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Welcome creatives! These are discussions, thoughts, case studies, interviews, and lessons about how our creativity relates to life. The host, Mr Benja, is a former video game programmer / designer for Rockstar Games, Sony Santa Monica, The 3DO Company, and others, as well as a fine artist. -- Be sure to check out the website for more.
Marvel's Echo has hit the airwaves,
and it might be the most important
Marvel show in recent memory.
Why would it be important?
Because.
Right now, everybody's got their eye on
Marvel, wondering if they're going to
drop the ball, if they're going to make
something awesome, if they're going to
knock it out the park, if they should
keep their subscription to Disney plus.
It's all about the next set of things
going on in the Marvel universe.
And I won't get into saying too
much about Disney and all of that.
I want to stick here today with
the creativity of the new show,
Echo, the new Marvel release.
That's got not too many people
talking, but that's beside the point.
We're here to discuss its
creativity, whether it's did it,
it did its job, how it was created.
We don't talk too much about the business
and Hollywood side of things here.
I'll leave that for the show
versus business podcast.
But for now, I'd like to know,
what did you think of the show?
And just to give you a little
backdrop, just a little bit of a
backdrop on why the show came out the
way it did and what they're up to.
Marvel's been trying this, this
TV show thing, this streaming show
idea, and much of the idea around
it was to give more backstory, to
give more depth, to give more of a
texture to the whole Marvel Universe.
And it wasn't necessarily meant
to be these grand, awesome shows.
They just wanted to give more
of a commercial, if you will.
To do more brand building with the
Marvel audience and take that and
bring that into a theatrical release.
So basically you have a big theatrical
release and in the wings or on the
side, if people want extra information
or they want to see a little more
of Marvel, they watch this stuff.
And then they're logged on to Disney Plus.
They're stuck in the whole
Marvel, Star Wars, Disney.
universe, they're in their whole,
you know, their brand pocket.
And then later on, when a big
movie comes out, they're ready.
They can tell all their friends, Oh
man, the story has been building up
since, since these shows, these shows,
these shows, everybody needs to come in
and watch it, it's going to be great.
That's the idea.
Has that worked out exactly?
That's left to be determined.
Disney hasn't been happy with it,
just in terms of how much money it's
been bringing in, how many subscribers
they've had on Disney Plus, and not
all the people have been happy with it.
Not just because of the action, not
just because of the politics of it
all, but just because, hey man, maybe
we're tired of all this Marvel stuff.
There's a lot that's been going
on in terms of people's ideas.
Now, let me cut to the chase.
I thought it was great.
Um, I shouldn't say great.
I thought it was fine.
What they did.
I thought it was, Hey, this is good.
This is fine.
This is a great, good job, Disney.
You did your job.
You kept going forward and you're
pushing what you need to push.
And yes, it's relatively safe, but
we'll get into all that in a second.
We'll get into all of that
and we'll break all this down.
As we always Benja where I get in and talk
that noise about creativity and all of me.
It all meaning and aspect of life.
I think creativity and creation
is fundamental to life and I don't
think we really talk about just
our general creativity enough.
I come from the video game industry
and I've been a creative all of my life
and I had some things to talk about.
So.
The podcast began.
I'm here most weekdays, but
you don't care about that.
What you care about is are these
Marvel shows any good or not?
Is this whole echo thing worth watching?
Did you get something from it?
I sure hope so.
So let's start with just
the general premise.
So first off, you've got five episodes, so
you already know it's going to be short.
And it's a character that
not many people know of.
They may know a little bit about Maya
from, from Hawkeye, but that was.
You know, that's one of those, Hey, if
you didn't see it, then maybe you want
to go back and watch it kinds of things.
So in the first episode already, we
have a flashback retelling of a story
that happens through, through basically
the Hawkeye lens, uh, and I don't know
how many people watched Hawkeye, but it
probably wasn't a lot echo comes out.
And you've got to watch that.
Now, why would you even be
into the echo side of things?
Well, supposedly it brings in.
It's a little bit of a bridge between
the Marvel that we know from Disney and
the Marvel that we know from Netflix.
Being the Daredevil universe, the
Defenders universe, Luke Cage, Iron
Fist, I'm sorry, I mean Cotton Fist,
and wait a minute, why am I missing one?
Oh, Jessica Jones, so sorry.
Jessica Jones, Luke Cage,
Cotton Fist, and Daredevil.
And Punisher, that's what I
was thinking of, Punisher.
So that all came from the Disney,
I mean the Marvel Netflix.
And now we have this Disney Marvel.
And it's trying to bridge this whole gap.
So there were a couple, whenever you're
creating something, there's a couple ideas
that you have to contend with all at once,
and you can never deny the circumstances
of what's, what's being created, right?
You have to always consider the
circumstance and the context.
So with everybody watching this at the
moment, it's like you have, okay, I've
got to bridge this whole Netflix marvel.
It's gotta be a little grittier, it's
gotta be darker, it's gotta be a little
violent, it's gotta bring that aspect to
it, because that's what those Those fans
are looking for and that's what they're
prepping for with this new daredevil
And maybe we'll see some other shows
coming along, but that was kind of the
idea Also, I have seen people in the
forums and the message board saying hey,
is this going to be nice and friendly?
I don't want to see anything dark,
you know I know marvel can get dark
sometimes and they're disney fans or
you know, the lighter fans and they're
Concern that it could be too dark.
So now Disney's got to do this game where
they play a little back and forth between,
well, it's dark, but it's not too dark.
It's fanciful, but not too fanciful.
And that's what you've
got to contend with.
Also this character
Echo is native American.
as well as, um, deaf and uses
American, um, , ASL sign language.
So now we've got all these things coming
together and not even a full story.
It's only five episodes with one episode,
one really catching you up quickly.
So with all of that in mind, what
did I think of it in general?
I think it did its job.
I think that it wasn't like
phenomenal, not running out and
telling my friends about it, but
I was happy to have watched it.
I was like, cool.
That was fine.
Decent.
Let's keep going with this character.
Like Cotton Fist, I was actually happy
about that character and excited to
see some of the things in the show.
And You know, it was soft.
That's why I call it cotton fist
because it was soft, but this daredevil,
um, this whole daredevil universe is
really interesting and I'm glad they're
taking the moment to bring that out.
Oh, also another context on this
is that they're trying to also, I
don't want to say get away from the.
grandiose, celestial Marvel action
that they've been going with.
But they do want to have a more
grounded, reality based side of
Marvel that people can watch and
just understand and be happy with.
They've got a lot of things that they
were trying to achieve with this.
And I didn't even get into the budget,
the budgeting of it all, the politics of,
you know, trying to be woke and all that.
I didn't even get into all of that
when making my considerations.
But all of that's taken
into consideration.
The creators, I think did
a good job, good sets, good
action, good visuals in general.
It was solid.
And if you want to give me an up
or down, I give it a thumbs up.
Shout out to the one
beast boy, Derek Thomas.
I love G rafts.
Shout out to everybody popping through
in the chat and the people on YouTube
and Facebook, Nat Free, Landon.
Good seeing everybody.
Anyway, the action, let's just go
through these, um, bit by bit actually.
So we'll start obviously with the
main character and the main idea.
Maya and her lore, her friends,
and her reason for being a hero.
If you ever ask me, one
of the No, not one of.
The primary thing I consider when I'm
thinking about these hero stories is,
do they actually exhibit a hero's story?
Is there somebody who's got a cause,
uses their ability, their unique
ability, and their character to fight
for something and get ahead and succeed?
Or at least move the story forward.
Do they do that?
Is it somebody you can get
behind and say, you know what?
I understand that pain.
I'll get behind it.
This is one of the reasons why people
relate to Spider Man so much kid in high
school, everybody considers them a pest.
They, they, they're smart.
They're intelligent.
Still.
They clearly can't get along with
too many people and they're just
going through daily struggles.
They're missing people in their
lives that they really loved.
And they fight for something
and you're like, cool.
I get it.
Batman, everybody kind of has this,
you know, if I could set things
right and nobody knew who I was and
I could just do things this way, I
would change the world for the better.
I would teach them.
And there's kind of this certain vibe
that you get from all of the major popular
heroes that go like, yeah, I get that.
I would want to be that.
There's a certain aspirational
type of vibe that you get from all
the popular characters and heroes.
And that is my one big fault
with my, um, Maya and Echo.
I don't really think that they centered
enough on who this character was, why
they should be moving forward and why we
would want to see them do anything else.
It was a vengeance story, which is
understandable, but they never really got
into why their vengeance even mattered,
why Maya's.
need to find and, you know, do damage.
Why, why was it so compelling?
Why would you want to be in her shoes?
Her shoe.
Yes, I made that joke.
No her shoes.
Um, why would you want
to walk in her footsteps?
And it seemed a little
bit lacking, actually.
Because anytime you have a hero What
you want to do is set up the hero, you
usually want to have them lose something
or have something they're fighting
for, something's missing in their
lives, and they need to fight for that.
And I think with Kingpin being the head
boss that he was, and you know, still
trying to love her, I thought there was
good tension there with like, hey, you
know, I see you as my daughter, I see you
as family, and then she feels betrayed.
Like, I get it when I read the story.
I get it when they tell me the story, but
it wasn't shown to me in enough of a way.
It's kind of like, yeah, Hawkeye kind of.
You know, it's no spoiler.
If you've watched the show, you
understand this, but yeah, Hawkeye
kind of was responsible for your dad's
death and yeah, Kingpin had a part
in that, but, uh, do I really care?
I don't know.
I just didn't care that much.
I don't know if anybody really
did or if they really wanted
us to or miss something.
But.
That's the core thing.
And I think a lot of shows they have
so much going on that they don't end up
getting that core idea pushed across in a
way that makes sense to the audience in a
way that really grips the audience because
you can have less than stellar fighting.
You can have less than stellar visuals.
Less than stellar dialogue and story.
And you can still get over with
that main character want and desire.
If you just keep it really simple
in that regard, then it makes sense.
Like they spent far too long
with, Hey, you never called me.
I'm like, I.
Okay, somebody didn't call you and
you're gonna waste this much time on it.
I got vengeance on my
mind I got stuff to do.
It was a it was a decent
job in what it did.
Also, the story Story
with story was solid.
It was an origin story and a revenge
story But neither of them were really
tied into each other very well They
just kind of happened to be happening
happening in parallel and didn't didn't
connect But even so I think her story is
actually quite compelling her Her idea
that she comes from this long line of,
of healers, of protectors and defenders
of her tribe, that's a compelling story.
So if they were to go back and do this,
you know, you kind of lean into that.
And instead of having random visions,
have her have a little more curiosity,
because whatever drives the character.
It's like, hey, maybe I
should go look into this.
Maybe I should find out something.
But instead of that, we
just got random flashbacks.
It wasn't bad.
It was just, we got random flashbacks.
And yes, it gave her a chance to
go talk to her grandmother, learn
a little bit more from the, from
the, directly from the source.
But as I said, it didn't
connect like you would hope.
It didn't give you that, that
visceral connection of, oh my
God, this is the situation I'm in.
I've got to deal with this.
And those kinds of situations where
you feel the character, even if you
don't like the movie, you're like,
man, this person needs to do this.
This person needs to do
one, two or three things.
Sometimes it's four things.
They usually have a friendship
slash love interest.
They usually have a social interest
where they're trying to connect with
their family or society or community.
They usually have a, uh, a power
interest where they need to
come to grips with their certain
power, their certain ability.
their certain place in life.
And they need to have something they
need to overcome, whether it's a villain
stopping, uh, you know, a volcano
from destroying the city or whatever,
stopping a meteorite from blowing up the
earth, stopping some alien onslaught.
So usually have a couple different
wants, needs, and desires, and
they need to be clearly expressed.
I can really like, I really
liked the actor that played Maya.
Uh, I thought she did a great job, um,
came through kicking behind and they
even, I liked what they did actually
about them hinting at her power, her
abilities, there were still kind of
unclear on them and she just seemed
like a natural, but I did like how
they hinted at her ability to do stuff.
Without giving you too much information,
so she's got the blood of her ancestors
and all this power, you know I don't
even want to I didn't have a name for
it I don't want to call it magical
powers, but ancestral powers or the
Abilities passed down through her lineage
But that gives a lot of that gives a lot
of weight when you can you're able to
have these very clear defined goals and
I think a lot of writers and Producers
and directors take that for granted You
really have to beat it into the viewer's
mind that yes, this is what they're doing.
This is why it's important to them
and everything should relate to that.
idea.
As I said, we spent a good amount
of time talking about Hawkeye, the
past, how she ended up with Kingpin,
and that makes sense, but I need
this to focus on why she cares.
Even if you tell us we need to understand
it, we need to feel it, we need to have
it viscerally involved in our hearts.
Like, man, She is troubled.
She needs to do this.
If I'm ever questioning the motive,
you've already lost me in the story.
It can't just be because.
And hopefully, when you have that
type of connection, when you have that
type of vibe with the character on
the screen, what that allows you to do
is really get invested in everything
they're doing because of that connection.
If we know that she liked ice
cream, you know, maybe she wants
to stop and get ice cream suddenly.
And you're kind of like, Oh yeah,
yeah, she did like ice cream.
Oh yeah, she did like this or whatever.
Maybe she'll, you know, and it kind
of, it kind of relates the story to
itself and I wish echo would have been
a little more tight in that respect.
As I said, it just did its job.
It wasn't phenomenal, but he
just did his job in that respect.
And I think that's what is missing,
but you got to dig the, um, you got it.
You got to be happy that they
brought the, the Kingpin back to at
least a decently dangerous status.
I didn't like the fact that echo just,
okay, let me just, let me stop for a
moment and talk about power levels.
This is something that gets me a lot with.
With these shows, not these shows, these
movies, these properties, anytime you
have a hero and a villain that cross
multiple areas, multiple franchises,
you have to keep power levels in mind.
You have to.
And what I mean by that is if this person
is defined as somebody who is powerful,
you don't just all of a sudden knock
them down a peg for no apparent reason.
Echo was a minor character
in a minor character's show.
And she ended up shooting Kingpin,
a major character, in a major
character's show, in the face.
thereby weakening him, thereby making
everything you do a little less intense.
It's like, oh, well, you're just going to
shoot him in the face and that was stupid.
And it kind of deflates
everything when you do that.
Like, I know she's a badass, we
get that, but there was no fear or
trepidation of this man in an ill
fitting suit, just being angry.
And not being able to inflict
any damage on anything.
It just wasn't very effective.
When you have villains that
aren't very effective, then your
character isn't that effective.
I don't understand why this is a
thing that's starting to happen now.
I know you don't want to give the
enemy or the bad guy too much praise.
You don't want to glorify them, but
the more you make the enemy strong,
the more that the Main character
needs to overcome that and the more we
respect them when they do overcome it
right off the bat It's like hi.
My name is Kingpin.
I showed up here and they put me in a
Hawaiian shirt for some stupid reason
And now I get shot in the face and I'm in
the hospital and no one's scared of me.
It just, it was just, it was deflating.
You don't deflate these types of things,
these types of setups you've made.
You spend all this time setting it up.
And now this idea that you'll just
come in and turn a character into
something very powerful, just because,
you know, Hey, we want to, that
doesn't make a powerful character.
That just makes it annoying in
terms of handling the story.
So if a story is no good.
Because you've messed up all the power
levels and nothing seems important and
there are no stakes because hey You
already shot him in the face once, and
it's just really difficult to understand
the stakes when you keep deflating them.
And I think Echo had a, just had
a difficult situation because
everything that Disney had set up
before caused this to be a little
less intense than it should have been.
So what would you do to
fix something like that?
Um, you know,
having her a little more on the run.
A little more cat and mouse game.
Maybe that would have worked out.
Hard to do in five episodes, I know.
Maybe have her fail a little harder.
Hard to do in five episodes, I know.
But they really didn't bring up a
lot in terms of like, yeah, here's an
obstacle, you need to go overcome it.
It's just that everything
just kind of fell into place.
And with as cool of a character
as this is, and you know, we get
to see, see the powers develop.
And that's, here's another
way they could have done this.
As she was doing her thing, every time
she got in trouble, Like really starting
to fear for her life or something.
Maybe that's when she started.
Maybe that's when she could
start having the flashbacks.
And that really ties into how the
character, you know, works out the
problems, like when they were doing the
whole sharpshooting bit, I don't want
you to shoot at chains on a swing set.
You know, I need you to shoot at something
that, that really makes a difference.
Maybe you have a headache, your
nose starts bleeding or whatever.
Some kind of a push behind graduating
to your next level of prowess.
I didn't really see much
of a, a sub enemy either.
Like if a, if Kingpin's the
main enemy, the sub enemy.
Needs to be something a little bit
formidable to that person that's right
under the main boss and you know You
have to dispatch with that person first
So kind of a kind of a little choppy
and soft in some of those areas, but
nevertheless it held up good action
Did a lot better fighting than than
cotton fist So if you're into action and
fighting definitely definitely strong
points there not too much craziness
in terms of anything We haven't seen
before But it was definitely solid
and well put together and meaningful.
Most of the fights had meaning
to them, which was good.
Even the Daredevil fight, you're
kind of like, Oh, wow, this
person's keeping up with Daredevil.
I would have rather Daredevil, you know,
kind of stomp her out a little more.
Being that it was one of her first
fights, but as I said, this is the
Disney thing where if you've got
a hero, they've always got to be
heroic and can never lose anything.
I don't think they should
have played it that way.
Um, Daredevil being her first major
loss would have been really cool,
but then having her beat up on
other people, working her way up to
Daredevil's level, that would have
made a little more sense to me.
So what else?
The audio, uh, visuals were very good.
Still well done.
Five, five episodes.
Relatively decent budget.
Nothing I looked at and
thought, Oh, that was silly.
Oh, that was fake.
Some of the other worldly
scenes, they were fine.
It all worked.
One, uh, one nice thing I liked
was how they did the audio.
If you, if you listen to the audio,
a lot of times they went into Maya's
point of view, and there were things
that were muffled or that you couldn't
hear as well, because she wasn't
directly paying attention to them.
I know that's something they really could
have explored further on down the line.
But they never got around to it.
And I kind of wanted to see her, her
deal with the situation in the dark, or
if she got like something in her eyes
and she couldn't hear, and they were
playing, um, she obviously can't hear,
but something got in her eyes or her
view was obstructed for some reason.
You know, maybe that would have
been a little more, more sensible.
And she wasn't even blindfolded when
they took her hostage, which was, you
know, you have moments where you can like
play on the character and their, their
different abilities and their situation.
And so they didn't take a
lot of these opportunities.
As I said, it felt very
safe, solid, but safe.
And I would actually, I actually
like it better because they were.
Not sure what else they wanted to try
with this, but they kept it solid.
So yeah, it's got a good bit of novelty.
Um, the character actually makes
sense in terms of how she looks
and how she, how she behaves.
Never really smiling, just
kind of doing her thing.
Really dug that.
So yeah, Daredevil, Kingpin, all
of that stock, I think, basically
carried some of the story.
Into the present where it was, where
it made it very happy, very good.
And very watchable, uh, makes you
want to see more of this whole
dimension, more of this world.
We know King pins coming back and
that's, you know what, not some
people don't like this, but I think
it's a good thing when stories don't
finish everything off completely.
And they don't tie off all loose ends
where it's kind of like, you want to
leave a little bit to the imagination,
especially with comic stories.
It's like if the enemy dies
and everything is put to rest
and you're kind of like, well.
What happens now?
But if the enemy gets taken to jail,
or they get sent to another dimension,
or, you know, they're, they're, they're
being made to, uh, face their emotional
demons or whatever, become happy inside.
We don't know what Maya actually
did at the end, but anytime
something like that happens, I like
it when it leaves the door open.
Good move there on their part.
But
now, where do we go from here?
Um, I don't know.
I think it, oh, but one thing I
also want to mention, I did, I
haven't looked at any reviews.
I haven't looked at any recaps.
I haven't looked at any of the necessary,
the discourse surrounding this show,
but I did notice that a few people on
YouTube were calling it woke garbage.
I don't know why that was the
case and I don't know why, uh,
YouTube was showing me that.
Um, maybe because I complained about
Star Wars all those years ago, but It,
it played out pretty straight like it
should, um, it was not, you know, now
I'm not the kind of person who really
likes a lot of message in their story.
Like in terms of a lot of the
messaging, I made a podcast a while
ago, I spoke a lot with Theo about.
Messaging in these types of movies and
I usually don't a message shouldn't
tell a story a good story should have
a message Obviously, but the message
shouldn't be what tells the story
That's how you get into the idea of
these after school specials these these
little kid parables You know where you
have a message like hey, don't smoke
or bad things will happen to you kids
That's not how you tell the story if
you tell a story based on a message.
You've already lost the audience Anytime
you have someone stop in the middle of
a story and turn around to the camera
and say, Hi everybody, I'm here to
tell you about insert message here.
Anytime you do that, you've lost
the audience and you don't need to.
And I know, I know some people think it's
difficult to do because their reason for
telling a story is different than yours.
Their reason for telling a story is
different than you watching the story.
And yes, no matter, no matter what the
story is about, you should be able to
come away from it like, Yes, I understand
where those characters are coming from.
Uh, I didn't feel like I was preached to.
I understand the angle and the vibe.
I didn't like the
character because of that.
Or, I enjoyed this other
character because of this.
idea, the ideology, but you're not
supposed to come away from a, at least
not, at least I don't think it's for me.
And I don't think it's, it's good for
these hero movies where someone comes
away saying, Hey, here's a message.
I mean, even the message is you're a
hero and you go try to fix things that
are wrong or that you think are wrong.
And if you match up with
that ideal, then fine.
And I, I'm really applauding echo here
for just doing a good job of telling the
story, still saying all they had to say.
It seems still representing
all of the various factions.
Uh, this is a, as I said, you have
a native American, you have this
native American girl who's missing a
leg, uh, is mute and can't hear deaf.
Seems like somebody would come try to
throw in all types of messaging in it.
They told the story and the story
brought the message along with it.
Instead of having a message that
tried to have a story tacked onto it.
So I think it did fine in that respect.
Now, should I give it a rating here?
I don't even know.
I usually, I usually rate things on
a six point scale, six star scale.
One is complete garbage.
Do not watch at all.
Number six is make sure you
check it out at all costs.
This is something you need to
see, even if you don't like
the subject material or not.
And there is no middle ground.
There is no three and a half.
There is no, there is no middle
ground, one, two, or three.
You're below the bar four or five
and six, you're above the bar.
I give this one a five.
Definitely worth seeing,
definitely worth checking out.
Most people will probably enjoy it.
There's something to learn from it,
even if you don't, uh, particularly
like the character or the, the world.
It's decent and it's solid.
You should go ahead and watch it.
I almost wanted to give this a, a four.
I enjoyed it and think it's, it's solid.
I think I've gotten actually a little,
uh, what do you call it, um, jaded
with some of this, but It was great.
So five, five out of six
stars, go check it out.
And that's going to end it for this
quick little review session on this one.
I usually run these about an hour,
but I'm going to keep this one short.
Don't have too much to say about it.
Creativity creatively, it did its job.
So go check it out.
Let me know what you
think in the comments.
In the meantime, um, I'm going to
be, I'm going to be putting together
the community, so you'll be able
to check out, uh, the community.
I'll leave the links up in the
show notes and on the webpage.
Help support the podcast, help
support what I'm doing here.
A lot of us are a lot
of creatives out there.
We have a lot we want to talk about
and discuss, and I want to make sure
that you're being heard as well.
So with the community, I want to make
sure our discussions are being, are
being properly moderated without the
overbearing problems of social media.
And we know what those are.
So if you want to go ahead and
join, um, check out, I'll have the
link up at, uh, the creative study
lounge, go to creative study lounge.
com.
That's where.
The actual community is for
this podcast in particular,
it's creativity threads, life.
com.
And that's going to do it for this one.
Not going to believe the point any longer.
Be sure to check out some other episodes.
Let me know what you think.
Be sure to subscribe on Apple, Spotify,
or Google for your podcast stream fix.
And as I said, if you want to go ad
free, the link to that is going to be in
the show notes when I get around to it.
But in the meantime, peace.