The Superman Movie Rankings

Summary

Episode Summary: The Superman Movie Rankings

Release Date: July 14, 2025
Podcast: The Big Picture by The Ringer
Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins
Guests: Rob Mahoney and Van Lathan

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Introduction to the Discussion

The episode kicks off with a brief advertisement for Starbucks' new Strato Frappuccino blended beverage, setting a casual and engaging tone. Shortly after, Sean Fennessey introduces the main topic of the day: ranking Superman movies. He highlights the extensive discussions he and Van Lathan have had on the subject, indicating the depth of analysis listeners can expect.

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Initial Impressions of James Gunn's Superman

Sean welcomes Rob Mahoney, the only remaining Ringer podcaster who hasn't yet weighed in on the latest Superman film directed by James Gunn.

Rob Mahoney (01:30):
"I just think it's really affirming when you see characters that are really important to you represented well on screen. And it's been a while, but they finally got Big Head Green Baby just right. They fucking nailed it. They aced it."

Rob expresses his enthusiasm for how Gunn has portrayed significant characters, specifically praising the representation of Big Head Green Baby, indicating a successful adaptation of beloved characters.

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Superman's Cultural Evolution

Van Lathan delves into the historical significance of Superman in popular culture, tracing his prominence from the 1950s "Superman" TV show to the ebb and flow of his popularity alongside other superheroes like Batman.

Van Lathan (02:26):
"It was a part of people's willingness or their want for Superman to not culturally expire. Because when the Reeve movies are coming along and when we're growing up in the 80s, Superman is still a very strong cultural force..."

He discusses how different eras have shaped the perception of Superman, noting the resurgence of interest with shows like "Smallville" and how James Gunn's portrayal aligns with contemporary societal values.

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Box Office Performance and Reception

Sean transitions the conversation to the financial success of James Gunn's Superman movie, which grossed $217 million worldwide, performing well domestically with $122 million but falling short of expectations internationally.

Sean Fennessey (14:35):
"And I think this is a good outcome for the movie. Now overseas, there's two ways to look at it..."

They attribute the moderate international performance to the movie's overt political themes and the complex portrayal of American ideals, which may not resonate equally across global markets.

Rob Mahoney (15:05):
"I think Superman is more American than Captain America is. It is truth, justice in the American way. It's baked into the character..."

Rob emphasizes the inherent Americanism in Superman's character, suggesting that the film's engagement with real-world issues could polarize audiences.

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Comparisons to Previous Superman Films

The hosts and guests engage in an extensive comparison of various Superman movies, particularly focusing on the Christopher Reeve era and its lasting impact.

Sean Fennessey (35:06):
"The first tier is very clearly Jaws, Star Wars. There's a handful of movies that are so totemic, that are so impactful in my life that Superman doesn't get over those..."

They position the original 1978 "Superman" film starring Christopher Reeve just below cinematic giants like "Jaws" and "Star Wars," highlighting its foundational role in superhero filmmaking.

Rob Mahoney (36:37):
"If you want to make a Superman movie that is overtly about immigration and Gaza, this is what happens..."

Rob critiques certain portrayals of Lex Luthor and Superman's emotional depth in various adaptations, noting improvements in character representation over time.

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Ranking the Superman Movies

The core of the episode revolves around ranking the Superman films. The panel meticulously evaluates each movie based on factors like character portrayal, storytelling, and faithful adaptation of comic book lore.

Final Rankings:

1. Superman (1978)
2. Superman II
3. Superman III
4. Superman Returns
5. Superman IV: The Quest for Peace
6. Zack Snyder's Justice League
7. Man of Steel
8. Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice
9. Superman III (Reiterated due to its nuanced discussion)
10. Superman Returns
11. Justice League (Original Joss Whedon Cut)

Key Points:

• Superman (1978): Celebrated for its groundbreaking depiction and foundational storytelling.
• Superman II: Praised for its deeper character development and emotional resonance.
• Superman III: Acknowledged for its comedic elements and Richard Pryor's performance, despite its deviations from the original.
• Superman Returns: Critiqued for feeling disjointed but recognized for some redeeming qualities.
• Man of Steel: Viewed negatively for misconstruing Superman's core values.
• Batman vs. Superman: Mixed reviews, with some appreciation for Ben Affleck's Batman but criticism of overarching plot choices.

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Upcoming DC Universe Projects

The discussion extends to future DC Universe projects like "Supergirl" and "Clayface," speculating on their potential impact and how they might fit into the broader DC cinematic landscape.

Van Lathan (24:14):
"I was really actually excited for the Authority movie, which it doesn't seem like is going to happen now..."

They express hope that upcoming films will explore diverse characters and storytelling methods, moving away from relying solely on blockbuster spectacles.

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Conclusion: Reflections on Superman's Legacy

Wrapping up, the hosts reflect on Superman's enduring legacy and the challenges of evolving his character in a modern context.

Sean Fennessey (87:50):
"I really like what he was trying to do, which is like, this is more like the Ridley Scott movie legend than it is a Justice League movie."

They commend James Gunn for attempting to create a believable world around Superman, emphasizing the balance between maintaining the character's integrity and adapting to contemporary narratives.

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Notable Quotes

• Rob Mahoney (01:30):
  "They finally got Big Head Green Baby just right. They fucking nailed it. They aced it."

• Van Lathan (02:26):
  "Superman can hang out. We can do World's Finest. We can do, I guess, Batman v Dawn of justice."

• Rob Mahoney (15:05):
  "Superman is more American than Captain America is. It is truth, justice in the American way."

• Rob Mahoney (36:37):
  "If you want to make a Superman movie that is overtly about immigration and Gaza, this is what happens."

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Final Thoughts

The episode presents a thorough and passionate examination of Superman's cinematic journey, blending nostalgia with critical analysis. Sean Fennessey, Rob Mahoney, and Van Lathan offer diverse perspectives, making the discussion both insightful and relatable for fans and newcomers alike.

Listeners interested in superhero film rankings, character development, and the future of the DC Universe will find this episode both informative and engaging.

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For a detailed breakdown of the rankings and further discussions, visit The Big Picture's Letterboxd account.

Transcript

[Sean Fennessey]

This episode of the Big Picture is presented by Starbucks. We are big Starbucks Frappuccino fans over here. So when we heard about the new Strato Frappuccino blended beverage, we had to try it. It's a crave worthy iced blended beverage topped with cold foam, making for delicious layers of flavor.

[Rob Mahoney]

I love how Starbucks leans into the seasons, especially summer.

[Sean Fennessey]

From vibrant refreshers to cold blended beverages, there's always something exciting to sip on. Available now for a limited time only, your Strato Frappuccino blended beverage is ready at Starbucks. I'm Sean Fennesee and this is the Big Picture 8 conversation show about Superman again. Joining me today, let's talk about James Gunn's Superman. And to rank all the Superman movies, it's Rob Mahoney and Van Lathan couple programming things. Last week on the show, Amanda and I broke down the movie in full, as did Van and the Midnight Boys on the Ringerverse, as did Van and I on the House of R. So if you want to know what we think about the movie, you've heard it. There's roughly 14 hours of me and Van Potting about it. But Rob Mahoney, I think you're the last living Ringer podcaster this is true. Who has not had a chance to weigh in on this film? So before we start getting into the box office and where this movie sits in the hierarchy of power in the Superman universe, you saw the movie Superman?

[Rob Mahoney]

I did.

[Sean Fennessey]

What did you think? Did you like it?

[Rob Mahoney]

I just think it's really affirming when you see characters that are really important to you represented well on screen. And it's been a while, but they finally got Big Head Green Baby just right. They fucking nailed it. They aced it.

[Van Lathan]

Wow.

[Sean Fennessey]

It's amazing that James Gunn knew exactly what you were looking for and he delivered. Do you care about Superman? Is he a character for you growing up in the movies? What's your relationship?

[Rob Mahoney]

He is a guy in the mix for me. So I grew up as part of the Lois and Clark generation, the Smallville generation as I was a teenager. The D.C. animated stuff, that was kind of my entry point. Justice League, Justice League Unlimited, those kinds of things. More so than eventually finding the Reeve movies a little bit later. But I would say I'm definitively more of a Batman guy. But Superman can hang out. We can do World's Finest. We can do, I guess, Batman v Dawn of justice. And through that I'm finding all these other entry points to some pretty good Superman stories here and there.

[Van Lathan]

Interesting about that is, I think that he was all of those things that he's describing, all of those properties. It was a part of people's willingness or their want for Superman to not culturally expire. Because when the Reeve movies are coming along and when we're growing up in the 80s, Superman is still a very strong cultural force, like a really strong cultural force. Then, you know, Batman's there. He's huge, big deal. But Tim Burton's Batman comes, that changes things. And that reorients DC and also reorients people's connection to those characters. And then it's kind of Batman first, and it's Batman led for a long time. Superman comes back to tv, then Smallville comes, and then a whole new generation of people kind of get into the Superman lore. But we might have been the last actual Superman generation to where our fathers. That was the biggest deal in the world for them. And then they talked us into it.

[Sean Fennessey]

Well, there's a funny conversation that we could have that we are not prepared for, but I think is relevant to what we're discussing today, which is, you know, we've talked about the championship belt a lot over the years. Bill kind of developed this concept many years ago that, like, only one person can be holding the belt as the very best at a certain thing. He was often talking about the NBA. Shea Serrano's done this a lot. Chris and Andy do it about TV shows on the watch. What's the number one show right now in the consciousness? Overall, the superhero belt in terms of decades is really interesting. Cause like in the 50s, you do have a Superman TV show. But then in the 60s, you have a Batman TV show. And then in the 70s, you finally get a Superman movie. And then in the 80s, Superman reigns. And then in the 90s, Batman takes over. And then in the 2000s, I think it's Spider Man. And then you get maybe X Men, Iron man's not till 2008.

[Van Lathan]

Well, in the 2000s, it's. It's Spider Man. But then you get Batman Begins and the Dark Knight.

[Sean Fennessey]

And then Obviously in the 21st century, we have this wave of superhero movies and properties. So it's a little bit harder to sort out that period of time. But I agree with what Van is saying that when I was a kid, Superman was like Clorox or like Kleenex. Like, it was just like a part of the fabric of day to day Life. In the 90s, my experience with Superman is basically entirely through Jerry Seinfeld.

[Rob Mahoney]

And Jerry Seinfeld, an adult man obsessed with Superman.

[Sean Fennessey]

He loves Superman. He had routines about Superman and his standup act, and he often talked about him on the show. Seinfeld and Superman kind of went away with the exception of Lois and Clark. It's interesting that you were exposed to Lois and Clark.

[Rob Mahoney]

Oh, yeah. Probably a little too young, but I'm here for the Superman antics, and my parents are there for the Lois and Clark.

[Sean Fennessey]

Right, right. That was a show that I watched with my parents, too, which is really interesting. The Superman stuff probably doesn't look very good these days. If you go back and look at that show. Have you gone back and looked at that show?

[Rob Mahoney]

The Lois and Clark stuff, The Dean ca. Stuff doesn't look very good, but.

[Sean Fennessey]

Well, that's a whole other conversation as well.

[Van Lathan]

Dean Kane aged against Superman. If you people are pulling up all of the clips from that show where they're treating Superman like an illegal alien, and Superman is talking about the rights of people, and he's talking about what he's standing up for.

[Sean Fennessey]

Oh, you think that being on that show, Black Pill Dean Cain.

[Van Lathan]

No, no, no, no, no.

[Sean Fennessey]

I'm thinking that would be an incredible take.

[Van Lathan]

That would be. But no, that's all I'm saying. What I'm saying is I don't think Dean Cain remembers the portrayal of Superman. Like, Lois and Clark were some coastal elites. Not coastal elites. Coastal liberals that really looked at the world.

[Sean Fennessey]

Members of the media.

[Van Lathan]

Members of the media. And so people keep reminding him about this, and it's just funny to see.

[Sean Fennessey]

Oh, yeah.

[Rob Mahoney]

Well, in fairness, if you did a pod 30 years ago, would you remember a single take that you had on that pod?

[Van Lathan]

It's probably gonna be the same stuff.

[Rob Mahoney]

Just recycle it.

[Van Lathan]

Kind of use different lenses to funnel in the kind of.

[Sean Fennessey]

I am kind of. I'm kind of hitting an end point, I think, in terms of, like, stuff I got to share with you guys.

[Rob Mahoney]

I disagree.

[Sean Fennessey]

I'm rounding into, like, my second decade of this, and there's only so much material.

[Rob Mahoney]

That's true. But, I mean, I find that you're having existential crises on this show all the time. You're hitting new depths to explore. Honestly, I think we're hitting new depths of Superman, too. Like, one thing I'm fascinated by as we're talking about the timeline of when Superman was popular. When was he not? During my formative years, Superman was very lame. He was straight Boy Scout. I want the edge of Batman. I want the cool of X Men. I want all that stuff this movie supposes and implies and suggests. Like, what if this Is cool. Like what. What if this version of emoting and caring and this kind of expression of power is cool for today? And if you're a teenage, especially if you're like a tween into teenager right now, I would love to know what their relationship is to the Superman movie. Like, is this a cool movie or is this still a Boy Scout like story?

[Sean Fennessey]

I've been thinking about that a little bit too, because, you know, my perception of this Superman is very kind of pop punk, post emo, very sensitive, very thoughtful, very engaged with the world, very engaged with humanity. But that is also still not present day teenagers. You know, that is actually maybe more speaking to somebody that's your age or even a little bit younger than you.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yeah, it's a direct hit.

[Sean Fennessey]

Unfortunately, like they now. The superhero movies that are being made by 60 year olds are not being made for me and Van anymore. They're now being made for you.

[Rob Mahoney]

How do you feel about that?

[Sean Fennessey]

It's fine. I'm good with it. I can also tap back into how I felt when I was 30 or 15 pretty easily, I think. But I find it fascinating because it's a really good point. Do teens like this movie, which is kind of important for the DCU to really proliferate in the next 10 years. I don't know if. I don't know if you have anything else you want to say about the movie before we talk. A little box office stuff, for sure.

[Rob Mahoney]

I mean, I think it is fun and bold and genuinely moving, which is something that to me is very important for a Superman movie. And it has all of. All the elements of a Superman story that I want and a lot of things I didn't know you could do with a Superman story. So you're able to pack all that stuff in and we can talk about the varying degrees to which they're successful or not. I know you guys already have talked about a lot of that, but I'm, I'm. I have incredible admiration for the fact that they tried so much, that James Gunn tried so much, that so much is packed in here as far as the messaging and the themes and the characters and introductions of world building. Like, it all kind of worked for me, give or take a proton river or two. Like, I, I think most of the stuff in this movie really, really works.

[Sean Fennessey]

Do you like corn sweat?

[Rob Mahoney]

I really loved him. I, I think they nailed kind of like the big three. Casting with Clark and Lois and Lex Luthor. Like all three of those, I think are knocked out of the park has not historically been the case for most Superman movies, I would say most of them get maybe two, sometimes one, sometimes zero, to be honest with you, as far as those three go. So the fact that all three were hitting at a really high level, right off the bat, I understand what the relationships of these characters are. I'm understanding this articulation of Lex Luthor in a very specific and important way where he's like. And this is the thing about, like the Gene Hackman Luthor too, where he's just kind of like a weird terrorist living underground. I want the Nicholas Hoult untouchable quality to Lex Luthor, where he is the guy in the Hightower. Superman needs to walk up to him and he needs to want to punch Lex Luthor. And we need to want him to punch Lex Luthor. And he's not gonna do it because, like, the restraint is such an important part of this story. And I feel like a lot of Superman stuff misses out on that. But this movie certainly did not.

[Sean Fennessey]

It's a good point.

[Van Lathan]

It is. I think our relationship to guys like Lex has changed. And it actually evolved over the course of Lex's comic run. Obviously, Lex starts off as this really brilliant corporate captain of industry who hated Superman and used all of his money and wealth and genius to do that. But you know what's funny? When I go back and watch movies from, like past eras, captains of industry titans, like really wealthy guys were pretty much celebrated like they were. It was always thought what type of exceptional person you would have to be to get to that perch. Right. And it was kind of celebrated in movies. Of course, there was like the asshole rich guy in movies that existed. But I think about movies like the Edge with Anthony Hopkins, where he's this billionaire and he knows everything and he's completely in control of all of these situations and all of this stuff. It's actually not till Superman 3 that there's like just somebody's complete corporate greed that kind of gets litigated. And then over time, Lex Luthor himself becomes the president in the comics. And it's like that's the kind of guy that becomes the president. So now this version of Lex Luthor.

[Sean Fennessey]

That would never happen in the real world, though, just in comics.

[Van Lathan]

Exactly.

[Sean Fennessey]

That's just a comic story.

[Van Lathan]

Now this version of Lex that you're talking about, I think is freer for examination than it's ever been. And it makes that character a little bit easier because even as I was doing my rewatch, Kevin Spacey's Luthor, like, kind of a fast talking loser, right? Like a fast talking loser.

[Rob Mahoney]

A con man.

[Van Lathan]

A con man. Bright, brilliant, but takes advantage of an old lady and all of that. It was really the Smallville Re sort of centering of that character that kind of got us to the point that we are at now.

[Sean Fennessey]

I think part of that. Obviously there's a lot that has happened in the world in terms of the industry that he captains that I think makes him in theory more vulnerable to some of those criticisms in the way that we're framing him. Like him being a tech billionaire specifically. That's a very loaded phrase in our modern time. More specifically though, the real. The matching sensitivity of Lex and Superman, that in a movie they both are like kind of frail emotionally. Like they're kind of. They're very unsure of themselves and they're kind of. I don't think Superman overcompensates in this movie. Lex is really overcompensating in this new movie. But Superman is almost having to convince himself of certain things at times, which is just like maybe a slightly different emotional valence than we expect from these movies where square jawed Chris Reeve is.

[Van Lathan]

So confident in his goodness. So confident in his goodness. Like so confident in his goodness that he nearly lets Lois die because he promised somebody that he was going to. He promised Tess Mocker that he was gonna save her mom or something in New Jersey first. Like so confident. And this Superman isn't really confident at anything as much as I say. But it's also because he's continuously being questioned, which they never do for past Superman.

[Sean Fennessey]

I'm very curious to see what the reception is of this movie over time. Like not just will it continue to do well at the box office, but will it be warmly accepted? Yeah, there's two components to judge that. One is the box office and the other is the DCU movie. So let's just talk about that very quickly. So this movie came in at $217 million worldwide, which I think is a little low. It did very well domestically. It made $122 million domestically. That puts it roughly where we expect a Superman movie to live in America. It's above man of Steel slightly 12 years later. And it's lower than Batman versus Superman. Even though that was a huge event movie that we'd all been waiting to see for decades, but then had a precipitous drop in the second week. So I think for like Warner Brothers, it did pretty well here. I thought it was going to go to 150. I thought people were going to go crazy maybe just because of My own personal bias of really liking the movie.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

Didn't quite get there. Probably a variety of reasons for that. I think they're, you know, there's a Jurassic movie that's still doing well. There's an F1 movie that's still doing well. And also I think, like, you know, the right kind of like, jumped on this movie and said, don't go see it.

[Van Lathan]

Yes.

[Sean Fennessey]

Politics.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

And there's some politics to it that people are probably keeping some people away.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

I think this is a good outcome for the movie. Now overseas, there's two ways to look at it.

[Van Lathan]

It was light, man. It was light in a lot of places that you. That they thought they would do better.

[Sean Fennessey]

Very light. Europe. Extremely light. Now, what America represents in 2025 and the American ideal is very different than in 1978 or even in 2013. So this movie's going to struggle to get to some of those, like, 600, $700 million thresholds.

[Van Lathan]

Sure. Yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

And I guess that matters to what is and is not made over time. The next two movies that are confirmed for the DCU are Supergirl and Clayface. Those are much more modest propositions on a worldwide scale. So it would be kind of fascinating if we had a comic book universe that was more like singles, doubles, and the occasional home run with very few desires to hit grand slams. I feel like the MCU set this precedent and the DCEU kind of followed the precedent of like, yeah, we could just throw off a billion dollar movie.

[Rob Mahoney]

I feel like when that happens, you don't get this kind of messaging. Like, frankly, this is the cost of doing this type of business. You want to make a Superman movie that is overtly about immigration and Gaza, this is what happens. Like, there's going to be a cost in certain markets. As you say, there's a projection of Americanism in Superman that is distinct among every superhero. Like, I would say Superman is more American than Captain America is. It is truth, justice in the American way. It's baked into the character. He interacts with the American government in this movie and all these movies, more than basically any other superhero does. They all have, like, fake dummy governments that represent whatever place that they're from. But this is like an American story.

[Sean Fennessey]

Right.

[Rob Mahoney]

And if it's an American story at a particularly turbulent American time, dealing with incredibly complex world issues, I think there are just going to be some people who aren't going to see it. As long as it creeps over the line of let's make more interesting things, I'm totally fine with it. I don't need the grand slams, frankly. And if we want to play double baseball all day, I'm cool with that. As long as you get runs on the board.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah. What do you think?

[Van Lathan]

Well, it depends on their approach to the movies that follow. If the movies that follow go, you know what, we need to make sure that these are the most four quadrant things that could possibly exist. Let's snatch a little bit of this stuff out. The real world critiques out. I would be disappointed. I'll be disappointed because the DCU has the opportunity to actually tell these stories the way they're told in comic books. And there are very few stories that are told in comic books that are not directly influenced by the world that we live in. Like, you see world leaders show up in these books sometimes. So I thought that the movie was pretty on the nose with some of the stuff that it was talking about. And I was surprised, but I also felt like it gave the movie some weight.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah. Totally agree.

[Van Lathan]

It grounded it a little bit, and I was happy about that.

[Sean Fennessey]

I was, too. I wouldn't ask for less of that. Gunn, in particular, is. I say this as a compliment. A very strident filmmaker is very comfortable saying, this is what this movie is about.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

And I will make you understand in clear terms what it's about. And even in the press sometimes, I'll tell you what the themes are.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

I interview a lot of filmmakers. Many of them are very reluctant to do that. He always goes the opposite way. This is sometimes the downside of that. 122 million in the US is a huge success. Like, it's not. I'm not criticizing that, but it's not. We are far away from the $357 million opening of Endgame. I don't know if we're ever coming back to that. I'm sorry to the ringer verse for that, but that just. That that feels like 50 years ago now.

[Van Lathan]

No, it' but it's also over because I think sometimes we underplay or under discuss just how impressive the filmmaking experiment that the MCU was to lead people throughout all those different episodes of the mcu, which is essentially what those movies are. To this grandiose final act where every single character, for the most part, gets their ending. There are a couple of new beginnings that we all were like, it's not gonna work. Even when we're in the movies, we're like, I don't know where they're gonna go with that. But it was just very special. Very special. And it kind of spoiled us a little bit. It went almost perfectly. And I don't know if, like Secret wars at this point, Doomsday at this point, they're just saying, hey, we're gonna throw everybody in a movie and expect kind of the same results. But it wasn't the same leader.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah, they haven't built us up to something in the same way, obviously. So I do want to do some quick accounting on Warner Brothers, which at the beginning of the year was the punching bag of the punditry about how they're going to fail this year. And they are, in fact, currently the most successful movie studio. Maybe not from a pure dollars perspective, but in terms of the swings that they're taking and the fortune that they're reaping from exciting movies. So Minecraft movie, $955 million worldwide so far. Sinners, $366 million worldwide. That's crazy. Maybe even crazier. Final Destination Bloodlines, $285 million. That's. But not bad.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

F1, $393 million and counting. Now, they just distributed that movie. They didn't produce it. Apple produced it. But still, that's a win for them. And now Superman 217 in one week. Only a couple more movies for them for the rest of the year. There's Weapons. Very excited about that on this show. The Conjuring Last Rites, apparently the last Conjuring movie. Then there's one battle after another. Probably do an episode or two about it.

[Rob Mahoney]

I can imagine.

[Sean Fennessey]

Seems important. I don't know if it's going to make $285 million like Final Destination, Bloodlines, but we'll see.

[Rob Mahoney]

What makes you say that? You never know.

[Sean Fennessey]

You never know. If it does.

[Van Lathan]

We're eating.

[Sean Fennessey]

Good.

[Rob Mahoney]

You throw a whole.

[Sean Fennessey]

We're going to Ruth Chris on this podcast. We are getting filet. Ruth's Chris is fantastic.

[Van Lathan]

I'm scared of weapons, guys. I don't know if I can do it. Weapons is freaking me out, man. I keep telling you this.

[Rob Mahoney]

Terrifying.

[Van Lathan]

Weapons is freaking me out. I don't even know what weapons is about, but you know what weapons reminds me of? Just real quick, 30 seconds, big pic. Audience. I'm sorry, I'm doing a van thing.

[Sean Fennessey]

Don't self actualize, just do it.

[Van Lathan]

So remember that movie, the Ring?

[Rob Mahoney]

Sure.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yes.

[Van Lathan]

All right, man. There was a show that came on BET called Bet Uncut.

[Sean Fennessey]

I know it.

[Van Lathan]

You know it very well, Rob. You know, BET Uncut.

[Rob Mahoney]

I don't. Fill me in.

[Van Lathan]

It was exactly what it sounds like.

[Sean Fennessey]

It sounds like a Lot of things BETV after hours.

[Rob Mahoney]

Uncut after hours. Okay.

[Van Lathan]

So I would watch BET uncut, obviously. And the commercial for the Ring came on.

[Sean Fennessey]

And who was going. That was like, too short. Video. Like, who was really. Who was in the rotation?

[Van Lathan]

This was. So this might have. I don't think this was Tip Drill era. This was the oh, tell me what that thing smell like era. I want to kick it tonight, baby Tell me what that thing smell like. That was the song. I promise you, Rob. That was the record.

[Sean Fennessey]

That was the record.

[Van Lathan]

And, you know, it's late, and so the commercial for the Ring came on, and that was a freaky commercial. The little girl, she's crawling the Ring. I'm like. And a lot of times you're high. And I'm like, yo, what the fuck is going on? I've never seen the Ring. I can't make myself watch.

[Rob Mahoney]

You couldn't get there.

[Van Lathan]

I couldn't get there with the movie.

[Sean Fennessey]

So you never saw it?

[Van Lathan]

I never saw the Ring.

[Sean Fennessey]

It's very good. My guy, Gore Verbinski.

[Van Lathan]

I never saw the Ring.

[Rob Mahoney]

This sounds like great content waiting to be made. Band watches the Ring.

[Van Lathan]

Never saw it. Never saw it. And for some reason, Weapons is doing the same thing to me. Like, Weapons is freaky. It's kids. It's all of these really talented actors.

[Sean Fennessey]

Oh, yeah.

[Van Lathan]

Tells you that the script is good.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

If all of them are in it normally, that means it's a good script.

[Sean Fennessey]

You know who's supposed to be in it instead of Josh Brolin?

[Van Lathan]

Who?

[Sean Fennessey]

It was supposed to be Pedro Pascal, which would have been a lot of Pedro Pascal this summer.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

And he dropped out.

[Rob Mahoney]

Not mad at that switch, to be honest with you.

[Sean Fennessey]

Me neither.

[Van Lathan]

Relax.

[Sean Fennessey]

Weapons were very hopeful here on the big picture. And then the last movie that WB has is Mortal Kombat 2.

[Rob Mahoney]

Oh, sure, I'll do it.

[Sean Fennessey]

I thought the first one was not great, but I weirdly think the second one will be great. Why do I feel that way? I don't know. I'm an idiot. I just have vibes.

[Van Lathan]

Johnny Cage. You gotta have Johnny Cage.

[Sean Fennessey]

There's.

[Rob Mahoney]

I thought you were saying Sean is a Johnny Cage type.

[Van Lathan]

The Mortal Kombat movie. The first Mortal Kombat movie was. It's Got a Special Place in My Heart.

[Sean Fennessey]

Because the original. The Paul W.S. anderson one.

[Van Lathan]

No, that one is legitimately good. Okay.

[Sean Fennessey]

No, it's not, but.

[Van Lathan]

Okay, okay.

[Sean Fennessey]

It's fun.

[Van Lathan]

It's. That's legitimately good. Okay. But the one that came out a couple of years ago, it just it was in the Pandemic and I was ready for it and it was so stupid, but it just has a special place in my heart.

[Sean Fennessey]

They're selling the new one on Johnny Cage. So hard. Carl Urban will be Johnny Cage in this movie. It's a poster. It looks like the name of the movie is Uncaged Fury. What's going on here? Yeah, this doesn't even say Mortal Kombat 2.

[Rob Mahoney]

Absolutely not.

[Sean Fennessey]

Not interested.

[Van Lathan]

They teased Johnny Cage at the end of the movie.

[Rob Mahoney]

I'm waiting for ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. You know, until we get to the proper installment, I'm not fucking around.

[Sean Fennessey]

Understood. Future of the D. You. Aside from Supergirl and Clayface, you know, technically the Batman 2. They turned to Matt Reeves, turned to script in. Yeah, I think the first time we convened this panel. Was it the first time or was the Nicolas Cage hall of Fame the first time?

[Rob Mahoney]

It was one of the two.

[Sean Fennessey]

So one of the two. During the Pandemic, we talked about the Batman and we ranked Batman movies, and so I thought it was right for us to come back together to do that. What form Batman is going to take is interesting. I heard a rumor, slash sourced rumor. Okay, aggregate this that I cannot share there. Was very exciting to me. Okay, I'll tell you off, Mike.

[Van Lathan]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessey]

I'm very sorry to the audience for that, but I just cannot share it.

[Van Lathan]

Great podcasting right there, Sean.

[Sean Fennessey]

That's called holding the information. I'm holding it for a later date. But I think what they decided to do with Batman is obviously pretty important with all this. Whether they can actually make characters like Lobo matter to moviegoing audiences. We shall see. Is there anything you'd really want to see? Did you talk about this on your Midnight Boys episode? You didn't write? Like, what is the DCU movie you really want?

[Van Lathan]

I think I more so want to see characters than I want to see specific movies. I was really actually excited for the Authority movie, which it doesn't seem like is going to happen now. They were always really cool. Even though the engineers in this film. It doesn't seem like she is coming back as part of the Authority.

[Sean Fennessey]

She did survive the movie.

[Van Lathan]

She did survive the movie, which I thought that maybe there might be a turn for her at the end because she was a little bit skeptical of.

[Sean Fennessey]

Lex at certain points. I think they set us up for.

[Van Lathan]

That a little bit. Right. But I'm interested in Lobo. Clayface will tell me whether or not the DCU works. That's the movie to me. They'll tell you. Whether or not it works, this one, the fact that James Gunn can make a fucking awesome Superman movie, I always knew that. But did you? I did.

[Rob Mahoney]

I remember you being so scared.

[Van Lathan]

I was scared once I saw the trailer.

[Sean Fennessey]

Before that, it seemed like it made sense.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

Before that, it's like, oh, you need an earnest, sweet movie with a lot of spectacle. James Gunn. But now Clayface, it's such a swing and it's such a distinct and interesting project to even. Either even take on. That tells me whether or not their world has form and shape. Yeah.

[Rob Mahoney]

Honestly, I'm really looking forward to the Damon Lindelof Lanterns show.

[Sean Fennessey]

Oh, wow.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Rob Mahoney]

Green Lantern, a character, again, is kind of like in the mix for me, but not one of my guys distinctly so I'm very curious to see what they do with a variety of Lanterns in that context. Obviously, we get one here in Superman 2. Actually, I was really pleasantly surprised and heartened to see Hawkgirl in this movie. A character who I know, again, mostly through the Justice League animated show and is a really cool character in the context of that show and I just assumed would never really be on screen in a meaningful way in a movie. And so the fact that she can be done well in a movie, I think, is. It bodes very strongly for what they could do with some of these minor characters. Now, can they hold their own movie in the way that, like, I'm sure they hope that Clayface will and hope that a Lobo will. We'll see about that. But incorporating some of these world building elements, I think so far has gone more smoothly than I would have imagined.

[Sean Fennessey]

I'm very curious to see if they market Clayface as an. As a hard DCU movie or as just a movie along the lines of the Conjuring. Like, it's directed by James Watkins, it's written by Mike Flanagan. These are horror filmmakers and they might just position the movie in like, a DCU dark. Like, there might be a kind of like, sub universe in which they can make film. 50 to $75 million movies that don't have to make $800 million to justify themselves. I would love that. I was asking for that from the MCU a long time ago, while understanding that they were building towards these epic events. That's part of the fun of comic books, is like, not every comic book needs to be, you know, the Infinity Crisis or whatever. Like, it doesn't. They don't have to be these, like, lead ups to something. Anyway. Do you remember how we ranked the Batman movies? Do you want. Do you want to hear how we did it some years ago?

[Rob Mahoney]

I would love to hear it.

[Sean Fennessey]

There were 14 Batman films at that time. I think there are still only 14 Batman films. If you don't include those animated films that you're talking about.

[Rob Mahoney]

Other than I remember we did Mask of the Phantasm. That one's a theatrical.

[Sean Fennessey]

Anything related to Batman, the Animated Series that was theatrical, we would do so 14. Well, first of all, three of these movies will come up again today in our rankings. Batman and Robin was 14. RIP Joel Schumacher. Justice League directed by Joss Whedon was 13. Batman v Dawn of justice was 12. The Snyder Cut was 11. The 1966 Batman movie.

[Van Lathan]

Oh yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

Was 10. A movie I really like.

[Van Lathan]

It's good.

[Sean Fennessey]

The Lego Batman movie was 9 too high. Batman Forever was 8. Mal would kill you if she heard you say that.

[Rob Mahoney]

It's not a funny movie.

[Van Lathan]

You don't think he's funny? I think we talked about it.

[Rob Mahoney]

It just didn't work for me.

[Van Lathan]

Right.

[Rob Mahoney]

You know. And so if you've got.

[Sean Fennessey]

Might be sitting at nine because of you.

[Rob Mahoney]

I think it was. If you've got a joke a minute movie and the jokes aren't landing. I just feel like I'm being watching.

[Van Lathan]

Batman eat lobster thermidor. It's like a real. It's. He's hysterical to me.

[Sean Fennessey]

Number seven is the Dark Knight Rises. Very silly movie. Maybe funnier than the Lego Batman movie. Number six is Batman Begins. Number five is Mask of the Phantasm. Number four was the Batman. Number three was Batman Returns. Number two was Batman. And number one was the Dark Knight.

[Rob Mahoney]

Are you guys ready to admit that Batman Returns is better than Batman 84 yet.

[Van Lathan]

Are you?

[Rob Mahoney]

Are you ready to put the proverbial bird in your mouth a la cat?

[Sean Fennessey]

You don't know.

[Rob Mahoney]

And just you down.

[Sean Fennessey]

You weren't there. You don't know.

[Rob Mahoney]

I know which movie's better. I remember arguing about it. I still am quite upset.

[Van Lathan]

And I just.

[Rob Mahoney]

I feel like a residual frustration in my chest with the two of you.

[Sean Fennessey]

I don't want to generationally other you, but I will. And you weren't there.

[Rob Mahoney]

It's tough.

[Van Lathan]

It's not better. But for some reason it's not better. It's just not better. But because man. Nicholson. Bro. Like it's not better.

[Sean Fennessey]

Prince.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah, sure. Yeah, man. It's not.

[Sean Fennessey]

Jack Nicholson participated in Batman.

[Rob Mahoney]

Jack Nicholson participated for eight minutes.

[Van Lathan]

He was fucking cooking in that movie.

[Rob Mahoney]

It's true.

[Van Lathan]

But it is.

[Sean Fennessey]

He got paid so much money to do that movie. And what do you get like 10% of the gross or something and first dollar. Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

Over bit. But I will say that Batman Returns is the more contemporary story of the two.

[Sean Fennessey]

Oh, it's trump Oswald Cobblebaut.

[Van Lathan]

Batman Returns is the more contemporary story of the two.

[Rob Mahoney]

Prescient.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah. The first one is a better. It's a better movie to me. But when I watch, I can connect more to Batman Returns watching it right now than the original Batman.

[Rob Mahoney]

I appreciate that olive branch fan thing.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah. Keep it around.

[Sean Fennessey]

I offer you nothing. Superman rankings. I'm going to list the movies that we're going to rank today and I think we should talk about each of them with some care.

[Van Lathan]

Can we go before we leave? You know what's before we leave? Batman. Real quick. Leave Batman the Leaf Crime alley. There is a discussion to be had about that. I think the nerds will back me up about the Dark Knight Rises versus Matt Reeves. The Batman.

[Sean Fennessey]

Now, we did do this ranking in the immediate aftermath of the Batman.

[Van Lathan]

Right.

[Sean Fennessey]

The Dark Knight Rises is very silly.

[Van Lathan]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessey]

It has cool stuff in it.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah, we did ridiculously cool stuff. Like shit, that's so fucking cool that Bane's interest into that movie is so fucking cool. It's shit, that's so cool that you go, okay, all the pilot. But like it. But they're like really cool shit.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yep.

[Van Lathan]

I think there's an argument there. I still would have Reeves Batman a little bit over it. Charles would not. He loves the Dark Knight Rises. I think the Dark Knight Rises is. It's got some momentum with the people right now.

[Rob Mahoney]

Interesting. Are they familiar with the back half of that movie?

[Van Lathan]

They are, and they like it. Which is.

[Sean Fennessey]

It's a pretty terrible third act, in my opinion.

[Rob Mahoney]

It's quite bad.

[Van Lathan]

Look, all I'm saying is there are a lot of people who are looking at Bane. They're looking at Batman's arc.

[Sean Fennessey]

I'm looking at Catwoman.

[Rob Mahoney]

I was about to say looking at Catwoman, which something all of us are looking at. I think in that movie.

[Van Lathan]

She's fantastic in it. I think the movie was.

[Sean Fennessey]

It was Glen Powell as a stockbroker.

[Van Lathan]

Earthquake, concussion. It was received to me in a fair way, which is this is a movie that, like, doesn't really work towards the end. But still there's the Robin thing is stupid.

[Sean Fennessey]

I actually liked the setup and reveal, but it was annoying knowing this would never happen. Like, even watching the movie in real time, I was like, this guy will never be back. Like, no one's never making another one of these movies. They're not gonna continue this universe. And they didn't.

[Van Lathan]

Right. But I think that the movie's aging really well and people are reexamining it. I don't know why. Maybe cause it's on cable so much. I'm not sure.

[Rob Mahoney]

Maybe it's very rewatchable in an idol. Like I can just walk out of the room for 20 minutes during the back half. Like that genre of movie. I think it's quite successful.

[Sean Fennessey]

I agree. We did a watch along on this show of the movie because it's just fun to watch. Whether it's good or not is debatable. I think also how the Batman 2 is and what Reeves does in the future will probably help determine some of these rankings in the future. But certainly we're not doing Batman right now. We're doing Superman. There have been a lot of Superman movies. Probably not too many yet. I think there's. It'll be interesting to see how many movies either James Gunn or the DCU decides to focus on Superman. When we were kids, there were four straight Superman standalone movies. And I don't know if it was Zack Snyder or Warner's or whatever kind of blinked in that era and immediately was like not another Superman movie. It's gotta be Superman and other stuff.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

And that's quite fascinating and even different from what the MCU has largely done. So you've got technically five, but literally four Superman movies from the Reeve era. We will be talking about the Donner cut here on this episode. One Brandon Routh movie from 2006, directed by Bryan Singer. Then the Henry Cavill era. There is man of Steel, Batman vs Superman, dawn of Justice, Justice League and Zack Snyder's Justice League. We will not be addressing the ultimate cut of Batman v Superman, which has an additional 30 minutes of footage that I have not watched in preparation for this episode.

[Van Lathan]

Right.

[Sean Fennessey]

And will not watch probably ever. And then now we have David Corenswet era, James Gunn, Superman.

[Van Lathan]

Right.

[Sean Fennessey]

How many movies is that?

[Van Lathan]

11.

[Rob Mahoney]

11 movies.

[Sean Fennessey]

Okay. You've talked a lot about the Christopher Reeve era. The first two films are directed by Richard Donner, one of the signature Hollywood directors of the 70s and 80s. You know, responsible for the Lethal Weapon franchise, the Omen, a number of really good movies. Inside Moves, big Bill Simmons movie that Chris Ryan refuses to watch for the Rewatchables Conspiracy Theory. He directed that movie.

[Van Lathan]

I remember that.

[Sean Fennessey]

Julie Roberts, Mel Gibson. Have you seen it, Rob?

[Rob Mahoney]

Have not.

[Sean Fennessey]

It's about 4chan.

[Rob Mahoney]

So is Superman. It turns out there's a lot of posting happening.

[Sean Fennessey]

There's A lot of posting. So you came to the Reeve movies later?

[Rob Mahoney]

A little later, I would say. I watched the first two in my later teenage years, and then I had heard the third and fourth ones were so bad, like, don't even bother watching them. Came to those a little later in life. I have differing opinions on them to some extent, but yeah, the first two, I was not as locked in as I was on Batman, but early enough to kind of have it be a semi formative part of the experience.

[Sean Fennessey]

So for me, the first Superman movie, and this is not a criticism, is at the very top of the second tier of 70s blockbusters.

[Van Lathan]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessey]

The first tier is very clearly Jaws, Star Wars. There's a handful of movies that are so totemic, that are so impactful in my life that Superman doesn't get over those, but it's right below those because I watched it all the time from 4 to 12. Reeve is Superman to me, will always be Superman to me. And the movie did something that I think was very smart that other filmmakers have tried to do, but have struggled to do with this character, which is that they cast a lot of really, really good actors to elevate the material. Zack Snyder tried to do this too, and it didn't work quite as well. But when you look back on those movies now and you see Marlon Brando's face and he's kind of terrible in Superman, but it doesn't matter because he has so much gravitas.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yes.

[Sean Fennessey]

That you're just convinced that even though he's pronouncing the word Krypton instead of Krypton, you still kind of buy it.

[Rob Mahoney]

He has that, like, Alec Guinness in Star wars effect where it's like credibility immediately right off the bat. Like, he's so featured so early in the movie and then like, robbed out of the second one. But, like, he does bring a sort like a sense of legitimacy and grounding to it, for sure.

[Van Lathan]

And he was the father of acting for that time. He was everybody's dad. And so seeing him, he was legitimately the father of the greatest film that's ever been made. So him going from Vito Corleone, island.

[Sean Fennessey]

Of Dr. Moreau, you're talking about.

[Van Lathan]

It's a Van classic, by the way.

[Sean Fennessey]

I bet it is. Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

It's a Van classic.

[Rob Mahoney]

I'm worried about you.

[Sean Fennessey]

Van.

[Van Lathan]

It's a Van classic. To him being Superman's dad, it just made sense.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

You know who didn't really respect it is Christopher Reeve.

[Van Lathan]

He fucking killed him.

[Sean Fennessey]

He really did not like him. And Talked about it publicly, about how he did not work hard on this thing.

[Van Lathan]

Movie.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

So. So you. When I saw that for the first time, it made me respect Reeve so much more. He did that on David Letterman.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah, yeah.

[Van Lathan]

Just ripped Brando a new one. That is something that would never happen now. Like never. And it didn't seem uncomfortable for anyone. He was just talking his shit. Yeah. And he. I'm like, he must really have had an odd or bad time with.

[Sean Fennessey]

I think I had seen that before, but seeing it in the recent Christopher Reeve doc that came out last year, it's bracing. And Reeve, that's an interesting portrait of him as a man and the kind of the positives and the struggles that he had and the way that he got a little big for his britches too, when he was Superman. And like his relationship to his family, very interesting movie. But he's not really portrayed as like a braggadocious, a list movie star. He actually seems relatively humble about his work. So for him to have done that, he must have really hated Brad.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

Superman holds a very special place for me. Do you agree with that a tier thing or is there. Is this movie over those others too?

[Van Lathan]

No, I have to agree with it. And it's funny because in the research they wanted Spielberg maybe to have a shot to direct this movie, but after Jaws, they couldn't get him. So they just. They thought he was out of reach. So it showed that there were tears to it. Donner was obviously a big director and a big gift for them. The movie and the production of it is almost itself deserves a documentary or a film made about that. But no, it's certainly under those movies. But it is unique in that it is proof of concept to big budget superhero storytelling in a very direct way. It's legitimately the father of all the other films.

[Sean Fennessey]

It is like patient zero. It's the thing that kicked every. I think it is really the thing that kicked everything off. Like, without this movie, we're not in this place right now. Superman 2, I think the Lester cut is fine and it's what I grew up watching. The Donner cut is like roughly 15 minutes shorter, tighter. It's a little bit hard to evaluate because there's ADR and there's some like special effects stuff that's not as sharp as you would want it to be and you would expect if he remained on the film. But he was fired from it and replaced by Lester, who I think to that point was probably best known for like the Three Musketeers movies. And Then before that, the Beatles films, Hard Day's Night and Help and stuff like that. I unequivocally loved this movie. So I don't even the two cuts, like, it's not even like a problem area for me. It's not. We were discussing the idea of, like, the which cut is better than the other history on House of R earlier, and it's going to be hard to move past these two in these rankings. It's kind of interesting that they're almost 40 years old.

[Van Lathan]

I know.

[Sean Fennessey]

And they still feel like maybe the purest conception of the character.

[Van Lathan]

Superman II is fucking amazing, man. It's fucking amazing. The first movie is proof of concept to the fact that you can make a man fly. The second movie is proof of concept that you can make people care about. Not super, but man. By overwhelming him with forces, by making him contend with the legacy of his family and the past of his planet, depowering him, repowering him. It's just a really fucking good movie.

[Sean Fennessey]

There's a surprising choice that is made in the first movie of, you know, inserting Terence stamp, you know, Zod. Yeah. And sending those three figures from Krypton to the Phantom Zone and then paying that off in the next movie, which is that. Is that the first kind of purposeful. Not even Easter egg.

[Rob Mahoney]

That's the first Thanos. I'll do it myself.

[Sean Fennessey]

And it's not a stinger. It's a pre stinger. You know, it's a little amuse bouche before the meal of Superman ii, which is kind of a fascinating. I mean, I'm sure they thought Superman would be successful, so it's a good idea to set something like that up. But in 1978, that was pretty bold.

[Rob Mahoney]

And it was kind of a double production, but also kind of not. I would say, if you're gonna pick any knit with the first Superman, it's that it takes like an hour for Christopher Reeve to show up. And the second he does that movie takes off. And so it's like, do you need the Zod preamble in the Kryptonian justice system? Up top. Maybe you don't. But I admire that they were trying to seed that stuff so early.

[Van Lathan]

So the thing. First of all, I was gonna ask you this about the double production of movies. Had that happened before? Because now we see it on a film that undertaking them knowing that we are getting into a franchise here. That this is a franchise. Yeah, like we're getting into a franchise.

[Sean Fennessey]

I can't think of one off the top of my Head. I'm sure there must have been some version of this.

[Van Lathan]

But the thing that works about Superman 1 in terms of the beginning, to me, the Krypton stuff is like, you watch it and you go, oh, shit, Alien. Like, I'm on another planet.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

And I think to myself, for all of man of Steel's problems, which it has a lot, the Krypton stuff in the movie is really well done to me.

[Rob Mahoney]

It's pretty good.

[Van Lathan]

It's really well done.

[Sean Fennessey]

We'll come back to that.

[Van Lathan]

But. But when you watch that stuff and like the, the. It's glowing and it's.

[Rob Mahoney]

And you're like, yeah, oh, he's riding a fucking dragon all of a sudden.

[Van Lathan]

No, I'm talking about the original super.

[Sean Fennessey]

Okay. I thought you're talking about the same.

[Van Lathan]

It's kind of the same thing though. But like when you watch that first movie and it's like, oh, and it's like the little baby that's walking through the thing, you're like, Jesus Christ, this is where he's from. And it's such a contrast to the world that we live in that I think it was probably deeply, deeply curiosity inspiring for a lot of people who watch the movie. Yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

Okay. Superman 3, trust me, I got a lot of man of steel takes. Superman 3. Richard Lester stays on this project. I hadn't seen this movie in some time, and I think it's very silly. And yet I liked it.

[Rob Mahoney]

I didn't love it.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah, it's a little long.

[Rob Mahoney]

It's a little long.

[Sean Fennessey]

And it definitely wants to be Silver Streak instead of a Superman movie.

[Van Lathan]

It's a good call.

[Sean Fennessey]

You know, like, it wants to be a zany Richard Pryor movie and it kind of like won't let itself be a Superman movie for long stretches of time.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

But I didn't hate it. I'll also say Annetto Tool is very important to me.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

And very pretty.

[Sean Fennessey]

And I don't. I don't love the sidelining of Lois. We understand some of the reasons why Margot kid are having some struggles. This affects both of the next two Superman movies. But I was happy to be with Lana quite a bit. And I got maybe a little bit too much Robert Vaughn and Pamela Stevenson from Superman.

[Rob Mahoney]

Got a lot of Pamela Stevenson in that movie.

[Sean Fennessey]

He did.

[Rob Mahoney]

He basically like did a BP oil spill just so he could get with Pamela Stevenson.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah. Wow.

[Rob Mahoney]

These are some.

[Sean Fennessey]

The original Thirst Trap was. Was Lorelei.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Rob Mahoney]

These are some low key, like super horny mov. Like every woman in the Reeve. Superman is like trying to get with Superman all the time. I respect it.

[Sean Fennessey]

Kind of makes sense.

[Van Lathan]

What did you think about Superman 3?

[Rob Mahoney]

I. I like how weird it is. And honestly, if you're going to make me pick between the flawed Superman movies, as we will, give me the one that's like a little funnier and lighter on its feet. And then I'm trying to. I'm like constantly trying to figure out, like, what is this movie in a way that I don't mind.

[Van Lathan]

What.

[Sean Fennessey]

What do you think of it?

[Van Lathan]

So contemporary superhero comedy, which they kind of hadn't tried to do that, right? Yeah. Everything is a first is almost. But like, when you watch the film. What I didn't remember about watching the movie before was the beginning sequence, which.

[Rob Mahoney]

Which the Richard Pryor at the unemployment office or the like five minute Mr. Magoo sequence that sets up various Superman saves.

[Van Lathan]

That the.

[Sean Fennessey]

It's so silly. It's crazy.

[Van Lathan]

Which is super. It's almost as if Lester went, you know what? I came in and I did the Donner movie. And even though it became my movie because he reshot tons of stuff, it was Richard Lester's movie to the degree that it could be. If I was making the Superman movie, this is how I would make it. This is what I think we should do. There should be a lot of comedy. There should be Richard Pryor, all of this stuff. It's like. Cause it's totally so different than what we just saw. Yes, like, completely different. The beginning scene annoyed the shit out of me because I didn't remember it as much. And I was like, let's get to this shit. But there's some good stuff in there, man. There's the. We fucked up the Kryptonite. And it really just turns Superman antisocial rather than. It kills him.

[Rob Mahoney]

The Kryptonite doesn't hit the same.

[Van Lathan]

It doesn't hit the same.

[Sean Fennessey]

It's a cool idea that leads to arguably the best revoir performance because he's playing opposite of each other. And so he gets to do something a little different than kind of dopey, bumbling Clark opposite the majestic Superman. He gets to play, like, a lot of colors from like a storytelling logic perspective. Superman, like splitting in two. I'm not sure I fully get the math on that one.

[Rob Mahoney]

I mean, I think it's a metaphor. I could be wrong.

[Sean Fennessey]

I mean, it is a metaphor, but in a very literal movie.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yes, incredibly literal.

[Van Lathan]

See, during those scenes, you can tell that Reeve is having so much fun. He likes it. Even the. Even.

[Sean Fennessey]

He does.

[Van Lathan]

Even when he's just a little bad, right? And he starts trying to hit on Lana. And he goes, I always get there on time. Sit down, have a little time. Let's have a little talk. Superman trying to holler at hoes.

[Rob Mahoney]

Whoever did the eyeliner in that movie went crazy, crazy. And then Superman starts getting the five o' clock shadow coming in. Oh, it's so good.

[Van Lathan]

What are you looking at? What are you looking at, huh? Get out of here.

[Sean Fennessey]

I really like that. That scene early on when he has just received the altered kryptonite where he's in Lana's house and she gets a phone call that there's like a bridge called.

[Van Lathan]

He's just a little bad right now. He's looking at her like, what's up with you? You know what I'm saying? It's Superman. What's the deal, baby?

[Sean Fennessey]

Superman iv, you know, it's a movie. It's. Let me put it this way, it's not as bad as I remembered.

[Rob Mahoney]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessey]

I kind of speak on it.

[Rob Mahoney]

What spoke to you this time?

[Sean Fennessey]

Well, so the film rights go to Golan and Globus from canon Films. Famous, kind of like schlockmeisters who made a lot of movies in the 70s and 80s that were very genre focused or kind of like spiritual but not creative successors to Roger Corman. And they made a lot of movies in that time that are not great, but are fun.

[Van Lathan]

If you were a kid in the 80s and the Golden Globus thing came on before a movie, you just knew that the movie was about to have a lot of action and it was.

[Sean Fennessey]

Probably a good hang and probably some babes. That was the other thing that they were very interested in. Babes.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

And this movie is not as lewd as some of their movies and not as violent as some of their movies. But it is as silly as a lot of their movies. I had forgotten how much I remembered about Nuclear Man.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

When Nuclear man shows up in this movie, I was like, oh, yeah, I watched this a lot. I'm very familiar with this very strange actor and his kind of growling voice that has been ADR by Gene Hackman.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yes. What's going on with the Gene Hackman voice? Do we know.

[Sean Fennessey]

Did you know that. That Gene Hackman is doing Nuclear Man's voice? Isn't that bizarre?

[Van Lathan]

It is. But Nuclear man has part of Lex's DNA.

[Sean Fennessey]

I get it.

[Rob Mahoney]

And also part of Superman's DNA, right?

[Van Lathan]

Well, it's most of Superman's DNA because of the hair.

[Rob Mahoney]

The hair.

[Sean Fennessey]

We didn't talk about this, but this.

[Rob Mahoney]

Is straight up in the new movie.

[Sean Fennessey]

There was something else. He took a couple of things.

[Van Lathan]

Yes.

[Sean Fennessey]

James Gunn from this movie.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yep.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

The fact that this is an inspiration for the new Superman is really interesting. And I didn't. I didn't clock it at all until I rewatched this.

[Van Lathan]

Honestly, I think he. He pulls a couple of. He literally redoes like, a couple of scenes from past Superman movies just to go, this is my version of this. Yeah, this is my version of this. This is my version of this. But I'm sorry I stepped on you, bro.

[Rob Mahoney]

Oh, no. I was gonna say, I think starting with the fact that both are movies of advocacy, like, this movie gets made because Christopher Reeve wants to make a movie about nuclear proliferation. Like, that was. That was his cause in the making of Superman iv. And so if you want to take, like, the lineage of these Superman movies and how they influence the new one, like, it's all over the place in terms of this really direct connection with a quest for peace, of all things.

[Sean Fennessey]

It's at least a really easy watch because it's 90 minutes. Reportedly, there is a two and a half hour cut that features many long Christopher Reeve monologues about nuclear warheads that the producers and studio cut. Tough beat for Reeve.

[Van Lathan]

We already talked about on another podcast. My fear of nuclear war, era of my life.

[Sean Fennessey]

So you talked about it on the Ryan Rosillo podcast. One of the craziest and most entertaining. I texted you both right away when I was listening to it. I was like, this is insane. I love this.

[Van Lathan]

So imagine that kid obsessed with comic books, right? And then Superman comes out and saves the world from nuclear war. I cannot, in any. Anyway, be objective about the movie. I fucking love it. It's not very good. I get it, guys. I get it. There's so much. There's Lenny Luther is like a really goofy, weird John Cryer performance in there.

[Rob Mahoney]

I don't know what's going on with the accent, like, the voice he's doing. I don't know what it is bizarre.

[Sean Fennessey]

Who is Lex's sibling?

[Van Lathan]

I have no.

[Sean Fennessey]

That birthed Jon Cryer.

[Rob Mahoney]

Great question.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

We never meet that character Mariel Hemingway in the movie.

[Van Lathan]

Beautiful.

[Sean Fennessey]

Beautiful.

[Van Lathan]

Like the whole nine.

[Sean Fennessey]

Pretty good performance. I feel like she's really game for the tone that they're trying to do.

[Rob Mahoney]

It's so heartening that, you know, a magnate who buys a newspaper could appoint their daughter, you know, a Nepo baby, to run it. And she could understand through time and experience the value of good journalism.

[Sean Fennessey]

Really. Good point.

[Van Lathan]

Even the part when I was rewatching it, I was like, jesus Christ, I love this. When Lex sends out the signal and only Superman can hear it in the whole dog whistle.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

I just remember so much of that. It's one of those everybody has one guys. Everybody has one. A movie that is whatever from your past and you just can't judge it with straight eyes. That's Superman.

[Sean Fennessey]

I kind of agree with you in that. I would rather watch this than Superman 3 personally. Now, it doesn't mean that it's better from an aesthetic perspective. But, for example, the scene where Clark and Superman need to entertain Lois and Mariel Hemingway's character simultaneously, that's just really fun.

[Rob Mahoney]

It's good.

[Sean Fennessey]

That part is great.

[Rob Mahoney]

But also, why would he ever agree to that double date? Why would he think that that's a thing?

[Sean Fennessey]

Good point. Screenwriting and yet brilliant.

[Rob Mahoney]

You know, Van, you raised your specific fears with nuclear war. I have a very specific fear about Superman 4 that I need to share with you. Which is. I think Lois's brain at this point is just mushroom. Like, her brain has been wiped by Superman so many times at this point.

[Sean Fennessey]

But she does remember certain things over time. Right? What's the one thing she remembers she calls out to Superman about? That she's Kal El. Your name is Kal El.

[Rob Mahoney]

It starts coming back to her. Yes, but, like, she has been, like, Men in Black mind wiped several times in this movie and in the previous two movies that she's in. Like, I just. I'm concerned about the state of.

[Sean Fennessey]

Is that a canon power that Superman has?

[Rob Mahoney]

Well, certainly not the kissing mind.

[Van Lathan]

I don't. But it became something that, like, I was always waiting for him to do to everyone flying. You just kiss everybody. Don't even remember you're there.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah, but you can't do that post. Me too.

[Van Lathan]

Can't do that.

[Rob Mahoney]

But they all want to kiss you in these movies. Like, it seems pretty consensual in the first four.

[Van Lathan]

Superman, by the way, and these movies are so male. You guys have already. You guys have already talked about it. The only thing that's stopping Superman from being a weapon, like a complete enemy of female lady advancement, is the fact that he's such a nice guy because he gets fawned over. He does whatever he wants. He dictates. He looks at Lois panties, even though she asked for consent.

[Sean Fennessey]

What color?

[Rob Mahoney]

She did ask him to look.

[Van Lathan]

She asked. She asked. And then he looked. But he is so swinging his super dick around, like, not even trying to. But every single One, think about the colon to a diamond thing from three. Why are you gonna overwhelm Lana like that?

[Rob Mahoney]

That's a lot.

[Van Lathan]

She ain't never seen nothing like that. She ain't never seen nothing like that before. He just like, that's some real. Come on, bro. You know that's like Drake buying the girl the $10,000 Chanel bag.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah, it's the same thing.

[Van Lathan]

She ain't never seen nothing like that, bro. You gonna get her up there in Toronto and she gonna hang with Drake for the whole week, and then she gonna call her family back in Tallahassee and be like, yo, I think I'm in love. Yeah. And he crushes the big ass diamond.

[Rob Mahoney]

She never seen and literally gets down on one knee to give it to her.

[Van Lathan]

Right?

[Rob Mahoney]

What is a woman supposed to think? He didn't invent gaslighting, but he certainly perfected it.

[Sean Fennessey]

Oh, no, come on, Clark. He took care of Lana in the end. At the end of that movie. They were together and he was going to be a father to that child.

[Rob Mahoney]

But canonically, then he apparently just, like, left the fucking planet.

[Sean Fennessey]

Golen and Globus are like, fuck, that four is really fun. It's stupid, but it's fun. You know that one friend who somehow.

[Rob Mahoney]

Knows everything about money? Yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

Now imagine they live in your phone. Say hey to Experian, your big financial friend.

[Rob Mahoney]

It's the app that helps you check.

[Sean Fennessey]

Your FICO score, find ways to save, and basically feel like a financial genius.

[Rob Mahoney]

And guess what?

[Sean Fennessey]

It's totally free.

[Rob Mahoney]

So go on, download the Experian app. Trust me, having a BFF like this is a total game changer.

[Sean Fennessey]

Let's talk about Superman Returns. I had not seen this movie since it came out. I don't know why. Maybe I do know why, now that I revisited it. But 2006, this is a canonical sequel to Superman 2. Now, the movie dispenses with the events of Superman 3 and Superman 4. And something that maybe didn't lock into my mind in 2006, but makes a lot of sense now, is that Bryan Singer, who had been directing X Men movies at this stage of his career, those movies were produced by Lauren Schuller Donner, who was Richard Donner's wife and a very successful producer. They ran the Donner Company together. So in their mind, who better to continue the legacy of the Donner Superman movies than Bryan Singer? Knowing what we know now, we know that was not the best idea for a variety of reasons, obviously some very serious ones. And also the fact that Singer is A messy director who makes messy movies, some of which reach great heights, some of which are bewildering. This movie is kind of neither. It's just like a stale piece of bread. It's like a crazy, inert, dull slog of a movie with none of the verve and oddity of the first four movies, but also none of the at least the kind of, like, committed upon intensity and anger of man of Steel, which I despise, but could at least defend as an artistic choice. I totally forgot what a nothing this movie is.

[Rob Mahoney]

Can I posit a reason why that's the case? Like, it's really clear that this movie owes a lot to the Donner movies. Like, there are so. There are so many direct references to them, down to, like, Clark following Lois too fast into the revolving door, and, like, all these little callbacks to the original movies that feel. Feel like cosplay to the point that I just. I'm like. I'm losing the earnestness. There's so much winking happening. But also, it feels like a movie that loves those movies and holds them so tightly, but is so ashamed to want to be them. And the way that, honestly, like, X Men and X2 managed to overcome this a little bit, those are a shame to be X Men movies. They don't want to put anybody in spandex. Like, they don't want the bright colors. And so picking Bryan Singer, of all people, for all reasons, to be the director of this movie, which is, like, such a bad call and I think muted it into just an absolute, like, snooze fest of a movie.

[Sean Fennessey]

It's so drab. So did you. How many times have you seen this movie?

[Van Lathan]

I. I'm not sure. I don't remember when the last time I had seen it prior to this rewatch. It was by far the least fun part of me rewatching all of these. It's drek. It's, like, terrible. It's the worst part of superhero storytelling. It's unambitious. It's derivative. It plays loose and fast with the canon of the character. It introduces things like a super son that it can't possibly in any way come to terms with. It just kind of dangles it out there and leaves it there. The leads have no chemistry.

[Sean Fennessey]

Crazy how off they both are.

[Rob Mahoney]

I mean, honestly, spacey is fine, I would say, but I would say they go over three in the. Or maybe. Maybe one for three. I think he gets.

[Sean Fennessey]

He gets one spacey scene that if you liked him as an actor at the time, before all the Allegations he was doing the thing that he was great at.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yes.

[Sean Fennessey]

Which was like that heavy hyper intelligence smarm, you know, the John Doe, the Kaiser Soze at the end. The kind of like, I will explain to you why I'm the best. Like he had a knack for that kind of thing. So he made a lot of sense as Lex at that time. But he really only gets to do that one scene on the boat with. With Lois. And even the rest of the movie, they kind of redefine what kind of character he is because he goes to prison and then he gets out. So he has to be kind of like more of a con artist instead of a genius.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah. He's dressed up and using southern accents and doing all of that stuff like that. It's like that's stuff for Lex Luthor's minions to do. I'm sure there's a little bit of that for Lex, but it's like it's not the movie. Just it's nostalgia porn by someone who so loves the character that they're hugging Superman so tight that they're squeezing all of the life out of it. And it just does not work in any way, shape or form. Not a bit like it just. Even at the end when Brandon Routh, who. This is no diss to him. It's like one of his very early movie roles. I'm sure that, you know, I read a story that says he sits down with. With Bryan Singer and the Coffee Bean over on Sunset and Brian, he stands up and Bryan Singer goes, oh my God. He just kept going up and up and up and up. This is my Superman. This guy probably calls home and every. This is the time of his life, of a lifetime, the role of a lifetime. So I'm not trying to get at a young guy that was doing that, but like the end of the movie, he flies. He's flying right and he does the Christopher Reeve. Look left, look right.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

And then look at the camera. Don't do that. That's not. You can't do that. I'm just being for real like you, you that we don't want to see that from you.

[Rob Mahoney]

But that's what he was cast to do.

[Van Lathan]

You're right.

[Rob Mahoney]

It's so clear they're putting him in that costume. And even Spacey in the Hackman costume, I think to a degree.

[Van Lathan]

And it's not the movie. Just in no way was fun. It didn't tell me anything new about Superman. There's a couple of scenes between Superman and Lois where I go, oh, man, how hurt must she have been when he's off in space for five years? But even that doesn't make sense. I get that nobody fucking knows that Superman is Clark Kent because of the hypno glasses. But if Superman is gone for five years and Clark Kent is gone for five years, Superman is Clark Kent. It just doesn't make it. The whole fucking thing doesn't make any sense.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

That'S the largest problem with the movie is that it's completely, like, unsustainable from a very basic plot premise. In addition to being boring, which is a sin in a Superman movie. Kate Bosworth could not be more wrong. Could not be more wrong for the.

[Rob Mahoney]

Part two years old, I mean, also just doesn't have it. And certainly doesn't have Lois. Like, just no Lois energy whatsoever. To Kate Bosworth.

[Sean Fennessey]

This will be an interesting showdown to me between that movie and the next movie. We're going to talk about man of Steel. I shared this with you on the House of R episode. I really hate this movie, but I think I might respect it more than I respect Superman Returns. So Chris Ryan and I saw this movie together. We were working at Granolin at the time. We went to a Saturday matinee and we were like, sure, I liked 300. I'm ready for a new Superman. I don't really remember having any feelings towards Superman Returns. This movie is produced by Christopher Nolan, so we definitely were huge fans of the Dark Knight and thought that that portended something exciting. And I was angry at the end of this movie. And there are not a lot of movies that have made me angry in my life. Maybe vexed. You pointed to my existential crises over the years, sure. But the profound misunderstanding of the character that I thought was elemental to this telling made me mad. So I know that was a stronger reaction than some people had. The movie was ultimately considered a disappointment both creatively and box office wise, but not like a fiasco or anything like that. They made sequels to this movie. Where do you stand on man of Steel?

[Rob Mahoney]

It's bad. I mean, it's just like a weird, moody cover of a pop song of a movie.

[Van Lathan]

Totally.

[Rob Mahoney]

I don't like it. I don't. I agree. I don't think Zack Snyder, like, gets Superman on a fundamental level to a point. That really bums me out to watch it all. That said, I think there's stuff in the first hour that's pretty good. I. I actually do like the Krypton stuff, like the reinvention of that world and what we see there. I think Some of the Costner, like, familial ties, like what you inherit from whom stuff that a lot of Superman stories deal with. I think it does it fairly well. Maybe like Jonathan Kent being a sociopath aside and being like, don't save that bus full of drowning kids. All that just gets completely washed out. Once we get into very Snyder territory, which is, like, there's a codex that's going to reinvent the Kryptonian race. Zod shows up and the movie just grinds to a complete fucking halt and gets really gross and really unwatchable. And I'm just, like, so bored watching these two dudes punch each other as they're flying through buildings.

[Van Lathan]

So it's a Superman for a cynical world. And the thing that Gunn did better than a lot of Superman filmmakers have done recently is he put Superman in his world. He built a world around Superman where Superman makes a ton of sense and where we can litigate that world with Superman and not litigate Superman in our world, because that doesn't work.

[Rob Mahoney]

But I would say the gun world is, like, adjacent enough to ours that there's a lot of recognizable qualities. It is different, but there's something there.

[Van Lathan]

It is. But any world that James. You're right. Any world that James Gunn creates is a world that is. He creates the world of comic books to where there are forces like that that we see represented in our world. But also people are willing to believe. People are willing, and they are very. The human beings in James Gunn's Superman are almost precocious. They're almost kid like. And Superman, are you an alien you brought here to Lex? Luthor's the only one that had the idea. Blah, blah, blah. Even the rest of the people in the fucking Pentagon are like, hey, everybody likes this guy. We have no reason to really have a beef with him. Right? This one is different. Those people in the Pentagon are the ones that are saying, we don't trust you. We don't believe you. We're handing you over to Zod. It's legitimately the way it would happen. Just doesn't work. Right. It doesn't work in any way, shape or form. If your Superman movie, the best thing in it is Jor El, you didn't make a good movie. And by far the best thing in this movie is Russell Crowe as Jor El. Because he gets it. He gets it. She's flirting with a version of Lois Lane I can get behind, but it doesn't.

[Sean Fennessey]

I think that character is very badly written.

[Van Lathan]

Very, very.

[Rob Mahoney]

I don't get it at all.

[Van Lathan]

I think she's badly written, but in the performance of Lois, I kind of get her. Being an intrepid reporter, it never looks like they've ever had sex or touched each other. Never even once.

[Rob Mahoney]

I would say they have, like, anti chemistry. Two performers I really like, and they just have zero chemistry.

[Van Lathan]

Anti chemistry. I liked Michael Shannon, Nizod. And I think the movie at least. At least justifies the time. It's a justifiable miss to me. It's a justifiable miss. It's a movie where I go, hmm, they don't get it, but there's cool shit happening.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

And so I can at least justify the mission.

[Sean Fennessey]

So it's interesting to hear you say that you. And it seems like you also like the Krypton stuff at the beginning of the movie. What that has revealed to me, especially his last two movies that he's made, is that he wanted to make a Star wars movie. He did not want to make a Superman movie.

[Van Lathan]

Oh, this is. This is an alien. This is an alien invasion movie.

[Sean Fennessey]

It is clearly a science fiction film in his eyes. And science fiction is a huge element of Superman, but it's not the essence of Superman. And I find the last hour, like, borderline sociopathic. The idea. Because there's something interesting in Superman Returns where they wanted to make it a 911 parable. And there is a moment where Superman falls from the sky that looks like the falling man from 9 11. I feel that that is a purposeful choice.

[Rob Mahoney]

Well, they turn it from subtext to text in Batman v Superman.

[Sean Fennessey]

I'm getting there.

[Rob Mahoney]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessey]

The idea of destroying Metropolis through a punch festival at the end of this movie is insane material that, like. No. No truly thoughtful person would pursue, in my opinion. Like, I really do not understand how he thought that this is something that would make sense for this character. It kind of just destroys anything else around it that I kind. That I enjoy a little bit. I think this is one of. Genuinely one of the last great Kevin Costner performances. It's clear to me that he completely rewrote all of this stuff because that conversation that you cited where they're sitting on the back of the truck and teenage Clark is trying to reconcile what he's learning about himself and his father is trying to guide him away from sharing the truth.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

Is way more nuanced and thematically deep than anything else in the movie. Now, you could say that Clark is a sociopath because of the way that he is trying to guide his son, but it's at least Something it's at least like something that makes you consider the character from a different perspective. Everything else, it makes me want to have a punch fest.

[Rob Mahoney]

I think a lot of people focus on like the ending with Zod and specifically like snapping his neck as Zod is trying to laser eyes this like family or whatever. Getting to that point would be a different conversation if Superman hadn't just single handedly killed, I don't know, a million people on his own. Like just by throwing Zod through various buildings and shit. Like you just miss me with the emotionality of a movie like this. And it starts to feel super hollow when all of these people die. All of this unspeakable tragedy happens, all this destruction. Superman does not care. He is so divorced from the reality of that moment. And then at the end I'm supposed to believe that he's so distraught about the decision to kill one Kryptonian or sacrifice this family. Contrasting that with the gun Superman where this dude is trying to save not just every squirrel and every person and every building, but every Kaiju. That feels like Superman to me.

[Van Lathan]

So go back to Superman 2 when Zod and Ursa and all of them, they're in Manhattan and they're fucking shit up. Throw somebody off, they're doing. And what does Superman scream at Zod? No, like he's desperate. He screams, no, you can't. The people. He's desperate. He doesn't come out of his body a lot, but he is like, you can't hurt people. He's like, and this Superman, I don't give a fuck. Right?

[Sean Fennessey]

Is that such a weird choice?

[Van Lathan]

I don't give a fuck about none of it. Punch, punch, punch. Throw you. Then he kills odd. Snaps his neck right in front of the fucking, Snaps his shit, fucks his shit up. And I'm like, we got to the point. I was, look, man of Steel doesn't work, man. I'm saying there was some shit in man of Steel that was cool to look at. And I think Zack overreacted to what happened in Superman Returns. And the fact that Kevin Smith said you can't have a Superman movie where Superman doesn't punch one thing. And that went everywhere. And everybody laughed because Kevin Smith has a way of analyzing and critiquing these movies that is so sticky with everybody who watches them because he's like, well.

[Sean Fennessey]

He knows the characters inside and out.

[Van Lathan]

He's kind of the king of us.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah, but he's also written comics, right? So he knows that there are certain kind of like not rules but bylaws that you have to understand. And so whenever one transgresses, I mean, he's also very positive about movies that I don't think are good. But when one transgresses, he's very sharp about identifying how it does that.

[Van Lathan]

Right. And so, like, Zack went, okay, he's gonna punch everything. They're like, punch everything. I thought Zod was an interesting character.

[Sean Fennessey]

I just think it's because Michael Shannon is so gifted.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah, I thought Zod was an interesting character in that. Zodiac didn't see himself as a villain. And Michael Shannon, during the press run of the movie was like, he was very adamant that Zod is not a villain. At the end of the day, though, it just doesn't work. But none of it works.

[Rob Mahoney]

I think we've identified kind of the two types of Superman villains. You either have the ones he has to punch the Zods, I guess, if you like. If maybe if they had made it today to, like, Darkseid and Doomsday and all that. Or you have people like Lex who put him in situations in which he feels trapped and can't punch his way out of. Right. If it's like you're fighting public opinion, a punch is not going to help you. It's like, those are the two genres that kind of work. And ideally, you want some of both. You want Superman to feel trapped within the conflict where he's trying to fight his way out of it physically. But even that has its limits. And this movie does none of that.

[Van Lathan]

You know what? To that point, you know what you want more than anything? You want Superman to care about the damage that he's doing.

[Rob Mahoney]

Totally.

[Van Lathan]

He's super fucking powerful. Superior. The top. Right? So even when he's beating the shit out of somebody or even when he's fighting the Kaiju, he has got to care about the squirrel. Yes, he has to care about the squirrel. And this Superman, at least at the beginning, I do have a take. At least at the beginning, just didn't care about the squirrels or the people.

[Sean Fennessey]

There's a funny thing that happens in this movie. We're spending a lot of time on man of Steel. I also hadn't seen this since it. No, I think maybe I watched it before the Snyder cut, but I haven't seen this movie very much. But I've. The season's needle drop. The Chris Cornell song when he's emerging from the Fisherman's Wharf, which is a very.

[Rob Mahoney]

Superman does care about two things. Punching Zod and the greatest catch of crap and grunge.

[Sean Fennessey]

Music.

[Van Lathan]

Right.

[Sean Fennessey]

And this is a. This is the Gen X Superman.

[Van Lathan]

Right.

[Sean Fennessey]

This is the only Gen X Superman that we're ever going to get. Even though James Gunn and Zack Snyder are very similar in age. Zack Snyder's basically making. Or James Gunn is basically making, like the 1959 Superman.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

Like a much more optimistic Superman. And this is one that is bumping the single soundtrack. And that's just a weird choice for Superman. Okay. The next movie in this story is Batman vs Superman, dawn of Justice. Now, I think this movie is not as bad as man of Steel, has a laughable conclusion, but there are elements of it that I enjoy in part because I think Ben Affleck is actually quite well cast as Batman.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

And he's actually one of the better Batmans that we've had. And I. God, I wish he had a different filmmaker maybe himself making a Batman movie.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

Because his, like, combination of the perception of perfection, but the kind of, like, corrosive insecurity that is definitional to the Affleck movie star Persona is so right for Bruce Wayne. And he gets there sometimes. And then other times this becomes a movie about, like, kryptonite, spears and whatnot. And it loses me completely. What do you think about this one?

[Rob Mahoney]

I think it's pretty embarrassing. Like, I think it's a pretty embarrassing. And frankly, like, in terms of what's more embarrassing, the Martha versus Superman did 9 11. Like, that's a heavyweight bout of just truly embarrassing shit to come up with.

[Sean Fennessey]

I think that that was a great way into getting Batman into this movie, though. Was that like having Bruce, like, look around the destruction? I was like, okay, yeah, that kind of. This kind of makes sense to pit them against each other.

[Van Lathan]

So I gotta say that because when I went back and watched it, I only watched the ultimate cut of this movie. And I'm gonna talk about the ultimate cut a little bit. But when you go back, if you want to make Batman hate Superman.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

Then watching him watch his family die again, like, all of the people. Which obviously Lex says that all of the people that work at Wayne Metropolis or whatever, watching him have to watch them die again and, like, die in his arms, that is an incredible story choice, I guess.

[Rob Mahoney]

First follow up, does Bruce Wayne or Batman ever give a shit about a Wayne Tech employee who's not Lucius Fox? But he just doesn't care about the people who work for him. He never shows.

[Sean Fennessey]

Kind of true.

[Rob Mahoney]

He doesn't even show up to the meetings like, well, does he even know these people?

[Van Lathan]

Maybe that Bruce Wayne this Bruce Wayne, maybe he's a little bit more on top of things. Maybe he took a helicopter to Metropolis just to be in the middle of the shit. He didn't bring none of his tech with him. He didn't bring the Batmobile.

[Sean Fennessey]

He was wearing that three piece suit.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah, I know. He was like. He wasn't quite Batman. He becomes Batman again because this happens. So he hadn't been being Batman, but he doesn't bring anything with him that could have actually helped. He just goes in there to get to people.

[Sean Fennessey]

What's your perspective? This is kind of a bigger conversation. Probably something you guys have talked about over the years on the show too, but. But evolution versus canon breaking, like. I find the Zack Snyder movies to be very much these, like, rejections of clear understandings of how these characters operate. I'm not in theory against that. I think if they're done a little bit more creatively, I could get on board with it. Some movies evolve the characters. To me, the gun version is an evolution of how we understand Superman. You're smirking like you have a dangerous secret you're about to reveal.

[Van Lathan]

This is my last Jedi thing.

[Sean Fennessey]

Oh, yeah, here we go. This is it. You brought this upon us. Yeah, I did.

[Van Lathan]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessey]

Okay. You teased us with this over the weekend.

[Van Lathan]

So I think man of Steel and the Last Jedi are kind of like the same movie.

[Sean Fennessey]

Uh huh.

[Rob Mahoney]

First of all, fuck you.

[Van Lathan]

When I say the last man of Steel, I mean Snyder's version of this stuff, right? So to me, Superman snapping Zod's neck is essentially Luke throwing his lightsaber. It's something that. To where you go, we're fucking with a new Luke. We're fucking with a. This is different.

[Sean Fennessey]

There is a difference to me though.

[Van Lathan]

Give it to me.

[Sean Fennessey]

That's the eighth Star wars film. Okay, maybe the ninth Star wars film.

[Van Lathan]

Right?

[Sean Fennessey]

This is the first Superman movie.

[Van Lathan]

Well, no, it's the first. It's the. Point taken. It's the first Zack Snyder Superman, but.

[Sean Fennessey]

It'S the first movie starring this Kal El Khan.

[Van Lathan]

I get it. But it is something.

[Sean Fennessey]

It's not a character's evolution or change. It is the first time we see them.

[Van Lathan]

Well, the reason why I would still defend this is because we don't watch Skywalker change. True. So when he does that, we're just like, oh, shit. And then for the rest of the movie, what I was asking for, which Last Jedi people, by the way, I like Last Jedi. I just don't like Luke Skywalker in Last Jedi.

[Sean Fennessey]

Don't me.

[Van Lathan]

But what the people that are Luke Pierce wanted was them to explain that move and the way he's looking at things. And to me, they never get there. I don't give a fuck what nobody says. We don't go from the Luke Skywalker that exists in a world where I'm willing to put the safety and security of the galaxy on the line to save my friends to myself.

[Rob Mahoney]

I mean, yeah, like Obi Wan would never do that. Yoda would never do that. The people who taught him would never do something like that.

[Van Lathan]

All I'm saying is that. All I'm saying is forget about them. All I'm saying is that he's willing to do that, right? And then his sister is in trouble and he's somewhere on an island not even caring.

[Sean Fennessey]

So here's an interesting question for you. In the aftermath of that theory. Is there A perfect overlap 100% to 100% of Last Jedi haters and man of Steel defenders?

[Van Lathan]

Probably.

[Sean Fennessey]

And what does that tell you?

[Van Lathan]

It's that I'm on the wrong side of his train. But this is what I'll say about this Superman though. This Superman was an attempt to me to rebuild the character in a world that is rejecting him. Yeah, yeah. And that doesn't work like that. Doesn't work.

[Sean Fennessey]

Why in the midst of the Obama era, was that the Zack Snyder movie?

[Van Lathan]

Isn't that.

[Sean Fennessey]

I mean I'm sure there's somebody who will fire back with some political rhetoric about why that was the case, but.

[Rob Mahoney]

Seems odd to be honest. There is one Zack Snyder movie like the guy's got one move. He is Mikhail Bridges off the dribble, taking pull up jumpers. It's the same thing every single time. So why would we expect something different from him? I think is the question.

[Sean Fennessey]

Can you please not slander to kill just for God's sake.

[Rob Mahoney]

Like the man.

[Sean Fennessey]

We just went to the Eastern Conference finals group chat co host.

[Rob Mahoney]

I'm still waiting for him to take a layoff.

[Van Lathan]

Just take the. Take the shackles off of. Let him cook. Okay, look, it doesn't work for Superman.

[Sean Fennessey]

Let's just do it right here on the pod. Mikhail Bridges. Mitchell Robinson. For LeBron.

[Van Lathan]

For LeBron.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yes or no?

[Van Lathan]

You'll do it? Okay.

[Sean Fennessey]

And will you do it? I'm not involved. But as.

[Rob Mahoney]

But as Adam Silver, I will sign the paper.

[Van Lathan]

So it doesn't work for Superman, but it works for Batman. To me. Does doesn't work for Superman, but it works for Batman.

[Sean Fennessey]

It's more interesting to me.

[Van Lathan]

It works for Batman. It works for Batman. Batman being somebody that is hyper cynical. Batman being someone that, like, admits to Alfred, look, we're criminals. The shit that we're doing, the shit that we've already done, the shit that we've already done is criminal. So you can't really moralize with Batman using all of these different sort of extrajudicial ways to get to something that he believes to be true. Right? To me, all of that works. And he understands the way Batman fucking fights. I'm sorry. That scene is breathtaking. He gets the way Batman would be, except for the fact that Batman kills a bunch of people.

[Sean Fennessey]

I kind of sort of agree with that. The one thing that I'll say is I think we have a little bit more flexibility in terms of how we understand a portrayal of Batman now, because we've had six movie Batmans. This was the third. Superman.

[Van Lathan]

Fair point.

[Sean Fennessey]

And so Superman was more ingrained, expectation wise, in terms of what he stood for, what he stands for. And maybe it's because he's also kind of a character of absolutes and Batman's a vigilante. And so our perception of vigilantism is different than truth, justice, and the American way.

[Van Lathan]

I will say, because I don't want to. The fact that Batman is using guns like, you know, and killing people is a huge departure for the character. So I don't want to underscore that it is. There are similarities there, but I just feel like Ben Affleck really worked.

[Sean Fennessey]

Do you think Batfleck watched Bet Uncut?

[Van Lathan]

Probably.

[Rob Mahoney]

He was locked in.

[Van Lathan]

Probably did. He probably did. From what I know about him. He probably liked that type of shit. But look, but I will say this. This movie doesn't make any sense at all unless you watch the Ultimate Cut.

[Rob Mahoney]

The ultimate cut is 30 minutes longer. And I would say maybe worse, just because it's so much harder. Like, the worst thing a bad movie can be is longer.

[Van Lathan]

No, but like, Rob, you about to piss me off.

[Sean Fennessey]

I tried, man.

[Rob Mahoney]

It's so bad.

[Van Lathan]

The Ultimate Cut actually has a story that makes sense. What happens in this movie, the one that was released, doesn't even make narrative sense. No, there's not a. This happened and this happened. They cut so much out of the film.

[Sean Fennessey]

Why did they do that?

[Van Lathan]

I'm not sure.

[Sean Fennessey]

Just too long.

[Van Lathan]

Like, they cut so much because the ultimate cuts, like three hours. They cut so much out of the film that from a story standpoint, the things that are happening don't make sense. And so I prefer the Ultimate Cut.

[Sean Fennessey]

The Martha conclusion is heinous. It is True. It is Abominable Justice League. Now, this is a movie that Zack Snyder had to step away from and the Joss Whedon conclusion. And then some years later, I believe four years later, Zack Snyder returned to and reshot a lot of new material, created a lot of CGI mess. And we experienced that movie during the Pandemic. It was nominally known as the Snyder cut online, but is actually officially called Zack Snyder's Justice League. So this is two movies in one conversation. Not dissimilar from Superman 2, which we didn't really get in the weeds. Too much of the differentiation between Superman 2 and the Donner cut. There's a big difference between the Justice League movie and Zack Snyder's Justice League. I've only seen Zack Snyder's Justice League one time. I did not revisit it for this podcast. And when I was watching it, it was on a live watch along on this podcast, which is an insane thing we did during COVID for all four hours. I think I want to say Amanda was pregnant when we were doing it.

[Van Lathan]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessey]

So that was.

[Rob Mahoney]

That's a war crime.

[Sean Fennessey]

No hazard pay involved.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

And I actually thought it was kind of fun. Very stupid and fun. Justice League atrocious.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Rob Mahoney]

I mean, look, the Snyder cut's much better. It's still a lot of watching a CGI monstrosity go around collecting boxes and then having zoom calls with a wall. And, like, I'm just not intrigued by that part of the story. And that's an hour of it. That's one of four hours.

[Sean Fennessey]

So Kieran Hines was. Did a lot of voice work.

[Rob Mahoney]

He really tried.

[Sean Fennessey]

Second Wolf.

[Rob Mahoney]

They called him back. I'm sure he was in the booth for a really long time. Like, the first one, I would argue is maybe, I don't know, like, the. In the running for the worst movie of its scale ever made. Like, the original Whedon cut, Justice League is so bad, Incoherent. The Snyder cut is significantly better, but I don't know that it rises to the level of, like, good for me, per se.

[Van Lathan]

The Snyder cut is way better. The original movie was legitimately. It legitimately thrust me into a mini depression, like, in the theaters. Like, I was, like, bummed out. I was like, man, you mean to tell me they didn't put Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman together in a movie? And I can't like it. Like, what am I doing? Like, what is going on? This fucking sucks. And then I got my hopes up for the Snyder cut. And it is better. And it is better. I wonder Cause I've watched it twice. I watched it when it came out and then I watched it again in totality, twice. I've watched different parts of it at different times. I wonder if part of the fact that I like the Snyder cut so much better, if I've like tricked myself into that, if I've tricked myself into believing, hey, this is a market step up from the other one, or if it's just the fact that if the movie just really is not doing too much more.

[Sean Fennessey]

I think it's an interest. The one thing that is interesting to me about it and again, I haven't revisited, but it's basically high fantasy inside of a superhero movie, which is very, you know, only really Thor does that in Marvel. And it's a hard thing to pull off. And I do think it is kind of. The CGI is kind of ugly. But I. I kind of liked what he was trying to do, which is like, this is more like the Ridley Scott movie legend than it is a Justice League movie. And then you have that crazy coda of like Batman's Nightmare, which is another thing that I was like, if this was a whole movie, this would have been interesting. And like, he had some ideas that he was trying to get out before he got out of this whole superhero complex. It doesn't really totally work, but I like it a lot more than what he had done previously in the series.

[Rob Mahoney]

Well, you mentioned him wanting to make man of Steel into a Star wars movie or a sci fi movie. He just straight up made this into Lord of the Rings. It was like the humans and the Atlanteans and the Amazons all have one box. It's like straight Rings of Power repurposed in a way. That is not the worst idea I've ever heard. And I have to admit, the Nightmare stuff does work on me.

[Sean Fennessey]

Me too. I liked it.

[Rob Mahoney]

I am predisposed to a like post apocalyptic alternate timeline in which half the heroes died. Kind of storytelling like that really speaks to me for some reason. And so I thought that stuff was kind of good.

[Van Lathan]

He should have just made it in the justice movie. Yeah, they should have had somebody make a classic Superman. Right? And Zack Snyder should have and maybe still should have a complete injustice universe. Yeah, I am for right now Guns DCU taking Superman where it is right now, but Snyder getting the chance to explore his evil Superman in a whole injustice Superman arc. Right. Because that stuff was really, really fun. Kalika loves it. She calls him Batman in a trench coat.

[Sean Fennessey]

Batman the Flasher.

[Rob Mahoney]

Like, he's just straight Up, Ready to go.

[Sean Fennessey]

I think there's two versions of the phrase, what is going on here? While watching Zack Snyder movie. One of them is, this is abominable and should be destroyed. What is going on here? And then the other one is, what is going on here? I remember watching 300 for the first time and thinking, what is going on? I've not quite seen a Swords and sandals epic that looks and feels like this. And that movie is not perfect by any means, but it's kind of cool.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

And it was. It was. It felt very novel at the time.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

And the last 20 minutes of this movie also has like, huh. So you could have done this.

[Van Lathan]

Right. Which completely fits your sensibility.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

Which completely fits the high testosterone way that you like to tell movies. You get to take Superman, Lois wouldn't be in it because she would be dead. Like, you get to.

[Sean Fennessey]

Which is post apocalyptic Justice League.

[Van Lathan]

Right. You get to do your entire deal, and we just never got there. And maybe Jared Leto's Joker gets to cook a little bit more. He's in there.

[Sean Fennessey]

You would love that.

[Van Lathan]

I didn't mind it.

[Sean Fennessey]

And then, of course, there's the David CoreNSWET era from 2025. It's the most recent Superman, which we've seen and we all like.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

It feels roundly liked.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

Unusual to have a movie like this where most people non Ben Shapiro class are like, I liked it.

[Van Lathan]

He is Superman. Gunn's one job was to make us believe that Superman is Superman and that guy is Superman. That world is Metropolis. That's Lex Luthor. That's one of the best of all the people who nearly get to the original Superman levels of portraying their character. Rachel Brosnahan might be able to. She might be able to snatch Lois Lane.

[Rob Mahoney]

I think she might. Given enough time, I think she might.

[Van Lathan]

She might be able to snatch Lois.

[Sean Fennessey]

Time will tell. Margot Kidder in one is unreal.

[Van Lathan]

I get it.

[Rob Mahoney]

Even in two as well.

[Van Lathan]

I get it. But, like, Rachel is doing something with Lois that is. She's sexy, she's inquisitive. She's inquisitive, she's strong, she's resolute. She gets her hands dirty a little bit. She. The more I watch the movie, and I've seen it like three times, the more I watch the movies, she might be able to snatch the crown.

[Rob Mahoney]

I think she. Watching all these movies in such close succession makes you really appreciate some of the architectural stuff that's happening in the new Superman movie, one of which is that Lois is challenging Clark and Superman. And also even the things in the movie that you may not love as much, like the Justice Gang, I think your mileage will vary. Their presence in the movie not only gives you a way to resolve some of the final conflict stuff in the third act, but gets you the levity of the Gunn style of humor. But Superman doesn't have to crack the joke. Like, he gets to be earnest about what he wants and how important saving people is to him. Everyone else gets to make the jokes. Everyone else gets to challenge him. And I think Superman kind of works best as a character. In contrast, like, you need those opposition points. There's a reason why Batman and Superman historically work so well together. And this movie kind of gets that. Like, it doesn't. In doing so, it holds back a little bit of Superman where you could. I think you can fairly argue he should just be in it more. I also am fine coming out of a Superman movie being like, I want more of that Superman. Like, I want to see David Quinn on screen as Superman again.

[Van Lathan]

Superman is the ultimate straight man. He's the ultimate straight man. Everybody else has to. He reacts to sexiness. That's why I was so uncomfortable seeing him be sexy to Lana Lane. Like, we have to see Superman react to sexiness. We have to see him react to it. We see Superman react to these things, and we see how, you know, strident he is. We see that interact with.

[Sean Fennessey]

But, I mean, if Annette O' Toole in 1984 appeared before you, what would you do?

[Rob Mahoney]

Who among us?

[Van Lathan]

Yeah. He ate dog food for her.

[Sean Fennessey]

He enjoyed it.

[Van Lathan]

That's how he was trying to get to it.

[Sean Fennessey]

He quite, quite liked it.

[Rob Mahoney]

I forgot about it. He was going back for more.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah. He dug in.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

A lot of protein in there, one presumes. I don't eat dog food.

[Rob Mahoney]

Just.

[Sean Fennessey]

Thanks for putting that down.

[Van Lathan]

I'm like, what was happening?

[Sean Fennessey]

Please don't clip that, Jack.

[Van Lathan]

What was happening Pre Grand Land? How bad were things?

[Sean Fennessey]

It was. It was a struggle, I will admit. We never got that bad, but all right. We got to rank these movies. You guys did a lot of work preparing for this episode, and I want to say I appreciate you. I know it's, like, not that hard to watch a Superman movie, but some of these movies suck.

[Rob Mahoney]

So there are more bad ones than good ones. Yeah, unfortunately.

[Sean Fennessey]

So let's work backwards. What is the worst one?

[Rob Mahoney]

I think it's the original Justice League.

[Sean Fennessey]

I would tend to agree with.

[Van Lathan]

Really?

[Rob Mahoney]

Yeah. What's your argument?

[Van Lathan]

I got Superman Returns.

[Rob Mahoney]

Ooh.

[Van Lathan]

I would watch the original Justice League, like, any day of the week over Superman Returns. I never want to watch Superman Returns again. I don't know why. The movie just. There's one cool scene where he gets shot in the eye, and then. That's pretty much it, dog.

[Sean Fennessey]

Superman Returns is like eating a bland cracker to me, which is not terrible.

[Van Lathan]

So many ways right there. Go ahead. Don't.

[Sean Fennessey]

Don't play that game with me, sir. On my show. Don't race beat me, Vanly.

[Van Lathan]

I think I did that in college one time.

[Sean Fennessey]

But you raced Superman. You ate a. Oh, you ate it. I see. A bland cracker. All right.

[Van Lathan]

Experimenting.

[Sean Fennessey]

We're gonna pivot right out of that one back into. To me, like, Justice League. And to some extent, like, man of Steel is like taking a bite out of poison ivy.

[Rob Mahoney]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessey]

Or, like, the body would reject it, and I would be ill for weeks.

[Rob Mahoney]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessey]

Justice League is, like, eating what I usually call black licorice. Something that just, like. I get that out of my mouth. I don't like that taste. So some. For some people, it's cilantro. You know, that's a thing that you're like. It's soapy. I can't.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

I don't want it. You're mad because the licorice is black and not red? Is that what you're saying? What are you. What are you reflecting on? Just say it.

[Van Lathan]

Nothing. This is.

[Sean Fennessey]

We're all friends here.

[Van Lathan]

No, no, no. So you guys want. You think Justice League is the worst one?

[Rob Mahoney]

I do.

[Van Lathan]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessey]

I hate man of Steel the most. Justice League is unwatchable to me.

[Van Lathan]

Okay. All right. I want it to be Superman Returns. I like. Yes.

[Sean Fennessey]

I'll. I'll. I'll. Superman Returns can go in the next slot.

[Van Lathan]

Perfect.

[Sean Fennessey]

At 10.

[Van Lathan]

Perfect. Perfect. Okay, cool.

[Rob Mahoney]

I don't mind it.

[Sean Fennessey]

Now, to me, there's a. There's a. There's an interesting conversation here among man of Steel. Batman versus Superman, Superman 4. There's a lot of sentimentality for Superman 4 here on this podcast. So is it widely considered bad?

[Van Lathan]

Just let you know. In my list, I have Superman 4 ranked second to last, even though you do? Yeah.

[Rob Mahoney]

Why you love this movie?

[Van Lathan]

Because I'm being objective.

[Sean Fennessey]

You're not, though.

[Rob Mahoney]

That's not what this is.

[Van Lathan]

Then the movie would be, like, third. So I can't. So I can't make the argument. No, no, no, no, no, no. Because it's like, you know, there have been guys that have been saints that I've really liked or guys that have played for lsu. There was a Guy, a DB for LSU named Demetrius Hook Finn. And he couldn't fucking cover. But I defended Demetrius Hook Finn for the entire time he was a tiger because I just like the fact that he will blow somebody up. Yeah.

[Rob Mahoney]

He was a nuclear man.

[Van Lathan]

Like. Like, yeah. So I can watch this movie and say that I really. It speaks to me. But when you looking at it, the seams are bursting out of the film.

[Rob Mahoney]

But I only want to know what speaks to you.

[Van Lathan]

Look, if you let me be me. If you let.

[Rob Mahoney]

What are we doing here if not letting you.

[Van Lathan]

If you let me be me in some of these movies, I'll make arguments for all kinds of stuff, but I'm trying. We're on the big picture here. Okay. All right. Indeed, we're on the big picture here.

[Sean Fennessey]

So I'm trying to say Superman of movie podcasts.

[Van Lathan]

I'm looking at this while. Talk your shit. That's what I like to hear. But I'm looking at this. I'm going, yeah, it's probably in the lower third for sure of Superman movies, if I'm just looking at it from quality and all that stuff. Anyway, where are you at?

[Sean Fennessey]

On Marques Colston, pride of Hofstra.

[Van Lathan]

Love him.

[Sean Fennessey]

He was great, right?

[Van Lathan]

He was the man.

[Sean Fennessey]

He was the man.

[Van Lathan]

He was the man. Big possession, receiver. When we were kind of getting back.

[Sean Fennessey]

To it, I was looking at his Wikipedia just now, thinking of Saints players. I always remember Marcus because he went to Hofstra, which is near where I grew up, and it said he was widely considered one of, if not the greatest NFL players to never be selected to a Pro bowl or an All Pro team.

[Van Lathan]

How about that? It is kind of interesting.

[Sean Fennessey]

Anyway, moving on. I would say. I would say man of Steel nine. Super. No, you're not. You're not letting man of Steel go into, like, the second tier. I'm just putting that out there.

[Rob Mahoney]

Oh, it's right here with these next moves.

[Van Lathan]

I have it in the middle.

[Sean Fennessey]

Okay. No, we're not disallowing that.

[Rob Mahoney]

What grounds?

[Van Lathan]

I haven't. I haven't. In the middle.

[Sean Fennessey]

No, it's. I think it's nine. I think Batman v Superman is eight.

[Rob Mahoney]

And I said, wait, what's at 10?

[Sean Fennessey]

We said justice League. Oh, sorry.

[Van Lathan]

We got to do Superman Returns.

[Sean Fennessey]

So we'll do Justice League, then Superman Returns, then Man of Steel.

[Van Lathan]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessey]

Then Batman versus Superman because of Batfleck, then Superman 4, I think.

[Van Lathan]

So if you give me that, I will take the Victory of Superman 4. Being that high up. I will take that victory. Yeah, I'm letting you know you guys are gonna get fucking crushed for the man of Steel thing.

[Sean Fennessey]

I don't give a shit.

[Rob Mahoney]

It's a bad movie.

[Sean Fennessey]

I really don't care. First of all, I was hating on Crypto on House of R. Yeah, you can't do that. And they just came for me. First of all, Jamie just, like, cut that and was like, we're putting on the Internet immediately. That's.

[Rob Mahoney]

That's.

[Sean Fennessey]

Baby, I see you.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah, yeah, that's him getting this.

[Sean Fennessey]

I clocked.

[Van Lathan]

That's him Jo. Me getting his revenge.

[Sean Fennessey]

And I don't give a damn about the man of Steel people. I really don't. I've clearly proven correct. If you look at the state of Zack Snyder's filmography right now. Okay.

[Van Lathan]

Shit.

[Sean Fennessey]

He's a talented filmmaker. I wish he was making different movies.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah, army of the Dead was. Okay. Okay, so. So. So where are we at? So where are we at?

[Sean Fennessey]

Justice League, Superman Returns. Man of Steel.

[Van Lathan]

Okay.

[Sean Fennessey]

Batman v Superman. Batman v Superman 4. Superman is Superman 4 or Zack Snyder's Justice League? What's going in this? In the six Justice.

[Van Lathan]

The Snyder cuts better than Superman.

[Rob Mahoney]

I'm willing to give it to Zack Snyder's Justice League.

[Van Lathan]

Okay.

[Rob Mahoney]

On. On ambition, on scale, like, it is reaching for something that I think is cool. I don't think it gets there. I'm, like. I'm a little allergic to just, like, his style of action filmmaking, to be honest with you. But I admire what he's trying for in a way that I'm not sure. Superman IV is trying for a lot other than Christopher Reeve trying to get the word out about disarmament.

[Sean Fennessey]

Is James Gunn's Superman a superior film to Superman 3?

[Rob Mahoney]

Yes.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah. Yeah, for sure.

[Sean Fennessey]

So Superman III would be next.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

You guys all getting this at home? Thumbs up.

[Van Lathan]

This is where it gets. This is where it gets crazy.

[Rob Mahoney]

I have an argument for. So we're at number five or number four?

[Van Lathan]

Four.

[Rob Mahoney]

Number four is the Donner Cut.

[Van Lathan]

Interesting.

[Sean Fennessey]

So you think Superman 2 is superior to the Donner Cut?

[Rob Mahoney]

I do.

[Sean Fennessey]

Can you make the case?

[Rob Mahoney]

One, it's an actual movie. I would say, like, there are a lot of good component parts to the Donner Cut. It's not. It wasn't made as a movie. It doesn't stand as a movie. As a result, it's just, like, not as cohesive. Two, I think the Lois and Clark stuff in the Lester cut is actually a lot better. And that's not just like nobody's pointing a gun at anybody or nobody's jumping out Of a window, per se. It's funnier, it's sharper. I think their scenes together are stronger. And like, I'm here for that chemistry. Like the Reeve Kidder chemistry is really important to me.

[Sean Fennessey]

Interesting take.

[Rob Mahoney]

I think it's so much lighter on its feet. And Christopher Reeve is so funny in these movies when they let him be funny. And I think the Donner version cuts into, like, a self seriousness that is almost Zack Snydery. Like this the scene where he's in the Fortress of Solitude doing the like, haven't I done enough for humanity Speech. My guy, you've been Superman for like, four days. Like, straight up. You just became Superman. And he's like, haven't I done enough doing one thing and this and really, like, the ultimate sin.

[Sean Fennessey]

He did save the entire state of California.

[Rob Mahoney]

He did.

[Sean Fennessey]

And that was pretty impressive.

[Rob Mahoney]

And he did it by winding back time by flying around the world. And guess what? He did it again. Again, at the end of Superman ii, the Donner cut.

[Van Lathan]

That's the biggest.

[Rob Mahoney]

The ending. It's inexcusable to just recycle the end. And the ending of the lesser cut is not good either. But it's not that.

[Van Lathan]

So let's.

[Sean Fennessey]

Strong case.

[Van Lathan]

I say. So let's compare the. The. The exact scenes to one another. Okay. In the Lester cut, Lois finds out about Superman being Superman because he, like, burns his hand in the whatever and he's not burned. In the Donner cut, you have the scene of Superman they're dressed up in tuxedo, shoots him.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

All right. Or with the blanks.

[Rob Mahoney]

With the blanks.

[Van Lathan]

Which scene is more effective to you?

[Rob Mahoney]

I actually like the Lester cut version of, like, there's a part of Clark that wants to tell her and he's like. He trips over a fucking pink bear rug, but he doesn't trip over a bear rug. There's just a part of him that wants to have a great conversation.

[Sean Fennessey]

I think the Donner cut version is magic.

[Van Lathan]

I think the Donner cute. I think that version works better.

[Sean Fennessey]

I love that. I think that the gunshot is so exciting.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yeah, it is exciting. It's. It. There are a lot of what is happening here moments in the Donner cut. And I think overall, like, so Lois as a character in the Donner cut is just so much sharper, like, she is on it from the. From the jump that like, this dude is Superman. I just drew the glasses in my newspaper. Why are we even arguing about this?

[Sean Fennessey]

Niagara Falls, the whole thing.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yeah, like, and I respect, like, how that character is portrayed in The Donner cut. But like, as a result, their scenes together are so much more adversarial in a way that I don't think it's like always that effective because I think it's rejiggered.

[Sean Fennessey]

If.

[Rob Mahoney]

If he had been able to shoot the whole movie as he intended from the start, I think it would probably be the better movie. But he didn't.

[Van Lathan]

The one scene that the lesser cut has over the Donner cut is the way Zod says my favorite line. It's like, why, like, why would you, you know, like, why would you say this to me when I know you, I will kill you for it? If you watch the Donner cut, the lesser cut, he goes, why would you say this to me when you know I will kill you for it? He's kind of incredulous and he's more comedic in the lesser. In the Donner cut, he goes, why would you say this to me when you know I will kill you for it? It is not as funny. The scenes are. He actually delivers the line differently. That's the. That's the only thing that. To me, yeah, the lesser cut. I just want an excuse to put those two scenes.

[Rob Mahoney]

There's a part of the Lester Zod that's like kind of bored and annoyed.

[Van Lathan]

Very.

[Rob Mahoney]

That I like.

[Van Lathan]

Right. He's very, very to the thing. And the other guy is like a rage monster. Honestly, he's very mad.

[Sean Fennessey]

I personally prefer the Zod and the Donner cut. And I also think you're also a rage monster, as we are seeing here on this episode today. What Terrence Stamp brings to Superman ii. Either cut is he's the man is unbelievable to me. Maybe you could say, certainly Michael Shannon played the character again and brought something very specific. But that fine grained combination of British upscale arrogance, a kind of very entrancing, bizarre beauty. You know, he's a historically, like a very handsome, like, attractive swinging 60s actor, but getting into his 40s and 50s, that's a very. We don't see that look too often now. The like, the full beard and mustache that is manicured in such a way to make him seem like an evil magician.

[Van Lathan]

He looks Kryptonian. He looks like a guy from an evil guy from another realm.

[Sean Fennessey]

He's. He's fantastic. He holds those movies together in so many ways. I. I think you made a strong enough case. I don't really agree with it, but I also. We're giving each other things here. I appreciate it.

[Rob Mahoney]

Thank you.

[Van Lathan]

I. Doug, what you have to say.

[Sean Fennessey]

Now, do you Think that. So the Donner cut would go four. Do you think that the Lester cut is superior to James Gunn's Superman?

[Rob Mahoney]

This one is like a tie for me. And this is where I would open up the negotiation a little bit. But I think it says a lot that this new movie is already in this pantheon.

[Sean Fennessey]

I don't think it's as good as Superman. The to.

[Van Lathan]

It's not.

[Rob Mahoney]

That's fine.

[Van Lathan]

So it. It's not. But that's no knock to this movie.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

I never was going to put it Superman at 2.

[Van Lathan]

Superman the movie is Superman the movie is going to be at number one for me. It is.

[Rob Mahoney]

It's. I mean, I don't think there's a lot of debate that.

[Van Lathan]

Superman 2 is probably better.

[Sean Fennessey]

Better than the original.

[Rob Mahoney]

Then what are we doing?

[Van Lathan]

You're making it number one, then. Okay, so let me tell you now as a. You guys have to understand what I'm doing here.

[Rob Mahoney]

Okay.

[Van Lathan]

Okay.

[Rob Mahoney]

Please walk us through.

[Van Lathan]

We're ranking the movies.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

I'm not ranking the movies.

[Sean Fennessey]

This is what it's like in the jets draft room every year, by the way. This is their war room. And this is why we keep fucking up.

[Van Lathan]

I'm not ranking the movies strictly on quality. I'm not. I'm not ranking them because I think that's. I think honestly, that's too subjective. Like that.

[Rob Mahoney]

That art is subjective, fans.

[Van Lathan]

I know. That's what. That's why. If. That's why. If you're going to rank something.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

Then you rank it across a litany of different criteria and not just the thing that you like the most.

[Rob Mahoney]

I just fundamentally disagree with this.

[Van Lathan]

I mean, I'm just being for real.

[Rob Mahoney]

In the fiber of my being. Disagree with you.

[Van Lathan]

I just. I just. You don't.

[Sean Fennessey]

Because if it's been too long since I've seen you two together.

[Van Lathan]

I like something. I like something. You have a bunch of different inputs. Yes, I have a bunch of different inputs. I can recognize that something is the best and I don't like it as much.

[Sean Fennessey]

What's more, arrogant thinking you have the power to see objectively or only using your own subjective point of view to evaluate?

[Rob Mahoney]

I would argue that subjectivity is all we got. Like, especially when it comes to something like a movie or a piece of music.

[Sean Fennessey]

Spoken like a real fake news journalist.

[Van Lathan]

When I watch Superman 2, man, the movie has respect. The movie has. Lex is in this.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

And it has the super criminals. Right. It has Zod in them. There's more happening there. Lois and Superman. What's going on between them is just way, way more interesting. The first one is delightful and it's very formative. And it's like, oh, my God, they're flying. And it's like all of that. She's in trouble. She is like another little nemesis to me. Superman loses his powers. He has to use his brain to reverse the fucking thing. There's just so much happening in Superman 2 that if I look at it as a movie. No, it's better than the original. The original is. Is. The original is. It's. It's. It's the. It's more important film. It's the number one film. But the sequel is better. It's better.

[Rob Mahoney]

The original one's better, but it is better. I was watching Superman 2. I did have the thought and the Donner cut. There's one thing in particular I need Van's opinion on, which is Superman in the Lester cut, getting together with Lois after losing his powers. Superman in the Donner cut, fully empowered. Superman, how are you feeling about the Clark, Lois, Superman dynamic, physiologically speaking, you know, like, what do you think is the. Like, how realistic is this whole situation?

[Van Lathan]

I like it powered up.

[Rob Mahoney]

You do?

[Van Lathan]

Yeah. Just be. You got. He can be gentle. Like, he don't move around fast, going crazy, doing everything else. You see him running to his mom. He know how to control it. He could control it.

[Sean Fennessey]

There is the faded, long running question of the super sperm. Sure. I mean, what do we do with that?

[Rob Mahoney]

Think of Kevin Smith, like, you know.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah, the super sperm. I mean, I don't know if you can really control. I don't want to get into the whole thing, but I don't know if you can control what happens. The actual, you know.

[Sean Fennessey]

What do you mean?

[Van Lathan]

Well, I don't.

[Sean Fennessey]

What happens?

[Van Lathan]

Well, I don't know if you could control that part if it's going, you.

[Rob Mahoney]

Know, seems like an important part.

[Van Lathan]

If there's an exit wound or something like that. Like, I don't know if you can control that. But the other stuff, it seems like you should be able to control. It's fine. I liked it. I think it's cool. It's fine.

[Rob Mahoney]

You heard it here first. Van Lathan likes it powered up.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

I think that this is a Fairly Simple Superman 2. Superman the Movie.

[Van Lathan]

Okay.

[Rob Mahoney]

I'm cool with that.

[Sean Fennessey]

Your passion is beautiful.

[Van Lathan]

You guys back me into a corner. Superman 1 is the clear answer.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah, but it just. It establishes and accomplishes so many of the things that are so essential to upending some of those things into. And I Think the point also the idea of the way that two ends is just not very satisfactory. Whereas the way that one ends, to me, the first time you see it is very exciting and very. Because it's heartbreaking to watch, Lois.

[Rob Mahoney]

Totally.

[Sean Fennessey]

It is like. It's devastating. As a small kid, I was like, this cannot be happening. So I'm really curious to see where Superman 2025 sits five years from now. We're getting close to five years from the Batman. And here we are on this panel saying, is it a little overrated now? I think it's pretty great.

[Van Lathan]

Well, I don't know that it's. It's funny. Cause I said what I said earlier, and I. With the Dark Knight Rises. Cause I think both movies are aging pretty well. The Batman, for me, when I first watched it, was like, man, this movie is long. He's walking very slowly. Like, there's. You know, he is. He's taking his time. He's treating alcohol.

[Sean Fennessey]

You can't brood.

[Van Lathan]

You know what I mean?

[Sean Fennessey]

He's the world's greatest detective, not the world's greatest marathon runner.

[Van Lathan]

I get it. But I watch that movie a lot more now, and I think, this is gonna sound stupid. The Penguin reignited my interest in all the other things that are happening. It deepened the world, and it grieves the entry point for me in that movie. Now, man, the end of that movie. There's a lot that happens in that film. Like, that movie goes on and on and on and on. Yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

It actually kind of has a similar Dark Knight Rises energy to the conclusion where I'm like, why is this fight happening in the rafters of this political convention where there's a flood like, I probably have to revisit. I will say my version of returning to the movie is just watching the Paul Dano. No, no, no. Meme over and over again. Whenever watching sports, whenever I'm watching a team I care about, that's what I think of. I feel we've done well.

[Van Lathan]

I think so as well.

[Rob Mahoney]

I think we nailed it.

[Sean Fennessey]

I'm going to recite these rankings for us. Number 11, Justice League, directed by Joss Whedon. Number 10, Superman Returns, which I didn't think going into this exercise, we all would have been so roundly against and I would have disliked as much as I did. But it's nice to hear that we could at least agree that it doesn't work. Number nine is man of Steel. Number eight is Batman versus Dawn of Justice. Number seven, Superman, the Quest for Peace. Number six, Zack Snyder's Justice League. The Snyder Cut, number five, Superman three. Number four, Superman two. The Donner Cut, number three, Superman 20, 25. Number two, Superman two. And number one, Superman from 1978.

[Rob Mahoney]

What a showing for Superman three. Just like by default, ends up at number five.

[Sean Fennessey]

Pretty good outcome. Yeah, it's not. It's a pretty good Richard Pryor performance.

[Van Lathan]

It's a pretty good Richard Pryor performance, and it has some really good moments, man. The cyborg sister thing is fucking ridiculous. That's so stupid, bro. Like, it was stupid to me when I was a kid, by the way. Didn't make any sense. But Superman fighting himself. Evil, dirty Superman. Superman oil tanker Superman.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yep.

[Van Lathan]

Superman hitting on. It's got a lot of cool, good stuff.

[Rob Mahoney]

I love when Superman saves Richard Pryor from a pile of rubble by dapping him up. It's like the healing power of daps.

[Sean Fennessey]

By the way, we didn't talk about how Pryor got in that movie, which is. He just went on like the Dinah Shore show and was like, you guys see Superman? I love that movie. And then Alexander Salkin was like, we should get Richard Pryor in this movie.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah, it's.

[Sean Fennessey]

It'd be nice if things work that way.

[Rob Mahoney]

Still, it's good. On this podcast van. Is there any movie you want to be in?

[Van Lathan]

It's very funny that you would say that.

[Sean Fennessey]

Just.

[Van Lathan]

Guys, keep. Stay tuned. Now look.

[Sean Fennessey]

Whoa.

[Rob Mahoney]

Now that's a tease.

[Van Lathan]

I'm serious. Stay tuned. Now, Prior is also. We didn't talk that much about Richard Pryor. Him with the skis. Superman's a bad mother. He's. He is. He adds a lot to the film.

[Rob Mahoney]

Definitely.

[Van Lathan]

He adds a lot. Very funny.

[Sean Fennessey]

I feel pretty good about what we've done here. Now, you can find this ranking and all of the rankings on this show on our letterboxd account, which is at the big pick. Where's the group chat letterbox account?

[Rob Mahoney]

You know, we don't have one yet. I got. I gotta get those guys on watch. Actually, Justin's pretty active on letterbox.

[Van Lathan]

We gotta.

[Sean Fennessey]

Well, you guys grind so much tape, too. I feel like. Can you log the tape?

[Rob Mahoney]

It's a great question.

[Sean Fennessey]

Speak to letterboxd about this.

[Rob Mahoney]

Does Hornets blazers, like, is that registerable in letterbox? I don't know. Might qualify as a TV program.

[Sean Fennessey]

Where's the midnight boys that you guys?

[Van Lathan]

We need a letterbox. I got my own letterbox. Do you what I do. I have a letterbox. I don't think I understand how to use letterbox, though.

[Sean Fennessey]

Did you follow anyone?

[Rob Mahoney]

Well, there's no. 12 point scale.

[Sean Fennessey]

You followed me.

[Van Lathan]

I followed you. It's 12 point scale. The midnight meeting.

[Rob Mahoney]

That's what I'm saying.

[Van Lathan]

Proprietary. Explain to people the second April.

[Rob Mahoney]

All the rules of the second April are confused. I would say man of Steel went over the second April. Like, whatever they paid Costner, it was a lot. They're not going to be able to make any one for one trades for a while. That's why they had to blow it up. Like, they ultimately got stuck.

[Van Lathan]

I've been trying to explain this to my friends. Like, my friends will be like, why are you going? I'm like, bro, nobody has any money to get the second apron and all of that. And they're like, I don't like the NBA no more, man.

[Sean Fennessey]

It didn't stop the Knicks from signing Gershon Yabiselli.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yeah. Huge signing. Honestly, I was very good.

[Sean Fennessey]

Pretty excited about that.

[Van Lathan]

Is Valachunas going overseas?

[Rob Mahoney]

Depends on if you ask him. Or ask the Denver Nuggets.

[Sean Fennessey]

Nick.

[Rob Mahoney]

He would like to. He would like to go to Europe for a while. We'll see if that happens or not.

[Sean Fennessey]

Has a take ever taken more of an L than your Jokic take? From the early days on the Bill Simmons, man?

[Van Lathan]

Look, I'm, I'm. Look. Okay, so let me put this into context. Right. Real quick. Nah. Because I'm probably still wrong. So let me tell you what triggered me about this. Bill said during that time that he thought that Jokic was as good as Magic Johnson and Larry Bird. That's what he said. All right. That's two, three years ago.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

And I'm like, you can't say that somebody is as good as Magic Johnson or Larry Bird unless they win a bunch of NBA championships.

[Sean Fennessey]

Fair?

[Van Lathan]

Yeah. You have to. That has to be a thing. And then Bill outed me. For some reason, he was so pissed off that he outed me on Twitter about this whole thing and sicked all the ringer people on me. We on group text. And Bill goes, yo, man, Jokic is. And look, you know what? Now it turns out that Jokic might be as good as those guys. He might be the same. But you couldn't say anything is all I was saying.

[Rob Mahoney]

It was too early.

[Van Lathan]

Right.

[Sean Fennessey]

But do you, as a, as a, as a ball knower agree that he is in league with Magic and Bird?

[Rob Mahoney]

He's one of the. He's one of the best players of all time. It's just a matter of like, what you prioritize as far as the titles, the individual production, all that stuff.

[Sean Fennessey]

What do you prioritize?

[Van Lathan]

Yeah. See, don't do that.

[Rob Mahoney]

I'm not a. Hold on.

[Van Lathan]

Do you see what he just did? Don't do that.

[Rob Mahoney]

What did I do?

[Van Lathan]

No, I'm asking. He asked you a question about it and you were like, depends, depends, depends. Who do you think is better? Out of, like, subjective. Be subjective. Don't do that. No, no, no. Like, who do you think is better? Bird Magic. Jokic. Give it.

[Rob Mahoney]

Now, here's the answer. I wasn't born when they were in their prime. I'm not qualified to answer that question.

[Sean Fennessey]

At least if you want me to.

[Rob Mahoney]

Compare Jokic to LeBron, I can do that. LeBron's better.

[Van Lathan]

LeBron's better than Jokic. He's a better player.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yeah. You want me to compare, like, Stefan Jokic? We have that conversation, but, like, I. I don't feel qualified to get into the Kareems and the Larry's and the Magics in incredible detail.

[Van Lathan]

Way to WR is what I'll say. Like Jokic.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yabu Saleh is better than all of them.

[Van Lathan]

Yic Jokic. All time great. All time great. I think the question that really. That you guys should do on group chat, that really gets the people going.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

Is Jokic better than Shaq all time?

[Sean Fennessey]

I heard you addressing that one. It's a good conversation.

[Van Lathan]

That's a good one because that gets the group chat. My group chat, my friends on fire. Because one of my boys, Ryan, our most dedicated basketball knowledge guy, he says it's over. He says jokes is better, and everybody else just goes nuts.

[Sean Fennessey]

I will say I have still never seen anything, though, like, the first six years of Shaq in professional sports, where I was like, anything could happen at any given moment. The, like, breaking the backboard and pulling the back, the rim down thing, when that was happening, not just shattering the backboard, which we saw a few times growing up, but him pulling the entire stanchion to the ground.

[Van Lathan]

Yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

It was like watching Superman play basketball. And then he, of course, was Steel.

[Rob Mahoney]

He was. Why didn't we rank Steel?

[Van Lathan]

We should put Steel in there. That's a Superman movie.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah, I guess it is.

[Van Lathan]

I guess it's Superman.

[Rob Mahoney]

How did we get here?

[Sean Fennessey]

Through meandering. Five minutes of NBA talk.

[Van Lathan]

There you go.

[Sean Fennessey]

Forgot about Steel. Steel would be third overall at least. Okay.

[Rob Mahoney]

Great actor. Yeah, great actor. Dominant player.

[Sean Fennessey]

Very good. Love it. Extremely good rapper.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yeah, I saw him live.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah.

[Van Lathan]

Jokic can only do one thing, and that's basketball. So.

[Sean Fennessey]

That's a good point. So who's a better human being? Shaquille o' Neal or Nikola Jokic.

[Van Lathan]

I would much rather be Shaq, and I think a lot of people know why, but Shaq gets to it. Whatever. I think we gotta end the podcast.

[Sean Fennessey]

Yeah, let's end the podcast. Thanks to our producer, Jack Sanders, for his work on this episode. Listen to Rob Mahoney on a myriad of podcasts.

[Rob Mahoney]

Whatever you like, Chad, et cetera.

[Sean Fennessey]

Prestige tv. The Zach Lowe Podcast.

[Rob Mahoney]

Yeah, yeah, now and again.

[Sean Fennessey]

What else? The Bill Simmons podcast from time to time. What else are you getting on these days?

[Rob Mahoney]

I'm coming for Chris's head as the third chair of the Big Picture.

[Van Lathan]

Oh, there we go.

[Sean Fennessey]

Wow.

[Van Lathan]

So, boy, there's a little talk on the streets about the C.R. mahoney. C.R. you might be.

[Rob Mahoney]

What is that talk?

[Van Lathan]

The Anthony Edwards to CR's. You might be the Anthony Edwards to CR's LeBron.

[Rob Mahoney]

I don't even know what that comparison is.

[Van Lathan]

Might be the young pup that's pushing the old master.

[Sean Fennessey]

Wow.

[Van Lathan]

That's what some people on the streets are saying. That's all I'm saying.

[Rob Mahoney]

Many people are saying, yeah.

[Sean Fennessey]

Van Lath and Midnight Boys, Higher Learning, the Ryan Rosilla Podcast. Listen to that episode. It's insane. What else? What else are you doing? Prestige TV for the bear.

[Van Lathan]

Prestigev for the bears. I'm everywhere. Like, whenever you want to piss people off, just put my name in the podcast and see what they say.

[Sean Fennessey]

That's just definitively not true. Thanks for listening. Watching. Later this week, a new 25 for 25. Oh, it's a movie whose title I will not reveal. Goodbye.