that.

Yeah.

You know, pine D in the first film represents damage control.

And I think at one point there was a notion of doing like, a damage control sitcom or something really cool.

But that.

That never materialized.

But it is.

It is interesting that none of them have.

You know, we've had three or three different damage control representatives.

I don't.

I don't think damage control really shows up in Far From Home.

But we've got.

We had that one guy in no Way Home.

I forget the actor's name or the character's name.

He's from home.

He's from the war.

He's from the show with a William Stryker in it where he's the businessman.

Right.

Succession.

Succession.

There you go.

Yeah, there you go.

Yes.

Yeah.

So he was in no Way Home, and then we had Tramell in this film.

So that, you know, I, I.

That's maybe a little bit of a missed opportunity from.

From.

He's.

Severance.

Severance.

Yeah.

Yeah.

From all those memes.

Yes.

Femme dancing.

Yes.

Yeah.

So that, you know, that does hurt the continuity a little bit of remembering that you know, this, that they've been kind of a constant thorn and Spider man side.

Yeah, yeah.

But you know, it's still, still cool that there is that element that kind of connects all these films.

Oh, and DeWolf.

Detective DeWolf is also a character from the, from the comics.

Yes, that's what I heard.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Creation of a fun presence.

Yeah, yeah.

She added a lot to the film.

Creation of Pete, of Peter David, one of my favorite comic writers who, who passed away.

Thank you.

Not that long ago.

So it was nice to see him.

I see him, you know, in that list of special thanks at the end.

Thank you.

And nice to see one of his, his creations on screen.

I don't know how you know, a similar character.

You know, she appeared in a very different story.

So it's, you know.

Yeah, not exactly a Christian was saying that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Not exactly a one to one mapping.

You know, if you got to have a detective character.

Right.

Use one that exists on the page rather than inventing something new so that the comic book creators get their moment of recognition.

She was very, she felt very A Commissioner Gordon or like a Detective Gordon.

Yes, yeah.

And the Spider man Sony PlayStation games have a different police character.

And I'm blanking on the name, but who plays a very similar role in Spider Man's life in that game of kind of calling him with tips and asking for his help and so forth.

So it was that kind of dynamic, but a different name to the character.

What did you think of the surveillance aspect of it and how she comments, hey, that sounds illegal.

And Peter Parker just kind of goes, yeah, probably.

I'm like, bro, what?

Yeah, that that might be the part of the film that sat.

Because that was weird.

The worst with me.

And part of why, you know, especially was nervous going like, well, if we, if we're ruining Jean Grey and we're ruining Spider man by making him this, you know, master of a surveillance system or whatever.

Like, I'm not sure where I like where this is going.

Where are we going with this?

Yeah.

And I still, I'm not thrilled that that was more kind of a joke and didn't really deal with the consequences of that or the implications of that.

You know, especially thinking about, you know, it was 16 years ago, we had the Dark Knight pull that.

Yeah, pull that bit.

And that's true.

You know, at least acknowledge.

Right.

That this is probably not a good idea.

This is too much power.

We did not learn one person to have and so burned it down at the end.

And so I'm not sure that justified Batman's usage of it in that film, but at least acknowledged that there, there are issues here, there are problems that don't you know that this is not just an unalloyed good.

And so, yeah, to have Peter do that and not really.

Not really second guess, it may, you know, maybe they'll develop that further in future films.

One thing I do want to see that them.

I do want to see them developed is the fact that he is building the technology that's going to control the X Men that the ODC has now.

He's like, I want to see a Christopher Nolan Oppenheimer Spider man film now.

Yeah, I mean, you definitely, definitely could do that.

Or they could, you know, they could drop that and it'll never get mentioned again.

Right.

That there was just that one prototype and it got smashed and now it no longer exists.

But yeah, I mean, that's certainly a big, A big theme that recurs in the X Men comics is Sentinels even.

Yeah.

Can you control mutant powers?

Can you suppress mutant powers?

Can you get rid of mutant powers?

We obviously saw that in the Last Stand and possibly I don't think any of the other films have a cure storyline or anything like that.

But there's other notions of inhibiting powers and the Sentinels and all that.

So yeah, they could be planting some seeds there that will be picked up in the X Men film.

That could be.

That could easily be the plot of the X Men movie.

Whenever we get that with Jake Schreier or like I said, it could never get mentioned again.

And I'm okay either way.

I don't love that it's something that Peter Parker made, but he clearly comes to realize that maybe it wasn't such a good idea either for himself or for other people.

And so that kind of fits in the comic books.

That role goes to Forge.

Forge makes a gun in the 80s that if you zap somebody with the gun, it takes away their mutant powers.

Nice.

Okay.

And he kind of has to live with, you know, realizing that he made this thing and what it, what it could be used for and kind of has an Oppenheimer, you know, storyline of I did it because I wanted to see if I could do it and didn't necessarily, you know, it's not my department to decide how it gets used, but oh, well, maybe it should have been.

So I kind of want to see a. I want to see Forge, Mr.

Fantastic and a Dr. Doom kind of blue sky something, you know, like I want them to team up almost.

That will be Something that I think, yeah, there's something there.

Yeah, yeah, I like it.

I'm not mad at that idea.

Well, yeah.

Cool, cool, cool.

So you wanted to talk about the process theology of this film or your thoughts about how process theology relates to this film.

So I'm very curious to hear what you have to say about that.

Sure.

It's my understanding of process philosophy, which is still pretty basic, but it was pretty weird because confirmation bias works in this in a very mysterious way sometimes because just a few days before watching the movie, I'm listening to a podcast with a friend of the show, Josh Patterson, and they.

So.

Jeez.

The.

So.

So a process theology is if, if you know, you can kind of correct me on this, but it is based kind of on the idea that everything is in relation to something else.

We cannot live in, in complete isolation.

Like, like, like the sky is only blue because of the particles in the air that are refracting with the light and stuff like that.

And like things are relational and that, and that aspect of, of process philosophy blends into the theology side of it.

And that's what hooked me in when it's.

It was kind of the linchpin where I decided, oh, I can still be a Christian and still have these non objective kind of thoughts.

And because of what?

Because what?

Because what?

Because on the podcast that I was listening to with Josh, I remember him describing a feeling that I had growing up.

I had the feeling that I could never read my Bible properly and the shame mechanism that came from that because I could never just go by myself and kind enough read something and process it for me, quote unquote.

So I've always had that kind of lingering.

And through my, through my deconstruction, I found out that I probably have some HDHD tendencies.

And so that kind of explained the physical side of why I might feel that.

But what process helped was I could not.

I made me feel okay with the fact that I can be that I don't see things, that I rely on the relationship of others to see my worldview and seeing.

And seeing a spider man kind of through some certain ways, learn that lesson that you can't just do things by yourself.

You have to.

You, you have to have your community and that and that.

And have that attention of the other person.

So I just found that connection to it of the relativity side of things and that it just was.

It's just a sense of validation that, that I was like, huh, I was not expecting that from a spider man film.

So.

But that was about it, that and yeah, yeah, cool.

Yeah, that, that, that makes a lot of sense.

I was, I was sure I had no idea where you were gonna go with this, so.

Sure.

But I was excited and that makes a lot of sense, the idea.

Yeah.

So, you know, spelling it out a little bit more.

Right.

In the follow up, in the aftermath of Spider man, no way home, where Dr.

Strange has to use magic to make everybody forget.

Everybody forget that Peter Parker existed.

I'm a little bit fuzzy on actually what, what was erased from the world, but certainly the fact that Peter Parker and Spider man were the same person.

You know, everybody who knew that forgot that and in the process seemed to have forgotten their history with, with Peter Parker.

And so, yeah, as this film opens, he is very much just trying to do everything on his own, avoiding all kinds of interactions with anybody that he had previously had a relationship with, I think.

To try to keep them safe, which is.

That's a honorable thing to do, but that can get kind of messy too.

Yes.

And so, yeah, so as the film unfolds and, you know, Jean Grey, as he learns that Jean Grey is dealing with her own, you know, issues of isolation and abandonment and so forth, they kind of both help each other to figure out that it's okay to need people in your life and that part of what defines us, like you said, is our relationship to everything else around us and everyone else around us.

So.

Yeah, that's a really good observation.

You know, I think there's also an element, you know, of, you know, my experience with process theology kind of comes indirectly through learning some things about open and relational theology.

Right.

Same with, you know, other friend of the podcast, Thomas J. Ord, who was on an episode about the film Minority Report, talking about these, these topics.

Great episode.

I think there's also some element there of the idea that Spider man is not a finished product.

There is not some essential essence to Spider man, that once he got bit by that spider, now he's become that thing and he will just always be that essential Spider man thing, but that there's an unfolding to, to his Spider man ness as well.

And you know, this film, you know, by kind of relating it to the, the developmental stages of, of spiders and other arachnids.

And, you know, they molt and they go through, through transformations in their life.

Right.

That we, we become different, different people over time.

And that becoming is in some ways just as, as essential or not more essential than our, than our properties or features.

Sometimes I kind of think of it in terms what is all this process and relational and openness kind of boil down to.

And I think it's an emphasis that verbs are just as important as nouns.

At least becoming is really what things are about as much as being something.

Yeah.

So that's what the al hyphen is in.

In Spider man, right?

Yes.

It leaves a little space for growth, for change.

That's a fun thought about that.

And hopefully it'll help us to remember that there is a hyphen in Spider Man.

Yes.

Yes, that is.

One of my favorite things to do on social media is I don't even post something.

I just go to make a post and I do the hashtags and you know how they.

They try to autocorrect for you and sometimes I like to misspell it and see who else has also misspelled it.

For me.

It's so much fun to see all the weird spellings people put for.

For.

For, like.

For Star wars and for Spider man and stuff.

Yeah.

But yeah.

Yeah, that's the process part that I felt like I could add to it.

Very good.

Were there other thoughts about the film that you wanted to talk about or anything else that we think we need to get into?

The.

I saw some video at.

At a con that Rosario Dawson had a deleted scene where she was the one that kept his secret safe at the hospital of Peter park.

And she was the one that was with the suit and stuff like that.

I was like, oh, that's all right.

That would have been clever.

Yeah.

That would have made a lot of sense and would have been a nice nod to the reintegration of the Netflix side of the world.

But there was a lot going on in this movie.

I can see where that.

Maybe I can see why somebody might have decided that that was one too many characters and elements to add two.

I think.

What, like two hours and like, 20.

Minutes this movie was, I think, yeah.

If not more than that.

And a lot of, you know, a lot of characters, a lot of faces to keep track of and.

But that's the thing with everything that I've talked about this film so much with people online and stuff, but I still can.

I still can't get over the fact that it's just so boring, this movie.

I could feel the two hours, man.

Like, I just can't.

The film commits the.

The one sin that I can't get over, apparently.

Wow.

Okay.

Yeah.

It's just so boring.

It's just like I know what's happening and that's okay because I like Spider man and I love all the characters and it's just like grinding fingernails on.

On Mount Vesuvius.

Like, what is happening on my.

On my third viewing, it took everything in me to not pull out my phone to do the slides for the recording that I was going to do the next day.

I was just like, ah, man.

Well, it kind of sucks.

But, yeah, I'm sorry that.

That was your experience.

I was.

I was dialed in.

I was really hooked on.

Right on.

And, you know, part of that may have been just like the anxiety over Jean Grey.

And then once.

Once I was bought into what they were doing, just like the excitement of, oh, okay, here we go now.

Like, it's.

Sure, sure.

You know, but, yeah, I can see if you.

If you were bored by the film, then.

Yeah, it was a lot of film to be bored by.

It was a lot.

And seen it three times.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Which is.

Yeah, sure.

One more thing that I wanted to flag thinking about the, you know, the element of Spider man being on his own and then connecting with folks.

Michael Giacchino, who did the score for this film and all the previous Tom Holland Spider man films.

Right, right.

You know, it's maybe a little bit obvious once you hear it described, but it's also, you know, lots of things are.

And.

But you're coming up with them and executing them well.

Still is the challenge.

So he took the theme that he had created for Spider man for the earlier films and he removed notes from it.

So when the theme is first revisited at the beginning of the film, it's down to, like, basically four notes.

And you can still recognize it as the Spider man theme.

And, you know, if you're not looking for.

Not paying attention, register.

But yeah, they're just.

There are fewer notes in the Spider man theme.

And because he's not really Spider man.

And it stays that way, missing a part until the very end when there's a shot where he's kind of monologuing about, you know, that he's not going to do it anymore.

He's talking.

I think he's talking to Aunt May in his mind about how he's not going to try to go it alone anymore.

And we see a shot of MJ and we hear the theme with some more of the notes at the back.

And then they go and have the handshake moment with Ned in the corner store.

And again we hear the theme with all of the notes restored.

And I just thought that was a nice little musical flourish that.

Oh, man.

That's added.

That's beautiful.

That's beautiful.

On so many levels.

Because I remember, I remember having anxiety that he was doing the music for A Rogue One because I was like, how dare he?

Oh yeah.

And.

And that's not John Williams.

And.

And he pulled it off, man.

Like it was so good.

And here I love to hear that that kind of heartfelt technicality is brought into it as well because it's just as part of the filmmaking as the.

As the gaffer or whatnot.

Yeah, but that's cool.

All right.

And with that we will.

We will wrap things up.

Reminder again that we will have an extra question for this episode that will be about adding which previous MCU film could be improved by the addition of a secret X Men character.

Do we have anything to recommend to the good folks as a result of this episode?

I've been saying it the past few times and the listeners are probably going to be bored, but the friendly Neighborhood Spider man is just a fun show and I milk joking that show as much as I can because it's fun.

Awesome.

And we.

The Tombstone from that show gets a three second cameo.

That's right.

The same actor.

That's right.

And.

And the actor that played Tombstone and Brand New Day played him in one of the Spider Verse films.

I don't know which one.

Yeah, I think it's the first Spider Verse film.

The first one.

Okay.

And.

And the friendly Neighborhood Spider man cartoon.

That is so much fun.

And I will say that if you're looking for some more Jean Grey material, X Men Red would be the like 12 issue series by Tom Taylor.

And I apologize, the artist is not coming to mind right now.

But yeah, a 12 issue series about a team led by Jean Grey.

I think one of my favorite Jean Grey focus stories, you know, that isn't the Dark Phoenix.

If you're looking for something with a little bit more lightness to it, that's a good one.

So check those things out, please.

Again, remember to rate review the show wherever that's possible.

And thank you again to Jeanne Mattingly and everyone who supports us and makes it possible to do the show.

You can become a member yourself.

Find the link in the show notes, the show description, the video description.

Somewhere you'll find a link to the site where you can go and sign up and get access to our bonus question, all of our other bonus material and lots of other goodies as well.

And hopefully we'll come back with.

We'll be back next time with something else to talk about other than Brand New Day.

Although I'm sure that there's things still left unsaid.

But, yeah, until that time, remember, if you're going to geek, do it systematically,.

Sam.