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00:00 Welcome back to New Rock Stars, I'm Eric Vos,
00:01 and this is a breakdown of "Blue Beetle."
00:03 This DC superhero film starring Zola Mardwania
00:05 as Jaime Reyes was so much fun,
00:08 and I'm gonna break down some details
00:09 and Easter eggs you might have missed.
00:11 Film opens on a snowy dig site
00:13 as Lieutenant Ignacio Carapax, Raul Mac's trio,
00:16 locates the Scarab artifact.
00:17 Carapax in the comics is the indestructible man,
00:19 but this movie combines that with another DC villain, Omak.
00:23 He's greeted by Victoria Kord, Susan Sarandon.
00:25 Their vehicle is lit with a purple glow,
00:27 as everything with Kord Industries in this film
00:28 has a purple color tone.
00:30 Now, Victoria Kord mentions promethium,
00:32 which is a super powerful metal alloy
00:34 that's kind of like the DCU's vibranium.
00:36 It was used to make weapons and armor for Deathstroke,
00:38 played by Joe Manganiello
00:39 in the "Justice League" theatrical cut post-credits scene,
00:41 and voiced by Will Arnett in "Teen Titans Go!"
00:43 to the movies.
00:44 Now, in the opening credits,
00:45 we see the Scarab flying through space,
00:46 and we see a flash of green light knocking it off course.
00:49 The director has confirmed that this is intended to be
00:51 from a green lantern.
00:53 We don't know which one yet,
00:54 but one of the green lanterns.
00:55 Now, this opening credits montage mentions a headline
00:57 with the name Dan Garrett.
00:58 That was the name of the first "Blue Beetle,"
01:00 when the character began under Fox Comics,
01:02 and then Charlton Comics,
01:03 before it was acquired by DC Comics.
01:05 And at this point, the "Blue Beetle" title
01:06 had moved on to Ted Kord.
01:08 Ted's sister, Victoria Kord,
01:09 is actually a recent comics introduction
01:11 in "Blue Beetle Graduation Day #2,"
01:13 which came out in February of this year.
01:14 This is also the issue that introduced Palmyra City
01:17 as a setting in the DC Comics,
01:18 where, as in this movie, the family lives on El Paso Street,
01:21 as the city of El Paso also is an important influence
01:24 on Palmyra City.
01:25 We see in the opening credits montage
01:26 a headline, "Garrett receives research funding
01:28 from Ted Kord," linking all the generations of "Blue Beetle"
01:31 to this one shared history.
01:32 We see a "Daily Planet" newspaper reporting,
01:35 "New hero in Palmyra City,
01:36 vigilante 'Blue Beetle' saves city from Firefist."
01:39 Firefist, Lyle Burns,
01:41 was a "Blue Beetle" villain from the 1980s.
01:43 In this opening montage,
01:44 we also see the Ted Kord "Blue Beetle" costume,
01:46 though we do not see his face,
01:47 because no actor has been credited in the role yet.
01:50 Though someone must've played that voice
01:52 in the post-credits scene.
01:53 We just don't know who yet.
01:54 Jaime's plane lands at Palmyra City,
01:55 home of the "Blue Beetle,"
01:57 this idea of a tropical city
01:58 with an urban center right on the beach,
02:00 we're calling Miami, Florida.
02:01 And I like how the underside of this plane has two spots
02:03 that look like the pattern on a beetle exoskeleton.
02:05 Jaime has returned from Gotham City,
02:07 where he is a pre-law student,
02:09 and that could explain his black graduation cap
02:11 with a yellow tassel,
02:12 because black and yellow are commonly known
02:13 as Gotham's colors.
02:14 On the escalator, he passes a sign boasting,
02:16 "Number one lowest tax rate for corporations in America?"
02:19 Yes, the city's being industrialized and urbanized,
02:21 making it hard for families like the Reyes'
02:23 to keep living there.
02:24 We see a Starbucks replacing a carniceria.
02:26 We see signs for the new cord buildings going up
02:28 and the edge keys.
02:29 I'm just surprised that the edge keys lasted this long.
02:31 There's also a grocery store named Soto,
02:33 after the director of this movie, Angel Manuel Soto.
02:35 Uncle Rudy, by the way,
02:36 has a Cheech and Chong bobbleheads on the dashboard,
02:38 and later we get a closeup of one of them
02:40 during the action scene.
02:41 Super fun.
02:41 Now, while the cord industries is coated purple,
02:44 the Reyes family home, their walls, the rooftop,
02:46 and soon, Jaime's armor are all color-coded
02:49 the same shade of blue.
02:50 Jaime and his sister look out from the keys
02:52 to downtown Palmyra City,
02:53 where you can see an Ace Chemicals sign.
02:55 That, of course, is the open-faceted chemical company
02:57 that deformed the Joker,
02:58 and a sign that shows up in the background
03:00 of many of these DCU movies.
03:01 But the purple cord tower towers over them all
03:04 in this tale of two cities.
03:05 But beside the tower we see later
03:07 is the LexCorp building.
03:09 They get a gig working on the cleaning crew
03:11 of the mansion of Victoria Cord,
03:12 and there's this great shot where it seems like Jaime
03:14 has achieved his dream of owning a mansion,
03:15 but then we cut to Milagros
03:17 to see that they are actually on the clock.
03:18 But in that wide drone shot of Jaime's imagination,
03:21 there were no other workers on the ground.
03:22 So for a brief moment, it was just him alone.
03:24 Jenny cord-shames Aunt Vicky over the OMAC,
03:26 the One-Man Army Corps,
03:28 a drone policing system using exoskeletal symbiotes
03:31 that latch onto the spinal column.
03:32 In the DC comics, OMAC was a Captain America-type hero
03:35 from the early '70s with a Brother Eye satellite
03:38 that was actually reinvented as an AI hive mind
03:40 during the 2005-2006 Infinite Crisis event,
03:42 where OMAC went on to stand for
03:44 Observational Meta-Human Activity Construct,
03:46 and then later Omni-Mind and Community.
03:49 Jaime's grandmother watches on TV a bunch of shows,
03:51 including one with his golden scarab.
03:52 This is actually a brief shot
03:53 from the 1992 indie horror film "Kronos,"
03:56 written and directed by Guillermo del Toro,
03:57 his first feature film, a horror about a scarab
04:00 that gives the wearer eternal life, but with consequences.
04:02 Jaime goes to Cord Industries for an interview,
04:04 and he sees that all the employees wear purple pastel,
04:06 already feeling out of place.
04:07 Jenny steals the scarab from Sanchez's office
04:10 in a Big Belly Burger box,
04:11 Big Belly Burger being a chain from the DC comics,
04:13 technically a subsidiary of LexCorp,
04:15 with a logo that looks like Bob's big boy.
04:17 The scarab latches onto Jaime's face,
04:19 and this whole section is horrifying,
04:20 filled with famous horror movie homages.
04:22 The initial latch is like the alien Xenomorph facehugger.
04:25 The exoskeleton bulges out of his back
04:27 and burns through his sweater,
04:28 and then flies him up to the ceiling,
04:29 just like in "John Carpenter's The Thing"
04:30 during the blood test scene.
04:31 And then Jaime's body initially falls limp,
04:34 making him look like he's a corpse.
04:35 The acid covers his hand and burns off his clothes
04:38 as Jaime screams.
04:39 It drips off onto the ground.
04:40 The fluid looks like the discharge
04:41 some beetles are known to excrete as a defense mechanism.
04:44 Jaime screams his pain as a sludge covers his head,
04:47 his eyes, and his nose, even his teeth.
04:49 Really, I think the creepiest reference point
04:51 could be from another DC movie, "Superman III,"
04:53 when the supercomputer becomes self-aware
04:55 and it stares Vera, transforming her into a cyborg,
04:57 and she screams as her skin is covered in wires
04:59 and metal plating.
05:00 In this blue beetle suit,
05:01 Jaime looks at the framed photo of the Virgin Mary,
05:04 and his beetle eyes reflect over hers,
05:05 which just feels wrong,
05:06 but it sets up the scarab having a female voice,
05:09 this entity, Kajida, voiced by Becky G.
05:11 A Kajida is later revealed to be the super-advanced weapon
05:14 created by the alien species called the Reach.
05:15 It first landed on Earth in ancient Egypt
05:17 and was accidentally imbued with magical powers.
05:19 That's the story in the comics,
05:20 and we see a bit of that in the opening sequence.
05:22 Scarab takes Jaime for a test flight.
05:24 When Jaime's in low orbit,
05:25 you no longer hear his wing thrusters,
05:27 only his voice and the Kajida replying to him,
05:29 because there's no external sound in space.
05:31 Jaime's suit slices through a bus, but doesn't hurt anyone.
05:34 Jaime freaks out as he puts his clothes back on, saying,
05:36 "You can't fly, Superman can fly."
05:38 Now, presumably, Blue Beetle is set in the DCEU
05:40 that this movie was developed to be a part of,
05:42 and his Superman would be Henry Cavill,
05:44 but we don't see any of the Justice League members
05:46 in this movie.
05:47 It's kind of said that he intends Blue Beetle
05:48 be part of his future "Gods and Monsters" slate.
05:50 Blue Beetle was going to be a Max release, though,
05:52 along with Batgirl,
05:53 and Batgirl was gonna have Michael Keaton
05:55 as that universe's Batman,
05:56 but then The Flash began in the Ben Affleck DCEU,
05:59 but ended in a George Clooney Batman universe.
06:01 So this is all very confusing.
06:02 I'm just gonna default to Blue Beetle being in the DCEU.
06:05 But to throw a random theory at you,
06:06 we did learn from the Stinger scene in The Flash
06:08 that George Clooney's Batman is still out there
06:10 in the multiverse somewhere,
06:11 and Batman and Robin had a wild neon version of Gotham,
06:14 not unlike the skyline of Palmyra City.
06:16 So I don't know, maybe those two movies exist
06:18 in the same world where neon is the dominant aesthetic.
06:20 Thank you to BetterHelp for sponsoring this video.
06:22 Watching stuff frame by frame is great,
06:24 but it can also be really rewarding to zoom out
06:26 and look at things like story, pacing,
06:27 and character development.
06:28 For a movie, you can just let it play out,
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07:25 So Jaime's relationship with the scarab and his family
07:27 uses the same kind of dynamic as Franz Kafka's metamorphosis
07:30 in which Gregor Samsa wakes up one morning
07:32 to find himself transformed into a giant insect,
07:34 hiding himself in shame away from his family in his room
07:36 and having to come to terms with its new existence.
07:38 Jaime picks up Jenny, who tells the family
07:40 about the scarab's history as an ancient sentient weapon
07:42 that willingly chose Jaime as its host.
07:44 At her house party, Victoria offers her military contact
07:47 a real Cuban cigar, setting up
07:48 that their secret island fortress is near Cuba.
07:50 Rudy, Jaime, and Jenny break into Cord Tower.
07:53 Rudy blocks the security monitors
07:54 with the stop-motion animated series
07:56 in homage to "El Chapulín, Colorado,"
07:57 aka "The Red Grasshopper,"
07:59 which was a '70s Spanish-language Mexican TV series
08:01 that parodied superhero shows.
08:03 Simpsons creator Matt Groening actually said
08:04 that he created the Bumblebee Man
08:06 after seeing "El Chapulín, Colorado" in a Mexican motel.
08:08 So you see, this Simpsons character
08:10 wasn't a parody of absurdist Mexican humor.
08:12 It was a parody of a parody
08:14 of how goofy American superhero TV shows had become.
08:17 So they steal the smartwatch that used to belong to Ted Kord
08:20 and they run into Carapax,
08:21 who has used his body with the OMAC prototype.
08:23 Kajida takes the wheel and brings the heat to Carapax,
08:25 despite Jaime begging not to engage,
08:27 but stops short of killing Carapax.
08:28 An important decision.
08:29 Rudy and Jenny pull the handbrake
08:31 to take out Carapax with the Chapulín machine,
08:33 and the three go to Jenny's childhood home,
08:34 where they use Ted Kord's watch to open his secret laboratory.
08:37 Rudy compares Blue Beetle to "Superman and Metropolis"
08:39 or "Flash" in "Central City," but he says not as good.
08:41 I debate that.
08:43 Rudy does say that Batman's a fascist.
08:45 So, poor Rudy.
08:46 It's clear he just prefers superheroes with brighter colors
08:48 and who are more friendly in nature.
08:50 In this lab, we see the past eras of the Blue Beetle suits,
08:53 from the Dan Garrett era and the Ted Kord era,
08:55 though one of the mannequins is empty,
08:56 since Ted Kord is currently using it wherever he is.
08:59 Ted Kord's gear, especially his ship,
09:00 might remind viewers of the Night Owl from "Watchmen,"
09:03 and there's a reason behind that,
09:04 because Night Owl and some of the "Watchmen" characters
09:05 are based on those "Charlton Comics" characters
09:07 that were included in that DC acquisition,
09:09 and Blue Beetle was a direct inspiration for Alan Moore
09:12 when he created Night Owl.
09:13 We learn more about the history of the superhero Blue Beetle,
09:15 who had studied Kajita,
09:16 and then Ted Kord mysteriously disappeared,
09:18 leaving Kord Industries in victorious hands.
09:20 In the post-credits scene of this movie,
09:21 we'll show a transmission from Ted Kord,
09:22 screened to scramble to make out who it is,
09:24 but just so we're clear, it's not Ted Lasso, Jason Sudeikis.
09:27 That was debunked.
09:27 Also, later in that post-credits scene,
09:28 we see a package of Oreos.
09:30 Now, these were a favorite snack of the Martian Manhunter,
09:33 though sometimes in the comics they're called Chacos
09:35 for whatever legal reasons.
09:36 The director has said that these Oreos
09:37 were an intentional Easter egg to imply that Ted Kord,
09:40 the Martian Manhunter, had been on adventures before.
09:42 Martian Manhunter appeared in a Snyder Cut
09:44 of the Justice League.
09:45 This could be a clue linking this movie to the Snyder-verse.
09:48 I don't really know.
09:49 This one's much brighter and lighter in tone.
09:51 So, Victoria's helicopter flies toward Jaime's home
09:53 in the Keys and Jaime summons Kajita
09:55 by realizing it won't let him die.
09:57 So, he jumps off a building, a huge leap of faith,
09:59 but also a leap of desperation,
10:00 because this raid of the Reyes' home
10:02 with the blinding flashlights
10:03 definitely shot to evoke the traumatic raids
10:05 of immigrant homes by ICE agents,
10:07 especially the shots of the neighboring families
10:08 peering out their windows and doors with concern.
10:10 It really makes you hate Victoria Court
10:12 for ordering to target the family in particular.
10:14 And the fact that Alberto dies from a heart attack
10:17 shows that factors like anxiety and trauma,
10:19 high blood pressure, these are often unseen effects
10:22 of families and communities like this,
10:23 but impact the family's justice harshly.
10:25 So, a justifiably distracted Jaime gets taken by Carapax
10:28 to the Cuban Island Fortress,
10:30 and they call this Pago Island.
10:31 This is a location in the Blue Beetles comics
10:33 where Dan Garrett dies and Ted Kord
10:35 becomes the next Blue Beetle.
10:36 Jaime gets strapped to a machine
10:37 that downloads the knowledge from the Kajida to the Omax.
10:39 And during this, Jaime experiences a vision from his father
10:42 in this kind of spirit realm
10:43 to embrace his destiny as the Blue Beetle.
10:45 Jaime awakens, and Carapax's Omax suit
10:47 has evolved into this more powerful form
10:49 using this downloaded knowledge.
10:50 But it's not just on Jaime.
10:52 The whole Reyes family uses Ted Kord's bug ship
10:54 and its arsenal to raid the island, and it's so great.
10:57 Jaime battles Carapax, and it nearly kills him this time,
10:59 but the Kajida reveals to Jaime
11:01 the memories of Carapax's past
11:02 as a child soldier in Guatemala,
11:04 and his enslavement by Victoria for this Omax program.
11:06 So Jaime spares Carapax.
11:08 And we have to point out here that one of Ted's gadgets
11:10 is a modified Nintendo Power Glove.
11:12 This is a controller for the Nintendo Entertainment System
11:14 released in 1989, but before this,
11:16 its most infamous appearance was on film
11:17 when it was being wielded by the video game hustling bully
11:20 in "The Wizard," starring Fred Savage,
11:22 when the Power Glove looks like
11:23 the coolest (beep) thing in the world.
11:24 But anyway, this flashback with Carapax
11:26 is interspersed with real news footage
11:28 of U.S. military action in South America.
11:30 The director said that he wanted to remind the audience
11:32 that Carapax's backstory was based
11:33 on real historical events.
11:35 Carapax turns up Victoria and sets the Omax suit to explode
11:37 to destroy the island and himself and Victoria.
11:40 In the aftermath, Jenny takes over Kord Industries
11:42 and pledges to rebuild the Reyes home and Jaime,
11:44 and Jenny finally get that smoochy smooch.
11:45 So where is Ted Kord broadcasting from
11:47 in the post-credits sequence?
11:48 Well, we made a video breaking down that scene
11:50 where we theorized that he could be stuck in time
11:52 with his time-traveling best bro, Booster Gold,
11:54 who has already been announced as the focus
11:56 for the upcoming Max series.
11:57 Another theory could involve the Reach.
11:59 These aliens created the Scarabs
12:00 and used them to conquer worlds.
12:02 They have fought the Justice League and the Lanterns
12:03 on a number of occasions, and the director has said
12:05 that the Reach could play a part in a future sequel.
12:07 It is possible that Ted, obsessed with harnessing
12:10 the power of the Scarab, ran afoul of the Reach in space.
12:13 It was captured.
12:13 I wanna know from you, what do you like the most
12:15 about this Blue Beetle film, and how do you want him
12:16 to come back in the DC universe?
12:18 Subscribe to all three of our channels
12:19 on the New Rockstars Network.
12:20 You can follow me @eavoss.
12:22 Thanks for watching, I'll see you next time, bye.
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