Doctor Strange (2016)

The Steves discuss the 2016 MCU blockbuster Doctor Strange, along with what's making them happy in pop culture today.

What's Making Us Happy?

• Buffy Season 3 (Hulu)
• The Batman (HBO+)

Doctor Strange Discussion

• Why we love it
• Names and numbers behind the screen
• Doctor Strange's comic book origins and random history
• The relationship between Stephen and Christine
• The casting choice of The Ancient One
• What's the 'thing' that defines you, and what would you do to fix it if it disappeared overnight?
• Doctor Strange's metaphysical world compared to our understanding of the metaphysical
• What relic would you like to be chosen by?
• Is Doctor Strange's growth and powers earned by the end of the movie?
• Hopes and dreams for the upcoming sequel

We'd love to hear from you! E-mail us today at happylifepod@gmail.com or hit us up on all the socials @happylifepod

Ending- Any music or audio clips were borrowed from the original source material.

Transcript

Steve 0:02

Hello, returning happys and new listeners. This is Steve Bennet-Martin,

Stephen 0:06

and this is Stephen Martin-Bennet. And welcome to a lifetime of happiness. The podcast where we take you on our journey through some of the movies, TV shows, and other bits of pop culture that are helping to keep us happy. I'll hopefully bring a smile to your face along the way. And today we are finishing up a vendor's April with a dive into the mystical arts as we cover Dr. Strange,

Steve 0:28

but before we get into that, and my love what's been making you happy. So,

Stephen 0:32

This week it was all about the Batman Batman. So we didn't get to see the new Batman movie with Robert Pattinson in the theater, because I suck well it's three hours and he's not exactly your favorite, so I can understand you not wanting to go, but it came out on HBO plus this week and we watched it and. It was really well done. I always like the Batman movies. The DC does because they're not part of an extended universe. I like that they're encapsulated like the original started off with Tim Burton and then we had the Christian bale ones later on, and now we have these and that man seems to do best when he's in his own little universe with his own villains and things. This was well done. Robert Pattinson, if anybody had any doubts about him as Bruce Wayne and Batman, this should erase all of them. I was very, very impressed.

Steve 1:36

Very nice.

Stephen 1:37

What about you? My darling, what's been making

Steve 1:39

you happy. I have been on my 150 second rewatch Buffy. The vampire Slayer

Stephen 1:47

seems about right number was

Steve 1:48

yes. I've been watching seasons. With faith. Who's my favorite Slayer. I mean, I love Buffy and Sarah, Michelle Gellar and all the amazing work that she does, but there's something about Faith's character that is just so complex and relatable, and I've just really enjoyed rewatching it. Season three is I would say one of my favorite seasons. It has some of the biggest highlights, like band candy, DAPL. Gangland lots of fun

Stephen 2:13

to go through. Excellent. I do really enjoy the doppelganger land and I enjoy faith as well. And until she went like full dark there for a bit, I preferred when she was middle of the road, like an protagonist antagonist type of thing. Like a Magneto character. Yeah. Cause I was like, I don't want you to be against Buffy. That's your

Steve 2:41

girlfriend. Because as they say on buffering the vampire Slayer, one of the podcasts I love about Buffy, Buffy and faith totally had sex and loved it. And it was amazing. Yeah. I mean, I

Stephen 2:52

see that and I think it really hurt Buffy when faith tried to kill her.

Steve 2:58

Now let's get into Dr. Strange. My love, I am DB summarizes it as well on a journey of physical and spiritual healing. A brilliant neurosurgeon just drawn into the worlds of the mystic arts.

Stephen 3:12

So with a lot of the Marvel movies, it's hard to summarize them in one or two centers. I think this one does a decent job. This is a, seems to be more of a teaser than a summary. So I'm okay with that. But why do we love Dr. Strange?

Steve 3:31

One thing that I really love about it, it's just the beauty in the fight scenes, especially in like the mirror dimension and you know, the way that they work, those graphics. And it's very like inception, like yeah. But you know, Otter, but better. And oftentimes a lot of the fight scenes that you typically see when they're grounded in reality, you know, you can only fight, kick back, flip so many different times before you're just watching them. You know, something that you've kind of feel like you've seen before, but when you bring it into this realm of just where the possible becomes impossible and versa, it just is something that just makes the scenes just so much more engaging because you really have no idea what's going to happen next.

Stephen 4:09

Visually, this movie is. So impressive. And the things that they do with the mirror, dimension physics, it's just so good. And like you, I could just watch all of that keep happening. It's so fascinating.

Steve 4:30

Yes. And what about, what else did you

Stephen 4:32

love? So I really enjoy the use of spirituality in regards to healing body, mind, and soul. I thought that they did a good job with that because you like we'll get into why he goes to that realm, but I love the care and appreciation they took to spirituality and metaphysics.

Steve 4:56

Yes. Especially with your new journey on. Congratulations on becoming a certified meditation guru.

Stephen 5:04

Thank you. Yes. As of yesterday, I am a certified master meditation guide.

Steve 5:09

Excellent. And so for those of you who are familiar with Dr. Strange, the movie was released on November 4th, 2016 as the 14th film in the Marvel cinematic universe, as we hop around the timeline for Avengers, April. Yeah.

Stephen 5:24

Now the film was directed by Scott Derrickson from a screenplay. He wrote with John spites and C Robert Cargill.

Steve 5:31

Yes. Derrickson comes from a horror background, including the exorcism of Emily Rose, both sinisterly scary sinister movies and deliver us from evil.

Stephen 5:42

And this semester movie. Are really, really good. And those honestly scared me. So I have a lot of respect

Steve 5:53

for him. Yes. And he got help with that with Derrickson who helps co-wrote them. And then spates helps write Promethease and dune.

Stephen 6:01

Promethease was fantastic. And of course this film is produced by MCU exact Kevin faggy. And we would not have the MCU as it is without Kevin. Yes.

Steve 6:15

Thanks Kevin. Yeah. Dr. Strange stars Benedict Cumberbatch as our titular hero. Dr. Steven strange with support from Chiwetel

Stephen 6:26

Ejiofor as Mordo. Thank you. Rachel McAdams is Dr. Christine

Steve 6:31

Palmer Benedict Wong as Wong Michael Stuhlbarg as Dr. Nicodemus

Stephen 6:37

west Benjamin Bratt as Jonathan Penn. Scott Atkins as Lucien

Steve 6:43

Mads Mickelson has and tell the Swinton as the instant

Stephen 6:48

one. Yeah. Benedict Cumberbatch, besides being somebody that people love to make fun of his name by calling him like Benjamin cumberbun. Yes. Rose to fame worldwide as Sherlock Holmes in the Sherlock TV series and was also Satan in the TV adaptation of one of my favorite books. Good

Steve 7:09

omens. Yeah. Yes. Meanwhile, we've seen the rest of the cast elsewhere, mostly as well with idea for being Solomon in 12 years, a slave

Stephen 7:18

Wong was Lomax in annihilation.

Steve 7:21

McAdams was alley and the tear-jerker the notebook. She

Stephen 7:24

was also in. Every Gay's favorite movie

Steve 7:33

Swinton was Eva. And we need to talk about

Stephen 7:35

Kevin and Mickelson was Hannibal in the TV show of the same name.

Steve 7:40

Yes. And Brett was Eric and miss congeniality.

Stephen 7:43

Now the movie had a budget between 165 and 236.6 million, which is a large range. I was

Steve 7:50

going to say, what's, you know, 70 million when you're talking Marvel money.

Stephen 7:55

And it had a box office of 677.7 million, which is a good, but in terms of Marvel money, you can see this is where they were gaining momentum. things that weren't called.

Steve 8:08

Yes. And Dr. Strange was first mentioned in the MCU with a name drop in captain America, the winter soldier, but his comic book origins come much earlier. Fans have known him since he debuted and strange tales. Number 110 in July, 1969. Where he was created by writer Stanley and artists, Steve Ditko,

Stephen 8:30

1963 is also the comic book creation of the X-Men. So it's really interesting. How many of our superheroes that have been around forever all started right around the same

Steve 8:44

time. Yeah. Yes. His origin story that occurs from his inception through the seventies mirrors, what we've seen this movie quite closely. So instead I figured it'd be fun to throw in some random off color facts about Dr. Strange, that will likely, never come to life on the big screen. Okay.

Stephen 9:00

So like during his run in Dr. Strange volume one, which ran from 1968 to 2018, 50 years on one title, he lost the title of sorcerer Supreme. And became a veterinarian.

Steve 9:15

Yes. Now, can you ever see this, Dr. Strange, just spending his off hours working on parking on puppies and kittens. Yes. He also had a brother Vincent who died in a car accident. This was before he had his power strange froze his body because of reasons. Yeah. And then he used the book of Ashanti to try and resurrect him. He was unsuccessful and his brother Vincent returned as a vampire,

Stephen 9:37

as one does. Yes. Now one of the mystical entity, strange calls upon his sidetrack, who is the same one that anybody that is an X-Men fan knows is responsible for the juggernauts powers.

Steve 9:52

Yes. And rather than joining the Avengers, he instead, co-founded the defenders, a team we know of from Marvel stint on Netflix that features Jessica Jones, Luke cage Daredevil, and the iron fist.

Stephen 10:03

Interesting. He was not on those Netflix shows.

Steve 10:06

He was not, but those Netflix shows are now on Disney plus and finding new life, which is wild because they didn't

Stephen 10:12

have Netflix. Yeah. Like when they came out, they were so popular and now they're trending on Twitter with all these new people finding out them. I'm like, where were you? Where were you? You had

Steve 10:23

Netflix now in current comics. Dr. Steven strange has data after an app named run the death of Dr. Strange, that ran from late 20, 21 through early 20, 22. We found out in an episode of X-Men that he had died or an issue of XN. Yes. And the new sorceress Supreme is CLIA his on again, off again, love interest, and the niece of Dormamuu. And

Stephen 10:46

what's kind of interesting is whenever we were watching Wanda and stuff like that, One division, like people were trying to figure out who the real villain was going to be in things. And they really, oh, it's going to be CLIA, so it can relate to this and that. So we have yet to see CLIA in the MCU. I wonder if we will in multi-verse abandon or if she's going to stick around just in the comics for a while

Steve 11:13

longer, we shall see now in the movie, it begins with a sourcer later revealed to be Cassilis. And as men infiltrating an old Gothic library, where they kill the librarian and tear some pages from a change book, you should

Stephen 11:27

never really kill librarians. They're giving up a lot of their lives to help people with knowledge. So, you know, hashtag protect librarians. That's

Steve 11:35

also how you know that Cassius has a bad guy. Yes. The owner of the book, the ancient mind warns him, the book will bring him only sorrow and goes after them. He flees while bending, folding, and reshaping the streets and buildings of the city as they. Yeah,

Stephen 11:51

like we said, it's like inception, but through a kaleidoscope. Yes

Steve 11:55

though. She's obviously a formidable magical fighter. They, and one is unable to pin him down and Cassilis, and his goons, the zealots escape through a portal,

Stephen 12:05

you know, I love Tilda Swinton. You know, a lot of people also know her as the snow queen from the lion, which in the wardrobe movies. Yeah. And I think she does a great job as the ancient one because of her androgynous look that she's always had. Yeah. She plays up with that. But there were some other people that were considered for the role. Yes.

Steve 12:28

Morgan Freeman can Watanabi autonomy, autonomy and bill Nighy.

Stephen 12:34

Yeah, those are all excellent actors. But after watching this. I really enjoy what Tila did with the Raul.

Steve 12:43

Yes. Now back in New York city, renounced surgeon, Dr. Stephen, strange as cool and confident as he performs the delicate brain operation at Metro general hospital, while sprouting facts about the music that's playing. Yeah,

Stephen 12:56

he has later we find out, he says, you know, he has a photographic memory. So anything he sees once, boom.

Steve 13:04

Yes. As he finishes his ex-girlfriend Dr. Christine Palmer rushes and just show them an x-ray of a patient with a bullet in his brain. He immediately dismisses the case is hopeless, but further prodding from Christine, he realized that the patient is comatose because there's been doula. Outland, Ghada has been poisoned by trace elements in the bullet science, science, science

Stephen 13:23

scientists. So strange realizes he can save the man's life and his ego jumps into high gear. So he goes to the ER to do surgery and quickly doesn't manual extraction with. I instead of using machine guided, robotic guided things, demonstrating his impressive hand control foreshadowing. Yes. The doctor who made the initial diagnosis, nicotine Ms. West with left, humiliated by strains is overwhelming ego later. Strange. And Christine joke about their on again, off again, relationship, which really good chemistry between these two actors you can see and it's believable that they have a friendship and sometimes relationship it's really it's all there. And they also joke about his large ego and need for fame and recognition. He's like, would you like to come with me tonight? And she's like, oh, to listen to you, give a speech. No, thanks. Yes.

Steve 14:20

And this does set up their relationship. I know you say that you have chemistry. What do you think of them as a couple or potential

Stephen 14:26

for. Dr. Steven strange as he is right there. She deserves better. She is more evolved as a human than he is. And I think the, he, that is there would never be able to be a good partner for

Steve 14:42

her or anyone. Really? Anyone himself barely himself. Yes. Now he defines himself by his abilities as a surgeon. What do you define as your greatest gift? My love,

Stephen 14:56

I mean, there's so many.

Steve 14:57

Yes, I have to agree. I'm a bit of a fan.

Stephen 15:02

I don't know. I think it would be my empathy, compassion and humor. I think those are my greatest gifts. What about you? What would you say is your, are your greatest

Steve 15:15

gift or gifts? Well, out of the many, many, many, many, many, many ones just,

Stephen 15:21

okay. I think there might've been one more, many you

Steve 15:23

missed. Okay. Yes, but I, I would have to say the thing that I pride myself the most is my ability and capacity to help other people. I would agree with that. Yes. We'll get more into what might happen with those guests later, as we see Dr. Strange just for the evening and his extensive condo pausing to choose from a drawer full of high-end watches. So

Stephen 15:44

the interesting thing about that drawer of watches is each one is held in a little inverted dome, and it has something in it that all the watches are rotating around as it's happening. It's just fascinating to see it was a little touch. It was unnecessary. But it was so cool and you're like, and very doctor straight. And so Dr. Strange, because, you know, later we hear, you know that he was spending his money as fast as he can make it. Nobody needs a drawer thing that rotates your watches for you so that you can just watch them spin around. But obviously he was like 15,000 for a drawer. That'll spend my watches.

Steve 16:26

Sure. Yeah. Yes. He speeds out of his condo in his Lamborghini, Huracan heading north, he calls an assistant to consider as next patients. I mean, he's in very high demand because he is very successful, but he only wants difficult, interesting cases that can bring him fame.

Stephen 16:42

Exactly. And ones that he can fix because he doesn't want to ruin his perfect track record either.

Steve 16:48

Yeah. Yes. Distracted and driving recklessly, like an asshole he crashes and the car plunges over a cliff as this car is wrecked, his hands slam into the dashboard

Stephen 16:58

So he's airlifted back to the hospital and Christine's there when he awakens and he's badly hurt and his hands had to be rebuilt and are immobilized in this framework with pins and wires. And like he's immediately devastated. And you can see, like, without them saying things, you're like, Ooh, somebody is not going to be doing surgery anymore. Yes. And he's recovering slowly and he's had further surgeries and his hands remained stiff and shaky. So no more neurosurgeon work and he's feeling sorry for himself. So he has a fight with Christine obviously goes for the juggler because he's hurt, which does not excuse what he says, but he destroys whatever he had left with her and her showing more grace than he has just leaves.

Steve 17:50

Yeah. And I mean, as. Rough as he is towards her and other people. I mean, I do feel like in some ways, when you're, when you're dealing with grief and loss, it is natural to kind of bite the hand that feeds you. I mean, how would you react if the thing that made you, you disappeared overnight,

Stephen 18:12

it would be rough, except I try to look at the things in our lives and I'm not sure if I define myself by any one thing where he has defined himself by his hands and doing the surgeries. And he was so, you know, S like focused on that. And that was his. I don't know. I don't see you as the type that like you have one thing going for you. No,

Steve 18:48

it helps being. I'm a Jack of all trades master of none. Where if I lost my podcasting, I just throw myself into my day job. I lost my day job. I just throw myself into podcasting. I have backup plans.

Stephen 19:01

Well, in therapy, strange here is about a man called Jonathan Pangborn, who inexplicably recovered from a half body paralysis. And after some searching, Strang finds Pangborn, playing basketball, and the man tells him he found the cure and calmer Taj.

Steve 19:18

Yes. And here, Dr. Strange then obviously then goes to kind of our Taj to find it. I mean, how far would you go to restore yourself? If a piece of you is broken

Stephen 19:29

as much as was necessary without harming those around

Steve 19:33

me? Yeah, but like what'd you fly across the country to follow some experimental cure with. 100%

Stephen 19:40

easily. Yeah. Well, I mean, he's doing the right thing and I don't fault him for, I don't fault him for getting those other surgeries. And I also don't fault him for traveling to Nepal to see if what helped Pangborn can help him. Yeah. And

Steve 19:59

while he's in the pile, he's wandering the streets of Katmandu and he's noticed and followed to be mugged. Another sourcer. Carl Mordo saves him from muggers and takes him to come or Taj where he meets the ancient one.

Stephen 20:13

So the actor who plays Mordo is a fifth degree black belt in karate. So his movements are second nature and. Leading him to do many of his own stunts, which I think is awesome. I do too.

Steve 20:25

And now, now that we are getting to know the ancient one a little bit more, I do want to take a moment to discuss Marvel's casting choice in the comics. The ancient one is an old man, an old Asian man. Well, in this film, the issue once played by an androgynous woman. This was a deliberate decision as Scott Derrickson felt the ancient one was a title rather than a person. And additionally, he wanted to avoid the risk of portraying any negative racial stereotypes as the appearance of the ancient one in the comics. It's based on Tibetan monks, despite this reasoning, many critics felt this casting decision was equally problematic taking the roll away. That was meant for an Asian actor actress.

Stephen 21:04

So yeah, there was a lot of talk in articles on Facebook and on Twitter about Marvel, like washing a roll. Yes. And I can definitely understand that because. There are not a lot of Asian roles in movies in general and especially superhero movies. So, you know, representation matters. And we definitely say that I also can't fault Derek son's thought process where he was like, I don't want to come off as stereotypical in that I might be making fun of a racial stereotype. So in his mind he was trying to do the right thing out of respect for Asian culture. And in the end Asian culture was like, Hey, that was one of ours. So this was in his mind. Damned if you do damned if you don't. Yeah. And I see both sides 100%. Yeah. It's kind of like. You know, so many people are upset about the casting of Ariel right now. And they're like, Ariel's you know, they're taking a roll away from a ginger white girl and giving it to a town yeah. So this is one, I definitely see both sides. It probably would have been better if they had cast an Asian actor in the role

Steve 22:45

or dream casting, the star of everything everywhere all at once. Oh, Michelle y'all have Michelle yo be the ancient one.

Stephen 22:55

Love. Yes, I am okay with that. But yeah, they weren't going to win with this in the end. Tilda Swinton does a fantastic job as I've never seen her do poorly in anything she's done. Yeah. Yeah, it wasn't the best at the time, but we can't change it. Yes. And it could have been worse. It could have been worse because, you know, we talked about the other movies. Like it would have been worse if it were bill Nighy because then it would have been an old white man taking a, another job. So what do you have any other thoughts besides things I mentioned?

Steve 23:38

Just say whoever the ancient one is, they clearly know a lot about strange and introduced him moving on. I'm just moving on. They introduced them to an alternate reality where many hidden universes and dimensions can be harnessed for power and mystical guidance to reorient the spirit, to heal the. Strange dismisses her concepts as impossible until she pushes his spiritual form out of his physical form. And fuck, that would bring me up to believe a whole lot faster as well. He then goes through a somewhat forced spiritual awakening through a very visually stunning montage where whoever wrote it was clearly untrue.

Stephen 24:16

Strangers introduction to the multi-verse is kind of our first real introduction in the MCU.

Steve 24:23

Yeah. And as someone who's recently become more acquainted with the metaphysical world, do you believe any of these concepts are possible?

Stephen 24:29

Absolutely. So one of the things that like a form of meditation is astral projection and that isn't just new age thing that is ancient Eastern teachings as well as native American teachings. So. Astral projection, astral travel has been around for thousands of years. So I think that, you know, it's normal for them to pull them into here. You know, they talk, where's the line between metaphysical and magical in agents of shield on ABC. The are my two favorite characters on there. We're always quick to say magic is just a word for things which science can't yet explain.

Steve 25:17

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, do you think that there's something to be excited about up the possibility of someone with Steven's injuries, finding recovery in the metaphysical world where he wasn't able to find it in the medical world? There

Stephen 25:30

are absolutely cases of that. And you know, people throw it away as different things like even personally. So back when I was in high school mom was diagnosed with lymphoma and. My grandmother came to stay with us for a bit. And every night we would gather and do a meditation and prayer circle with mom in the middle. And it was interesting because as we were praying and things, you felt this enormous heat and mom went to Johns Hopkins, highly respected and medical place. Had some more tests confirmed. The lymphoma came home had more tests locally because Johns Hopkins wasn't close by. So it was a travel and we kept up with the nightly prayer. Things goes back to Johns Hopkins, lo and behold, no treatments cancer gone. Yeah. So I definitely think that there is something to say for the power of metaphysical and spiritual healing. One of the great things like Mordo tells strange, forget everything that you think, you know, and I think that's a very apt thing to say when beginning on a spiritual journey, like what is real, what mysteries lay beyond the senses. And as we've seen with different meditations and things that we've done there is healing that's involved

Steve 27:04

and it does require a little bit of unlearning of what, you know. Yes. And so after this strange bags teach me and at first the ancient one cast him out, but he stays outside until she allows some back in while he's outside, we hear her fears of him turning into another Cassilis, someone who goes over to the dark side, kind of like very like Jedi. Once back in he begins training and slowly learns to open gates to jump across the world. He learns the Temple's part of a secret group, saving the world from enemies and other dimensions and universes.

Stephen 27:36

So whether you needed their healing or. Would you want to join this group and learn their powers?

Steve 27:44

Yeah. Who wouldn't want to live in that mystical it's like that. But the thing is what would you use them for? Would you serve this group? Oh yeah. And have that be your new life

Stephen 27:54

purpose? 100%. I would see if I could open like if I wasn't chosen to work in one of the sanctums, I'd be like, can I open a clinic and just use this to teach and help and heal people. And I would be perfectly condensed to do that for.

Steve 28:13

Yeah, and I would want to like learn how to do it to be a fighter. And you fight, you fight a kick kicks in the mirror. Dementia now strange visits the library, which has kept by Wong, who becomes his sidekick of sorts. Yes. Strange becomes a voracious student borrowing and reading many books while long shows. No sense of humor at all. And except when Dr. Strange named Travis Beyonce, we do later hear him listening to single ladies. And Dr. Strange asks about a book that Cassilis was after with Juan explaining that it's reserved for use only by the source through Supreme. And it's one of the, that Cassilis stole the pages from

Stephen 28:53

now. We then seek a silliest in his followers, start trying to decipher the stolen. So that they can summon Dormamuu from the dark dimension. And while they're doing that, we see, as we saw yesterday, mom's favorite thing was the eye makeup special effects that she's like, how do they keep it on and

Steve 29:14

glue and CGI

Stephen 29:17

glue. Yeah. And, but it is impressive. Like their eyes get all cracked and crackly around and then the dark underneath. And it's a, it's an impressive look.

Steve 29:27

It is. And a strange blames, his inability to create portals on what's going on with his hands. But then the ancient one shoots that down by introducing them to a monk who has no hands and can do all the things strange. Cannot. I

Stephen 29:40

see that reminds me of an ancient saying I cried when I had no shoes till I met a man who had no feet. And then I lacked. Really hard.

Steve 29:54

Is that really an ancient saying, or is it maybe from strangers with candy, from strangers

Stephen 29:58

with candy, but it immediately made me think of it. It's like Amy Cirrus was speaking in my head. So I had to insert a joke.

Steve 30:07

Of course the ancient one says something a little bit more ancient sounding. You cannot beat a river into submission. You must surrender to its power. Not everything makes sense. Not everything has to. Do you agree with this statement?

Stephen 30:22

100%, because as I've seen with metaphysical and spiritual things, there's not a real explanation scientifically for what is happening and what's going on, but it doesn't have to make sense. And, but you also see that with other religions. It's about

Steve 30:45

faith. Yes, it certainly is. You know, our friends who start crystals in their bras, you know, they, they can't explain why that ends up helping them throughout the day, but it does, right. It's that faith that they have in them. Now when strange masters creating portals after a surprise trip to the top of Mount Everest, he seals more books from the library and learns about astral projection. The ancient one then gives them a brief history on the mirror dimension and the multi-verse. So we'll come into play real soon.

Stephen 31:13

Yeah. Yes. Now what I loved is that after she stranded him on Everest, she's just standing there waiting and she has complete faith that he's gonna find his way back more of those. Like we have to go get him and she's like any second now, any second now. And as I was saying, much of spirituality is faith in yourself, in others and in the universe.

Steve 31:37

Yes. And do you believe that there is another, like multi-verse out there where she just waited and waited and he never came because he froze to death like a Popsicle of

Stephen 31:46

course, because like, you have to wonder, because this is, this is a pinnacle moment for him of is he going to give up or is he going to fight? And it was a 50, 50 shot. I think she had full faith. I did not have that full faith in Stephen strange. I was like, they may have to rescue him.

Steve 32:10

Yeah. Now late later while training Marto shows strange a magic stick, a Relic that can be used as a weapon and says, relics must choose their users. Now we see a Relic or two later on shoes, Dr. Strange. But if you could choose to be chosen by one Relic from any piece of fiction, but would that Relic.

Stephen 32:30

Oh, goodness. I mean, there are a lot of interesting ones just in this movie. Like I love the shoes that can help you walk on the air. I love his Cape that allows you to fly. And there are so many different things from other books and stuff that I've read, but you know, if I can't have telepathy and telekinesis, there has to be a power given to me by a Relic. I think I want his Cape so I can just fly around everywhere. I think that'd be fantastic.

Steve 33:00

The Cape would be really cool. And what about you? Well, do you think there's a Relic that could give me the Phoenix force? No, no, that's just a final power. Okay. Well then I'll, I'll stick with the Cape and or even even having the, I have. Oh, or we got Joe Agamotto the eye of Agamotto. Yes. This is what happens when I don't read the outline. No I'm having the eye of Agamotto would also be really cool, like to be able to just rewind, like, if I make a mistake, I can just fix it. Like I wouldn't go through crazy time traveling. Cause I know how that can mess things up, but like little things, like if I could rewind a little bit and not eat that extra donut this morning, I wouldn't do that, but it was so good, you know, but then my tell me hurt now. Sorry. That's okay. That means I'm winning at podcasting

Stephen 33:59

one night when a Wong appears to be out of the library, strange learns how to use the time shifting pendant powered by the time infinity stone, the eye of Agamotto. Yes. Which he practices on using an app. Which also happens to be the universal symbol for forbidden knowledge. Now once mastered, he uses the power to see the missing pages from the book and learns of Dormamuu Mordo and Wong. Tell him it's forbidden to use those spells as they can. Cause time loops that a wielder can be stuck in forever foreshadowing and also let evil forces into the universe.

Steve 34:37

Yes. And as we see Stephen get better with his spell work and hand motions, it's worth noting that Benedict Cumberbatch received help with finger tutting movements from dancer, J funk to make the spell casting, gestures look fluid and agile.

Stephen 34:51

And it's impressive because, you know, we see Steven and this and Wanda Maxim off do it, and it does seem so fluid and natural. And we trust that. Yeah, those motions that you're doing that magic there that's exactly what they should be. Yes.

Steve 35:12

And while I'm provides exposition that there are three sanctums in New York, London, and Hong Kong, where the groups watch over the world, while the Avengers hold off physical threats, the sourcers hold off mystical threats. He also gives more of history that he's purely evil and bent on conquering. All the known worlds and earth has long been his ultimate target. Now with all these different worlds and possibilities that they're off conquering and like other than story, why do you think all these beings want to conquer earth so bad? What about us is so special that they're like, I want those people. So

Stephen 35:47

I would probably say that it there's something special about earth because in our galaxy, as far as we know, we're the only planet that can host life. So there's something very special about. All the qualities on the planet. Also, as we've seen earth has vibranium at a man team and a lot of other amazing things. So maybe they want all of our natural resources as well. You know, Galactus just likes to eat planets in general, but he's come for earth multiple times.

Steve 36:24

And Cassilis finally, deciphers the stolen page in his group, attacks the London sanctum, a plain building with the logo window, the backlash from the London sanctum throw strange through a door and into the New York city.

Stephen 36:37

So the building number seen in the portal to New York was 1 77, a Bleaker street, and that is the location of the sanctum sent tour. And this is actually the address of a townhouse apartment shared by Marvel comic book writers, Gary Friedrich, and Roy Thomas in the 1960s. The latter of whom wrote several Dr. Strange stories though, not the 1963 issue of strange tales that revealed the address as 1 77, a Bleaker

Steve 37:06

coincidence then, or do you think that's the other variety? The other writer knew where he lived and was like, I'm going to put that in for ya

Stephen 37:13

synchronicity. There are no such things as coincidences.

Steve 37:16

Yes. Now the building's deserted as he wanders the floors, looking at various artifacts, he notices a burgundy coat in the last case, which we know will play a role shortly. At the end of the corridor, he finds three glass stores that turned out to be gateways to other places where the destinations changed by turning a dial next seat store, which will also come into play very

Stephen 37:35

shortly. Yeah, but this is amazing. Vacations would only be about the cost to stay somewhere and not the cost of the travel to get there no more COVID airplanes or long car rides, visiting friends that live around the world is simply like opening a door. Oh, we want to go see Ronnie and India for a little bit, click, click, like that's amazing. And there's three options at all times. So when you're not using it, you can be like, Ooh, I want to see the Aurora Borealis over here. And oh, the crystal clear waters of over here and stuff like that's a really cool, oh. And some penguins ones. It is

Steve 38:13

really cool, especially the penguin part. Yeah. Now, cause silliest is group attack, the New York sanctum strange, develops fighting skills on the fly. And what I like is that he's not just instantly perfect at fighting. You can see him learning as he goes

Stephen 38:27

and like getting his butt whooped some too. Yeah.

Steve 38:30

He manages to get rid of two of the zealots using the gateways and in the fight with Caecilian he gets help from the burgundy cloak, a Relic, which seems to have some intelligence and wraps itself around him, choosing him as its owner.

Stephen 38:42

Yep. The cloak helps him subdue the third step zealot and restrained Cassilis and an antique binding rack, which was really neat.

Steve 38:50

Yes. And at one point, Steven, when the clock was trying to get him to get the binding rack, he goes instead for an ax, which the clerk pulls them away from. And that is an ohmage to the 2016 Dr. Strange comics where he's severely de powered and took to wielding an ax called anger ramen.

Stephen 39:09

Well done with that pronunciation, darling.

Steve 39:12

Thank you. It could be completely wrong, but listeners don't add us

Stephen 39:16

strange and Cassilis have a talk about the ancient one named mortality, where conceivably has claimed that the ancient one has achieved her long life using powers from the dark dimension. And you're like, Ooh, is she as good as she says she is? And then once strains lets down his guard, a zealot portals back in and stabs him. Yeah.

Steve 39:36

Now, now that we get to know silliness a little bit more, I mean, after the gorgeous, like gray area villain last week with Killmonger Cassilis comes off a bed like vanilla evil. Does any yeah,

Stephen 39:47

like there there's no gray area with this now there are technically two villains in this movie. One of them is a much more well-rounded gray villain Cassilis is just your average. Villain villain. Like I there's nothing

Steve 40:07

as the other villain. Dr. Strange his ego. No,'cause I feel like that is what drives him or causes most of the conflict through the movie. It's

Stephen 40:17

it's a good portion of it, but no, we'll get to the other villain later on. Yes.

Steve 40:21

Now strange manages to open the gate and stagger into a janitor's closet at Christine's hospital. He finds her and barely manages to get on the table. As Christine hooks him up to a heart monitor and begins to perform an emergency peri cardio dentistry, period,

Stephen 40:37

cardia

Steve 40:37

didn't TCIs yes. To drain excess blood from around his heart. Meanwhile, strange separates from his astral body and physical one so that he can speak with Christine before develop fi Zelle. It finds him in the Astro. Christine shock, strange with a defibrillator which causes a blast in the astral realm, killing the

Stephen 40:56

zealot. I did love that that strange knew that when he got shocked in his body, the electricity went into its Astro form. And so he was able to hold onto the zealot that second shock at more power. And by doing that, it transferred through the astral form and the Astro plane with the zealot back to the sanctum where the zealots body was, and it fried the zealots body. That

Steve 41:21

was really cool. Yeah. And I mean, in general, even during the fight, we see the way the astral realm affects the physical realm. You know, as they're going through the hallways and will knock something off, but then go through something else. I mean, how does that add up or compare to what you know of the metaphysical world so far in the astral realm affect the physical realm?

Stephen 41:39

I mean, they're right on top of each other. So I wouldn't see what.

Steve 41:43

Yep. And sewn up and recovering strange recaps the movie to Christine before sharing that he must return and go back through the gate, a strange apologizes to Christine for everything he did and said, and it was about time. Yeah. She can see that he means it and she doesn't believe him about the portal in the broom closet until she sees it for

Stephen 42:00

herself. And and after he teleports away a broom falls over and she screams.

Steve 42:09

Yes. And that actually was genuine since the mop handle felt completely by accident off-script and scared McAdams out of Ruskin. Derrickson decided to keep the reaction and the film since she never broke character.

Stephen 42:20

Yeah. And it's fantastic. And it seems exactly as it was supposed to be, so it's one of those you're like, oh, I would've thought that was absolutely part of the movie. Yes.

Steve 42:33

And Cassella says escaped and Mordo joined stranger. The ancient one also comes and suggest strange take over the New York

Stephen 42:40

sanctum. And whenever he did that, Mordo gave him a look of I'm standing right here. Yes.

Steve 42:47

They're impressed that the magical Cate known as the cloak of love via levitation,

Stephen 42:53

that

Steve 42:54

I can't read you that limitation.

Stephen 42:59

And I was just about to make a joke of after all the other things I have AGA motto, and this one's just the cloak of levitation and that's the one you stumble

Steve 43:08

over. Yes, it is. They're surprised at shows him and even after all of this strange has reluctant to take the position because he claims he has a Hippocratic oath to do no harm. And he's freaked out that he just killed someone. You know, until he learns more about Cassellius and also about the once use of dark magic took per long her life. And she tries to skirt that topic.

Stephen 43:31

I'm fine with that. I mean, there are certain things like, is there an area 51 have aliens ever been on earth? How close are we to horrible events at all times? Do we need to know? Is it better if the people in charge are handling this thing without causing panic, is it better? If the ancient one does what she needs to do to keep the world in order without going, Hey guys, just so I can stick around and make sure everything's good. I'm going to pull the little bit of this evil energy just to keep me around. Like, I think it's her business. I'm good with it. Yes.

Steve 44:12

And at this point though, strange is finally like in the fight. I mean, up until now, even with all of his training, he was very transparent that he was training to get his hands back. What do you think made him change from doing this for his own selfish purposes, to being willing to fight for the greater good.

Stephen 44:31

That is an excellent question. And I'm wondering if it was also seeing that his talents can be used elsewhere and that he's finally starting to see that the world is bigger than himself. Yeah.

Steve 44:52

Now Cassellius search turns with more zealots and strange creates a mirror dimension to contain the fight, which spills out into the street. It's a really cool fight sequence. The silliest uses his powers to shapeshift the city in disorient strange. And at this point it's worth noting the folding replication and changes in orientation during their reality, twisting scenes were influenced by the works of mathematical painter, MC Asher, and the fractal concept. And you know those, huh?

Stephen 45:18

I do just because I love Asher's paintings because you can just stare at them and depending on what your eye is focusing on. Is like, wait, so there's the waterfall. So it has to be at the top, but the waterfall is also at the same level as the bottom. So how did that, like physics don't mean anything anymore and it's all an optical illusion, depending on what your high is focusing on. And like, so listeners, Google, M C S R E S C H E R. And some of his artwork. And you're going to be very

Steve 45:57

impressed or maybe you'll turn this into an audio. Grandma's one of the pictures is the backdrop. If you love our listeners,

Stephen 46:03

we'll see. We'll see. So the ancient one returns to help, but she gets stabbed my Cassilis and falls back into the real-world mortally. Wounded strange takes her to Christine's hospital, but unfortunately it is too late. Strange follows the ancient ones, spirit in his astral form and they talk overlooking New York city. And the ancient one accepts that this is her Rand and suggest that it's time for strange to take over.

Steve 46:28

And you mentioned that you agree with the ancient one, that she was right for doing what maybe whatever was necessary to extend her life, to continue to serve the greater good, even if it meant calling on a little bit of dark energy. Yeah. I assume she also calls Steven out for his X character defect. Having to realize that it's not about you less than we all come to struggle to come to terms with, when did you, or have you realized that it's not about you? I

Stephen 46:55

think that it's, sometimes you learn that multiple times in your life. Whenever, you know, people say, you know, it's not all about you and it's those type of things where I always say, you know, someone else's opinion of me is none of my business. Whatever they're holding inside. It's not about me. That's about them and things like that. And it, you know, whenever you get to that point where you're wanting to let go of past trauma, past heartache, those feelings that you've held against other people, whether they are regrets or feelings of hurt, you have to be able to realize it's not all about you. And just let that shit go.

Steve 47:48

Yes, I understand. I mean, that's something that I have especially learned in working in the, my, the 12 steps in my recovery program is that it's not all about me and not to hold onto those resentments and things like that. So I'd say the lesson that I've been learning this past year as well,

Stephen 48:03

it's a very important lesson. And one of the great things that strange learns in all this is that the loss of the use of his hands. It was a new beginning for him and one that he needed, because I think in the end he's liking the person that he's becoming.

Steve 48:22

He's certainly a little bit more enlightened now. And back in the New York sanctum strange and Mordo realized Hong Kong is next on. Cassilis says list because obviously it is because he took over the other two. Yup. They gave it over to the Hong Kong sanctum, but it's already been overrun and destroyed. And now a destructive force is enveloping. The city long who was guarding, it has been killed. And remind me was, start dimension is growing from the location of the sanctum strength. Strange. He uses the eye of Agamotto to start reversing the process in a really cool fight scene where the time is going backwards while they're fighting forwards. And Cassilis recovers. He manages to stun strange stopping the process before it can complete strange, then thinks of something and flies off into the heart of Derma mus dark dimension.

Stephen 49:07

Now, if you could go back in time and change some. What would it be?

Steve 49:14

Well, I already talked about like, mostly, it would be that extra donut I had this morning.

Stephen 49:19

I'm glad that something important. Well, yeah,

Steve 49:21

because you don't want to change the important things overall. I really love where my life is right now. And I would be afraid that by changing anything that directly affected my life would change to where I've come this far in my journey. So I would change little things and it might not always be that donut that I had this morning, but it would only be little things. Cause I would be afraid of the butterfly effect of changing something more significant. Yeah, because

Stephen 49:44

originally I was thinking, oh, I would change Trump's election win. And then I was like, but maybe all that negativity and violence was required for that great spiritual awakening that we've seen happening since 2020. So maybe we had to go through all that to get where we are as humans today. So yeah, maybe. Changing the past. Isn't really the good thing it's learning from the past so that you don't repeat those mistakes. I will

Steve 50:14

not have that second donut next Sunday. Yeah, you will. And maybe we'll see in the dark dimension, Dr. Strange confronts, Derma, and manages to create an infinite time loop where a demo kills strange in various ways. But every time strange dies, time has always reset to the start of the confrontation. We'll never

Stephen 50:32

win, but I can lose again and again and again, which makes you my prisoner.

Steve 50:38

Yes. And our mom was furious and finally agrees to leave earth alone in return for strange stopping the time loop back on the streets, strange sense. Caecilian in his crew into the dark dimension just before it vanishes. But what time loop sounds like an absolute nightmare to you?

Stephen 50:54

The time period of 2016 to 2020, that was a very dark time in our country. And I would not want to do it again or that first month. Of COVID of March of 2020 that were March lasted about 16 years. Yeah. Just

Steve 51:12

imagine if just that, that March replayed where, you know, it's March 31st and then like you wake up the next morning and it's March 1st again, and it just continues

Stephen 51:22

on or not. No. No, thank you. What about you?

Steve 51:25

No, that that's a good one. Mark. I would say March of COVID or just in general, like even whatever we went through when we had that pending adoption. I wouldn't want to go over through that again once there's enough. Yeah, I agreed

Stephen 51:38

now. This is a major breakthrough and Dr. Strange has character development knowing he will never win and continue to die in order to keep the world safe. Do you think this change is believable and earned as a character?

Steve 51:53

I think it's certainly earned with everything that he's been through and it is taking some faith that through learning these teachings that they eventually did affect him. I feel like the death of the ancient one was a pivotal part in that. So I would say that it's believable in orange. I,

Stephen 52:09

100% that everything happens in this movie slowly and as it should, because as you mentioned, he wasn't a great fighter at the beginning. And it like took time whenever he was first at calmer Taj, he wasn't able to like all the other students were lik I made a portal and he's like, can't do it. So like, everything feels earned because nothing.

Steve 52:39

Easily. Yes. And Marto is upset that strange broke the rules in using the time pendant that the ancient one also used considering forbidding powers for longer life. He's very much like you both broke the rules and I'm so mad that people broke the rules and rules are not meant to be broken there. The rules that

Stephen 52:59

they live by. And he took those to heart as inflexible things that it is black or white and that's all.

Steve 53:10

And that's why she chose strange because his flexibility would be an important factor when working together and working to save the world. Mordo says there must be a reckoning and retires from the group and walks away

Stephen 53:21

angry. Yup. And well Martos role in the upcoming sequel multi-verse of madness has been kept quiet. He's typically known for being an antagonist and a villain in the comics.

Steve 53:33

Yes. Now strange takes over the New York sanctum. He puts the eye of Agamotto back in its guarded place at calmer Taj, where wrong tells them a little extra secret about the eye that it contains one of the six infinity stones,

Stephen 53:45

which makes sense because of the ability to control time. And you know, this is when we're building up. All the infinity Sterns are about to come into play.

Steve 53:56

Yes. And a mid credit scene strange decides to help Thor, not only refilling his email over and over again, but also to help his brother Loki and him search for their father Odin which we see continue on and Thor rag.

Stephen 54:12

Yep. And then in the post credit scene, Mordo visits, Pangborn and strip some of the magic. He uses to walk Pangborn collapses in a heap as mortal coldly states that the problem is there too many sourcers.

Steve 54:28

I know. And I told you he was a villain because I feel so bad for Pangborn. He was just living his best life, playing basketball and working on manly tools stuff. Yep.

Stephen 54:36

And like, and as I said, this is the gray area villain that Marvel is really good with because we saw him fighting the good fight for all these things. But he can't reconcile his deeply held beliefs with what the ancient one and strange had to do to save the world and the universe. So it's this inner conflict. And for him, it's, I have these deeply held beliefs that I believe are correct. These people are going against it. So in my mind, they're the villains, not me. And that's the, that's the thing of a really good villain villains. Usually don't see themselves as the villains and Mordo. Definitely doesn't see himself as the villain, not at

Steve 55:30

all now. And the current MCU after this, we do see Dr. Strange go on to being an integral part of the adventurous, helping fight Thanos in Avengers, infinity war. He was then blipped out, but came back for the final battle and Avengers end game,

Stephen 55:43

which the best scene when he creates all those portals and everyone comes through the portals at the same time. So good

Steve 55:54

and more recently in spider man, no way home. He became an unwilling mentor to Peter Parker and accidentally opens the gates to the multi-verse leading us into a cliffhanger for the upcoming. Dr. Strange in the multi-verse of madness, which comes out next week. If you're listening to this, when it comes out. Yes.

Stephen 56:10

And what's interesting about all that is that despite it coming out in over a week, you know, from the episodes release date, plot details have been so top secret, like we know that the multi-verse is happening. We know that Wanda is in it. We know that strange goes to her for help. But we don't know, like the villain, we don't know what's happening. Like it's very

Steve 56:39

exciting. It is. And so what are your hopes for the multi-verse of madness? Mutans mutans mutants. Yes. It certainly has hinted at one point when you hear Exair that he's paving the way from humans to be in the MCU. Yes.

Stephen 56:53

Because in the Marvel comics strange of your Mr. Fantastic. And they're part of a group of people. Oh, crap. And Illuminati Illuminati. Thank you. And. That's kind of what we're seeing here, it looks like is that strange goes to a dimension where the MCU Illuminati exists, which means there are mutants there I've always wondered, like were mutans created by the second finger snap where you know, cause they talked about that release of energy and maybe that activated the mutant gene in certain people one way to do it. And it would be easy to say, boom mutans happened because of the second finger snap or mutants existed in these other multiverses. And during this, the X-Men are going to come through the multi-verse one of the multi-verse dimension, portals, and that's how we're going to have mutants in future MCs.

Steve 58:06

That will be awesome. And also, am I, the only one who's hoping that Wanda does reunite with her children?

Stephen 58:11

Oh, I know. I mean, it was Agatha all,

Steve 58:16

I know my idea, no basis for doing it, but that in being in the multi-verse and being all trapped, that they are like mystically or magically also aged up maybe about 10 years so that they can then be the young Avengers.

Stephen 58:31

And because we will be having America Chavez who was in multi-verse of madness, which is also why the movie is now banned in Saudi Arabia because America Chavez is a lesbian. We're about to have the Ms. Marvel TV series. We just had the young Hawkeye TV series. So like we are, they're developing the young Avengers. We're about to have them all and having Wanda's teenage kid. On there. Yeah, it would be great.

Steve 59:00

It's certainly what, especially adding some more rainbow colors to the Marvel family, with one son being gay and one being bisexual.

Stephen 59:09

I believe the, yeah, because one of them is full on gay and the.

Steve 59:16

Other one doesn't go by labels.

Stephen 59:19

Which that sounds very Wanda kids.

Steve 59:22

Yeah. Yes. And so with that, I would say we should go watch Dr. Strange when it comes out in the well, to first of madness. I mean, if we have to. All right, well, we'd love to know what you guys think of. Both this Dr. Strange as well as the new one when it comes out. Yes. How can you get in touch with us?

Stephen 59:38

Well, you can get in touch with us on all the socials, whether that is Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or Tik TOK at happy life

Steve 59:47

pod, or if you want to keep it on the DL, you can slide into our emails, happy life pod@gmail.com. We love to hear from you.

Stephen 59:57

Yes. And if you really enjoy us and you've taken a listen to some of our other stuff, Why don't you head over where you listen to podcasts and leave a five star review and a nice little comment for us. We would love that. And we'll talk about it on the podcast,

Steve 1:00:12

for sure. Yes. And until next time everyone stay happy.