My Thoughts on “The King’s Man ♂︎”

Foreword: 

This was originally written and posted on DeviantART on Thursday March 10, 2022. If you read my Nobody (2021) review, you’ll know that I promised to repost my review of The King’s Man ♂︎. Well, here it is as promised, and it’s my first post of October 2025 too. I was deciding between that and reviewing Shadow Force (2025) as my first post of October, but I ultimately decided on reposting this review and making it my first post of October, so that I didn’t have to actually sit down and watch a movie first and then write my review. Here, I can just focus on the writing, and I don’t have as much to write since the review is already written, I just have to write the foreword. Hopefully, it won’t take me too long to write and I can get it done it one day, but I have a lot of stuff that I want to talk about in this foreword. I’ve written down a lot of stuff in my notes that I wanted to include in the next repost because these are the only posts on this blog that have forewords because they are old, and I need to explain why my thought process back then, my opinions on certain things back then, and how they may or may not have changed, and for what reason. I also use these foreword to cover current events and my opinions on those current events that I don’t necessarily have enough to say about to dedicate entire posts to. 

But, because I was sick 🤧 in the first half of September, and because I had to crunch in the second half of September and was only able to get out four posts at most, there weren’t much opportunities for reposting. All of the posts I posted in September were completely brand new posts that hadn’t been written before, and were written completely from scratch. Two of my posts for September were reviews of movies I hadn’t seen before but had been meaning to get to; one of them was an “older” movie from 4 years ago, and the other was a new release that came out this year five months ago (8 months ago if you count the streaming only UK release 🇬🇧). And then the other two were status updates, one of them was about a video that I had to reupload in other to resolve a copyright issue, and decided to post the original unaltered version of on this blog for those two who were interested, and the other one was about the title announcement trailer for the upcoming sequel to the 2023 Super Mario Bros. Movie, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie. The post about the ADV Films promo video was posted in-between the Nobody (2021) review and the Fight or Flight ✈️ review, and the post about The Super Mario Galaxy Movie announcement trailer was posted after the Fight or Flight ✈️ review, and was the last post of September. 

During that time, I wrote a lot of stuff that I wanted to talk about in the foreword of my next repost, and I wrote so much that I just don’t think that I could fit it all into one foreword of one post, nor would I even want to. I don’t want to make these forewords too long and I want to keep them somewhat on topic, so that anyone who reads them doesn’t get bored and just skips it. I mean, they could do that anyways, but I don’t want them to so that they can gain better insights on the text at hand, and know whether or not that I hold the same opinions or not. So, I’m just going to pick a couple of topics that I wanted to cover for the past few weeks, and any that I don’t cover in this foreword will get covered in a future repost, or will get their own dedicated posts written about them. 

I’m going to keep this one mostly pop culture focused, and I’ll save some of the political ones for my post about the terrorist attack in Ankara on October 1, 2023 that no one remembers. That one won’t be a repost technically since I’ve never posted it before on any platform and this’ll be the first time I’ve posted it anywhere on the Internet 🛜, but it is an older post (I wrote it back in 2023, which is two years ago now if you can believe that), so it qualifies for a foreword. Any political topics I don’t cover in that, will also probably get their own dedicated posts on them. Like, I had a lot to say about the UN General Assembly 🇺🇳 last month, which was held on the 80th anniversary of the organization’s founding, and I don’t want the foreword to that post to just be about the UN General Assembly 🇺🇳, since I do want it keep it somewhat related to Turkey 🇹🇷, or Türkiye 🇹🇷 as it’s also known as now. 

I know that I didn’t post that much in September, but I am going to try to post more stuff this month. After this, I will review Shadow Force (2025), I can promise you that, then after that, I’m going to try and review Nobody 2 since I reviewed the first Nobody and I only watched it and reviewed it so that I could watch and review Nobody 2, then after that, I may review Havoc (2025), the latest Gareth Evans action movie starring Tom Hardy on Netflix, or I might review The Night Comes for Us, which was directed by the same guy ♂︎ who directed Nobody 2 and is currently directing The Beekeeper 2 🐝 and is also on Netflix; both of them hinge on me being able to access to Netflix, which I’m not sure if I’ll be able to access Netflix on my PS4 despite what my aunt did it to allow us to continue watching Netflix using her account; if not, I may have to just use the Roku in the living room. I also might review the Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius console game, since this is my 190th post, and I’m quickly approaching my 200th, which I plan to make about the Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius movie in which the PC and console games are both based on and which the Adventures of Jimmy Neutron series was spun off from. I’m still trying to decide whether I actually want to review the console game or if I even have anything to say about it. 

I’m going to see if I’ll be able to see Tron: Ares, which come out this month and is a Disney movie. Originally I included Predator: Badlands, but that movie doesn’t come until next month, and then I was going to put Mortal Kombat II 🐉 (2025) in its place because I thought it was coming out this month, but it’s not; it’s not even coming out this year anymore, they moved the release date to May 15, 2026. So, yeah, unfortunately Mortal Kombat 🐉 fans (or fortunately depending on if you even liked the 2021 movie or were wowed by the trailer to this movie), the movie’s been delayed and we’ll have to wait a little longer for it; I don’t know why it was delayed, it just was, maybe that May would a better time to release it than October 🤷‍♂️; or maybe they heard people’s complaints about Jade’s hair (or lack therefore) and are doing reshoots with her having hair, though that’s way less likely because it is such a stupid complaint that isn’t worth responding to or reciprocating; people who complained about Jade being bald do not deserve to be rewarded by having them do pointless reshoots with her having hair 😒, fixing something that wasn’t even a real problem with the movie but was a purely cosmetic choice that entitled, and let’s face it, racist and sexist fanboys (and fangirls) didn’t like; either way, Mortal Kombat II 🐉 (2025) is now Mortal Kombat II 🐉 (2026). But, given my track record with new releases this year so far, I highly doubt that I’ll be able to see either one of those two movies while they’re still in theaters, and I’ll probably have to wait months down the line to watch either of them, when they’re both on streaming and on Blu-Ray 💿 and 4K 💿. Plus, they both Disney movies, I’m still not sure if I want to keep supporting Disney financially after they did to Jimmy Kimmel. 

That’s the first remotely political topic that I’ll get into here, and the only reason why I’m even covering here is that it is still pop culture related. Late night talk shows like Jimmy Kimmel Live are apart of pop culture, even if they are political and have been political even before Donald Trump, which is what this topic is about. Not even a week after Charlie Kirk’s murder, Jimmy Kimmel was unexpectedly and unceremoniously pulled off the air by ABC due to some comments that he made in one of the monologues of one of his previous shows. Despite, what Trump and the Republicans would have you believe, Kimmel did actually say anything about Kirk specifically. He wasn’t saying that Kirk deserved to die or that the world is a better place without him, no, his comments were actually about Trump and the Republicans’ reaction to the shooting. How they immediately blamed Democrats and Democratic rhetoric for the shooting, and tried to find a way to paint the shooter as a leftist, despite all evidence pointing the shooter either having no discernible political motive or having a right-wing motive. 

He also pointed out how quickly Trump seemed to have gotten over Kirk’s death, and didn’t seem too broken up about it, since when asked how he was holding up after Kirk’s death, Trump said he was perfectly fine and immediately pivoted to talking about the stupid ballroom that he’s making those construction workers 👷‍♂️👷‍♀️ build for him next to White House; I hope that whoever becomes president after Trump (especially if it’s a Democrat) tears down that ballroom as one of their first acts as president, erasing Trump’s legacy and making him the pariah and apparition in American politics 🇺🇸 and American history 🇺🇸 that he should’ve been after January 6th; that ballroom is an affront to everything the White House is supposed to stand for, and is affront to American democracy 🇺🇸, and is an exercise in classism and a symbol of corporate greed 🤑 what with all the mega corporations that are contributing money 💵 to the ballroom’s construction and are putting their names on it when it’s finished. That ballroom shows that we’re truly living in The Gilded Age 2.0, or a Second Gilded Age. 

I hope that whenever Trump is out of office, and a Democrat takes over the presidency, that they tear that ballroom down, it’s an affront to everything that the White House is supposed to be and what American democracy 🇺🇸 is supposed to be. Especially since it’s being sponsored by a bunch of mega corporations, the CEOs of which all endorsed Trump during the 2024 election 🗳️ and are just as responsible for everything that’s happening in the country now as the podcast comedians, particularly the Rogansphere. I will never forgive the Rogansphere for helping to bring this man ♂︎ back into power. And they’re the kind of guys ♂︎ that when this whole thing eventually falls apart, and Trump is no longer in office for one reason or another, they’ll try to walk it back and say they never supported Trump in the first place and that they always knew he was bad, or they won’t acknowledge it and just pretend it didn’t happen and they didn’t engage in this behavior. When we all know it’s bullshit. They supported Trump during the 2024 Election 🗳️, they glazed him, they normalized him, they never challenged him or questioned him on anything whenever they had him on, and they made Trump seem normal and seem appealing to certain disillusioned young men ♂︎ in desperate need of a role model. They are just as guilty and complicit as everyone else in the media who directly or indirectly helped Trump get back into power, and as guilty as everyone who worked in his administration and enabled his worst impulses. I for one will not forget and I will not forgive 😠.

So, after the FCC chairman, Brendan Carr went on a podcast hosted by right-wing commentator and MAGA Republican 🇺🇸, Benny Johnson and publicly threatened to go after anyone in the media who talks bad about Charlie Kirk, ABC suspended Jimmy Kimmel indefinitely. Many people rightfully interpreted this boneheaded move by Disney to be a blatant violation of the First Amendment, and an even clearer sign of the Trump administration’s march towards authoritarianism. People also saw the very cynical and moneymaking strategy 🤑 behind the decision because the two broadcasting companies, Nexstar and Sinclair were planning a merger that needed to be approved by the FCC, and they agreed to stop airing Jimmy Kimmel’s show on their ABC affiliate stations to gain the FCC chair’s approval for the merger. So, Disney under pressure from the FCC directly and the proposed Nexstar and Sinclair merger, decided to preemptively suspend Jimmy Kimmel’s show indefinitely; which is a nicer way of saying they canceled it. 

But, unlike when CBS canceled Stephen Colbert’s show after comments he made on his show criticizing them for settling Trump’s lawsuit against them out of court, this did trigger significant amounts of backlash from the general public and a massive boycott against Disney started taking place. People began canceling their Disney+, Hulu, and ESPN subscriptions, and canceling their trips to Disneyland and Disney World, they were demanding that they put Jimmy Kimmel back on the air, people who didn’t watch Jimmy Kimmel before or care about him at all came to his defense and criticized the FCC and the Trump administration more broadly, and Kimmel kind of became a symbol of free speech, for a side of the political spectrum in-which defending free speech was not a major talking point and rallying cry; while the side that historically championed free speech and comedians’ ability to poke fun at those in power (or at least Twitter leftists 🐦) sided with the government that’s trying to silence dissent; though there were some Republicans and conservatives that did actually stick to their principles and come to Kimmel’s defense and did say that what the FCC and Disney did was wrong, and that he should’ve never been removed. They reportedly lost $4 billion 💵 as a result of this boycott. 

Not only did they immediately cave after just three or four days of this boycott and announce that they were going to put Kimmel’s show back on the air, but they even released the first trailer to the upcoming Star Wars film, The Mandalorian and Grogu the same day that they announced they were putting Kimmel’s show back on the air. All so that they could stop the bleeding 🩸. This is one of the times in history that I can think of where a boycott actually worked, and actually achieved what it set out to achieve, besides maybe the ongoing Target boycott, which also started this year due to the private sector caving to Trump and capitulating in advance; the Target boycott, in case you didn’t know, was started after the company removed all their DEI policies in response to Trump retaking office and his anti-DEI rhetoric; the boycott is largely being led and carried out by black people, who are the group most affected by the removal of DEI policies and practices by companies, and I guess a lot of black people shopped Target prior to Trump retaking office, and they felt genuinely betrayed when Target did this. 

That Mandalorian and Grogu trailer was met with a pretty lukewarm reception actually. There was a time when a Star Wars trailer was a big deal, and was the talk of the Internet 🛜 for about a week, maybe even a whole month, but here it was nothing more than a blip. It barely made an impact. I don’t think that it was just because of what happened to Jimmy Kimmel and people being upset about that, but because of people just aren’t that interested in Star Wars anymore; they don’t get excited for it like they used to. That just goes to show how much Disney completely mismanaged the brand, they took away pretty everything that made Star Wars special, and made it pedestrian; it was absolutely the wrong move for Disney to treat Star Wars as if it were the MCU, it’s not, and it never will be no matter how much Disney tries to force it to be (no pun intended). Hopefully, Amazon will learn from Disney’s mistakes with Star Wars and not repeat them with James Bond, to somewhat bring this back around to the main topic of this repost. So, Jimmy Kimmel’s back on the air, and is bigger than ever. If Trump and Carr’s plan was to diminish Kimmel, and make him forgotten, they absolutely failed. All they did was make him more popular and believed by millions of people, not just in the United States 🇺🇸, but all over the world. I think that’s why the boycott was ultimately so successful because it was global. 

It wasn’t just an American thing 🇺🇸, it was all over the world, where Disney has a presence, and everyone who fed with what Trump is doing and fed up with cowardly corporations caving to his every demand. So, this was a victory for us, for our side, the side that still cares about democracy, and doesn’t want Trump and Project 2025 to succeed; even if it ultimately was a small victory, it’s still a victory nonetheless. In a fight like this, to defend democracy from a fascist takeover, every victory counts, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant. Sinclair still held out, they still refused to air Kimmel’s show after Disney decided to reinstate him. But, even they caved and decided to put him back on their ABC affiliate stations too, after they missing out on all the money 💵. It really is true what they say, money talks 💵. Now people are saying that we should boycott Paramount more aggressively and demand that they bring Colbert’s show back, reinstate his show too. While Colbert is still on the air, and his show isn’t going to end until next year, he is still canceled and CBS hasn’t done anything to reverse their decision and allow The Late Show With Stephen Colbert to continue airing into the future. I hope so because Colbert is my second favorite late night talk show host, second only to Seth Meyers. Speaking of which, I hope Universal saw what happened with Kimmel and Disney, and doesn’t make the same mistake with Seth Meyers because if they do, we’ll come after them too, we’ll boycott their stuff too until they bring him. And even with Disney ultimately reversing their decision and bringing Kimmel back, not everyone who boycotted will come back. 

They’ve broken that trust with their once loyal fanbase and customer base, and while they are plenty of people who did forgive them and subscribed back to Disney+ and all that, and die hards who never canceled in the first place and will never give up and will always be loyal, they plenty of those who still don’t forgive Disney and will never forgive Disney, and will not support them in any way. A lot of the “Never Disney” crowd say that they’re thinking of spending their money 💵 on donating to their local PBS station since PBS is far more deserving of their money 💵 than Disney is. PBS actually provides something valuable and important while Disney does not, and the Republican controlled government decided to pull billions of dollars 💵 worth of funding for PBS and NPR. Public broadcasting needs our support more than a publicly traded for-profit company does, that’s the message of the “Never Disney” people. It’s sort of the same thing with Target, even after Target brought back DEI and apologized for what they did, a lot of people still didn’t go back to them because they broke that trust, and those people felt that Target wasn’t deserving of their money 💵 simply for doing the bare minimum.

The other political topic that I want to discuss here is that the Liberal Democratic Party in Japan 🇯🇵 has voted for its first female leader ♀︎, Sanae Takaichi, after Shigeru Ishiba stepped down, and she is on track to become Japan 🇯🇵’s first female prime minister ♀︎ sometime this month. So yeah, Japan 🇯🇵 join the legion of countries that have now had female heads of state ♀︎ before the United States 🇺🇸, like even the Japanese 🇯🇵 have beaten us to that. We could’ve had a female president ♀︎, had Kamala Harris won the presidency in 2024, but she didn’t because way too many people either stayed at home or voted third party. And all because she didn’t sufficiently condemn Israel 🇮🇱 and call what was happening in Gaza a genocide. 

Regardless of what people thought of Gaza and the Biden administration’s handling of it, Kamala Harris should’ve still been the logical choice and people should have still voted for her over Trump. Trump had already been in office once, and people already knew how bad he was just from that first term, so why would you want him back in the White House? Why would you want to risk him coming back to the White House? Just because you didn’t think Kamala Harris wasn’t being tough enough on Israel 🇮🇱 or wasn’t talking about being tough on Israel 🇮🇱? You should’ve put that aside, and voted for her instead because she was the far better choice in that election 🗳️ than Trump, or Jill Stein, who is a pro-Russian stooge 🇷🇺 BTW. 

All the bad things that have happened this year so far under Trump, would not have happened under Kamala Harris, that’s just a fact. The war in Gaza might’ve already been over by now because don’t forget it was Biden who brokered the first ceasefire agreement between Israel 🇮🇱 and Hamas, a ceasefire that Israel 🇮🇱 then violated, but still, and as many accurately observed, Harris was a lot more sympathetic to the Palestinians 🇵🇸 than Biden was, and was not as comfortable about giving the Israelis 🇮🇱 weapons and letting them have carte blanche in Gaza, when they were very obviously killing civilians, and starving the whole population, preventing any and all humanitarian aid from getting in. I know Trump is trying to broke a peace deal between Israel 🇮🇱 and Hamas, but there are plenty of reasons to be skeptical of that effort given how pro-Israel 🇮🇱 Trump was before, and how much he supported Netanyahu, and was on board with genocide 8 months ago, and these peace plans don’t seem to be going anywhere; Trump is undermining them with his own incompetence, and Bibi Netanyahu is doing everything he can to make sure they don’t succeed. 

But, Harris would’ve been a lot more successful at ending the war in Gaza, and would’ve been a lot tougher on Israel 🇮🇱 than any past president before, and might’ve told them to allow aid to flow into Gaza freely, and to stop any and all combat operations or she’ll cut off all military aid; like she could’ve said something like, “If you don’t stop what you’re doing in Gaza right now, then I will order the flow of American arms 🇺🇸 to Israel 🇮🇱 to cease.” And considering that almost every other country has recognized a Palestinian state 🇵🇸, she likely would’ve followed suit because she’s supportive of the international community and consensus, at least when it comes to things like that. Once again, America 🇺🇸 missed out on yet another opportunity to have a female president ♀︎ because of stubborn leftists, Democratic infighting, sexism, racism (Kamala Harris is a mixed raced biracial woman ♀︎ of Indian and Jamaican descent 🇮🇳🇯🇲 and identifies as both a black woman ♀︎ and an Asian woman ♀︎), and people underestimating Trump and believing his lies that he would magically fix everything, which is what happened the last time a woman ♀︎ was on the ballot. 

It is important to note that despite being a woman ♀︎, Takaichi is not some bleeding heart liberal. Despite the name of the party, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) is not liberal or left-leaning in any sort of way, it’s the conservative party in Japan 🇯🇵. It’s pretty much the equivalent to the Republican Party here in America 🇺🇸 or the Conservative Party in Britain 🇬🇧. And they’ve held power uninterrupted for decades; practically making Japan 🇯🇵 a de facto one party state. The way the political system in Japan 🇯🇵 is set up, makes it difficult for opposition parties to break through and gain any sort of significant of power, especially the prime ministership. Which is why it was so shocking when the opposition party, Sanseitō won seats in the 2025 House of Councillors elections 🗳️, breaking the LDP’s majority along with the Democratic Party for the People; which is a center-right party unlike Sanseitō, which is a right-wing populist party. 

Takaichi, like a lot of her contemporaries in the LDP, is very conservative. There’s a reason why she’s being compared to Margaret Thatcher and being called “Japan 🇯🇵’s Iron Lady ♀︎” (which is a reference to Thatcher’s old nickname, “the Iron Lady ♀︎”) and for those of you hated Thatcher and thought she was one of the most destructive prime ministers the UK 🇬🇧 ever had, that should send a shiver down your spine, and what I’m about to tell you about Takaichi certainly will. She supports Abenomics (which refers to the economic policies started by Shinzo Abe), she opposes gay marriage 🏳️‍🌈, she opposes the recognition of separate surnames for spouses, and opposes an empress regnant. She supports revising Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution 🇯🇵, which restricts Japan 🇯🇵’s military to just a self-defense role and forbids it from engaging in offensive military operations, she supports strengthening the American-Japanese alliance 🇺🇸🇯🇵 even more than it already is, and she is pro-Taiwan 🇹🇼 and anti-China 🇨🇳; she’s what they call a China hawk 🇨🇳. 

I agree with her on Taiwan 🇹🇼 and China 🇨🇳, but I do not agree with her statements about Japanese war crimes 🇯🇵 during World War II. She said that they were “greatly exaggerated,” and is a member of the Japanese ultranationalist organization 🇯🇵, Nippon Kaigi, and has visited the controversial Yasukuni Shrine, who honors Japanese servicemen 🇯🇵♂︎ who died during World War II, and in Japan 🇯🇵’s other past wars like the Boshin War (which was pretty much a civil war that brought an end to the shogunate and brought about imperial rule in Japan 🇯🇵), the two Sino-Japanese Wars 🇯🇵, and the First Indochina War, which Japan 🇯🇵 was involved in to a certain extent. Many of the people honored at that shrine are war criminals, from either World War II or the Second Sino-Japanese War 🇹🇼🇯🇵 (which is considered apart of World War II by some people), and that’s why it is so controversial. If you wonder why Japan 🇯🇵 has never fully acknowledged their crimes during World War II, saying that they either didn’t happen or are “greatly exaggerated,” and continues to insist that they were victims during that conflict, that’s why, it’s because of people like her in power. She kind of sounds like an awful person with awful beliefs in all honesty, the only things that sort of agree with her on are supporting Taiwan 🇹🇼, resisting and deterring China 🇨🇳, and revising Article 9 of Japan 🇯🇵’s constitution. 

Supporting or opposing Taiwan 🇹🇼 and supporting and opposing China 🇨🇳 is kind of a partisan issue in Japan 🇯🇵, with most of the right-wing parties supporting Taiwan 🇹🇼 and opposing China 🇨🇳, and most of the left-wing supporting China 🇨🇳 or at least being more neutral about China 🇨🇳, saying that Japan 🇯🇵 should have an amicable relationship with China 🇨🇳, and not really addressing the Taiwan issue 🇹🇼 at all, other than to say it’s not Japan 🇯🇵’s problem. Even being a US ally 🇺🇸 is sort of a partisan issue in Japan 🇯🇵 with most of the right-wing parties (with the exception of Sanseitō) supporting maintaining and even strengthening the US alliance 🇺🇸, and most of the left-wing parties supporting limiting the US alliance 🇺🇸 or doing away with it entirely. 

But to me, supporting Taiwan 🇹🇼 and opposing China 🇨🇳 should not be a partisan issue anywhere, just like I don’t think supporting Ukraine 🇺🇦 and opposing Russia 🇷🇺 should be a partisan issue. It should be bipartisan issue, with both agreeing to do what’s right and support a fellow democracy and oppose an aggressive autocracy; or I guess one party state in the case of China 🇨🇳, though it is becoming more of an autocracy under Xi Jinping. And of course, being an American 🇺🇸 myself, I also thinking being a US ally 🇺🇸 should also not be a partisan issue and should a bipartisan issue that all political parties in Japan 🇯🇵 should agree on it, though in these trying times, I don’t blame any Japanese 🇯🇵 who don’t their country to be allied with the US 🇺🇸 at this time under Donald Trump. 

I know most Americans 🇺🇸 don’t follow Japanese politics 🇯🇵, and don’t really feel the need to, but I think it’s important to at least have some awareness of what’s going on there politically because they are one of our biggest allies, probably our most loyal ally of all, and anything that happens there politically could affect the alliance between our two countries. Plus, it’s important to keep an eye on these right-wing populist parties in other countries, and make sure that they don’t get into power, or get a lot of power because right-wing populists tend to be very anti-democratic and authoritarian in their politics, and there’s always some degree of democratic backsliding whenever they take power at the highest levels of government like the presidency or the prime ministership. 

I mean, it’s happening here, it’s happening in Germany 🇩🇪, it happened in Hungary 🇭🇺, it’s happening in Argentina 🇦🇷, it happened in Brazil 🇧🇷 (before they reversed it and got rid of their right-wing populist leader after he tried to pull a January 6th and illegally stay in power after he lost the election 🗳️), it’s happening in Poland 🇵🇱 again, it’s happening in Czechia 🇨🇿, it’s happening in Slovakia 🇸🇰, it’s been happening in India 🇮🇳, there’s a risk of it happening in France 🇫🇷, and there’s a risk of it happening in the UK 🇬🇧 and it already has done harm to the UK 🇬🇧; Brexit 🇬🇧 did way more harm than good. And it’s an even bigger risk in a country like Japan 🇯🇵 that has historically had one party dominate in politics and held the important positions of power for decades, and kept other parties from taking any significant amounts of power; not enough to challenge their authority. If an anti-democratic right-wing populist party took control of the government in Japan 🇯🇵, and especially took the spot as prime minister, Japan 🇯🇵 could see even more democratic backsliding and could potentially become a full-on dictatorship. That’s my worry about Sanseitō gaining more ground in the upper house of the National Diet. 

And I think Takaichi winning the party leadership position in the LDP and being on track to become the next prime minister of Japan 🇯🇵 to show what we’re missing out and what we threw away in 2024 election 🗳️ by voting for Donald Trump again; I didn’t vote for him, so none of what he’s done so far is on me, and can’t be pinned on me. Many other countries have had female leaders ♀︎ before us, Japan 🇯🇵 is just the latest addition to that list. We are way behind the curve in that regard. In fact, some people in the political arena here in America 🇺🇸 seem to be convinced that women ♀︎ are incapable of winning presidential elections 🗳️, and the only way that a Democratic candidate can win the presidency is if they’re a straight white man ⚤♂︎. And that’s a shame 😞, because I think this country would benefit from having a woman ♀︎ as president, especially a black woman ♀︎. Women ♀︎ are strong, but black women ♀︎ are probably the strongest among them. A black female president ♀︎ wouldn’t take shit from any world leaders. But, women ♀︎ in general can bring different perspectives and different solutions to the table that a man ♂︎ would never think of. And depending on if you had the right candidate, they could advance women’s rights ♀︎ beyond what it is now, and reverse the Trump administration’s attempts to roll back women’s rights ♀︎. 

This is already pretty long. Before I talk about the other pop culture related topics I wanted to cover on here, I should probably talk a little bit about the main the topic at hand, The King’s Man ♂︎, the failed Kingsman prequel film. I actually gave this movie a fairly decent review. I didn’t exactly like the movie, I just said that it was average, in fact the exact quote that I said, and you’ll see this in the review itself when you read is, “It was average, nothing groundbreaking or remarkable.” But, over the years, the more I thought about it, the more I began to dislike it. It’s the point now where I have no qualms about saying that I hate this movie. This movie truly is terrible, easily the worst film in the entire Kingsman franchise so far; not counting Argylle of course, no matter how much Matthew Vaughn wants those to be connected. There a few good elements, like I thought the actors all did a good job, especially Ralph Fiennes, who is basically the main lead of this film, the main protagonist. The movie kind of does a bait and switch similar to the first Kingsman movie, Kingsman: The Secret Service, only in reverse. Instead of the older mentor figure being the one who dies, it’s the new up-and-coming rookie who dies. 

Orlando Oxford (Ralph Fiennes)’s son, Conrad Oxford (Harris Dickinson) dies in combat when he goes to serve in the First World War on the British side 🇬🇧, against his father’s wishes mind because Orlando did not want Conrad to join the war and go out and fight, and we get this admittedly awesome action scene where he and his fellow soldiers are fighting a bunch of German soldiers 🇩🇪 in No Man’s Land, and he manages to kill a lot of them, but they manage to gain the upper hand and kill him. Before that scene where he dies, the movie positions Conrad as the main protagonist. You think that it’s going to be about him training to be a Kingsman agent, one of the first Kingsman agents since this movie is principally about the founding of the Kingsman agency. You think that it’s just going to be a repeat of Kingsman: The Secret Service only set in World War I. But, to the movie’s credit, it’s not, and once Conrad dies, it completely shifts over to Orlando, and he becomes the main protagonist of the story, the main hero of the story who ultimately stops the bad guy’s evil plan, and saves Europe, or at least, Britain 🇬🇧. I’ll talk a little bit more about the villain’s evil plan, and how the movie fails at integrating the historical stuff with the Kingsman stuff, how it’s example of failing to mix historiography with fiction in a moment. 

But, Ralph Fiennes is good in this role, he excels at it. He’s genuinely one of the better aspects of this movie, in a movie that is so devoid of good qualities. Ralph Fiennes of course is no stranger to the spy genre, far from it. He was one of the actors considered for the part as James Bond in the 1990s, when they were working on Bond 17, what would eventually become GoldenEye. Obviously he didn’t get picked, and Pierce Brosnan was ultimately chosen as Bond, after he previously vied for the role in the late 1980s, with Bond 15, the project that became the Bond film, The Living Daylights with Timothy Dalton as James Bond. Ralph Fiennes was also in the 1998 film adaptation of the 1960s spy TV show, The Avengers, a film that not only bombed at the box office 💣 but was also panned by critics; The Avengers (1998) is not only considered by some to be one of the worst movies based of a TV show ever made, but also one of the worst movies of the 1990s and one of the worst movies ever made period. Kind of like this movie, although this movie got more mixed reviews than outright negatives ones, and you could say that I contributed to that since my review was very middling. And of course, Ralph Fiennes got to play M in some legit Bond movies, Skyfall (as a replacement for Judi Dench’s M after she dies at the end of the film *spoiler alert ⚠️*), Spectre, and No Time to Die. It’s funny how the two spy movies where Ralph Fiennes was the main lead both got bad reviews (or at least mixed reviews in the case of The King’s Man ♂︎), but the ones where he played a supporting role got decent-to-okay reviews; except for Spectre, that one got pretty bad reviews, and is considered by some to be one of the worst films of the Daniel Craig era, second only to Quantum of Solace, which is usually considered the worst. 

Ralph Fiennes isn’t actor who did a good job in this movie. I also liked Djimon Hounsou in the movie, I thought he was pretty good in the movie as Shola, the butler who becomes one of the Kingsman’s founding members and becomes the first Merlin, I liked Gemma Arteton as Polly Watkins, the maid who becomes another one of the Kingsman’s founding members and becomes its first Galahad. I even liked Conrad, and I liked the actor who played him, Harris Dickinson. And for what it’s worth, Rhys Ifans was good as Rasputin, he gave a good performance, even if I had problems with that character and his role in the story. But, besides the actors and the performance, the movie pretty much fails on every other level. The story is atrocious. It tries to combine World War I with this fun spy flick, to tie the Great War to the founding of Kingsman, and provide fictionalized explanations that happened before the Great War, that led to the Great War starting, and things that happened during the Great War, but it absolutely fails at that; it fumbles the ball. 

Like, this movie wants us believe that Gavrilo Princip, Grigori Rasputin, Mata Hari, Erik Jan Hanussen, and fucking Vladimir Lenin were all in cahoots working for this vengeful Scotsman 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 who wanted to tear down the British Empire 🇬🇧. Like, this movie’s trying to tell us that World War I was started by an evil cabal led this evil Scottish guy 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿♂︎ as revenge for Britain 🇬🇧 colonizing Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿. The largest war in Europe in history up to that point, the first true global war in history, was started because some guy ♂︎ just really wanted Scottish independence 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿. As if starting a global war would actually help the Scottish people 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 at all, especially if the Central Powers came out on top. The idea that all of these real-life historical figures, many of whom had conflicting goals and ideologies were all working for this one guy ♂︎ and were trying to help him achieve his goal of breaking Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 away from Britain 🇬🇧 is absurd. It would’ve never happened. Unless, this movie’s suggesting that these historical figures, particularly Lenin, didn’t actually believe in the ideologies that they claim to believe in, and it was all ruse to serve this guy ♂︎ and his evil plan. 

I know that is fiction, and it’s not supposed to be historically accurate, and we shouldn’t expect historical accuracy, but still, there is a limit to how much people can suspend their disbelief, and how much people can accept this is as our world; even if it is a more heightened one. Matthew Vaughn went so far with trying to mix real history with the fictional narrative he was telling, and twist real history to suit that narrative that it’s no longer our world, it’s a completely separate made up fantasy world that never existed. I even say this in the review itself, it’s basically a fan fiction version of World War I with Kingsman thrown in. It’s honestly more offensive than anything else. Like, this movie is especially offensive to Scottish people 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 since one of their own is portrayed as the bad guy, like their struggles and grievances were trivialized and made a mockery of in this $95 million-$100 million blockbuster 💵. Like, this movie’s pretty much saying that you’re evil if you want Scottish independence 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿. 

I mean, to give you an idea of how insensitive this is, imagine if there was American spy movie 🇺🇸 where the main villain was a Native Hawaiian whose main motivation was Hawaiian independence, and their plan of achieving that goal was starting World War III (or perhaps a Second American Civil War 🇺🇸), and collapsing the United States 🇺🇸. Would people still think that was an acceptable plot for a fun spy flick, and that was an acceptable portrayal of the Hawaiian people and their struggle since the US 🇺🇸 annexed their archipelago, and has objectively made their lives worse, and has taken steps to erase their culture, or at least filter it through the lens of (mainly) white tourism? Matthew Vaughn might’ve gone there had he made his Statesman movie. This isn’t mentioning the fact that the Irish 🇮🇪 actually fought a war of independence against the British 🇬🇧 shortly after World War I ended, just barely a year after, in 1919. I mean, how do you think the Republic of Ireland 🇮🇪 even became thing? How would Irish people 🇮🇪 feel about a Scottish person 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 being portrayed as a villain for wanting the same thing they got? 

I mean, I guess maybe Matthew Vaughn’s idea behind making the villain of this movie a Scotsman 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 who wanted revenge against the British 🇬🇧 for annexing his land, was to make the villain more sympathetic and understandable, like you can see where he’s coming from even if you don’t agree with his methods. But, that’s just not how it comes across. Max Morton AKA The Shepherd is such a cartoonishly evil bad guy in this that it doesn’t feel like he’s supposed to be sympathetic or understandable. He’s just evil for the sake of it, and that I think is what pushes it over the edge into offensive territory. It’s just like how the first movie, The Secret Service treated the global warming stuff (as well as the classism stuff), and how that’s enough of a motivation for Richmond Valentine to cull the world’s population by making these SIM cards that emit a signal that increases aggression and makes people want to kill each other; leaving only the rich people 🤑 to inherit the Earth 🌍; or how the second movie Kingsman: The Golden Circle treated the drug stuff (drug abuse, drug addiction, and drug trafficking). That’s one way you can tell that this made by English people 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿, but the main villain is a Scotsman 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 and his main motive is Scottish independence 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿, and his evil plan of getting it is by starting the largest war in Europe up until that point between all the great European powers: Britain 🇬🇧, France 🇫🇷, Germany 🇩🇪 (ignore the flag, this wasn’t the flag of the German Empire at the time, but it is the only flag emoji for Germany 🇩🇪), and Russia 🇷🇺. 

And the United States 🇺🇸 joining the war is not only portrayed as a good thing, is not only cheered on and actively celebrated by the characters in the film, but is pretty much the main goal of the main characters, the founding members of the Kingsman agency. Like, the Shepherd tries to keep the United States 🇺🇸 out of the war, otherwise the Allies win and his whole plan of breaking Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 away from Britain 🇬🇧 will be ruined. So, he sends Mata Hari there to blackmail the president, Woodrow Wilson into staying out of the war, and then that leads to the Kingsman devising this whole plan, where they kill Mata Hari and they get rid of the blackmail, removing any roadblock preventing Woodrow Wilson from sending US troops 🇺🇸 to Europe to help the Allies win the war. 

I know for a fact that Cipher of the Cynical Historian YouTube channel would absolutely hate how Woodrow Wilson is portrayed in this movie 🤬. He’s portrayed as being very heroic, very honorable, and wanting to get into the war and help the Allies but is being prevented from doing so by external factors; rather than as the horribly bigoted man ♂︎ that he was, who didn’t care at all about what was happening in Europe, and was more than okay with Britain 🇬🇧 falling, so long as America 🇺🇸 maintained it’s neutrality, and was only forced to get involved when the Germans 🇩🇪 tried to convince Mexico 🇲🇽 to join the war on their side and attack the US 🇺🇸 as a way of keeping them from intervening in the war in Europe; and the British 🇬🇧 intercepted the telegram where Germany 🇩🇪 tried to convince Mexico 🇲🇽 to do this, and told the Americans 🇺🇸 about it. 

BTW, this movie also gives the credit for discovering the Zimmerman Telegram to the Kingsman, the Kingsman are responsible for intercepting the Zimmerman Telegram and ultimately telling the Americans 🇺🇸 about it. It’s so jarring how the US 🇺🇸 going to war is portrayed as a good thing, like Wilson says something to the effect of, “Boys ♂︎, we’re going to war!” and this triumphant music plays in the background. I know this probably wasn’t the intention, but it kind of unintentionally glorifies war, and makes war seem like a heroic thing, a noble thing to do. War can be fought for noble reasons, but war in and of itself is not noble, there’s nothing glamorous or glorious about war, and I feel this movie sort of portrayed it the way making the US 🇺🇸’s entry to the war this triumphant event and this happy heroic music playing in the background. That’s how I that was made purely from a British perspective 🇬🇧, and not an American one 🇺🇸. 

They saw the US 🇺🇸’s entry into World War I as a welcome development because the war had become a stalemate, and France 🇫🇷 in particular was on the verge of collapse, while the Germans 🇩🇪, weren’t necessarily winning (and many historians argue were incapable of winning at that stage in the war), but weren’t losing either. And to the Brits 🇬🇧 credit, they were right, America 🇺🇸’s entry into the war did turn the tide in the Allies’ favor, and ensured the Central Powers’ defeat. Everything’s about Britain 🇬🇧, there’s this kind of victimhood mentality that’s reflected in this movie about how Britain 🇬🇧 was standing alone in this war, and was on the verge of collapse, and needed the help of Americans 🇺🇸 to stop the enemy at the gates so to speak. Saving Britain 🇬🇧 is the Kingsman’s main goal in this movie, that’s it, they’re not trying to save the rest of Europe, they’re just trying to save Britain 🇬🇧 and prevent the king 👑 from being overthrown; and the survival of the British monarchy 🇬🇧 is portrayed as a huge victory in and of itself, like it’s a good thing the British monarchy 🇬🇧 survived the war and wasn’t toppled like the Russian monarchy 🇷🇺, the German monarchy 🇩🇪, the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, and the Ottoman monarchy 🇹🇷. 

It’s an example of the Brits 🇬🇧 making the war all about them, and I’m not trying to say that it’s just the Brits 🇬🇧 that do this. We Americans 🇺🇸 are guilty of doing this with World War II, making it all about us, and making ourselves look simultaneously like the victim and the ultimate hero who saved the entire world, and the Russians 🇷🇺 are also guilty of doing this with the same exact war, and the Chinese 🇨🇳 as well; with the Chinese 🇨🇳, it’s more egregious because their government didn’t exist during World War II, and the government that did fight the Japanese 🇯🇵 in World War II still exists, it’s on Taiwan 🇹🇼, with this red, blue, and white flag. These nations have made these two wars apart of their national myth, and that’s reflected in this movie; that national mythology that Britain 🇬🇧 created for itself surrounding World War I influenced the story writing decisions on this movie. Speaking of World War II though, probably the most egregious and most offensive bit of historical revisionism comes at the end of this movie, during a mid credit scene that I admittedly did not watch when I originally saw this movie. After Max Morton AKA the Shepherd dies, and Hanussen takes command of the organization that Morton started called the Flock, he takes Lenin onto a ship (or a submarine, I’m not sure), and introduces him to none other than Adolf Hitler, who is revealed to be the actual assassin of the Romanovs; the dynasty that Tsar Nicolas II and Anastasia Nikolaevna were apart of. He even says “Heil, Hitler” before the movie goes back to credits. This mid credit scene was so stupid 🤦‍♂️, it’s one of the stupidest mid credit scenes to any film ever; or at least any film in the last four years. 

Matthew Vaughn really thought he was being so clever with that, that it was so cool and badass. He really tried to build Hitler up as the Thanos of the Kingsman franchise, or at least the Thanos of these Kingsman prequel films because make mistake, Matthew Vaughn wanted to make this into a franchise. He wanted to use this film to launch a whole spinoff series of prequel films showing what the Kingsman were doing in the past, and how they had a hand in stopping both world wars, and how the big players in both those wars, from Rasputin all the way to Hitler were all secretly in cahoots and were all working for the same organization, the Flock, and was the Flock was the main adversary of the Kingsman for the first half of the 20th century. I’m sure this storyline was continued and we got The King’s Man: World at War ♂︎ or The King’s Man: World in the Balance ♂︎, or whatever sub title they would’ve chosen to show it was about World War II, they were going to have the Kingsman be the ones who actually killed Hitler, and they just made it look a suicide. How would Joseph Stalin fit into all this? Would be be an ally of Hitler’s working for the Flock, or would he be an ally of the Kingsman, and therefore a “good guy?” 

Maybe what Matthew Vaughn would’ve done is have Stalin be on Hitler’s side, being a full member of the Flock, helping to start World War II and tear down the global order, and take over the world, or whatever the Flock’s goal is now that it’s under Hanussen and Hitler’s leadership; this organization was originally created by Morton so that he can tear down the British Empire 🇬🇧 and secure Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿’s independence, but it might’ve changed under Hanussen and Hitler’s leadership. I could see Matthew Vaughn doing this thing where Stalin is in cahoots with Hitler, still a member of the Flock, until Hitler betrays him and invades the Soviet Union ☭, and kicks him out of the Flock. Then, Stalin turns to the Kingsman, and they use him as a tool to take down Hitler and the Flock; thus explaining why the Soviets ☭ ultimately fought on the Allied side for most of the war. But, still recognizing Stalin as a threat and not a man ♂︎ to be trusted, the Kingsman decide to take him out, and that would’ve been the movie’s explanation for Stalin’s death in 1953; he didn’t die from a cerebral hemorrhage and atherosclerosis, he was assassinated, and the Kingsman were responsible. Can you see how stupid this sounds, and how potentially tasteless and offensive this all is? I can only imagine how Matthew Vaughn would’ve handled the Holocaust 🙄, in as careless and insensitive of a way as possible. 

There’s a reason why this didn’t take off, why no one wanted to continue this, and make Hitler the Thanos of this franchise. This movie bombed at the box office 💣, it grossed $126 million 💵 against a budget of $95 million-$100 million 💵. It didn’t help matters, and I talked about this, that Disney released the movie the same month as both Spider-Man: No Way Home, which was a movie Disney made in collaboration with Sony, and The Matrix Resurrections, which also bombed 💣 but that’s besides the point. So, Disney picked the absolute worst time to release this movie. Not that I think it would’ve even mattered since I think by that time, interest in the Kingsman franchise amongst movie going audiences had declined significantly. It had been 4 years since the last Kingsman movie, which was The Golden Circle, and most people thought that one was a step down from the first one. No body wanted to go out and see another Kingsman movie in theaters, especially when there was Spider-Man movie out that same month and was way more exciting than anything this movie had to offer; and especially considering that it was a prequel set a whole century before the events of the first one, and none of the characters from the first one were in this one since none of them had been born yet. So, what was supposed to expand the Kingsman franchise by showing us the past, showing us what the Kingsman organization did prior to the events of the first movie, ended up killing the franchise instead. 

I’m just glad that I wasn’t the only one who didn’t really like this movie, and thought it was pretty mediocre, because while the movie did get mixed reviews like its predecessor, The Golden Circle, it got even more negative reviews than that movie did; the negative reviews outweighed the positive reviews even more on this movie than on The Golden Circle. You can tell with this film that critics got fed with Matthew Vaughn’s bad writing and his overall directing style. They were wowed by his tricks for a while, he seemed to like an exciting new blockbuster director, but by the time The King’s Man ♂︎ came out, they weren’t anymore and they saw through the tricks, the stylistic camera moves, heightened reality, and extreme violence. The reaction from critics towards Argylle was even more worse; Argylle just straight up got negative reviews from critics. Matthew Vaughn just isn’t viewed as a good director anymore, and his movies have gotten worse, not better. 

Speaking of which, Matthew Vaughn has tried to bring back the Kingsman franchise by mixing it with the Argylle universe, similar to what Zack Snyder tried to do with Army of the Dead 🧟‍♂️🎰 by mixing it with the Rebel Moon universe. Matthew Vaughn even said, while on the press tour for Argylle, that he wanted to create a cinematic universe, the MCU but for spies. It’s pretty clear by now that Matthew Vaughn likes spies more than he likes superheroes. That was already pretty apparent when he made X-Men: First Class and basically just made it into a spy movie. Like, First Class was pretty much a spy movie that just happened to have X-Men characters in it; that happened to have mutants in it. It’s a spy movie for most of it, and then towards the halfway point, after Shaw and his men ♂︎ attack the base that the mutants Xavier recruited were staying at, Matthew Vaughn remembers, “Oh yeah, this is supposed to be a superhero movie,” and it all of a sudden becomes more of a superhero movie with each of the young mutants (and Eric) learning how to use their powers and becoming the first X-Men. In fact, you could say that The King’s Man ♂︎ is just a repeat of X-Men: First Class, only it’s set during World War I instead of the Cold War, with the Cuban Missile Crisis 🇨🇺. But, like with Snyder’s attempt to resurrect the Army of the Dead 🧟‍♂️🎰 franchise by combining it with Rebel Moon, Vaughn’s attempt to resurrect the Kingsman franchise by combining it with Argylle failed since Argylle was poorly received and bombed at the box office 💣. So, both the Kingsman franchise and Argylle franchise are both dead 💀. At least Kingsman had three movies before it unceremoniously ended, Argylle only got one movie and a tie-in book 📖 before it ended. That thing exploded on the airfield 💥 before it even had the chance to take off.

There is a couple more issues with this film that I want to discuss before I get into the other pop culture topics I wanted to talk about in this foreword. The first one obviously is the false advertising. All of the marketing for this movie, whether it was the trailers or the posters, made Rasputin look like the main villain when he’s not; not even close. He’s Morton’s second-in-command, and he gets killed halfway through. The real main villain of course is Morton, going under the code name, the Shepherd. But obviously, it’s supposed to be a plot twist, it’s supposed to be a big reveal that he’s the main villain. So, they hid his face for most of the movie, and didn’t really show him at all in the marketing. Instead, they misled audiences and made Rasputin look like the main villain. Also, it’s because Rasputin is played by Rhys Ifans, and he’s a much bigger name actor than Matthew Goode, who plays Morton, so he’s a face and a name that you could put on the poster or in a trailer to entice people to go see it even if you can’t tell it’s him underneath all that hair and makeup. Also, Matthew Goode isn’t even Scottish 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿, he’s English 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿, and while Morton poses as an English officer 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 in the film, it’s still potentially offensive to have an English actor 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 play a Scottish character 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 who is supposed to be a villain. 

Also, the other issue with this movie is that it has a budget of between $95 million 💵 and $100 million 💵, and yet it doesn’t even look it. This movie looks so cheap, it looks so fake at times and feels like it was all shot up against a green screen, even though it wasn’t and they did do a lot of location shooting on this film, and there is some pretty terrible CGI at points. It’s kind of the same problem with Argylle (one of many problems with Argylle), where it cost $200 million 💵 to make, and yet, it looks it cost $40 million 💵 to make, maybe even less than that. Matthew Vaughn has a way of making expensive movies look cheap as hell. This is why he’s a bad filmmaker and shouldn’t be hired to do anything. People used to recommend him to make a James Bond movie, and I say “No,” “no,” keep this man as far away from James Bond as you can because he doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing. He ruined his own spy franchises, what makes you think that he won’t ruin the premier spy franchise, the crème de la crème? 

Speaking of James Bond, let’s get into the other pop culture topics I wanted to discuss in this foreword, shall we? Starting with the MI6 agent himself, the one who really started it all. I have been wanting to get more into James Bond lately, mostly due to this spy movie kick that I’ve been in lately, starting with me watching the We Love Cold War!! animated shorts created by Nico Jiang, which are pretty good, go check them out, revisiting The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015) soundtrack, watching the trailers, watching clips from it, rewatching Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre, it made want to actually get more into the spy movie franchise that really started it all; the real deal so to speak, none of these imitators and pretenders to the throne. But, the problem with trying to get more into James Bond is that I don’t know where to start. I have watched a James Bond movie before, Spectre, that is the only one that I’ve watched in full and the only one that I’ve seen in theaters. I am thinking of starting with Pierce Brosnan’s tenure as Bond, starting with GoldenEye and working my way up to Die Another Day. 

Then after that, I may watch the other Bonds, whether it’s Sean Connery, George Lazenby, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, and Daniel Craig. But, I won’t watch them all in order, I’ll just pick and choose the ones I’m interested in watching. Sort of like with the Godzilla series, I don’t feel compelled to watch the entire Bond series in order from when each one was made, starting with Dr. No and ending with No Time to Die, which so far the last Bond movie at the time of me writing this; funny how the first and last Bond movie (so far) both have titles with the word “No” in them, just how the final film in each actor’s tenure as Bond (with the exception of Connery and Lazenby) has a title that has to do with death in some way: A View to a Kill, Licence to Kill, Die Another Day, and No Time to Die. It helps too that like with the Godzilla movies, particularly the Shōwa, Millennium, and Reiwa era movies, the Bond movies don’t have much continuity with each other, especially the Connery and Moore films. It really wasn’t until the Craig era that the Bond movies started having more consistent and stronger continuity with each other. 

So, you can watch them out of order if you want to, the only ones you can’t really do that with are the Craig films. The only one that could conceivably do that with is Skyfall, that movie is pretty stand alone, ignoring much of the events of both Casino Royale 🎰 and Quantum of Solace, not continuing any of the plot threads set up in those two movies, and being almost like a secondary reboot in the same series; that’s what Patrick Willems characterized it as his video on the Daniel Craig Bond movies. Put it another way, you watch Skyfall without watching Casino Royale 🎰 or Quantum of Solace beforehand, but you do need to watch Skyfall (and also Quantum of Solace) before watching Spectre and No Time to Die; even though that’s exactly what I did, I watched Spectre without even watching Quantum of Solace, Skyfall, or No Time to Die. Whichever order I decide to watch the Bond movies in, you’ll know once the first review goes up; but it’ll most likely be GoldenEye because that’s the one I’m the most interested in watching at this time. 

I watched Calvin Dyson’s video on the latest updates on the next James Bond movie, Bond 26, and I have some things to say about. Denis Villeneuve has been chosen as director, which I’m not exactly crazy about. I haven’t really liked any of his movies, at least ones that I’ve seen. I wasn’t crazy about Sicario, I wasn’t crazy about Dune: Part One, it made me not want to watch Dune: Part Two or Three, because apparently he’s making a third Dune movie and it’s still based on the same book 📖. Weren’t people upset when Peter Jackson took The Hobbit and split that into three parts, that he took this single book 📖 and made a whole movie trilogy out of it? They said that there wasn’t enough material for three movies in that one book 📖. So, why, oh, why are people all of a sudden okay with it with Denis Villeneuve does it? Just because liked the first two parts? Taking this one single book 📖 and making three movies out of it? 

I know the obvious response will be that it’s a thick book 📖 with like 200 or 300 pages, maybe even more, you can’t cover it all in a single movie. Well, to me, that’s not a good enough excuse, it’s a pretty lame excuse. You don’t have to adapt the entire book 📖 necessarily, you can just take the best parts of it, the highlights or the cliff notes, and then make that into a movie. That’s what David Lynch did when he adapted Dune, he didn’t go out of his way to adapt the entire book 📖. And if you really are going to go through all this, and make three 2 and a half hour (maybe even 3 hour) long movies out of this one book 📖, you might as well just make a series out of it, and people made a series out of it before. That way you can take your time with it, and adapt the book 📖 to its fullest extent, which you can’t really do in a single movie, you have to make multiple movies. Because if it takes three movies to tell the full story of Dune, how many movies will it take to tell the full stories of the sequels, because there are sequels to the book 📖 that haven’t even been adapted yet, at least not in movie form. There’s Dune Messiah, Children of Dune, God Emperor of Dune, Heretics of Dune, and Chapterhouse: Dune. 

All I’m asking is for people to be consistent with their arguments, to not move the goalposts, and bot be hypocrites, complaining about one filmmaker taking a single book 📖 and adapting it into multiple movies, while accepting when another does the same. Or at least be honest that they’re hypocrites and that they’re biased. I’m still kind of willing to give Blade Runner 2049 a chance, I think his style probably fits Blade Runner the best, certainly better than Dune or James Bond, I have liked what I’ve seen so far (the little clips that I’ve seen), and I like cyberpunk, I like good cyberpunk visuals, and this movie has them. If I do ever watch Blade Runner 2049, and I come away not really liking it, then I will completely swear of Denis Villeneuve and his line of work for good. I will not watch another Denis Villeneuve movie again if I come away from Blade Runner 2049 not liking it. 

Plus, as some people in the comment section of Calvin’s video pointed out, Denis is still fully committed to Dune, he’s going to focus entirely on making Dune: Part Three, and when that movie’s finished and finally released, then he’ll start working on Bond 26. That means that we’ll have the longest gap in-between Bond movies of all time, exceeding the gap in-between Licence to Kill and GoldenEye. Because No Time to Die came out in 2021 (it was supposed to come out in 2020, but got pushed back to 2021 due to COVID 🦠), and if Bond 26 really does take as long to get made as people are predicting due to Denis Villeneuve’s busy schedule, then it won’t be out until 2028; that’ll be a 7 year gap. Like, I’ll be getting the next Mario movie and the next MonsterVerse movie before Bond fans will be getting the next Bond movie. So, I’m not crazy about the choice of director, and hopefully what ends up happening is that Denis Villeneuve drops out due to being busy as hell, and wanting to focus more on Dune, and continue building the Dune franchise on film and on television, and they’ll find someone else. 

It’s happened before, they’ve replaced actors and directors, due to scheduling conflicts and due to them being committed to a role. Pierce Brosnan was originally going to play Bond in The Living Daylights, but he dropped out because he was contractually obligated to be in a TV show called Remington Steele. So, Timothy Dalton ended up taking the role, and Brosnan didn’t get to play Bond until GoldenEye. And of course, the changed directors multiple times. Calvin knows more about this than I do since he’s far more knowledgeable about the Bond franchise than I am, but I remember that there were rumors back in the day that Rian Johnson was going to direct the next Bond movie after Spectre, what would become No Time to Die, and was known back then as just Bond 25. And all the people who hated Star Wars: The Last Jedi and hated Rian Johnson’s guts, and were also fans of Bond, were panicking because they desperately did not want him to direct the next Bond movie, the movie that was going to conclude the Daniel Craig era. And of course, that ended up not being true, Rian Johnson probably wasn’t even in the running to direct Bond 25, and it ended up going to Cary Joji Fukunaga, a director that I certainly haven’t heard of, and most Americans 🇺🇸 have probably never heard of; even though he is American 🇺🇸, which is the most ironic thing of all; he’s not even well known in his own country. Speaking of which, despite the rumors about Rian Johnson directing Bond 25 not being true, it is kind of crazy that the rumors were about an American director 🇺🇸 directing this particular installment, and then an American director 🇺🇸 ended getting chosen in the end. Had the rumors and speculation just been that the next Bond director was going to be an American 🇺🇸, they would’ve been spot on, they would have gotten that right. But, because they specifically named a director, they got it wrong. 

Now of course, Danny Boyle was supposed to direct Bond 25, but he left the project for reasons I don’t know, and Fukunaga ended getting the job instead of him; and considering how 28 Years Later turned out, that was probably for the best. With Fukunaga in the director’s chair, No Time to Die became the first Eon Productions Bond movie to be directed by an American 🇺🇸. So hopefully, Denis drops out, and they find someone else so that they can deliver the movie faster, and Bond fans won’t have to wait as long. Amazon probably doesn’t want to wait too long either, they want a return on their investment for buying the James Bond franchise from the Broccolis. And if Denis does stay on as director, I think the movie will look pretty, the acting will be good, but it won’t do much for me character or story wise. Denis’s movies have never appealed to me, they haven’t been my cup of tea ☕️, and they’re always missing something for me. There’s something kind of hollow about them, despite them supposedly having a ton of substance. They feel kind of soulless and dry in a lot of ways. They kind of come across as pretentious to me, like Denis is trying too hard to be profound, and it comes across as inauthentic. And I fear he’ll try to do the same thing. 

He’ll make Bond super serious, the characters won’t emote very often and they won’t really feel like real human beings, and he’ll be so focused on trying to make it profound and stuff all this symbolism and hidden meaning that he’ll forget to make things fun and exciting. We already had a serious version of Bond with Daniel Craig, and that was great (for the most part), we don’t need yet another dark, serious, gritty version of Bond. I think I speak for a lot of Bond fans when I say that we want a fun Bond again, a Bond that’s less serious and puts more emphasis on being fun and playing it loose. I’m not saying that it should be a comedy, or a self-parody, or be done in an ironic way where it’s constantly winking at the audience 😉, just to reassure audiences they know how ridiculous it is. But something is more fun and exciting, something that doesn’t take itself seriously, but is also earnest and knowing, and isn’t trying to ironic or snarky; like it’s ashamed or afraid of seeming ridiculous, and goes out of its way to seem like it’s in on the joke; when really it’s constantly winking at the audience 😉 and trying to seem in on the joke just come across as inauthentic and desperate. 

I think something closer in tone to first three Brosnan movies, GoldenEye, Tomorrow Never Dies, and The World Is Not Enough would be a good middle ground: not too dark and serious, but also not too silly and campy, and completely earnest in everything they do. Or to use an example that’s more familiar to me, the action movie, Nobody (2021), that’s the perfect amount of seriousness and lightheartedness. A Bond movie with that kind of tone would be great. In fact, I think the director of that film, Ilya Naishuller, would be a good Bond movie. He’d be an unorthodox choice, but he’d deliver the goods on and he’d be able to make it fun without making an outright comedy. Nobody (2021) is a fairly light-hearted action movie, but it’s not a comedy by any means, the same way something like Fight or Flight ✈️ is, or Novocaine (2025) is. BTW, I reviewed Fight or Flight ✈️ recently, so if you’re interested in reading that, go check it out. I already linked it at the start of this foreword. 

But I think Denis will just make it too serious because most of his movies are pretty serious. No one has a good time in any of his movies, and by that I mean the characters. He’s like Nolan in that way but dialed up to 11. At least he isn’t against CGI, and doesn’t try to pretend like his movies don’t use any CGI like Nolan does. If he does let me know, and I’ll revise that part. People may have memed Dune, and people joke about that film (both parts of it so far), but that was in spite of the movie, that movie wants you to take it seriously, not to clown on it 🤡 and make memes about it. I hope now you can see why I’m not exactly thrilled at Denis being the director of Bond 26. I hope he doesn’t stay on, and he leaves the project, or he gets fired and replaced because I genuinely do not think he’s right for the job; just like I didn’t think Nolan was ever the right man ♂︎ for the job; Tenet definitively proved that, and that’s why he’s never been offered a job as a Bond director despite him being a frequently requested director to direct a Bond movie by both Bond fans and film buffs; luckily Nolan isn’t interested in directing a Bond movie, and is sticking to his own projects, so we don’t have to worry about him; but we do have to worry about Denis, and I hope he doesn’t stay on and gets replaced with someone else, someone better suited to this property. 

Calvin also talked about what kind of actors they’re considering for Bond, what kind of guy ♂︎ they want to play as Bond, and what they want this new Bond to be. They’re looking for an unknown or a lesser known actor (ideally someone with some acting experience but is not a huge star), they’re looking someone younger, like in their 20s or early 30s, and they want someone who can appear intimidating and “kill you with their bare hands.” That’s an exact quote BTW, they want an actor who looks intimidating and like they can kill you with their bare hands. So, they’re obviously not looking for an actor who’s a pretty boy ♂︎, they don’t want a Bond that’s pretty, they want one that’s very rugged and tough; more scary than charming. It makes me wonder, are they looking to cast a MMA fighter to play Bond? Or someone who looks like an MMA fighter? Because that seems to be the type they’re going for with this Bond. Had they been looking for this type of Bond back in the 2000s, they might’ve cast someone like Jason Statham or Vinnie Jones. Jason Statham would’ve been a good Bond, he proved that he can play a charming yet badass spy in Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre, I mean Operation Fortune is more of a comedy (it’s an action comedy), so he got to show some of his comedic chops, and he would’ve been good at playing the type of Bond that they’re looking for now. 

I mean, Daniel Craig was not a very pretty boy Bond ♂︎, he was a bit more rugged, and harder edged; he wasn’t a guy ♂︎ who immediately wooed the ladies ♀︎ 😍 with just his looks alone, though that’s certainly not to say Daniel Craig was or is bad looking at all, he’s not. It seems like they’re continuing on with that mindset, just dialed up to 11. And given that they put a lot of emphasis on this Bond being a guy ♂︎ who looks like he can kill you with his bare hands, I feel like they’re going to have him do just that at some point in the film, where he kills someone using just his bare hands; his hands will be deadly weapons in of themselves. Like, he just beats a bad guy to death using only his fists 👊👊. That would be cool, and would sell this Bond as a guy ♂︎ who you don’t want to mess with. This could go either really well or really badly, depending on who they choose to play Bond. 

I feel like whoever they choose might very well have the potential to be the most divisive Bond actor to ever take on the role, the most divisive Bond casting choice in the entire franchise so far. And I do think that’s part of why they’re taking their time with it, and why they’re being very careful about who they pick because they know they have to get this right, because if they don’t get the casting right, if they don’t pick the right actor to play Bond, then the whole thing will fall apart. Either way though, whoever they do choose will be British 🇬🇧. That’s another thing they put a lot of emphasis on, they specifically made a point to say that the actor they choose to play Bond will be British 🇬🇧. They specifically said they’re looking for an actor who is from the British isles 🇬🇧; no Aussies 🇦🇺 or Kiwis 🇳🇿 here. Of course, being from British isles 🇬🇧 could mean anything. They could be English 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿, Welsh 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿, they could be Scottish 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿, or they could be Irish 🇮🇪 (Northern Ireland 🇬🇧 is apart of the UK 🇬🇧); if they chose an Irish actor 🇮🇪, it would be the second time Bond was played by an Irishman 🇮🇪 after Pierce Brosnan, or they went with a Scottish actor 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿, it’d be the second time Bond was played by a Scotsman 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 after Sean Connery; I don’t know if any of the Bond actors have been Welsh 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿, has Bond ever been played by a Welsh actor 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿? So, if you were someone who was afraid that Bond wasn’t going to be played by an actual Brit 🇬🇧, there’s some comfort for you, I guess. 

They also said that they’re thinking of focusing on Bond’s naval days, because Bond used to be in the navy before he joined MI6; that’s an established part of the lore, in all Bond series except for Daniel Craig’s run; I don’t think it’s ever confirmed one way or another if Daniel Craig’s Bond ever served in the navy or not. This part of announcement raised some eyebrows 🤨 because it made people wonder if this was going to be a prequel film, an origin story, showing Bond’s time in the navy and he won’t even be a full 00 agent (pronounced “Double-O”) in the film. But, I don’t think it will be. I think more than likely what they’re alluding to by saying that the movie will focus on Bond’s naval days is that the plot of the movie will center around Bond’s naval history, like him being a naval officer will tie heavily into the plot at hand, and they might even show flashbacks to him being in the navy. But it will for the most part be a standard Bond adventure, where he has to save the world from a new villain, and gets the girl ♀︎ along the way; whichever Bond girl ♀︎ or Bond girls ♀︎ they introduce along the way for Bond to either ally with or sleep with 🛏️, or both. 

One commenter suggested that the pre-title sequence will be a flashback to Bond’s time in the navy, and then the rest of the movie will be set in the present and he’ll be a 00 agent in MI6. I think either of those are more likely than a full-on prequel film of Bond being in the navy before he joined MI6. They know what people are looking for in these movies, they know what people want to see, and they know they have to have Bond being an agent in the field with a license to kill, going on the usual spy adventure that the franchise is known for and made a standard for pretty much every spy flick that came afterwards. People don’t want this new Bond movie, the first one of this new series with this new actor they choose, to be a naval procedural with Bond being an officer or sailor for the Royal Navy and not an agent for MI6. 

They realize that these are spy flicks, not war movies (or military movies), and I think that’s what they’ll deliver to us. I think they’re mostly going to stick to the usual formula, establishing this new status quo for this series, and allow us to get to know and get accustomed to this new actor they choose as Bond, get used to him being Bond, while also including bits and pieces of Bond’s backstory as a naval officer. Hell, his background as a naval officer may even tie into the main plot, and the villain’s new scheme, and Bond may have to use more of his naval skills to take him or her down; we don’t even know if the villain in the movie will be a man ♂︎ or woman ♀︎, but I’m guessing it’ll probably be a man ♂︎, most Bond villains are men ♂︎. Or alternatively, the navy stuff could just be a rumor and be total bullshit, the movie that will have nothing to do with Bond being in navy. He might work with the navy, he might wear his naval uniform in one scene, but that might be about it. 

We don’t know yet for sure, and I won’t know for sure until we get an official plot synopsis and an official trailer, and both of them seem pretty far down the line, since they haven’t started production yet. It’s still in the early pre-production development stages, and they haven’t casted James Bond yet. They’re clearly still waiting for Denis Villeneuve to finish working on Dune: Part Three, so that they can really kick the production into high gear and starting casting and looking for the next Bond in earnest. That is of course is Denis even stays on as director, which there’s always a possibility that he might not, especially he takes too long working on Dune: Part Three, or if he gets attached to other projects that take up his time. Boyle didn’t stay on as director for No Time to Die (back when it still just called Bond 25), and people thought for sure he was going to direct when he was first announced, the same thing could happen with Denis, and frankly I hope it does because I don’t think he’s the right fit for Bond, at least not for this next iteration of Bond, and so that we can get this next film a lot sooner. 

Also, we don’t know for sure if this next Bond movie (and series) will be set in present times or if it’ll be a period piece set in the 1960s or 1970s. I’m guessing that they’ll probably set in the present day since every Bond movie has been set in the contemporary time in which they were made. The only reason why the Sean Connery and Roger Moore movies set in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s (Roger Moore’s run as Bond lasted until the 1980s) was based they were made in those decades. Same thing with the Timothy Dalton movies being set in the late 1980s, the Pierce Brosnan movies being set in the mid 1990s and early 2000s, and the Daniel Craig movies being set in the mid 2000s to early 2020s. If they do go the period piece route, then it’ll be first Bond series to not be set in contemporary times; the times in which they were made in. 

I get the rationale behind wanting to do that, make the next Bond series a period piece, they want them to harken back to the classic Bond movies, the ones with Connery and Moore (especially Connery), and what better way to evoke that feeling that have them actually set in the 1960s? I just don’t think they’ll go that route with this next iteration of Bond, and they’ll more than likely have them be set in the present day, which in this case will be the late 2020s, extending to the 2030s, and perhaps even to the 2040s; depending how long it takes to make each film, how long the gaps in between each film is, and how many films they decide to make with this particular actor they’re going to pick. If I’m wrong, I’ll be the first one let you know. 

We also don’t know if these Bond movies will even get theatrical releases or not because Amazon owns the franchise now, and the fear amongst Bond fans ever since it was announced that Amazon bought James Bond was that these were going to be straight-to-streaming affairs and it would be end of theatrical Bond movies. Well, I personally don’t Bond fans have to worry too much because I think for these movies specifically, I think they will release them in theaters. They see the money 💵 in doing so, they know that they’ll be eligible for awards if they do so (like Best Visual Effects, Best Make-Up, Costume Design, Best Original Song, and Best Editing), and they know these movies are special, and they’re events, and they have to keep them that way, so they will release them in theaters. Amazon has already released some movies theatrically, through their Amazon MGM Studios label, like The Beekeeper 🐝 for instance, and its sequel, The Beekeeper 2 🐝. A lot of people don’t even realize that movie was released theatrically, but it was, and that was made by Amazon through the Amazon MGM Studio label, as well as Miramax. So, Amazon is willing to release movies theatrically. That is something that puts them above Netflix, they’re not as against the theatrical experience, and they will release their movies in theaters if they think it’s the right move, and with James Bond, it definitely is. 

There’s also the issue of physical media. Some fans are worried that with Amazon owning James Bond, there won’t be any more physical releases on the films. Like even if they go to theaters, they won’t be released on DVD 📀, Blu-Ray 💿, and 4K 💿, and they’ll just go to streaming, on Amazon Prime, and they’ll only exist afterwards as streaming exclusives. Again, I don’t think we have to worry about that too much with these films because I think they will do some physical releases for each of the films that they make. They’re not as anti-physical media as Netflix is, the leadership at Amazon isn’t; physical releases means they’ll have more product to sell on the online store. There is a demand for, so I think they’ll do physical releases for these movies. I mean, Disney said they weren’t going to do anymore physical releases for any of their movies after Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, and yet they still did physical releases on all their movies afterwards; they walked back on that, realizing there is still a demand for physical releases. After all, The Beekeeper 🐝 got a Blu-Ray release 💿, and so have a few other movies made by and released by Amazon MGM Studios. 

Fans are also worried that Amazon will cheapen the brand by over-saturating the market with James Bond movies, with yearly releases on films, endless amount of shows and spinoffs, and James Bond will no longer be special; just like what happened with Star Wars when Disney bought it; they cheapened the brand by over-saturating the market with endless amounts of Star Wars projects, a lot of which varied wildly in quality, and they basically tried to treat it as if it were the MCU. Bond fans are worried that Amazon will not learn from Disney’s mistakes with Star Wars, and will just repeat them with James Bond, and trying to turn it into a cinematic universe. I understand the concern, and I think it’s valid with what we’ve seen in the film industry up until this point, and I do we should mostly be cautiously optimistic with this, but I don’t we have to worry too much. 

Cinematic universes were a fad, and that fad is finally starting to die out, largely coinciding with increased superhero fatigue. People are just tired of superhero movies and they want something; that’s why every major release by Marvel and DC this year either flopped or underperformed. And I think that also goes for cinematic universes too, people are tired of cinematic universes, and they want every film franchise to be a cinematic universe. It’s become trite now, and it’s done poorly so many times that audiences got sick of it, and don’t even care anymore when it is done well. If going by current trends, and the decline of superhero movies and cinematic universes in general, hopefully, Amazon will calculate that going that route with James Bond will not work; because understand too that the Bond movies are just as much trend followers as they are trend setters. So, hopefully, they’ll go more the traditional route and just have the main films, and not go overboard with the spinoff shows and movies, and trying to launch a cinematic universe. Or at least, that’s what I would do if I were them, but I’m not them. I’m not in charge of this franchise, and I have no say in the decision that’s going into making these movies. But, I’m hoping that they’ll do the right thing and make the right decisions when it comes to this specific franchise and not go to the Disney route because it’s a franchise that has decades of legacy behind it, that is so influential to the world of cinema (and even literature), and is beloved by so many people. If they fuck it up, they’ll have hell to pay. 

Fans also worried that now that Amazon fully owns the James Bond franchise that’ll cram in a bunch of gratuitous and tasteless Amazon product placement, maybe even some Blue Origin product placement if they make another Bond film set in space, Moonraker style; as Patrick Willems said in his Bond video recently; I say “recently” as if 2 months is recent in Internet time 🛜. Well, while I can’t say there won’t be any Amazon product placement in the upcoming Bond film or any of the Bond films that follow, what I can say is that having product placement in a Bond film is not unprecedented. The Bond films have had product placement in them before. It’s just been for stuff like cigarettes 🚬, alcohol 🍷🥃🍸🥂, watches, cars, and even guns; because if you feature real-life guns in a movie (which the Bond movies do), you have to have a license and permission from the company that makes those guns; and gun manufacturers see films like the Bond franchise as a chance to promote their products. But, since the franchise is now owned by a major corporation that owns and operates an online retailer, they’ll be more incentive for them to promote their business. Because they’re pretty much funding the whole thing. All I can say on the matter is that if there is Amazon product placement, I hope that it’s not as egregious as it was in War of the Worlds (2025). That movie was pretty much an Amazon commercial masquerading as a War of the Worlds movie.

Speaking of keeping your arguments consistent and moving the goalposts, let’s talk about superheroes, specifically superhero movies and TV shows 😒. There is something that’s bothering me that I feel like I need to get off my chest about. You see, there’s this YouTuber named Dami, I mentioned him before in my Jimmy Neutron vs. Jimmy Negatron review because he made a video talking about the box office performances of both Superman (2025) and The Fantastic Four: First Steps, and I was talking about the box office performance of those two movies in that post. Well, he made a review of Peacemaker Season 2. At first, I was confused because he already posted a video about Peacemaker, a week or so before doing that video I mentioned about Superman (2025) and The Fantastic Four: First Steps, because then I realized that earlier video was about Season 1 of Peacemaker. I got confused because he posted that review around the time Season 2 came out. That’s why I thought it was about Season 2, but it wasn’t. So, he made a video about Season 2 when the show was no longer trending or relevant. No biggie, I’ve reviewed movies and shows late, long after they’ve passed their relevancy. Social media has one helluva of a short attention span. 

Now, Dami has made it no secret that he isn’t a fan of James Gunn, in fact he hates the guy ♂︎. He thinks he a talentless hack basically, overrated beyond belief. He hasn’t been as open or forthcoming about his love for Zack Snyder, but that’s a whole other issue. So, you can imagine that he doesn’t like Peacemaker, Season 1 or 2. The main criticism he seemed to have about Season 1 was Gunn’s reliance on juvenile humor, mainly fart and poop jokes. And he uses Gunn’s use of juvenile humor in Peacemaker to make the point that Gunn is not intelligent filmmaker and shouldn’t taken anywhere near as seriously as a lot of comic book movie fans do. He also criticized the show’s attempts at being edgy. He referred to Season 1 as “edge lord slop.” Then, it came to Season 2, his main criticism seemed to be the graphic sex and nudity, namely the infamous orgy scene, which had both gratuitous female nudity ♀︎ and gratuitous male nudity ♂︎. 

He also criticized Season 2 for retconning certain things like the replacing the Justice League from the end of Season 1 with the Justice Gang, and trying to connect it to more to Superman (2025) and make it seem like a DCU product than a DCEU product. But, he mainly focused on the sex and nudity, which seemed to be in greater abundance here than in Season 1, and the point he was trying to make was, “Why is this in a show that’s apart of a cinematic universe that’s aimed at kids, or is supposedly more family friendly?” Because according to Dami, a lot of DCU fans and Snyder haters complained about his movies not being too dark but for being too adult. The Ultimate Edition of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Zack Snyder’s Justice League were both R rated, and not only featured greater levels of profanity, but also violence. There is visible blood 🩸 during fight scenes. And Snyder haters apparently hated this, saying that superhero movies shouldn’t be for adults, that they should be for kids, or at the very least, Superman movies shouldn’t be adults and should be for kids. “Superman movies shouldn’t be R rated! A Justice League movie shouldn’t be R rated!” And yeah, there was some of that going around, I remember that. I remember the Ultimate Edition of BVS and ZSJL being criticized for being R rated. That did happen. Did it happen to the scale that Dami makes it seem? I don’t know 🤷‍♂️, I’m not on social media. 

So, he’s basically calling those people hypocrites for complaining about that, but accepting and even defending this. A TV-MA rated show with high levels of violence (usually pretty bloody and gory 🩸) and sexuality, full frontal nudity and all; a woman  ♀︎ wearing a superhero costume with visible cameltoe, oh my god, the audacity 😱! I’m being a sarcastic with that last part if you can’t tell. He also tried to make it seem like there was this huge backlash on social media over that orgy scene in Episode 1 of Season 2, but so far I have found no evidence of that, but again, I’m not on social media, so I don’t know 🤷‍♂️ . He’s also criticizing the show (and also Gunn) for including all this mature content when it’s an integral part of the universe, and it answers so many questions about this new universe and how it connects or doesn’t connect to the now defunct DCEU. Basically, it takes place in a parallel universe. Multiverse shit, it’s the end all, be all, catch all explanation for anything writers don’t want to have explain too deeply, or when they write themselves into a corner. 

Like, starting a whole new cinematic universe after doing a movie and starting in a completely different one that no longer exists, that’s no longer producing content. In other words, it’s lazy writing or it’s sloppy writing. It’s the new get out of jail free card for Hollywood writers. Even though, everyone’s tired of multiverse shit already 🙄. So, this show is required viewing for anyone who actually wants to understand how this show connects to Superman (2025) and the DCU when it’s a sequel to a movie that was made in the DCEU and took place in the DCEU, and some of those people might be kids. So, he and other Gunn haters are pulling the “think of the children” argument when it comes to this show. He also criticized Creature Commandos, the actual first entry in the DCU for having sexual content as well (necrophilia apparently 🤮; though there is probably reason to be skeptical of that claim since Dami is intentionally leaving out a lot of context), and he criticized Superman (2025) for having a drunk Supergirl 🥴 and a “tantrum” Superman 🤬, which is kind of where I start to raise my eyebrow 🤨, and where the cracks in his argument start to show. Like you’re upset at Superman (2025) being showing Supergirl being drunk 🥴 and for showing Superman throwing temper tantrums 🤬? 

That’s where you start to look silly and like you’re being over protective of kids, or rather, you’re using kids as an excuse to hate on this movie. Also, Creature Commandos is a stand alone project. It is apart of the universe, but it’s not required viewing. You can watch it in isolation without having watching the other shows and movies in the DCU. That’s my understanding of it. And if you’re whole problem with Peacemaker Season 2 is that it has all this adult content and your argument is that it shouldn’t have it because it’s important to the universe and kids might watch it for that reason, then Creature Commandos shouldn’t apply because it’s not required viewing and it’s not integral to understanding the universe. You can choose to not watch it. Yes, it’s an adult show, but it’s very clearly labeled as an adult show and it doesn’t connect to the wider universe and there’s very little of kids watching it because it doesn’t connect to Superman (2025) or Peacemaker. Superman (2025) shouldn’t be lumped with that at all since it’s a PG-13 rated movie, and none of the stuff that he included from that movie as examples of Gunn’s work being inappropriate for kids or him being a creep is at the same level of the stuff in either Creature Commandos or Peacemaker. 

Since both Creature Commandos and Peacemaker are adult shows with TV-MA ratings, which is the highest rating for a TV series, on streaming or on regular TV. It feels like you’re just including it here because you hate James Gunn and are finding any and all excuse to hate James Gunn and his DC stuff. But, the part where I absolutely draw the line is when he insulated that anyone who likes this show or defends the orgy scene is a pedophile. Like, he made a joke in his video about calling the police on these people, and he said “PDF files,” which I absolutely hate when people do that, please don’t say that 😤! I understand that this is YouTube, and you want to avoid being demonetized, but come on, that type of self-censorship is just embarrassing and isn’t needed. He said this after saying at the beginning that anyone who liked Season 1 will like Season 2, making it seem like he was fine with that. He was fine with people having a different opinion than him and liking something that he personally didn’t like. But then, you’re gonna go and then call those people (the people who gave the go ahead to watch this show and enjoy) pedophiles? Fuck off, dude! That’s bullshit 😠! That was not called for! It’s the laziest ad hominem attack I’ve ever heard. 

You’re confronted with arguments you don’t have an argument against, you just call your opponents pedophiles, oldest trick in the book. And if your excuse is “it’s just a joke, bro,” it’s incredibly irresponsible to joke about things like that. This is a serious issue, and it’s a serious accusation to accuse someone of being a pedophile, and just throwing that word around all willy-nilly takes away the power or impact that word has, and deprives it of its meaning, and undermines the fight against actual pedophiles who actually harming kids. Not just liking and defending a comic book series that you didn’t like 😠. And this gets to the hurt of what bothers me about this discourse surrounding this show and the ridiculous fan war between Snyder fans and Gunn fans. Snyder fans call James Gunn and anyone who likes him and his work creeps, and Gunn fans call anyone who doesn’t like James Gunn and this show in particular homophobes. The Snyder fans call Gunn and his fans creeps because of the adult content he often features in his comic book movies and shows, and using the argument that superhero movies and shows are supposed to be for kids, and kids might watch these. It’s ridiculous the more you think about it because these same Snyder fans who are saying these things about Peacemaker and Creature Commandos used to deride the other side for complaining about Zack Snyder’s stuff not being family friendly. 

Now, they’re becoming the very thing that they hate: overly sensitive pearl clutching prudes who complain about things not being family friendly enough when not everything has to be family friendly; some things can just be for adults. They let their hatred for James Gunn get to their heads, and they can’t see how hypocritical they’re being right now. All this talk about whether or not superhero movies and shows should just be for kids or if they should be made for adults too is why the superhero genre will never truly be elevated to anything greater than what it is. Comic book fans, and film critics to a certain extent, are holding this genre back by insisting it should only be for kids. Both sides are guilty of this sort of rhetoric, not just Gunn fans like Dami tries to make it seem, Snyder fans are doing it too and they’re only doing it because they don’t like James Gunn and don’t want to give anything he makes for DC a genuine chance. 

Conversely, the Gunn fans call Snyder fans complaining about the orgy scene in Peacemaker Season 2, because it featured a lot of male nudity ♂︎ and may or may not have featured gay sex ⚣ as well as straight sex ⚤. Basically, they’re saying that the Snyder fans complaining that scene were just uncomfortable by the amount of penises on screen. The Gunn fans have a bit more of a point since Dami in his video kept talking about the amount of “shablang blangs” on screen, while showing a picture of sausages on screen. But, that doesn’t mean everyone who complained about this scene is homophobic, and is just uncomfortable seeing peen (even for a split second), and it doesn’t mean Dami is homophobic. I haven’t seen any evidence to suggest that Dami is homophobic, unless I ask him directly here if he is homophobic or it’s fair to characterize the criticism towards the orgy scene as being fueled by homophobia, and I already know what he’ll probably say: “No” and “no.” 

The point I’m trying to make with this is that both sides are stupid. This is why the DC fandom is so toxic right now. DC, specifically DC movies and shows, just aren’t fun to talk about anymore, just writing about this whole discourse brings much despair 😞. And Dami, and other Snyder fans and Gunn haters like him on YouTube and elsewhere, are actively contributing to that toxicity, whether they’re aware of it or not. It’s a vicious cycle, they feed off of each other. Snyder fans feed off the hatred towards Gunn and Gunn fans, and Gunn fans feed off the hatred towards Snyder and Snyder fans. The only way to break this cycle, or at least, escape from it is to not participate in perpetuating that cycle. I left social media a long time ago, and so I’m not apart of this discourse. So, I’m able to look at it as an outside observer, and as an outside observer, it looks like a train wreck. 

I mean, how do both sides feel about the fact that Zack Snyder and James Gunn are friends in real life? That have collaborated with each other in the past, who asked each other for advice, and who seem to be on good terms with one another, even as their careers went in wildly different directions. How do Snyder fans feel like about him being friends with a guy ♂︎ who they not only see as everything wrong with the current DC universe but have already made their minds about him being a creep? A creep that they think should not only lose his job at DC, but also be arrested and put in prison? And how do Gunn fans feel like about him being friends with a guy ♂︎ who they think almost ruined DC on film, and is the reason why the universe had to be rebooted in the first place and Gunn had to be brought in to salvage it? 

The whole “Gunn is a creep” argument doesn’t really hold water 💦 because that aforementioned orgy scene they’re complaining so much about doesn’t feature any kids. There are no underaged persons in that scene, from what I understand. This isn’t like that Netflix movie, Cuties where you could make that argument. No, it features consensual adults, everyone in that scene (both in the show and in real life) is over the age of 18. The only reason they’re saying that it’s creepy or that Gunn is a pedophile is because kids might see it. But, if that’s the case, then every R rated movie with sexual content  and nudity is pedophilic because any random kid could stumble upon it and see it. How do Snyder fans feel about Snyder’s movies, both in DC and outside of it, having the same kind of adult content that they now complain about Gunn featuring in his work? The director’s cut of Rebel Moon (both parts) featured a ton of graphic violence and graphic sex and nudity. Almost to the point of being “softcore porn 🔞,” which is what Dami labeled The Boys (specifically, the Boys comic) as. Same thing with Watchmen (2009) and 300. All three of those movies I mentioned feature male nudity ♂︎ as well as female nudity ♀︎. 

Sure, you don’t see penises, but you do see butts. 300 has a scene where you just see Gerard Butler’s butt right up front. And they can’t use the same argument of “Well, these movies are clearly meant for adults, and don’t connect to a wider universe,” because they say that Gunn fans make that argument about Peacemaker and that argument isn’t valid. Is it only okay when Snyder does it? And I pose the same question to Gunn fans too, don’t think you’re getting away Scott free Gunn fans, is it only okay when Gunn does it? Are you praising this show and Creature Commandos for their mature and even dark takes on the superhero genre and for focusing on morally ambiguous antiheroes who do things normal clean cut superheroes don’t do because you genuinely like that stuff, or are you just praising it because it’s James Gunn doing it? I’ve seen this a lot where people who like something for being done a certain way just because they like the person who did it, they like the name attached rather than the material itself. When that material is done the exact same way, but a different person who they don’t like, all of a sudden, they don’t like that material. 

Gunn fans who praise Peacemaker and Creature Commandos for being darker and more mature takes on superheroes, will hate on Zack Snyder’s DC movies for being pretty much the same thing: darker and more mature takes on superheroes. Why is it acceptable and good when James Gunn does it, and not acceptable or good when Zack Snyder does it? Does that little sprinkle of comedy that Gunn adds to his movies, even when it’s dealing dark material really make all the difference? Does the humor really make the dark stuff more palatable to people? Are you saying that if only Snyder’s movies were comedic, then they’d be good? Or is Snyder bad no matter what? Is Gunn good no matter what? Is everything Gunn makes a home run? I already know what Gunn fans will say, “Well, we like Gunn and it’s good when Gunn does it because he’s just a better filmmaker than Snyder. He understands nuance better than Snyder, and is more intelligent with his writing and his filmmaking than Snyder is.” That’s their answer to those questions will be. It’s not just Gunn fans who are guilty of this sort of hypocrisy and double standards, it’s Snyder fans too. 

Things Snyder fans have always praised Snyder for, like making darker and more mature superhero movies, being faithful to the comics or even being “comic book accurate,” and not just “being Marvel,” are things they’re criticizing and hating Gunn for. They don’t like that he’s making superhero shows for adults because “think of the children,” and they don’t like him being “comic book accurate” because some things from the comics don’t translate well to live action, and they don’t like he’s not trying to be like Marvel. I mean, with some Snyder fans, it’s different, some Snyder fans like Dami hate James Gunn for saying that he wanted to be different from Marvel, and then just going and making stuff that is a pale imitation of Marvel. To Dami (and others like him), the DCU is just Marvel-lite. It’s Marvel, but done way worse, without truly understanding what Marvel successful in the first place. And in the end, he’s arguably making the same mistakes Geoff Johns and everyone who worked on the DCEU behind the scenes did, by rushing a cinematic universe and trying so hard to catch up to Marvel and be like Marvel. But not Marvel at its best, but Marvel at its worst; Phase 4 and all that. 

Dami claimed in his Peacemaker Season 2 review that the DCU is fundamentally directionless, and Gunn doesn’t know what he’s doing and doesn’t have any plan or idea of what he’s building up to, and he claimed that DCU projects are already getting canceled or delayed? What was his evidence for this? I don’t know, Dami didn’t show any 🤷‍♂️. While I do agree with Dami and the other Snyder fans’ arguments, I do find a lot of their points about the DCU and James Gunn specifically to be exaggerated and fundamentally in bad faith. These guys ♂︎ never liked James Gunn and never actually willing to give him a chance despite what they might say to try to save face. Some of what they’ve said is even lies by omission, and is just hypocrisy and double standards. Again, Snyder fans are not the only ones guilty of this, Gunn fans are also guilty of this. They are two sides of the same coin 🪙, whether they want to admit it or not. Especially considering that Snyder and Gunn are friends in real life, so whatever both sides say doesn’t really matter in the long run. 

It won’t actually change the situation on the ground. These men ♂︎ have already made up their minds about what they’ll do with their work and what kind of work they’ll make, and nothing these self-righteous keyboard warriors ⌨️ (on both sides) do or say is going to change that. Yeah, sure, Snyder haters did affect the outcome of the DCEU, it was their backlash towards BVS that promoted Warner Bros. to course correct so hard that they ended up veering off the road and crashing the car. But, at this moment, Gunn is in charge of DC, and there’s nothing Snyder fans can do to get rid of him and bring back the Snyderverse. Dami, and every Snyder fan who genuinely believes that is delusional if they think that it’s actually possible and it will actually happen. And Gunn fans may try to shut Snyder fans up, or insist that everything Gunn makes is gold, it won’t change the fact that Superman (2025) seriously underperformed way below expectations (and even flopped, depending on how you calculate the numbers), and this new DC cinematic universe is off to a rocky start, without a clear direction of where it wants to go or what it wants to be; DC, even under James Gunn, has a serious identity crisis. And bear in mind, please bear this mind, this is coming from someone who isn’t exactly 100% on board with Peacemaker. 

I didn’t think there needed to be a Peacemaker series, I thought it was a weird choice even when it was announced. And I don’t think James Gunn should’ve brought him back, I thought that was a mistake. I think he should died in The Suicide Squad, right then and there when that bullet hit his neck, I think that would’ve been way more satisfying. No way I’m going to forgive this guy ♂︎ for killing Rick Flag, and for being lapdog to Amanda Waller. I don’t care if he “felt bad” about it and had a redemption arc. There are just some things you cannot forgive, and Peacemaker killing Rick Flag while also following Amanda Waller’s orders in trying to help her cover up America 🇺🇸’s involvement in the atrocities committed by the Herrera regime and the Luna regime, and Project Starfish in Corto Maltese is one of those things. Like, Peacemaker was a piece of shit who didn’t deserve redemption. Had he just been a one-off villain, a fun little role for John Cena one time in one movie ☝️, that would’ve been so much better, and I would’ve been more okay with that. But, because Gunn decided to keep this character alive and brought him back for a full series, I’m less okay with that, and my view on this character has soured significantly 😒.

It’s a shame that I didn’t like this video by Dami because I agree with most of what he has said in most of his videos, at least the ones that I’ve seen. I even liked the most recent video he made about the upcoming Superman movie that James Gunn has in development, Man of Tomorrow, which is going to be about Superman having to team up with Lex Luthor to stop a greater threat, and Peacemaker’s going to be in it. Why? Because Gunn just really likes Peacemaker, and won’t stop shoving him down our throats. Oh, and it won’t have Batman or Wonder Woman in it. We’re already one movie and two shows into this new universe and they haven’t even introduced Batman or Wonder Woman and seeming have no plans to; instead, Gunn just wants to keep it focused on the characters he already introduced in Superman (2025) and Peacemaker, and also Supergirl (2026); even though, this version of Peacemaker (played by John Cena) was introduced in The Suicide Squad, which was apart of the DCEU but then retroactively became apart of the DCU through some handy dandy retcons and multiverse shit. Man, this universe feels so small. And I did enjoy his most recent upload at the time of me writing this, his review of Man of Steel; which was less of a dedicated review of the film, and more of a comparison between it and other modern movies, particularly modern superhero movies, and particularly, Superman (2025); and also Superman (1978). 

But, I just really thought that his video Peacemaker Season 2 was bad, and the arguments he was making about why it was bad didn’t hold up to scrutiny, and were hypocritical at best and disingenuous at worst. Like, he was trying to claim that James Gunn was a pedophile simply because he included an orgy scene in the first or second episode of Season 2; an orgy scene need I remind you that only includes consenting adults and no kids. How does that make him a pedophile if no kids are involved in the activities presented on screen, and every character that is engaged in such activities is an adult 🤔? And this is all based on watching just two episodes. That’s right, he only reviewed the first two episodes of Season 2, and based his whole review on it. 

I know there’s such thing as the “2 Episode rule,” especially when it comes to anime, but still, he decided that this was a bad season and a bad show based on just two episodes. Whenever I review a show (live action or animated), I always make sure that I review the entire season or the entire series before passing any sort of judgement on it. When you just watch two episodes and use that to base your opinion on a series, you’re only seeing one part of the series, instead of the whole piece. I don’t think you’re opinion can’t be well informed if you’re just reviewing pieces and not the whole thing. I mean, I get that if you’re just watching a show just for entertainment sake and you don’t plan on reviewing it, two episodes might be enough to decide if you want to continue watching it or not. But, if you’re reviewing it, it’s different, and just doing two episodes isn’t going to cut it. 

And I’m sorry, but I just can’t get behind this idea that Dami has that the Snyderverse will inevitably come back. Dami is damn delusional if he thinks the Snyderverse will ever come back, and that’s coming from someone who actually likes the Snyderverse. Let’s say the DCU does fail, and James Gunn is fired and replaced with someone else. Do you think Warner Bros. and DC are actually going to bring back Zack Snyder and put him in charge, and let him bring back his own universe and continue his Justice League storyline from where it left off? No, probably not. They’d probably just reboot the franchise again, and start over with someone else at the helm, instead of bringing someone back from the past and letting them continue their own story in their own universe. I mean, Dami said it himself, DC doesn’t actually listen to the fans and give them what they want. What makes him think they’ll do that now with the Snyderverse? 

Unless he’s suggesting we ramp up the #RestoretheSnyderverse into a full on social campaign, and force Warner Bros. and DC into bringing back Snyder and continuing the Snyderverse just like they had done with Snyder Cut; what eventually became Zack Snyder’s Justice League. I’m not sure if that’ll work the second time, but it’s worth a try I guess. Weirder things have happened in the film industry, and weirder things are happening, whether it’s talent agencies vying to sign an AI generated “actress” (really just an AI program) called Tilly Norwood, or Paramount bringing Michael Bay back to direct the next live action Transformers movie after Transformers: Rise of the Beasts and Transformers One both bombed at the box office 💣, and to avoid losing the film rights; that’s why Paramount is in a desperate scramble to get this new Transformers movie made, or really any Transformers movie made, they don’t want to lose the rights, and the rights expire in 2029; so if they don’t make another Transformers movie by then, they will lose the rights, and they’ll just go to someone else. 

It recent came to my attention that there’s going to be a sequel to Greenland 🇬🇱, the 2020 movie about a comet hitting the Earth 🌎, and this structural engineer who works with the US government 🇺🇸 trying to get his family to Greenland 🇬🇱 because that’s the only safe haven from the comet impact; the US government 🇺🇸 built bunkers in Greenland 🇬🇱 to protect people from the disaster, like in Deep Impact; only instead of like in Deep Impact, where the bunkers were open to everyone so long as they won a lottery, the bunkers in Greenland 🇬🇱 are only for “important” people, people who work for the government or rich people 🤑 with connections to the government, who can talk their way into getting in; the only reason Gerard Butler’s character, John Garrity got selected to go into the bunker with his family is that he had a government contract. 

Well, the sequel, Greenland 2: Migration 🇬🇱, going by the trailer, is going to focus on the aftermath of that impact, with the survivors, who got the privilege to stay in the bunkers in Greenland 🇬🇱, leaving the bunkers to go find a safe haven in southern France 🇫🇷 because that’s the only place left on Earth 🌍 that isn’t affected by the impact winter caused by the comet. They specifically choose the impact crater where the comet, Clarke hit because Clarke hit in southern France 🇫🇷 and they believe that crater is large enough to where the walls of the crater would be enough to block the radiation ☢️ caused by the impact winter (because I guess Clarke was radioactive ☢️), and there might potentially be clean water 💦 and air 💨 there. That’s why the movie’s called Greenland 2: Migration 🇬🇱, they’re leaving the safety of the bunkers and migrating southward to somewhere, to find a new safe haven because the bunkers are not sustainable and becoming more and more unsafe because of the radiation ☢️ spreading across the globe because the Clarke impact. 

I just can’t believe that they actually made a sequel to Greenland 🇬🇱 and that it’s coming out next year, it’s not really a movie that really needed a sequel, it’s not a movie that really lend itself to a sequel. The first one wasn’t even that successful, it wasn’t even that big of a hit (the fact that it came out during the pandemic 🦠😷 didn’t help), so I’m surprised that they even decided to make this, six years later; after most people have forgotten the first one. But it looks like the sequel has an interesting concept. Showing the aftermath of an asteroid impact ☄️ or comet impact, in the case of this movie since it’s a comet that hits the Earth 🌍, not an asteroid ☄️. There is a difference. You get this often with disaster movies, you hardly get a sequel where you focus on the aftermath of the disaster. Like, I’m pretty sure you couldn’t do this with Armageddon ☄️ because they prevented the disaster in that; sure the asteroid ☄️ did a lot of damage, it destroyed a few major cities like New York, Shanghai, and Paris, but Harry Stamper and his team did prevent the big one (the one that was the size of Texas) from hitting the Earth 🌎 by blowing it up from the inside with a nuke ☢️; it split the asteroid ☄️ in two, and the two halves deflected and both missed the Earth 🌎, and all the small particles were vaporized. 

There’s no way you could do a sequel to Armageddon ☄️, and have it be about the aftermath because the asteroid ☄️ in that movie didn’t even hit. You could’ve done that with Deep Impact, because while the bigger comet, Wolf didn’t hit the Earth 🌎, the smaller one, Beiderman did, and it pretty much wiped out the entire East Coast, as well as significant parts of Europe and Africa with a megatsunami. Even if the Earth 🌎 as a whole was saved, there are parts of the Earth 🌍 that are completely uninhabitable now because of Beiderman, and it would take significant amounts of money 💵 and resources to rebuild all of these parts, and some parts may not even get rebuilt because it would just cost too much and they don’t have enough resources to do so. It would be like living in a post-apocalyptic world for a lot of people, especially in Europe and Africa (specifically West Africa), those were the two places most affected by the Beiderman impact and the megatsunami that followed. This of course would’ve meant doing a more Euro and Afro centric story, and given how Americentric 🇺🇸 the first movie was, I’m not sure if they’d even be willing to do that. And I’m pretty sure, Roland Emmerich was going to do that in both his sequels to 2012 (2009) and Moonfall 🌕. 

More so 2012 (2009) than Moonfall 🌕, though I’m sure even with Moonfall 🌕, he would’ve still had to address the aftermath in the sequel, even if it was more of a space adventure, because the whole world was destroyed by what happened in the first movie; the Moon 🌕 literally glided above the Earth 🌎’s surface for a minutes, destroying entire cities and lifting the buildings and debris into the air with just its gravity alone; nothing of the old world prior to that is left, like the United States 🇺🇸 doesn’t even have a government anymore because they all got taken out when the Moon 🌕 flew over the Earth 🌎’s surface, not even making a direct impact, but still doing a lot of damage regardless. But, unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your opinion on the movie), Moonfall 🌕 wasn’t anywhere near successful enough to get a sequel; it bombed at the box office 💣, in fact, it broke records as being one of the biggest bombs in cinematic history 💣.  

2012 (2009) was actually going to get a TV series instead of a movie sequel, and it was going to pick up from where the movie left off, with the survivors of the apocalypse (the Earth Crust Displacement 🌎) sailing to Africa in their Arks because Africa was the only continent that wasn’t flooded by the massive megatsunamis that resulted from the Earth 🌎’s crust shifting around. The entire African continent rose in elevation by several thousand feet and the Drakensberg replaced the Himalayas as the tallest mountain range ⛰️ in the world. So, the series would’ve focused on the survivors starting their new lives in the Cape of Good Hope (in what used to be South Africa 🇿🇦, Lesotho 🇱🇸, and Eswatini 🇸🇿), essentially setting a new colony there. But, despite the movie being a box office success (Roland Emmerich’s last big hit), that series was scrapped, likely due to the bad optics, the bad implications, of white people, white settlers, essentially colonizing Africa after the apocalypse 😬; not just any white people, rich white people 🤑. 

You have to remember, that in the movie, the only people who actually survived the apocalypse were the rich people 🤑, and all the government people; which are kind of the same people since a lot of rich people 🤑 become politicians, and a lot of politicians become rich people 🤑, especially after they leave politics. Not all the rich people 🤑 in those Arks are white, some of them are Arab, the leaders of the Gulf states, but a lot of them are. The only remotely middle class people on one of those boats are Jackson Curtis and his family, but even by middle class standards, him and his family are pretty well off; I mean his ex-wife (soon to be his wife again), Kate was married to a plastic surgeon, and those guys ♂︎ make crazy money 💵. Everyone else, all the poor people, all of the other middle class, they all died, or at least, that’s what we’re lead to believe by the end of the movie. 

They didn’t want people think that they were glorifying colonialism, or glorifying the Scrabble for Africa specifically since this series was to take place mainly in Africa, and suggesting that we should return to that if there’s ever an apocalypse and Africa was the only safe haven left afterwards, so they just didn’t bother. I guess Roland Emmerich could’ve also potentially done a continuation of The Day After Tomorrow, either in movie form or TV form, where we focus on humanity having to deal with living in a new ice age 🧊, and the entire Northern Hemisphere being covered by ice 🧊 and snow 🌨️, and the climate being much cooler as a result of the global cooling the Earth 🌎 experiences as a result of the North Atlantic Current being disrupted by the melting of the ice 🧊 in Antarctica 🇦🇶 and Greenland 🇬🇱, and the fresh water 💦 from that ice 🧊 mixing with the salt water 💦 in the current and messing with its thermoregulation system; resulting in the climate cooling rapidly 🥶. 

And if Independence Day: Resurgence has actually been successful, and he did actually get to make a third movie, Roland Emmerich could’ve potentially done a TV series (on regular TV 📺 or streaming), that served to fill in the gap in between the first and second movie; showing how the world rebuilt after the Harvesters invaded the Earth 🌎 in 1996, and humanity defeated them over the course of one Fourth of July weekend 🇺🇸. Had he given it to the right creative people, such a series could’ve potentially have been the Andor of the Independence Day franchise, and surpassed the films in quality. So, Greenland 🇬🇱’s the only one of these end of the world type disaster movies you could do a sequel to, and do that aftermath story with because it’s an original movie, and they can start from scratch, and actually plan out a sequel and what they’ll do with that sequel. And it looks interesting, it looks cool. And it looks like it’s going to have a budget several times the first one. The first one cost $35 million 💵, while this upcoming sequel costs $90 million 💵, so they definitely poured a lot more money 💵 into it, which is good. It shows that they have a lot of confidence in this sequel. With Greenland 2 🇬🇱 coming out real soon, I guess I better review the first Greenland 🇬🇱 and get that out before the sequel comes out.

This foreword is really long, it’s almost as long as a post in and of itself, so I’m just going to cover one last topic before I finally close this out and let you get on with reading the actual review. I was going to talk about Tron: Ares, and this promo video that I saw of it which featured the YouTuber and overall evil businessman, MrBeast, and I was going to complain about him being in this movie. Well, it turns out that it’s not true, MrBeast is not actually in the movie, and that video was just meant to promote the movie. Which is a relief to be sure, but it begs the question why they thought doing a promo video with MrBeast was a good idea? Did they really think that would entice people to go see the movie, which public opinion has turned against him in recent years? 

Were they trying to market this movie to MrBeast’s fans specifically, what fans he still has left after the revelations and allegations of employee abuse and toxic work environments came to light? What made them think that MrBeast’s fans are the kind of people who would be interested in watching a Tron movie of all things? None of MrBeast’s fans were even born when the original Tron movie was released back in 1982, in fact neither was MrBeast, and most of them probably weren’t even born when Tron: Legacy came out, and if they were, they were still in diapers when it came out. They’re not exactly the target demographic for these movies. I probably won’t be able to see Tron: Ares when it comes out in theaters this week, but if I was able to, I’m not even sure if I should. Whether it’s the Jimmy Kimmel thing and a desire to keep up the boycott or because of those sexual misconduct allegations against Jared Leto that everyone seems to have forgotten about; those allegations barely made a dent in his career, and they were by multiple women ♀︎, and allegations from multiple women ♀︎ tend to be more credible than ones with just one or two. 

Then, I was going to go into this whole discussion about how the only YouTubers I would want to see movies are Emirichu and Melissa Backwoods. Emirichu, or Emily is her real name, is an “animated” story time YouTuber (really more of an illustrated story time YouTuber), who is not necessarily one of the pioneers of the genre on YouTube, but is certainly one of the people who popularized, and has shifted her content away from story time videos and more towards travel vlog type videos and fandom videos ever since she moved to Japan 🇯🇵. She also runs a secondary channel with her boyfriend, another YouTuber known as Daidus called Spilled Ink, which is a lot more art focused than the content she makes on her main channel, and she has a presence on Twitch as a VTuber, which I don’t bother with because I don’t like VTubers. Her main appeal is her fun awkward personality and her anime-like art style, which only become more anime-like as the years have gone by. She’s fun to watch and listen to, and I think she’s great in a movie. 

Obviously, she’d be well suited to doing voice work in an animated movie or an animated show because she’s an artist, who draw anime art, and mostly uses her voice and doesn’t show her real face very often in her videos, and she has a unique enough voice and can play a character; she doesn’t have acting experience, if only from high school drama club. But, even in a live action role, where you can see her face, I still think she’d be great. Even if, let’s face it, if she was cast in a movie or a TV show (though I’d her to be in movie than a TV show if it were live action work that she was doing), it’d probably just be for a supporting role, probably as comic relief, but I think she can pull of a leading role. It’d be out of her comfort zone, yes, but I’m sure it’d be a fun experience to try at least once, could potentially make her an even bigger star, and make her more famous. Like, real famous, not just Internet famous 🛜, which is what she currently is. 

Melissa Backwoods, or Melissa Miller, on the other hand, I think she could pull off being an action star. She’s a YouTuber who mainly talks about knives 🔪, mainly survival or tactical knives, knives you can take with you when you’re camping 🏕️, knives used it combat or for self defense, or knives you can keep in your pocket and can use for daily use; like opening packages. She’s an avid knife collector, and has knives of every size and shape you can imagine. She’s the first YouTuber that I’ve ever seen that’s completely dedicated to knives 🔪, she’s the first knife enthusiast 🔪 I’ve ever seen. And after seeing her, I think she’d be a great action star. She could star in an action movie, where she gets to show off her knife knowledge and skills 🔪 and play a character who only uses knives 🔪 or mostly uses knives 🔪; knives 🔪 would be her character’s main gimmick that would set her apart from other action movie protagonists. And given that her main weapons would be knives and other edged weapons, it would have to R rated, and it would have to be bloody 🩸, otherwise, what’s the point in doing an action movie about a woman ♀︎ who only uses knives 🔪? 

Something that I learned recently in her latest long form video (because she does a lot of short form content in the form of YouTube Shorts) is that she was on the reality TV show, Naked and Afraid, like she was a contestant on that show; I also learned that show is still airing to this day, which is pretty astonishing to me 😲, I thought that show ended a long time ago. So, she does have at least have TV experience at the very least, even if it was on a reality TV show, so if she was cast as the lead in an action movie, she wouldn’t be completely inexperienced. It wouldn’t be like throwing a social media influencer into a movie or TV show with no prior experience being in movies or TV, she does at least know what it’s like to be on TV and wouldn’t be that out of her comfort zone being in a movie. She certainly has the look for it, she looks like someone who wouldn’t want to mess with, mostly due to her muscular physique, and that’s definitely something you need in an action star.

—

 

(This is a textless poster for The King’s Man ♂︎.)

 

 

Well, I just watched The King's Man ♂︎, the prequel film in the Kingsman franchise and it was...okay. It was just average, nothing groundbreaking or remarkable. This is a movie that got ignored when it was first released back in December 2021. Disney picked a horrible time to release it, at the same time as The Matrix Resurrections and Spider-Man: No Way Home, which is also a Disney movie. People were mostly focusing on those two movies, and didn't pay that much attention to The King's Man ♂︎. And the people who seen it, don't really seem to like it that much. Perhaps interest in the Kingsman franchise is starting to wane.

I mean, nothing about this movie really stands out, or elevates it above the rest. The only thing that kind of makes it interesting is that it takes place during World War I, but there are a bunch of World War I movies now. You know, World War I still not as popular of a movie and documentary topic as World War II, but it's not as niche as it used to be. There was a bit of an uptick in the amount of World War I movies being made and released after 1917, which has kind of died down a bit. World War I isn't really a trendy topic for a movie anymore, now we're out of the 2010s and in the 2020s.

But, even the World War I stuff in this movie isn't all that great. They twist certain events and figures, and fictionalize a lot of it, or try to give very conspiratorial explanations for why certain events in World War I happened. Like, they're trying to convince us that Gavrilo Princip, Rasputin, Mata Hari, Erik Jan Hanussen, and even Vladimir Lenin for crying out loud were all in cahoots, working for some random Scottish guy 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿♂︎ who wanted to revenge on Britain 🇬🇧 for colonizing and annexing Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿. And that entire First World War was orchestrated and intentionally started by this one Scottish guy 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿♂︎ using Princip, Rasputin, and Erik Jan Hanussen as his pawns ♟ or proxies to facilitate that revenge; rather than being caused by a series of unfortunate events that weren't really in anyone's control.

Even the October Revolution by Lenin was all part of the plan. The evil Scottish guy 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿♂︎ literally ordered Lenin to start a communist revolution ☭ in Russia 🇷🇺 to get Russia 🇷🇺 out of the war, so that Germany can defeat Britain 🇬🇧, after Rasputin failed and was assassinated by the Kingsman. If you know anything about World War I, you can probably see how ridiculous this all is. They don't just do this with the bad guys either, they do it with the good guys as well. Saying that the Zimmerman Telegram was not cracked by British intelligence 🇬🇧 like the history books and historians tell us, but it was in fact, cracked by Kingsman, or saying that the United States 🇺🇸 only got involved in World War I because of the actions of Kingsman.

President Wilson is blackmailed into not going to war by Mata Hari after she secretly films a reel of her seducing him in the Oval Office, and threatens to release it to the public if he decides to send the US 🇺🇸 to war. Then, it only because of Kingsman's intervention at the end, and them retrieving the film from the evil Scottish guy 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿♂︎, and killing Mata Hari in the American Embassy 🇺🇸 in London that they're able to get Wilson to send the US 🇺🇸 to war. They send him the film, and when he receives it on his desk, and realizes what it is, he immediately tosses it into the fireplace 🔥 and says, "Guys, we're going to war!" Cue triumphant music 🎵, following the happy ending/epilogue.

This is the first movie that I have seen, where a country getting involved in a war is seen as a good thing. Like, America 🇺🇸's entry into the war is the main objective of the Kingsman throughout most of the movie. Their original objective was to keep Russia 🇷🇺 in the war, which is why they went to go kill Rasputin (which I'll get to later), but when that fails, they decide instead to get America 🇺🇸 into the war. Anything to keep the Germans off of Britain 🇬🇧's back. And then, when they succeed in that objective, it's portrayed as this heroic and triumphant moment. It's so weird, and I can't believe that they actually went there. I mean, I this is kind of a British movie 🇬🇧, it made by a British director 🇬🇧, and most of it takes place in Britain 🇬🇧, or in Europe, and as a Brit 🇬🇧, I'm sure he has a very different interpretation of World War I than an American 🇺🇸 would.

The British 🇬🇧 really wanted America 🇺🇸 to enter the war because they feared that if they didn't, they would lose the war to the Germans, since Russia 🇷🇺 was forced out of the war by revolution. So, when they got their wish, they were happy, and saw it as a triumphant moment. But still, it's still a country going to war, sending its troops to go fight and potentially die or get injured in a war raging on a continent on the other side of the Atlantic. That's not really something to celebrate or glorify like this movie kind of does.

I mean, World War I is not like World War II where it was morally black and white, and had clear cut good guys and bad guys. World War I was much more ambiguous, much more morally grey, and the Central Powers and the Entente were not clear cut good guys or bad guys. They were all kind of bad to a certain degree. So, to paint the Central Powers (mainly just Germany) as the bad guys and the Entente as the good guys, is completely wrong, and not something I entirely agree with.

The movie also paints World War I as being just a war between Britain 🇬🇧, Germany, and Russia 🇷🇺, and I don't agree with that either. It completely glosses over the other big players such as France 🇫🇷, the Ottoman Empire 🇹🇷, Japan 🇯🇵, Serbia, Romania 🇷🇴, Bulgaria 🇧🇬, Italy 🇮🇹, and of course, Austria-Hungary, the one that arguable started the whole thing. I mean, the only attention that Austria-Hungary gets in the movie is the Franz Ferdinand stuff, when Ferdinand is assassinated by Princip. After that, Austria-Hungary is barely even mentioned. It's all Germany, Russia 🇷🇺, and Britain 🇬🇧 from there.

I know the filmmakers behind this movie said that they were trying to respectful and mindful of history while making it. But, by twisting the events and people, by fictionalizing them in this way, and by adding these unnecessary conspiratorial explanations to key events in World War I, they're kind of making a mockery of them. And as result, we get a very fan fic version of World War I with Kingsman haphazardly thrown in.

I know the usual defense is that, "Well, it's a movie, not a documentary, they can change whatever they want," and the filmmakers and actors use that excuse for this movie. But if people are going to complain about Michael Bay changing stuff and fictionalizing stuff in his Pearl Harbor movie, then they should complain about this movie too because they change way more stuff in this movie than Michael Bay did in Pearl Harbor.

I even heard one of the actors or the filmmakers defend the twisting of fictional events to fit in the Kingsman universe by saying that the movie's like Inglourious Basterds, like it's the Inglourious Basterds of World War I movies. How much it succeeds in doing that, I don't know, I've never seen Inglourious Basterds 🤷‍♂️. But, judging from what I saw, I doubt that this movie even matches or compares to Inglourious Basterds, and the filmmakers and actors behind this movie are flattering themselves.

But, going back to Rasputin for a quick moment, he is not the main villain of the movie, the trailers and the posters lied to you 😒. The main villain of course is that lame fictional Scottish guy 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿♂︎ who's face they keep hidden for most of the movie until the very end when he fights Oxford. Rasputin gets killed in the middle of the movie, and as you would expect, the Kingsman are the ones who kill him, rather than the people who were actually reported to have killed him in real life. He just gets shot in the head by the female Kingsman agent ♀︎ in the movie, the nanny who works for Oxford, and becomes the first Galahad. So, that was kind of lame, I was hoping and expecting that Rasputin would come back at some point, but he never does. Instead, we're stuck with the lame Scottish guy 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿♂︎ who is completely fictional and never existed in reality.

You kill off the one kind of good bad guy in your movie, and leave us with a lamer one at the end. So, do I recommend this movie? Not really. Even if you're a Kingsman fan or a history buff interested in seeing more World War I stuff, you'll get nothing out of this movie. It is slightly better than Kingsman: The Golden Circle, but not by a whole lot. Whereas that movie was kind of bad, this movie is just average and unremarkable. I think that the Kingsman franchise has run out of steam at this point, and it's time to move on.

(This is another poster for The King's Man ♂︎. Can you see what I mean? Rasputin is on all the posters of the movie along with other main characters, including Blu-Ray and DVD covers 💿📀, and yet, he's not even the main villain. He's like the secondary or tertiary villain of the movie. It is false advertising at its finest.)