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Fantastic Family: Has Hollywood Found Moral Clarity? | Fantastic Four 2025 Review w/ Lit Professor
In a cultural landscape where moral ambiguity and deconstructed families often dominate the screen, Fantastic Four surprises with a radiant affirmation of traditional family values and the sacredness of life. Beneath its retrofuturistic flair and cosmic spectacle lies a profoundly human—and dare we say, Christian—story about sacrificial love, the dignity of motherhood, and the redemptive power of faith. Join Jeremy Jeremiah, Mario Andrew, and James St. Simon in this fun discussion.
At the heart of the film is Sue Storm, portrayed not as a feminist caricature or action trope, but as a luminous embodiment of maternal virtue. Faced with an excruciating moral dilemma—whether to sacrifice her unborn child to save the world—Sue refuses to accept a utilitarian calculus that pits life against life. Her courage to say "no" to both evil and compromise resonates deeply with the Christian ethic: that every life is sacred, and that love "always protects, always trusts, always hopes" (1 Corinthians 13:7). Her choice is not merely heroic—it’s holy.
Equally powerful is the portrayal of Reed Richards, played by Pedro Pascal. Rather than the tired stereotype of the aloof or foolish father, Reed is depicted as both brilliant and tender—a husband who listens, leads, and loves. Their marriage is a partnership of mutual respect and shared mission, echoing the biblical vision of man and woman as complementary reflections of God's image (Genesis 1:27).
The film's most striking spiritual parallel may come through the Silver Surfer—a fallen messenger transformed by love and conscience. Once a herald of destruction, she embraces self-sacrifice to save others, offering a compelling image of redemption that echoes Christ’s words: “Whoever loses his life for My sake will find it” (Matthew 10:39).
Even Galactus, the film’s cosmic antagonist, serves as a cautionary symbol: a voracious void of endless consumption, mirroring the spiritual danger of living without purpose or communion. He is the anti-Christ figure—not in religious terms, but in the sense of being the embodiment of appetite without love, power without sacrifice.
In an era where storytelling often strips heroism of moral clarity and downplays the beauty of family, Fantastic Four feels like a breath of fresh air—an invitation to remember that true strength is not found in spectacle or self-interest, but in the willingness to love, protect, and give.
If this is the direction Marvel is heading, there is reason for hope. Hollywood, it seems, may be rediscovering what Scripture has always affirmed: that the greatest stories are the ones that mirror the greatest truths.
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Please leave a comment with your thoughts!
sue storm yeah is really the hero of this movie that's where my brain was going and not in some feminist way, because she goes in there and punches the bad guy and wins no right. What is the way in which she is the hero of this film and sorry spoilers here a little bit right? Her husband thought about at least he thought about we could maybe sacrifice this baby, maybe it makes sense, logically, et cetera. From the first moment the mother was protecting her child and she was like no way, and she was furious that her husband even thought about it for a split second. I thought that was beautiful. Yeah, because that is what mothers should do, right. Right Is to protect their child. And it turns out, as we move forward in the story, that becomes the, that becomes her strength.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. That's where she draws her strength from.
Speaker 1:Hi, welcome to Cloud of Witnesses, really, really excited. We just saw Fantastic Four. We want to talk with you about it. We have another special guest, james St Simon. James, we always love when you come and join us here at Cloud of Witnesses. Excited to talk with you about it today. We also saw it with our brother, mario Mario's, back there. He's on the keys, mario. What were some of your thoughts going in to this movie? Kind of cold.
Speaker 3:I was excited. You know I'm not as big into Marvel movies, but I was definitely excited. I like Pedro Pascal, so anything that he's in I'm usually pretty excited about it.
Speaker 1:I think we need to edit that out. I'm just teasing, I'm teasing. We can't have anyone from Cloud of Witnesses saying they like Pedro Pascal. I'm out, I'm just teasing, I'm teasing. We can't have anyone from cloud of witnesses, uh, saying they like Pedro Pascal. I'm joking, I'm joking. So yeah, absolutely, we had a great time, and I got to say what a blessing it is to have Christian brothers, that you can experience artistic pieces, whether it's a film, whether it's music, whether it's art. Um, it is a true pleasure, and and so thank you for being here yet again, both of you the film had a kind of a interesting and very effective beginning, didn't it? James?
Speaker 2:So comic book movies have become a major part of the zeitgeist of pop culture. Everyone knows the Fantastic Four story in some way or another. I mean, there was already. The movies before that were not as great but affectionately campy. But we've seen how Batman loses his parents. We've seen how Spider-Man gets bit by the spider. We know that there is a space accident that happens that gives them their powers. We don't need to see that again, right, um. But I thought they did a very good job of doing kind of a montage and narration of how these things happen to catch them up to speed. I felt like that was effective.
Speaker 2:It was fun yeah, yeah, it was, it was fun like lighthearted television way type of yeah. And it introduced the world this kind of retrofuturism, you know, bright-colored aesthetic that I felt really captured the essence of the artwork from the 60s when they came about, or maybe even before, sure, but I'm not quite sure on the timeline, but it's that pop art, vibrant colors and futuristic.
Speaker 1:Space lines, yeah, yeah absolutely.
Speaker 2:It had a very Jetsons type you know, feel going way back, and it does. It takes us back to times that we felt were just happier times, yeah.
Speaker 1:I had that sense as well. There was something kind of light and fun about how the intro, you know, was done. I was very impressed by that. I knew I was in for something fun, which I appreciate, because sometimes it's like, hey, the world's ending and this is going to get heavy, and sometimes we've talked a little bit about this superhero films don't need to do that all the time and this one certainly gets to some high stakes and we'll get into all that. But it starts you off in in a lighter, funner place which like in lord of the rings, where you see the shire first, right, so you realize what's at stake. That's what I like about that kind of setup, because if you don't see that later on, when things are in jeopardy, you might not realize well what is at stake. Is this world even worth saving?
Speaker 2:and we come to see that it is, you know yeah, and the environment matching the tone is is so important, or at least the character it plays a very important role in introducing the way we are going to know. This character, um, I think of you know perfect example of of the shire, introduces us to Frodo and Bilbo and Sam, and even Gandalf. We get to see him first in that environment, whereas Aragorn we meet in a you know dark alleyway. That's, you know it models kind of like an old cobblestone street.
Speaker 1:Off the beaten path, yeah.
Speaker 2:And in a you know, janky bar or pub, yeah, and it matches his character and that tone really brings out the mystery of his character, right? Who is this guy that you find in this kind of place, right, in this kind of place? So, the Fantastic Four family being a beacon of light and hope to people, it calls for that kind of brightness and vibrance that you wouldn't want to see Batman in, you know, sure, but Superman, it works perfectly. I felt like this summer blockbuster has been a blockbuster of vibrancy, yeah, the bright and fewer shadows.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, um, I'm thinking of a direct contrast to the batman, right, how dark that film was. You know I you mentioned the beacon. I loved that. It was one of the opening scenes. You see the fantastic, for the sky rise and it's beautiful, it's magnificent, it's bright and it is a beacon, right, it's a beacon of hope. And you see their spaceship there behind them and you know this. All very established. These are heroes of this space, right, these are heroes of this world, and I want to talk about that a little bit, because these heroes weren't born this way, right, right, tell us what happened. How did this? How did these powers come about? And because what I want to get at is transformation and how humans being transformed can be our salvation. In fact, we as Christians believe our transformation soul, spirit and body is our salvation. And yet in this story, their transformation was burden, a curse, also a blessing. Want to talk a little bit about that.
Speaker 2:And something they didn't choose right. So they're all scientists which is a theme in the movie that we can explore and they go on this trip into outer space where they encounter unknown cosmic forces, and this exposure to this cosmic power mutates their cells and causes a disruption in their genetic code that allows them to have these powers. So when they come back to earth, they are not the same as when they left, and what they choose to do with their newfound powers is become protectors of of the earth.
Speaker 1:I want to push on this notion of transformation. Um, I loved how you were saying how they did not choose it, right? I want to draw an analogy. We, when we're born I think we both agree that we are given certain innate talents, certain you know interests and things of that nature. You have children, so you see it yourself with your own eyes, right, I've certainly seen it in my life. And then something happens, right, we go through puberty and suddenly we're not just kids anymore. We do have powers we didn't have before. Right, we have abilities and our, our talents maybe flourish, our skills grow, sure.
Speaker 1:I want to draw that to to its end here, which is, isn't it, true of life? And that's why I love these types of stories, because we can see another way of looking at the human cycle. God brings us into this world as infants totally dependent on our parents. We slowly grow up to become more independent and eventually, one day, we don't need our parents and we can can leave the home, get married and do these things. We don't choose even really, our gifts.
Speaker 1:And I'll just say it james, you have tremendous talents. You have talents of of, you know reading, comprehension and a play, application of, of concepts to the world and teaching your students. You didn't choose it. I mean, you might say in some ways you did, but I think you can see in other ways. This is who you were born to be. Can you speak to that in terms of from a Christian perspective? Yeah, god blessed you with these talents, not for your self-aggrandizement, not to be cast to the wind, or a talent put in the ground, but instead to use it for his kingdom. And there's a bird in there. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. There's a great book, and it's actually not by a Christian author, but it's all about how you use that knowledge and apply it to your Christian faith. It's called Finding your Element by the late Sir Ken Robinson, who spoke a lot on creativity, education, reform. But this book is about understanding your aptitudes, your genetic aptitudes and your passions and passion as in your desires, your ambition, and finding out how those two things align and you can either excel at a hobby or you can even monetize your natural, god-given gifts you mentioned.
Speaker 1:Esther and her beauty. I think it's a perfect segue to bring us to kind of the next portion of the Fantastic Four, to kind of the next portion of the Fantastic Four, because a beautiful and, dare I say it, female Silver Surfer shows up onto the scene. We can maybe talk about that. I'll be frank with you, I wasn't even affected by the gender swap, it didn't bother me. Someone had said Silver Surfer is a alien thing from you know, outer space. I'm not ultimately too concerned with its body parts, necessarily, um, but this herald comes in and the silver silver surfer excuse me, I don't want to mince my words here she basically says the world's going to be destroyed soon and this kind of kicks off the conflict of the story. Right, talk to us about that. What were your thoughts about?
Speaker 2:that role. Well, when a flying naked silver person on a surfboard comes in and says the world is ending, you typically want to believe that kind of phenomenon or you all want to get checked for hysteria or something like that. But yeah, the gender swap was a big topic of controversy. That wokeism has invaded and infiltrated so much of our favorite intellectual properties that we are triggered ourselves.
Speaker 2:Legitimately. We were always so concerned about other people being triggered. We've now started to become triggered by any female that shows up in a man's role, but I think they were able to do it so successfully. Number one, because the multiverse allows for different representations in characters. So there is technically a female Silver Surfer in the comic books. That's part of a different universe and this is Earth 828, I think it is, and they make that known. Yeah, so it opens up the possibility that there could be a female silver surfer in this strand of the timeline, um, but if it was done incorrectly I think we would have had the problem with it agreed, but can I say something here?
Speaker 2:please.
Speaker 1:I believe you're 100% correct and you're almost being too kind to what Marvel, Star Wars, even DC and others have done to gender swaps in the last five to ten years, being diplomatic.
Speaker 1:They've destroyed IPs, they've ruined it and because and I think what they got right here with the Silver Surfer is that she was a female form, whatever you want to describe it, as it wasn't about that, it didn't matter, it wasn't a statement Whereas when you take, for example, she-hulk I know you didn't watch it and you know God bless you for it absolutely uh, you remember they did the uh ghostbusters remake, right, all female and what was the point oceans eight.
Speaker 1:the point was we're women, we can do this better than men, we're funnier than men, we're everything right. Whereas in this, in fantastic, the Silver Surfer performed the same role. I thought it did a great job. I love that actress. By the way, I remember her from Ozark. I don't know if you ever watched that show. It's a great show and that's where she kind of got discovered. Ok, and so I was pleasantly surprised with you that it didn't bother me and it wasn't some statement of feminism. It was rather a tasteful way and to prove hey guys, we can appreciate gender swaps in stories when you do it right, right, storytelling is the most important thing.
Speaker 2:We'll buy anything if you do it effectively. And science fiction, it does a really good job of, if you can make it plausible. Science fiction, it does a really good job of if you can make it plausible. If you give us enough reason to believe that in this case this is very likely or it just makes sense, then we'll easily accept it. And I think you're right. It's when it's a statement whether it doesn't need to be a statement that can be very frustrating because it seems dishonest, um, or in a way it's almost patronizing. You're like you won't notice this.
Speaker 2:She, she fits right into this role, but it's. You can tell that the role was written for a male and and she is, uh, in in many ways denying her instincts, her nature by playing this role that is not suited to this character. Whereas in this case, where we have this theme of women who are self-sacrificing, which is something that any mother sacrifices her life when she gives birth to a child, it's one of the most In just the act itself of giving birth, there is that putting your life on the line, putting yourself at risk, and she does that. Her role as a silver surfer came from that instinctual tendency to put your own life on the line for the sake of others, right, which also creates this interesting paradox in her character that she put her life on the line to save her planet but she is now heralding the demise of other planets, which kind of feeds into this utilitarian kind of message that is in there that ultimately speaks against it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they do, they play on that.
Speaker 2:And I think it does a good job of exposing the problems with utilitarian philosophy in justifying, um, you know this, this saving, uh, everybody by putting somebody else's life on the line. But when you put a human life in that, that kind of changes the conversation right, we're not quite as comfortable.
Speaker 1:Some people may better not be yeah, yeah, and that becomes a major focal point of this film. Absolutely. And if you can, if we can talk about this, because this to me is like the banner of this film. In fact, I think it's what I said to you and Mari when we walked out. I said this is a um, a pro family film. Absolutely, this is a pro-life film.
Speaker 1:And we're still kind of in this early stage of this film the first, I don't know, 10, 15 minutes you see the mother and father, the husband and wife, engage in what was a really beautiful discovery that they're pregnant, the joy associated with it, the importance of it, and then you have Pedro Pascal's character, who becomes obsessively protective, which is again such a contrast to what we've seen and what's been frankly shoved down our throats for the past 10 years, which is family really doesn't matter. You can have two dads, you can have two moms. You know, certainly your choice to be pregnant is your choice, right, and if you need to end that, that's your choice as well. And these, these types of messages have been so, like you said, we're getting almost desensitized to it, or it triggers us now. It was so refreshing to sit in that theater and to see this beautiful portrayal of this nuclear family in genuine joy, fear, anticipation of the coming of a child.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I love the realism of you know. She's in the restroom giving her husband orders on where to find the thing and he can't find it for his life, because that's just reality. I don't know. My wife will tell me it's in this place and under the thing and I can't find it anywhere. But you're absolutely right. We've seen so many idiot fathers. That's been a motif that's been prevalent since the 80s. The 80s, I think, is when it was really we went from a time of leave it to beaver, where the father was, uh, the wise man of the house who would counsel his children, love his wife and work hard for his family provider.
Speaker 2:That yeah, and the strong man of of the home who was not, you know, he was not domineering, but loving for sure. But in the 80s we see this these you know idiot dads come about where he knows nothing. He kind of puts his foot in his mouth all the time and you know it was making a statement. Yes, the Simpsons family guy and it, and it just became more and more prevalent the marriage of the children.
Speaker 2:Yeah, all of that, but to see a father who is intelligent, who is powerful, who loves his wife dearly, who loves his family, is concerned for his child. I think one of the things that really struck me was that moment where he is wrestling with the how do we save all of mankind and also save our child? Because even he comes to the logical conclusion that the only way this works out is if we sacrifice our child I loved how they did that in the film.
Speaker 1:He's like he says logically, I think even morally or ethically, from a certain perspective, as you could justify it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, and I think that film in many ways showed the failure of logic, of mathematics, of ethics, of even scientific inquiry, that it falls short at some point. Yes, it's not the end. All be all to the answers of faith, right. There are certain things that you just kind of have to take on faith, and that's hope. Right, there is no logical conclusion of hope. That's hope is the the or faith is the evidence of things hoped for, right.
Speaker 1:The substance of things not seen.
Speaker 2:So when it comes to something that you know, why would you save your child when you're going to? It's one life, for you know, 10 billion lives, because it's my child, and love is more powerful than logic, than reason, than ethics. This is about love, and I think that it's one of those things that people fail to recognize when they're putting AI in the place of judges, where these are human lives at stake that we don't want to put to logic, mathematics and things like that. When it comes to people, there are too many factors that are just unpredictable 100%. And think about how catastrophic the conclusion of the movie would have been if they would have sacrificed the child, if they would have depended on scientific inquiry, mathematics, logic, reason alone, alone. But because they didn't, the, the production was or, yeah, yeah, the.
Speaker 2:The end product was beautiful life and life and love. Miracle, yes, exactly, and that's something that science cannot understand, can't account for. It defies logic, absolutely. Miracles, and in our faith, they're important. Every life is a miracle, but we don't deny that miracles can happen, right, because we've seen modern miracles, seen modern miracles, um, so I think that in a way, they are returning the component, an element of faith back into the american ethos amen, amen.
Speaker 1:It doesn't come about without hardship. Sure, there's, there's a burden we talked earlier about. They didn't choose this, but they did become the guardians of the of earth. And when this antagonist shows up, right, when this threat shows up, literally to mankind, this wager is made is basically uh, galactus wants that child. Right, you give me that child, I'll save earth. Earth can live.
Speaker 1:And so one thing I wanted to kind of touch on quickly is that the whole world looks to the fantastic four. There's nobody else. They don't turn to superman, they don't turn to batman. They, right, they turn to them because, why? Well, because they are the ones that have these gifts, again, that they didn't choose. They're the ones capable of bringing about salvation.
Speaker 1:And it reminds me, and I would want to think of we are those heroes to certain people in our lives. We just are. Yeah, we have heroes in our lives that we look up to, sure, and don't be afraid to be that person in those moments, because people need you for certain times, and that's when you're able to use the gifts God's given you, right, yeah, another element you talked a lot about how intelligent and strong and masculine and fatherly was Pedro Pascal's character. It is so true. And notice, it didn't diminish his wife, right, which is such a beautiful thing, because I think you could come to it from her perspective.
Speaker 1:Oh, he was the smart one, he's the scientist yeah, all true, but also she was the one who really ran the household. She's the one that knew, right, she had the emotional intelligence, not to mention her powers that she has, that were vital and crucial. Remember that when he had the machine, yeah, it ended up being kind of useless because he wanted to check on the baby to make sure the baby was okay, but it was her powers, right, that made it possible to see that the baby was doing fine yeah, and she was a lot more willing to depend on faith where he was stuck on logic and reasoning, yes, and science and science, which are not bad things.
Speaker 2:Logic is wonderful, scientific inquiry is incredibly important. It's a misconception of people of faith that we leave everything to faith, the mysteries that are not easily answered. People of faith that we leave everything to faith we're, we're, I, the mysteries are that are not easily answered. Those things we live up to faith. But whatever science and math and logic can uncover, then they're easily uncovered. But you can't you can't quantify the problem of evil. But to that point, one of the things that I love about orthodoxy is that they're not afraid to exalt women without sacrificing the role of men.
Speaker 2:We see that in many ways that there has to be kind of a balance. In order to exalt women, we need to bring men down, and that's kind of how culture handles it, that's how feminism handles it. In this Marxist, oppressor, oppressed kind of way, the problem with society is that men are holding women down. With society is that men are holding women down, whereas when you look at it in orthodoxy that the Bible presents that, adam and Eve being the first people, they both were incredibly important, because it is through woman that life happens, that life comes, and at a great, at a great cost and great suffering, and and every boy loves his mother, right and, and what they're ultimately looking for is a mother as well, and there's there's really no more important person in the boy's life than his mother.
Speaker 2:True, but at the same time, they love their fathers as well, for different reasons and in different ways, exactly because when a child is hurt, it goes to his mother, because what she provides to him is something that's totally different. Right, but when he's looking to be a man, to learn what men do, he goes to his father. When he has a question, he may go to his father, but when he needs a shoulder to cry on, when he needs comfort, when he needs to understand things about the world, his mother is there and the roles don't need to be diminished things about the world, his mother is there and the roles don't need to be diminished. To celebrate, and one of the things that I loved was, of course, the way that the church handles the Theotokos.
Speaker 2:I've contemplated this a lot as a former Protestant into orthodoxy, and if you really take it from a biblical perspective, there are three ways you can handle the Virgin Mary right, and one of them is to be indifferent to her, and if you look at what the Bible teaches or what the Bible says, it is not indifferent to her. The Bible says that blessed are you among women. What an honor. Elizabeth says that the mother of our God will come and visit me. Even John the Baptist, who was filled with the Holy Spirit, leapt in her womb by coming into her presence Now the second thing. So indifference is unbiblical. The other thing that people do is to downplay her role, in a way, almost put her down. In order to exalt Christ, you need to put her down.
Speaker 1:She's just a sinful woman, sure.
Speaker 2:That's all she is, yep. Where in the Bible does it say to do that Right, right, and they'll take that role of where Jesus calls her woman, which I think is more eisegesis. Right To read into it with your own kind of interpretation.
Speaker 1:Not to mention modern English. You know, translation of a translation Right.
Speaker 2:So we can see that the Bible doesn't prescribe indifference to Mary, and it also doesn't prescribe downplaying her role. So what does the Bible prescribe? And that's to recognize that she is blessed among women. There is no one like her who is privileged with the honor of giving birth to our Lord.
Speaker 1:Not to mention Christ himself, when apparently he wasn't ready to start his ministry. Right? What does this have to do with me and what does he do? He honors her request and he performs his first miracle. What does he do on the cross right before he dies? He makes sure that she is taken care of by the care of John, and these are exactly In his dying breath. In his dying breath, literally. Because, why? Because she is valuable. This is beautiful, james, and, if I can, I want to bring this back.
Speaker 1:Sue Storm yeah is really the hero of this movie that's where my brain was going and not in some feminist way, because she goes in there and punches the bad guy and wins.
Speaker 1:No right what is the way in which she is the hero of this film and sorry spoilers here a little bit right. Her husband thought about, at least he thought about well, we could maybe sacrifice this baby, maybe it makes sense logically, et cetera. From the first moment the mother was protecting her child and she was like no way. And she was furious that her husband even thought about it for a split second.
Speaker 1:I thought that was beautiful, because that is what mothers should do Is to protect their child. And it turns out, as we move forward in the story, that becomes the level. That becomes her strength.
Speaker 2:That's where she draws her strength from, which is the way God created her. Just look at any animal in the animal kingdom, you'll see that there is. We have expressions in our English language about mama bears. You don't get between a mother and her cubs Because of how fiercely they will protect their cubs, even to the point of fighting a male bear who's twice their size, same with a lioness, any animal. They would die for their cubs.
Speaker 2:And I think black widows are the best example of that. And a lot of people kind of look at black widows in a way that I don't think appreciates exactly how that goes, think appreciates exactly how that goes, in that, when, uh, the father inseminates the, the black widow, he offers his life for his, his, uh, the mother of his to so that she feeds off of his, off of his life source, off of his substance. Yeah, and in many ways a good father and husband does that. Yeah, they, they take the best years of their lives and they work hard. They sacrifice their bodies and their strength, their youth, to working so that they can provide a home, so that they can provide for the wife, so that, if she can, she doesn't have to work, so she can utilize all of her energies for the children and building a church in the home. And so, in that way, I like that because, yes, I am being devoured by my wife, but I am offering myself, for my wife, a living sacrifice, a living sacrifice Like Christ is a head of the church and he sacrificed himself for the church.
Speaker 2:Yet the wife also gives the best years of her life to her children. Sure, and the children feed off of her, literally off of her body and off of her, the way black widows do. But it's, it's an instinct that is is built into the DNA of mothers and it gives them strength in those situations where they're facing the most impossible of obstacles. It's a really beautiful image and you see that even at some point, mr Fantastic, her husband is even telling her to stop. This is going to, it's too much. You know you're going to bring about your own destruction. But she said I don't care. She doesn't care For my child, I will give it all.
Speaker 1:Right, there was that beautiful moment that, by the way, I got to just say how awesome is it that in 2025, we're having this conversation on the sanctity of life, the beauty and importance and necessity of the family, of a father and a mother, when we're discussing a Marvel?
Speaker 2:movie Fantastic four.
Speaker 3:It's awesome.
Speaker 1:It's lovely. It is lovely. Yeah, fantastic Four, it's awesome, it's lovely. It is lovely. In the film she says I am not willing to sacrifice the earth for my child. I'm not going to give up. Well, maybe I did this backwards. She says I'm not going to sacrifice my child right to save earth. She says, however and I loved this I'm also not going to sacrifice the earth for my child, right. In other words, we're going to find another solution. You mentioned her faith. She was looking for a miracle. Yeah, she was looking at what seemed to be impossible odds. She was putting her love and her body in a place where a miracle could be possible. Did you think that he and Silver Surfer were going to get together?
Speaker 3:Dude, I was hoping. No. One thing that I noticed, though, is that he didn't say flame on once in the film. I was waiting for him to say like flame on, because you know how they kept throughout the film. They kept like there was an anticipation for the thing to say it's clobbering time. Yeah, exactly, and he finally did it at the end, but he didn't say flame on. I thought that was very interesting. Yeah, actually, the action figure that he destroyed did the thing destroyed during the film oh, that's funny.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it said flame on, but yeah, said flamon, um, but yeah, yeah, you know. I wanted to ask you something, actually what you thought about the fact that each of the villains seem to be prisoners to their roles. Yes, galactus, motivation for wanting the child was ultimately to be freed. Yes, so in some ways, the child was salvation for him. Sure as well. Sure, and the silver surfer was there in that role because she made a deal too. So we see that these villains are there because of a bargain. They made a bad bargain and now they're stuck. So what did you think of that?
Speaker 1:I thought that was fascinating and I'm glad you brought it up, because kind of, maybe ironically, galactus, who is this? Like interdimensional God, if you will, almost, you know, like deity, cosmic being, um, I thought they did a great job, by the way, even visually.
Speaker 2:He looked great.
Speaker 1:I remember him from the comics and I think that's him. You know they did it, it was. It was really great yeah.
Speaker 2:How do they make that work? He looks a little campy and purple Right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they really did well in the film. I agree they didn't do a lot to explain Galactus in this film, sure. So you kind of had, if you don't know the whole backstory, you had to kind of fill it in a little bit. But you're absolutely right, he had almost this thing of this king who has lived beyond his years and he's tired of destroying. He's tired of destruction. It's almost. You know the myth of Sisyphus. Oh yeah, this idea of right. You're constantly pushing the stone up the hill, right, yeah, in some sort of perennial purggatory. Dare I use the word? Sure, um, even though as orthodox christians we do not believe in purgatory.
Speaker 2:Right, I'll be clear about in the literary, literary sense, in the literary sense.
Speaker 1:Um, so I I thought it was an interesting kind of putting it on its head that you I felt he was a little sympathetic. Sure, you wanted him to see a salvation, a reprieve, a respite, you know, or some rest right, as we would say as Christians, to find rest in the Lord. Yeah, I don't know if that's available to someone like him. You know, ultimately, from a, from a in the story, from an ontological perspective, I don't know if salvation is possible for him. Um, so I might want to throw that back at you and get your thoughts on that. Um, the silver surfer I saw her as she was enslaved yeah uh, she was almost like an indentured servant.
Speaker 1:You know, you had this sense that she was working off this deal she made. She was trying to get out of it. So I did. I felt, I genuinely felt bad for her and I did like, like mario, I was hoping there was going to be some, maybe some sort of relationship the romantic, the romantic, absolutely right, um. So I think the film left me kind of with an open question in terms of the ultimate fate of Galactus. I do believe that server surfer redeemed herself in in a self-sacrificial way, maybe not unlike Boromir does when he fights or ends up losing his life Don't say that to me Defending himself or defending the hobbits and whatnot.
Speaker 1:So, um my King, amen, amen. So that's where I would, that's where I would leave that, and so I'm curious your thoughts.
Speaker 2:I agree, um, the what you mentioned about silver surfer. You think about galactus? He is a slave to this hunger, right, that's why he has to devour planets. He, it's his energy source that keeps his giant body you know, his planet-sized body uh, function, right, it takes a lot of energy. It takes, you know, all of these tubes that bring about this lava substance. You know, um, but what would happen if he didn't eat, right? Right, you know, in order to live, he needs to eat, and what he needs to eat are planets, and planets come with people. It's a unfortunate, um thing about his existence, but what would happen if he didn't eat? Well, he would have to die, right, what would be the bad thing about that? Wouldn't that be rest for his soul? But he won't give that Right, and that's the villainous thing about him is he's willing, for his own sake, so that he may live, he's willing to sacrifice others no matter how torturous it might be for him.
Speaker 1:You're right, he's not willing to self-sacrifice, exactly even just to give himself over to god. If you will, yeah, to be done with it. Because, why? Because he's clinging on to that.
Speaker 2:He's clinging on to his life yeah, even if his life is misery, right, it's, it's being enslaved to this hunger that he has to satisfy in order to live this miserable existence. But, oh, what's the end to that miserable existence? Your salvation would be death, right, that would be rest for your souls, yeah, and and. But it's, it's about how you do it. It's about defying the order that is keeping you prisoner, that is keeping you in bondage. Right to save lives, right, and if you were to deny, and that would be him putting himself on the line so that other people will live, right, and uh, you know, is it cosmic torment that he'll endure? Is it what, when there's no sense that god sees your, your praxis, right, that you are are choosing virtue for a higher order of of living, a higher order of authority of this is more valuable than whatever it is that I desire, right, and I would rather that, and I'll put myself on the line to accomplish that.
Speaker 2:We see that in Silver Surfer at the end. Yeah, that she was able to see that I am doing. I may not be doing the devouring, but I'm also not stopping the devouring, and that's what the human torch, who's a light bringer, right? The torch, the beacon of light, who uncovers things, who brings about knowledge and makes sense of this alien language. He not only brings light to that alien language, he brings illumination to her, about her sin, about how she has been rationalizing this great evil and destruction that she's bringing about to save not only herself but to save her planet, valuing them over others. But she redeems herself because she puts herself on the line to allow others to live, and that's the redemption for her, yeah, it's beautiful that I think many people are not willing to.
Speaker 2:To do right is to sacrifice their own desires, their own ambitions, to put their life on the line and choose instead to live not for themselves, not for success, not for these things, but to live a life that honors and glorifies God.
Speaker 1:It reminds me of one of my favorite quotes, st Maximus the Confessor. He says if you love Christ, then you should actually love your suffering. Why? Because your suffering brings about your salvation, exactly, and I think we see an image of that in what you're describing. Right, we've said it many times to live is to suffer. Right, and it wasn't an easy road and ultimately the silver surfer had to make the ultimate sacrifice, giving up her life. The fantastic four. They suffered, certainly, sure, and ultimately they were redeemed right through without having to sacrifice their lives, but they were about to and they were willing to.
Speaker 1:Um, I love this notion that maybe Galactus there, is that free will there and maybe he could have had salvation. You asked an interesting question, right, and I want to try to answer. You asked kind of what would happen, you know, if he stopped eating. These worlds I've made me think about. The universe is finite, right, only god is infinite. So if you were to take it to its logical end, let's just say he just kept eating and eating and eating. Get to a point where there's nothing left to eat. And I want to point to a very Tolkienian response to this. This is what evil does.
Speaker 1:Evil consumes everything around it until eventually it consumes itself around it. Until eventually it consumes itself. There's a? There's a character in um Angoliant and in Lord of the Rings in the Sumerian. She's an evil spider. To bring up spiders again, she's like a black widow and she's wholly evil. And what she does is she casts these black webs of nothingness, right Cause she's constantly devouring but getting no sustenance from it. Right, and in the end she ends up devouring herself.
Speaker 1:Wow, because and Tolkien comments on like this is where evil leads. So I think ultimately, galactus would be left with nothing at all. Yeah, and at that stage there is no salvation because he's eaten, destroyed or consumed everything. There is no salvation because he's eaten in destroyer, consumed everything, and lord, have mercy and god forbid that any of us live our lives, yeah, in a way where we're not ceasing to consume. Uh, in ways that we know as I love how you put it very often ways we damage our own souls. Right, because we know, as christians, there are ways to edify your soul and sanctify your soul as well, yeah Well, and I think it's rooted in martyrdom.
Speaker 2:We have lost as a culture, we have lost the value of martyrdom. This is going to be very controversial, but something that Jonathan Pagiot said on one of the podcasts about Martin Luther was that Martin Luther probably would have been recognized as a saint if he would have allowed himself to be captured and killed for defying the church's hypocrisy, or calling out the church's hypocrisy, and how they were moving away from, from biblical teachings and from the dogmas, and and they were practicing things that were unjust, and they were putting very harsh yokes upon the people, and they were unorthodox. They were unorthodox Very, very much so, and, and the unfortunate thing is that he valued his life more so than the unity of the church, and so what ended up happening was the fracturing of the Roman Catholic Church into Protestantism, and that has led to an unending chain of fracturing and fracturing and schism chain of fracturing and fracturing and schism. So there we do see, though, in history and past, that there were church fathers who defied the heresies that were being taught, but they put their life on the line because they held the church as something that was more important to be held, more important to keep in order than to fracture it.
Speaker 2:My life is now more important than the church. So I will give my life in order that the church would continue, but I'm not going to give in to the heresies. I'm not going to get in to the false teachings I will not. But I will not leave the church, because the bad actors are not the church right. The church is the unity in the faith, the order of the body of Christ staying as it was, and so that's the take, that's the hot take, in that you have to hold something as more valuable than your own life Amen, as more sacred than my own life, so that I will not allow this to be tarnished, I will not allow this to be broken. Yes, and if it comes between me and that, then all right.
Speaker 1:Then take me out, yep, because that's more important to maintain and yet again, another example of how orthodoxy is as counterculture as you can get right, because what do we get told again and again from culture is that, no, you matter and you've got to love yourself, james, and you know you need to stay as young as you can, as long as you can, and your health matters and your looks matter, and all these cosmetic and personal things about you, james, and your happiness and your fulfillment in life. That's the message of the world. That's the message of Satan.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's the literal message of the satanic church, right? It's not necessarily to worship the devil, it's to worship yourself, and that's part of the end of the technological age. It's to create the post-human, the eternal human. Where your consciousness? Consciousness? There's a very controversial series on Netflix that I wasn't able to watch, but I got the gist of it. Enough from one episode where the consciousness of people is transferred through this disc in your spine and you could live on forever. You can live on for hundreds of years, yep, thousands of years, as long as you don't damage that little disc and you can make copies of it.
Speaker 1:It's a motif that's often visited in science fiction. But what's the goal of that?
Speaker 2:To live forever, right, but to live is to suffer. You're going to have so much pain. You're going to have so much. You're going to see other people die. You're going to have so much. You're going to see other people die. You're going to see society degrade.
Speaker 2:But what are you living for? If you're only living for yourself, at some point you're going to come to an end to yourself and ask is this all there is? And that's where the deals with the devils come from. That's the, where the whole faustian epic begins is is this all there is to life? Right? Right, they get to where solomon got to, where they?
Speaker 2:They have divine wisdom, but divine wisdom without, uh, practical application. Uh, that's one of the guys in our, in our church, when we were having cigar night, brought up theoria and praxis, the difference between divine wisdom without practice of your faith, the living out your faith. The theoria doesn't save you, it's the living out your salvation that saves you. It's the Jesus said if you love me, obey my commands. It doesn't say know my commands and don't practice.
Speaker 2:If anything he says do not be hearers of my word, only Be doers. Be doers of my word. And so you need to be living for not yourself. You need to be carrying your cross daily, you need to be dying to yourself daily, and that means martyrdom becomes a daily practice. Maybe not unto unto death in the physical sense, because we're not, you know, no one's putting a sword to our neck but dying to your passions every 100, dying to your desires every day, dying to your, your selfish ambitions, for the sake of your wife, for the sake of your children, for the sake of your job, for the sake of your God, right at the end of it.
Speaker 1:A beautiful thing, James, and we should probably come towards the end here of this conversation, although it's been awesome and I want to hear from Mario again before we end this as well but one of the beautiful things of the Orthodox Church is the sacrament of marriage, Absolutely. And in that sacrament of marriage you'll see it, you can see pictures of it online the bride and groom are given crowns. That's beautiful and you think, oh, cause, why? Because they're Royal? No, they're the crowns of martyrdom and I love cause. Father John always emphasizes that and it's such an important point because marriage is a martyrdom right, A giving yourself, as you said, a giving yourself, a sacrificing yourself, putting to death the old man right, as Paul talks about. It's an amazing thing. Who are watching this right now? If they've gotten anything out of this, if you can get out of the Fantastic Four, that putting others, even a little baby, above yourself, that can lead to your salvation right, If you do that in faith, it's a beautiful thing. Mario, we'll give James the last word, but what are your final thoughts?
Speaker 3:Man, I've actually taken a bunch of notes during this that I want to review because I actually want to go back into it.
Speaker 3:I mean, you just see the importance of family. I really love how you guys were talking about the importance of a man, of the fatherly figure. I think that's something that's super important. You know, a common thing amongst a lot of my peers is that we grew up without fathers, and so to be able to see that on the film I think kind of brings a childlike desire out of me that when I see a strong man in a film I'm just like oh, I want to be just like that.
Speaker 3:You know, I want to, you know, that's how it should be.
Speaker 3:It's great, yeah, you know so that really got me thinking. And then about the whole. You know, I feel like I'm the only like single guy in our friend group. Everyone else has gotten married. Well, you used to be Jeremy, but congratulations to you because you just got married. But you know, I'm excited for when I do get married one day. You know, I get to be a husband and father. But I mean, I love it all and I'm definitely going to review all of these notes.
Speaker 1:Amen, james, take us away.
Speaker 2:Well, like I said, it's not a perfect film, but it was a good film, and if this film is any indicator of where Hollywood and cinema is going, then I'm optimistic about the future. And, of course, it's always good to be reminded that true heroism is to put others before yourself. Amen. And also, to the root of that is love. Amen. We love others because we love God, and people are created in God's image. A failure to see anything good in someone else is a failure to see God in them and his fingerprint in in finally crafting and designing every person, every animal, every flower. And so we need to cherish our, our fellow man and our earth and um be defenders and let our family unit be effectual for the salvation of others in our testimony and how we manage our home and how we manage ourselves and how we can be human torches to the world around us and ignited by the Holy Spirit and lighting our neighborhood ablaze with the flame of God.
Speaker 1:Amen, the flamifer of the West. There is no greater love than that. He would lay down his life for others Exactly Amen. Thank you for listening this long to Cloud of Witnesses. We are really excited this new series Finding Meaning In this has been Finding Meaning In the Fantastic Four. James, as always. Thank you, mario. As always. Thank you, mario. As always. Thank you. We'll see you guys on the next one. Bye-bye.