Becoming a superhero is not about having power, but how you use the power you were given.

Are you just watching episode 157, Blue Beetle?

Welcome to the podcast that shares critical thinking for the entertained Christian.

I'm Eve Franklin.

And I'm Tim Martin.

And we're going back in time a little bit because January turned out to be a pretty nasty month when it comes to picking out movies that are currently in the theater.

So you wanted to do this movie back when it came out, and I can't remember what we did instead, but it was.

Neither do I.

It was kind of like number two on the list.

So we didn't do it.

And I recently gained access to Max, so it's currently on Max.

And so we were able to watch it.

Well, actually, I had to twist your arm really hard.

Yeah, it was.

It was terrible.

I held out as long as I could.

All 30 seconds.

Yeah.

We haven't done that many DC movies.

I think we did.

We did Black Adam.

Yep.

I'm trying to think if there was another one that we did.

I think that might be the only one.

I think that might be it.

I can't think of any others.

I know that Daniel did Batman Begins a long time ago.

Okay.

And no, no, wait a minute.

He did Dark Knight.

He did a review of Dark Knight on his own.

So if you go back in our archives.

A really, really long time ago.

Yeah.

We haven't done a lot of dc, and really honest, we've been steering away from Marvel recently too.

So this is kind of getting back into the superhero vein.

It's got an interesting score to it.

It's very techno funky kind of music, and it has a good mix of, like, Latino kind of flair music in it as well.

The score is by a guy name, and I hope I'm saying his name right.

Bobby Krillick.

Krilik.

That is a good Slavic last name.

There's not a lot of vowels in it.

Yeah, you got to do it from the back of your throat as.

So I'll play just a little bit of the score just to kind of set the mood.

All right, so I think we can get on into our first impressions.

I had not seen Blue Beetle while it was in the theater, so this was a first viewing for me and I thought it was a very entertaining movie.

It has a very strong theme of family in it, and from my experience of dc, it seems to be a little bit lighter hearted and a little bit more humorous.

Not quite so dark as a lot of their offer.

Just from my general Experience, which is, granted, I haven't seen most of the DC movies, so the ones I've seen seemed overly dark.

But this one, yeah, I thought it wasn't nearly as broody as a lot of the other ones that I have seen.

It did have some bad language in it, which, you know, it stood out to me.

So if it stands out to me, it probably was pretty bad.

Yeah, I kind of wish my Spanish was better because they put a lot of the Spanish translations on the screen, at least the important ones, but the ones that weren't important, they didn't translate.

So I kind of just wish I had better Spanish.

I looked up a couple of the words that they never translated.

Corazon.

According to Google, it means pigheaded.

And the name that Jaime's father calls him means skinny.

So I was like, I just have to look those up just to see what all of these love words that are being used in reference to the main character.

So, yeah, his family is very kind.

So I was just looking through what DC movies we have actually done, and you and I were joking before we started recording that maybe we should go back in time and do the Green Lantern.

We can't because Daniel did it on June 23rd of 2011.

Okay, well, I guess we won't be doing that one.

Well, I was only joking because our last episode was on red one and this one is on Blue Beetle.

I was like, we need another color.

Yep, Green something.

I think there's other movies that with green in the name.

Oh, I'm sure there are.

Green Goblin.

No, wait, that's.

That's not it.

There's probably a yellow as well.

Yellow something.

You can just do a Google like movies that start with colors.

But we're talking about the Blue Beetle.

We'll get to that later.

So that's really my first impressions.

I thought when I watched the movie I could understand why you wanted to talk about it because there's enough thematic things in this movie to address from a spiritual standpoint that I think it is.

It's a good one to talk about.

I don't know that it's necessarily a family friendly movie, even though family is so strong.

I would say it's definitely PG13 and possibly even some 13 year olds probably wouldn't be wise to sit them down in it without watching it first and vetting it, but it's not awful.

I've seen worse.

You know, Black Adam was a lot worse.

You know, the movie, the language in it was consistent with what we've come to expect from contemporary PG13 movies.

Yeah, it wouldn't have flown back when PG13, you know, still became a new rating, which I believe Twister was the first PG13 movie.

Is that.

I think so, anyway.

Neither here nor there.

I saw it in the theaters, and the reason I saw it in the theaters is because I have been watching Cobra Kai on Netflix, which is the series that picks up after the three Ralph Macchio or two Ralph Macchio Karate Kid movies, but, you know, 30 years later and Zao Low.

Yeah, you got to put that.

Is one of the lead young people in the Cobra Kai series.

And I've come to appreciate his acting style.

I think he might be a good actor.

Right.

But, you know, all I'd seen him in is Cobra Kai.

And there's.

Let's face it, Cobra Kai embraces the campiness of karate movies from the 1980s.

And that doesn't call for a lot of strong acting.

Yeah, think Jean Claude Van Damme.

You know, when you think of Van Damme, you don't think Oscar material.

But anyway, I wanted to see him.

I wanted to see if he was any good.

And I wasn't disappointed.

He did a good job here.

He managed to not, you know, just play the same character in multiple franchises the way Dwayne Johnson does.

Even though I love Dwayne Johnson, too.

But I think we need to see him in roles that let him, you know, embrace more challenges, character challenges.

Looking forward to it.

But, you know, I'm a fan of superhero movies, though we've discussed before.

I'm getting a little burned out on Marvel.

That's not going to stop me from seeing Brave New World when it comes out next month.

But this one, as I was.

So the first time I watched it, I watched it specifically for enjoyment.

You know, I didn't take notes.

I.

I never really turn off the critical thinking, but I learned to ignore that.

Some stuff, particularly social warfare stuff.

Social justice.

Yeah, social justice.

That's the word I was looking for.

And this has.

Well, you know, on the surface, Blue Beetle is campy and makes fun of itself quite a bit, actually, the way it's written and the scenarios that they put in, you know, that.

Motivations.

There's a lot of social justice undertone here, which doesn't really bother me.

You can either turn your brain off entirely, which we do not recommend ever, or you gotta let it flow around you like a stone in a stream.

You know that.

Like the water and the stone around the stone in the stream.

And that's what I ended up doing for this it really is just, you know, acknowledge it's there, let it go.

It's weird because for you to bring that up and for it to not bother me is such a switch of roles because usually I'm the one that's harping on that in this movie.

It did not bother me at all.

I don't know why, but it was just like.

Yeah, to me it just felt cultural.

Like, to me it was in the place where it is like a Caribbean island where they're all pretty much migrant immigrants.

And it just felt like it was cultural to me.

So it didn't bug me.

It didn't feel like it was for me, it felt like it was part of the environment of the movie and it was not out of place.

So I guess that's why it didn't bug me.

Yeah, I think the thing for me was how they used the prejudice against immigrants as a.

Not just a marker of the evil characters, but a giant amusement park.

Ring the bell, Sledgehammer of the evil characters.

The villain in here, Victoria Cord, played by the always wonderful Susan Sarandon, is so over the top.

I mean, she hits every single trope so hard.

And you know, it.

You know, that's the direction she was given because we know that Sarandon is a great actor.

So, you know, just how she's so callous to the plight of the poor and to the immigrants.

I think that was the part that I had to just ignore was the fact that they were using it as the marker of evil.

Mm.

Good versus evil.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And every good person, with one exception until the very end of the movie, was Hispanic.

Even Jenny Cord is played by a Hispanic actress.

So she's Guatemalan, I think in the movie.

Is she.

I think that's.

Oh, that makes sense.

Yeah.

It was just, you know, it was a little heavy handed and I actually politically, I tend towards the left side of the spectrum when it comes to immigration.

I'm certainly not as far right as the current Republican Party.

You know, I support stuff like Dreamers and Road to citizenship opportunities, stuff like that.

But this was just, you know, more.

Which I think is so weird that you and I are actually opposite on this.

It obviously bothered you more than it bothered me.

It felt more like it was, you know, those movies and stories where they try to make you feel bad because you're a man or because you're white or because you're middle class, even when you personally have not necessarily done anything.

Yeah, that was sort of the way I felt.

They sort of worked that in there but like I said, it's still a campy, enjoyable comic book hero movie and an action movie.

Don't think too hard about the logic.

You know, don't look for plot holes or motivations because they don't always work.

Yeah.

But overall, you know, grab some popcorn, sit back, relax and let it roll.

Yeah, it's a good movie.

And Zaolo Marinduania did a good job in the lead role.

How's that?

Did I get it right?

Yeah, yeah.

You just don't want to.

You don't want to make it so slow.

I'm going to wake up at 2am going.

Well, before we get into our thematic discussion, let me encourage you to support our podcast.

Are you just watching?

Is listener supported and we have five gentlemen who give to us very regularly and we appreciate their support.

Isaiah Santiano, Craig Hardy, Stephen Brown ii, David Lufton and Peter Chapman give to us five or more dollars a month and we really appreciate all five of them.

We do have some other donors who give less than that, but if you would like to join in supporting this podcast, we really appreciate the financial support.

It helps us, you know, pay our bills.

You can go to our Patreon page.

You can get there by going to patreon.com are you just watching or are you just watching.com patreon they take you to the same place.

The Patreon has changed their setup a little bit, so it's now like a subscription model rather than just like extracting the money on a given day.

You can actually choose how you want to subscribe and how often it's taken out.

And so it's a little bit more user friendly for the giver.

So do check out Patreon and consider giving us a monthly gift just to keep us going.

Since we're not on YouTube, we don't have, you know, a quick, easy way for you to give us money like that.

So we would appreciate your support through Patreon until we can, I think our new host actually has where you can tip, but we haven't quite figured out how to use that yet.

So Patreon is our main means of support.

So we appreciate that.

If you can't support us financially, do consider praying for us especially, you know, that we can keep this up and going and keep these episodes coming and also consider sharing it with your friends and family, letting others know that we exist because we're not too much concerned about our numbers.

But it is, you know, kind of helpful to look to see what our downloads are, to know whether there are People out there actually listening to us.

So we appreciate all of that support.

All right.

So obviously, as I said in my initial impressions, this movie is all about family.

And that was kind of the thing, I think, that really hit me in the head or slapped me in the face or however you.

However rude, violent thing we want to refer to.

But I don't really feel like Blue Beetle is a superhero movie.

It's more like a super family movie because he made.

Doesn't really do much on his own.

He's always supported by his family and just about everything he does.

And yeah, it's.

It's beautiful, actually, because, you know, so many of the superheroes are loners or they have to hide things, you know, like Spider man was always hiding things from his family, and Batman was an orphan.

And, you know, you look back through a lot of them and it's like they're never, like, in a family family unit.

They're always, like, on their own, standing alone against the evil or whatever.

And Blue Beetle doesn't do that.

It's like he.

He kind of like gets invaded by the salient symbiont.

Kidnapped.

Kidnapped, yeah.

And he really doesn't know what's going on.

And at the whole time, his family is utterly supportive.

And then when he is at his weakest, his family, who normally you say.

Utterly supportive, but they're supportive in the way a true family is.

By making total fun of him.

Yeah, yeah.

They're supportive in the ways that are important.

Yeah.

In the love language that families use for each other.

Good way to put it.

Yeah.

But when he is at his weakest, they go to great odds to rescue him.

And they're not the weak ones that are being protected by the hero.

They're the ones that stand up for him and come to his rescue.

And they're also the source of motivation for him to become who he really needs to be as Blue Beetle.

And in the end, triumph over the bad guy or bad gal.

So anyway, I just really felt like the family centric story is very central and it's an element to the superhero movie that you don't actually usually see.

It's like something new.

Because while family is sometimes a side topic in some superhero movies, I think Iron man had a little bit of that.

It's never central.

And this, to me, I really felt like the family was really the central element, the motivating, the factor and everything that was going on from the moment he steps off the plane coming back from graduating from college all the way to the end where they're mourning his father.

So it's just like the center of the movie all the way through.

Yeah.

And I was kind of thinking it's like.

It's a little bit of a parallel for what it's like to be a member of the body of Christ, the family that is created through Christ, because we are supposed to support each other, fill in, you know, the gaps.

So it's like we're not all doing the same thing where some of us are in supporting roles, some of us are in leadership, and we all have a calling under the Lord to work together in unity.

And I.

And I think that, you know, the way the family is used in this movie is an interesting parallel on that, so I just wanted to share.

Ephesians 4, 11, 16 is kind of a quick theme, because we have a lot of other themes to discuss, but I did want to bring it up.

And he himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry, to build up the body of Christ until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of God's son, growing into maturity with a stature measured by Christ's fullness.

Then we will no longer be little children tossed by the waves and blown around by every wind of teaching, by human cunning, with cleverness in the techniques of deceit.

But seeing the truth in love, let us grow in every way into him who is the head Christ.

From him, the whole body, fitted and knit together by every supporting ligament, promotes the growth of the body for building itself up in love by the proper working of each individual part.

So that's just kind of a reminder that, you know, that the family functions in unity, but we all have separate roles.

And you see that a little bit in this movie.

Obviously, this is not a perfect parallel, but, you know, everybody in Jaime's family kind of has a role.

And, you know, his sister and his grandmother and even his father and his uncle, they all do different things in order to support him, and in the end, they win as a family.

Not just, you know, hero wedding by himself.

So just a slight parallel there.

I wanted that to be a quick theme because we actually have some big themes to talk about.

Moving to the role that Jaime's father plays in this movie.

I thought he was actually one of the most important characters, and his name is Alberto.

He's very interesting because the first we see of him, obviously, is that the family's kind of hiding from Jaime, that things have not been going well, that the family's been through a lot of trials, but every time the topics are brought up, Alberto always addresses them from a very positive angle.

He never seems to get upset.

I'm good now.

He had a heart attack, but he's healthy now.

We're a family.

We're going to get through this.

He always has a very optimistic spin to put on things.

I don't know.

He's just positive and optimistic about everything.

And even in the worst circumstances, he never speaks in a negative way.

He's always got a way to face the trial optimistically.

Got a great outlook.

Yeah, he just has a very firm outlook.

And it kind of reminded me some of my favorite scriptures.

James 1, 3, 4 says, consider it great joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you experience various trials, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance.

And let endurance have its full effect so that you may be mature and complete, lacking Nothing.

And Romans 5, 3, 5 says, and not only that, but we also boast in our afflictions, because we know that affliction produces endurance.

Endurance produces proven character, and proven character produces hope.

This hope will not disappoint us because God's love has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who was given to us.

And there's tons of other scriptures.

I just found a handful of them, like John 16:33, 1st Peter 4, 12, 13, 1st Peter, 5, 10, Revelation 2:10, 2 Corinthians 4, 16, 18.

These are all scriptures that speak into how our attitude should be in the midst of tribulation and what tribulation does in the Christian life.

The Bible isn't exactly quiet on it.

No, it's a very popular topic in Scripture, especially in the New Testament, and it's just something that we need to remember.

You know, it's very easy to be negative when there's trials and tribulations that we endure, especially those of us who become super soft in our Christianity because we live where Christianity is easy.

But we're promised tribulation and we're promised trials, and we're not supposed to be negative.

We're supposed to have the hope and optimism that is indwelt in us due to our faith and all the hope of eternity that we have and just the saved condition that we under because we've been blessed to be saved.

So I thought Jaime's father was a really good.

Just a good character for that reason.

And his wisdom and calm seems to hold the whole family together, so that even after he dies kind of traumatically in the midst of Jaime being Kidnapped by the bad guy.

And, you know, it's just super tragic, but yet his wisdom still holds the family together.

That.

And of course, I think it's his mother.

Yeah, it is his.

His mother.

Jaime's grandmother.

Yeah.

Alberto's mother.

Yeah, I think that's Alberto's mother.

They don't really say.

It's just that she's Nana.

So I would, you know, I think you're right.

I think they never really indicate whose mother she is, but when you think about it, she looks more like Jaime's mother.

So who knows?

Yeah, who knows?

Yeah, they don't really see whose mother she is, but she kind of takes over that leadership position when he dies.

But it's all in remembrance of this is what your father would have wanted kind of thing.

And so his wisdom and calm kind of hold the family together even after he's dead.

And I thought that in the way.

The way that he leads the family kind of reminds me of the characteristics of the shepherd or elder, the overseer that's given in first Timothy.

An overseer, therefore, must be above approach, the husband of one wife.

Self controlled, sensible, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not an excessive drinker, not a bully, but gentle, not quarrelsome, not greedy.

He must manage his own household competently and have his children under control with all dignity.

So that's kind of what he reminded me of in the way that he was the head of the family.

He really did emphasize a patriarchal figure.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And then he is actually a pivotal.

He has a pivotal role in helping Jaime at the end of the movie, become the full hero that he needed to be.

Yeah.

There are two scenes where he's giving advice to.

I think he was saying, hi, Mae.

You're saying, hey, Mae.

I honestly have no idea.

So I'll just go, Jamie.

No, I won't go, Jamie.

Because.

Because the bad people do that.

Yeah.

They use his advice sessions to time a as bookends.

Right.

And both times they're talking about purpose, which I thought was, you know, very pertinent.

Especially, you know, we think back.

You and I were both well into our fourth decade on the planet.

Fifth decade.

Fifth.

Oh, man.

Now I feel even older.

But we remember what it was like when, you know, we had just graduated high school and maybe had gone off to college and we were trying to figure out what our purpose was, what we were supposed to do with life.

I chose the military.

And you had.

I don't know.

Did you go straight to college out of high school?

I did.

I took A year off in the middle of my college, but just for financial reasons.

But yeah, ye old gap year.

But you know, the advice he gives is very much purpose driven.

And in the, the first one, he says, we're on a journey.

I made this house, the cactus, the, the auto shop, everything.

It's just, just a stop on the journey.

It's not the destination.

And Jaime asked, what is the journey?

And he says, I don't know.

What's important is that we go on the journey together.

Things don't last.

The family, that's forever that lasts.

Everyone has a purpose.

You just haven't found yours.

So Jaime asked him, what's your purpose then?

And he says, I'm still searching too, but right now it's this talking to you right here.

And it shows that he's living the way he's supposed to, you know, in the moment and just trying to make the right decisions now.

Right.

So that, you know, the next decisions he makes, maybe they're easier, but they will work out better for him.

And then at the end of the movie, or near the end of the movie, there's this near death experience for Jaime, the Jaime character, where he meets his father at the, what we might call the edge of the afterlife.

Right.

And Jaime knows at this point that his father has died.

He's been told by his family.

Well, actually he hasn't seen his family yet.

That's right.

Yeah.

He's right there dying.

Yeah.

He said, what's this mean?

And Alberto said, you know what it means, right?

I think that's where Jaime figured out that, that dad had died.

But Alberto gives the other bookend to that advice.

This isn't your time.

You have to go back.

I understand everything now.

My destiny was to be here with you in this moment, to help you cross it.

The universe knows it's you.

I know it's you.

You know it too.

This is your purpose.

The scarab has chosen you for a reason.

It's time for you to accept your destiny.

So in that they're end capping the purpose for the main character.

And I like the fact that they were emphasizing the purpose because Christians and non Christians alike, we struggle with that.

Everybody does.

We, we have this inborn desire to fulfill a.

To contribute, to fulfill a role.

And I'm talking more than just the chief end of man, as per the Westminster Shorter Catechism, which is man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.

What I'm talking about is how do I use, as a Christian, I Say, how do I use what God has given me to fulfill my purpose as a non Christian?

You know, it might manifest what can I do to make myself feel better about being me?

But it all goes back to where we should be looking for purpose.

And in Jaime, he finds his purpose in the scarab.

And there's an interesting parallel that we'll talk about in a little bit, which he.

He, honestly, he's not really given much of a choice because once he.

He's kidnapped by the scarab, he can't lose the scarab without dying.

So it's kind of like taken out of his hands.

Yeah, as I think about it, we shouldn't say he was kidnapped.

He was predestined by the scarab.

He was chosen.

He really was chosen.

But because, you know, the first thing it says is host accepted.

But that.

That's besides the point.

We'll get to that a little bit.

But it put me in mind of, you know, when we're searching for what our path is, for what our purpose is, there are dozens of places in the Bible where we're commanded to do roughly the same thing.

But really, it's all summed up in Proverbs 3, 5, and 6.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own understanding.

In all your ways, know him, and he will make your paths straight.

And it's funny because the version I just read is the Christian standard Bible version, which is the version of Bible that I use primarily nowadays because I like the translation that they have done, but I always have in the back of my head, the niv.

Yeah.

Lean not on your own understanding and in all your ways, new King James, and he will direct your paths.

And then the following verse, which I also know in the new King James, is, be not wise in your own eyes.

Fear the Lord and depart from evil.

So that's the verse seven.

But, yeah, it's interesting because you're using the word purpose.

I would say more for a Christian, the word would be better.

Calling.

Yeah.

So vocation, purpose, like you said, all of men's purpose is to glorify God.

But, yeah, vocation and calling are different from purpose because it's what God has ordained for us to do with our physical lives.

And we have a purpose as Christians that is general to the body of believers.

But then each of us individually has a calling and a vocation that God ordains for us to do with our physical lives.

And I think that that is something that many of us, especially at the age that Jaime is or Jaime is in this movie, we're still struggling with that.

What does God want me to do with my life?

And I think that for him it's like he has a lot of the expectations that young people have who graduate from college.

I'm going to get the high paying job and I'm going to pay off all my debt and live in fancy houses and all of this.

And they kind of make a joke out of it.

But.

But to be honest, it isn't just because he's of the culture that he's in that he struggles with that.

Because I think most young people who graduate from college, especially with degrees like pre law, they are going to go through that period of time of finding out it's not so easy to find the job.

And unless you, especially with pre law and pre med, if you don't go on and get the higher education, it's pretty much useless.

You basically proved you can get through four years of college and then you find out there are no jobs that will pay you, you know, the big money for the little bit of education that you've proven that you can get.

And because those degrees are a dime a dozen and nobody's hiring a pre lawyer, as his sister calls him, it's a hard reality that most young people meet.

I mean, what I ended up doing as a vocation has nothing to do with the degree I got in college.

I've learned most of my current skills on the job.

And it's one of those situations that we don't prepare our young people enough for.

We throw them in college and we think that they're going to come out of college and do something with that degree without really preparing them for the fact that almost every kid now has a degree and it's about as good as a high school diploma.

But yeah, I think that it's an interesting.

I kind of skewed a little bit off of the topic there.

But it is something that as Christians we have to be wise to the fact that God calls us regardless of what we choose to do in high school, what we choose to do in college or go into a trade or whatever.

God is going to direct our paths to the direction he wants us to go.

And we shouldn't struggle too much with that because he has a purpose in mind for us from the beginning of time before we were even born.

And sometimes the directing can be a little hard.

If we've been stubborn and we're like, this is what we want to do.

And God's like, no, I want you to do this.

And instead.

So I've had that.

I've had that experience.

Yeah.

When I first got out of the service, I was convinced I wanted to become a police officer.

And I even went so far as to go to the main state police academy.

But yeah, you know, the first class in, I was like, maybe this isn't for me.

And I ended up working at Radio Shack until somebody saw me there and offered me a job in it.

And I've been in it for 30 years now.

Yeah, well, as long as you can keep up with it is a crazy profession to be in because it changes every six months to a year.

Yeah, it's always updating.

Yeah.

Well, just a reminder to be flexible because God will bend us in the direction he wants us to go, especially if we are sensitive to his leading and not being pigheaded and pushing ourselves in the opposite direction as fast as and hard as we can.

But yeah, this is a good thought that you know how Jaime's father kind of directs him into a possibly a different direction than he was intending to go.

And we're going to kind of discuss that again more later as well.

Before we move into our final topics, I do want to remind you to share feedback with us as to how we're doing.

We haven't picked a movie yet for February, so if you have an idea and you want to let us know, or for March, for that matter, you know, if there's something coming out that you would really love to hear us review, please let us know.

We'd love to have your thoughts on that.

If you have any thoughts about this movie in particular in our review of it, you can comment on the show notes by going to are you just watching.com157.

You can also call us at 513-818-2959.

Leave a voicemail.

Or you can also text that number like it was a cell phone.

You can email feedbackyoujustwatching.com if you have seen a movie that you have some Christian thoughts on, you can record a brief review or even write up a written review and send that to our email address.

And we would love to have that kind of input.

Things that we can put in future episodes.

You can also join us on Facebook, our discussion group.

You can get to by going to are you just watching.com community.

You can just look up our Are youe just watching?

Page as well.

Well, and follow us on Facebook.

And we're also on Discord, which if you go to are you just watching.com discord you'll get an invite to our server and you can come join us.

And if you are on our server right now, you could be listening to us live in our recording stage and giving us input as we record.

So we would love to have.

Are we being listened to?

Is there somebody listening right at the moment?

No, because we didn't warn anybody we were recording tonight, so I don't blame them.

And it's kind of an important night.

We were actually recording this on the 20th of January, so lots of people are into the whole inauguration thing going on.

So it also is Martin Luther King's.

The celebration of Martin Luther King Day.

Yep, lots of things going on today.

So.

So the same way that, you know, family really stood out for you.

Another theme, though.

Subtle is not the right word for it.

Nothing subtle in this movie.

Yeah, maybe.

Maybe a layer beneath the very thick, heavy layer of family.

Yeah.

There were a number of times where the idea of pulling power from pain was mentioned.

It was mentioned a couple different ways.

Nana mentioned it in a rousing speech just after Alberta died.

And then Jaime's mother gives a pep talk to Jaime and the scarab right before the big final battle.

And she talks about using that pain for power.

But at the end, it actually turns out a little bit different because comic books can be complex, but in general, you know, the characters are one or two dimensional at best because they can't get.

Unless you're a main character, they can't get really complicated.

But power is sort of the MacGuffin that drives the motivation of the bad guys in most comic books.

You know, they want power.

They want to be able to do what they want to be able to do.

I appreciated the fact that Blue Beetle also allowed the good guys to have a desire for more power.

And that was underscored by the fact that the Reyes family, Jaime's family, is poor, and they're an immigrant family.

At one point, you learn that at least two of them are illegal immigrants.

Right.

Because Rudy talks about checking papers.

So, you know, they're talking about having the power to be able to do what they.

What they want to do.

In.

In the case of Victoria Cord, you know, she wants power for what every villain wants power, you know, to rule the world or whatever it is, to be in control.

Powerhouse weapons manufacturing.

But really, because she felt that she was overlooked as a woman since her father gave control of the company to her younger brother, Ted.

But at the same time, you have Jamie's sister Milagro, who is really a brat, actually.

Yeah, she is.

Yeah.

She's the typical younger sister.

Yeah.

No character development, but she's actually one of the two leads in the new Reba McIntyre sitcom called Happy's Place.

It's.

She's pretty funny, but, you know, at the beginning of the movie, she enjoys using the luxury bathroom of the CEO's house, which is.

Right, okay, all right.

A bathroom's a bathroom as long as it's clean.

Yeah, yeah.

What is it, padded seats?

Who knows?

Yeah.

Jaime, Nana gives this powerful speech after Alberto dies, and she essentially says, it's time to stop turning the other cheek, which, as we all know, is not really ever the thing that you're supposed.

To do 70 times 7 and all that.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, yeah.

You shouldn't retaliate just to retaliate.

You can defend yourself, you can defend others.

But that's a whole other discussion, which I almost.

Almost included, but decided it was too wide ranging.

But then, you know, as you get towards the end of the movie when they're doing the raid on the compound to rescue Jaime, you discover that she was a revolutionary in her younger days.

And she should not have power.

Definitely should not have power.

There's a scene where she's killing court guards with utter and complete abandon and laughing maniacally.

And she was scary.

It was like a villain's laugh.

Yeah.

And then she just stops laughing and says, okay, we go now.

You know, it's like.

So.

And, you know, like I said before, Jaime's mother gave the speech about turning this pep talk about turning pain into power.

So I think that this was the theme that they included, this whole poor, powerless, immigrant versus powerful, wealthy corporation overtones for, so that, you know, you're prepared for the question of where you get power from and the way that the Reyes family suggests of turning the pain of the tribulations that you've had into power.

It's just not healthy.

Ephesians 4:31,32 says, we're instructed, let all bitterness, anger and wrath, shouting and slander be removed from you, along with all malice.

And be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving one another, just as God also forgave you in Christ.

And Hebrews 12:15 takes it a step further.

Make sure that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no root of bitterness springs up, causing trouble and defiling many.

It's.

In the end, what they're saying is if you hold on to that pain, and it will turn you bitter and just cause you more problems and cause you more pain.

But there's only one source of power that we should be reaching for.

There's only one thing that we take pride in, and that's Christ.

Isaiah 40:28 31 says, do you not know?

Have you not heard?

The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the whole earth.

He never becomes faint or weary.

There is no limit to his understanding.

He gives strength, strength to the faint and strengthens the powerless.

Youths may become faint and weary, and young men stumble and fall, but those who trust in the Lord will renew their strength.

They will soar on wings like eagles, and they will run and not become weary.

They will walk and not faint.

Philippians 4:13 says, I am able to do all things through him who strengthens me.

So, you know, when we need power, we should be looking to God to give us that power.

And if he doesn't give it to us, there's a reason, and we can be absolutely sure that there's a reason.

One of my favorite verses, and I know I've used it here so many times, God tells us that pain, along with everything else under his sovereignty.

And here's a spoiler.

Nothing is not under his sovereignty.

Right.

Double negative.

But I'll take it.

It all serves purpose for our good.

And that goes back to Romans 8:28.

We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.

And that does not mean that it's going to be all rainbows and unicorns.

What it does mean is that we are supposed to grow from what God gives us, that he has a purpose in the pain that we suffer.

Yeah.

It's kind of like the trials and tribulations we were talking about earlier.

Exactly.

You know, Alberto is so positive about.

Yep.

It's almost like a lot of that power stuff came in after he was dead, because I don't think that he would have necessarily been behind what the family does, you know, using the pain for power.

I don't think he would have been behind that.

Yeah.

Can you imagine if he were alive and it was time to rescue Aime?

It would have been a very different rescue.

Yes, it would have.

I was gratified at near the end of the movie that they didn't rest on their laurels with this whole turn pain into power thing?

Jaime took it one step further and realized that power is not just about having control.

It's about making choices and being able to implement those choices.

He learned that the ultimate goal of pain in life is growth, which is, you know, from a secular standpoint, but it ties into scripture in a moment of rage at the end of the movie when Jaime knows his father is dead and that the, you know, the guy laying prone on the ground in front of him at his mercy, is the guy who prevented Jaime from saving his father.

And Jaime believes he just killed his uncle Rudy.

Jamie wants to kill this guy, the OMAC operator, Ignacio Carapax.

But Kaji steps in and stops him.

And Kaji is the.

The scarab.

Scarab, yeah, yeah, I don't think we've used her name yet, so we probably.

That's true.

Yeah.

So Kaji is a sentient in the.

The wider DC range.

It's a sentient computer symbiote that links with Jaime.

Right.

But in the process of stealing the scarab's code, the scarab Kaji also was able to see into the mind of Ignatio as the scarabs code was Ignacio.

Thank you.

I knew it didn't sound right.

Well, the.

While the code was being uploaded to him, and Kaji stops Jaime from killing Ignacio and shows him how he, Carapax, is every bit the victim.

And it goes back to something that was big when we were much younger, and I think it was the Sandinistas taking children from villages and turning them into forced soldiers.

And it shows very, very quickly.

Shows a very familiar story of mother getting killed and then the child being taken by the rebels and being forced to kill and becoming good at it really is what it comes down to.

He didn't have any other way he could have survived his early life.

Right.

He's taken it like the age of six or seven, so he wouldn't even have known better.

So he really was a victim.

So Kaji helps Jaime realizes, and Jaime, you know, he turns around and starts treating Carapax as a peer instead of an enemy.

Right.

And this is very similar to how we are called to bear one another's burdens, because this is how we demonstrate empathy.

In Galatians 6:2, it says, Carry one another's burdens.

In this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.

And that law is very important.

It goes Back to Matthew 22:34, 40, when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees.

They came together.

And one of them, an expert in law, asked the question to test him.

Teacher, which command in the law is the greatest?

He said to them, love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.

This is the greatest and most important command.

The second is, like it, love your neighbor as Yourself.

All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commands.

So the entirety of the second half of the Law and the Prophets, love your neighbor as yourself, depends on that empathy.

And the way we develop that empathy is by both bearing their burdens and the pain that we suffer.

So when we see somebody else going through the same thing, we can have a glimpse into what their state of mind and their state of spirit may be.

Right.

You know, and I think it's an interesting contrast because, you know, as you said before, you know that this movie kind of has the stereotypes of the villain, but when you look at the way she treats people through the whole movie, her most trusted people end up turning on her because she doesn't treat people in an empathetic way.

She doesn't care whether she gets their names right.

She doesn't care how much pain she's put them through.

Yeah, it doesn't matter how many times Sanchez, the guy she calls Sanchez, tells her that's not his name, she keeps using it.

And even with Ignacio, you know, she put him through living hell.

And then she expects him to be her trusted right hand person all the way to the end.

And he turns on her just like the other character does.

And it's just like her contrast is that she uses people.

That's all she does, is she uses people to further her own thing.

But while that is a stereotypic villain, there are a lot of people like that in the real world who use people.

And as Christians, we should never be the ones that do that.

We should always be, even our enemies.

We should be sensitive to their motivations and to why they react to the world the way they are.

It was funny because I was watching a political commentary the other day in which the commentator is not a Christian, and he made some comment about the fact that the right side of politics loses so much because Christians who tend to be on the right turn the other cheek and forgive instead of standing up for their rights.

And I was like, he's noticing something about Christians, but he's taking the wrong angle on it.

Yes, we turn the other cheek, but that's what we're ordered to do.

We're not going to.

Yeah, we're not going to stand up for our rights because God told us not to.

You know, that we're supposed to go the extra mile and turn the other cheek.

And just for those who perhaps don't understand that go the extra mile is a biblical concept, that it's not just an idiom, it actually is taken from the Sermon on the Mount.

Yeah, but it's something that, as Christians, we should always be willing to bear the loads of other people.

Not necessarily a subservient way, but in a helpful way, like we're to be the help of the people in need.

And so I just think that, like you said, that that is a wonderful growth moment for.

For Jaime, because it's really interesting, because earlier in the movie, he's trying to stop.

Kaji's natural programming is to eliminate the threat.

And so through the whole time, he's like, no, we're not killers.

And then at the end, he is so angry that he's willing to kill.

And she's the one that stops him because she's learned from him.

And they're growing together.

And I think that's a really beautiful picture of how they work, which leads me actually into my next theme.

They kind of all kind of blend together, which is good.

They do.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So the other thing that really stood out to me in this movie, and we've already discussed the moment where Jaime's kind of at the edge of death because of what they're doing with the scarab, and they're trying to take the programming out of the scarab, which is stressing the bond between them, and it's putting Jaime's life in danger.

And so he's on the edge of death, and he meets his father.

And one of the things his father tells him is that he needs to accept his destiny.

And he points at, like, in this other world, the suit of the blue beetle, which is the scarab at this point.

And so there's this beautiful picture of where they're, like, monitoring his brainwaves.

The bad guys are.

And Jose notices that the symbiont's brain pattern is matching Jeme.

So they're changing so that they're joining together and becoming one.

And so he literally joins, and he quits fighting the symbiote, and they become like a dual person in one.

And they begin to act in concert together.

And she actually begins to speak in Spanish, which is kind of cool.

It's kind of like this indication that not only did he change to meet her, but she met him.

And so they're literally conjoined now.

In a very true sense, they're two creatures in the same body acting in concert.

To me, it was kind of a picture of what it's like to live in the spirit.

And as Christians, we have to give up ourselves to become Christians.

It's not just that we accept Christ, it's that we we surrender ourselves and become.

I'm getting emotional because it's an emotional thing.

You know, that as Christians we're not ourselves anymore.

We are, we're a new creature.

We're a new creature.

Right.

We've accepted Christ and we have the indwelling of the Spirit, but because we live in our old bodies, we still fight that Spirit.

So sometimes we are not as sensitive.

In fact, there's scripture that says, Ephesians 4, 30, says, and don't grieve God's Holy Spirit, you were sealed by him for the day of redemption.

And I think there's another verse, maybe in one of the Timothy's that says, don't quench the Spirit.

We can, as Christians fight the influence of the Spirit in our lives because we want to follow the flesh.

We want to do the things that make us happy rather than joyful in the things that follow God's law.

And so we try to quench the Spirit in our that still small voice that tells us what we should be doing and we want to do what we want to do instead.

And so when we are our best selves as Christians is when we are completely surrendered and living to the prompting of the Spirit.

So anyway, I just thought that was an interesting parallel.

Yeah, that, that, you know, Heme is at his best when he finally joins seamlessly with the symbiotes, that they're together.

And, and that is when Christians are at their best, is when we have denied ourselves and picked up the cross and we follow the prompting of the Spirit.

So some of the verses for that.

Galatians 2:20.

I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.

The life I now live in the body I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

Romans 12:1 2.

Therefore, brothers and sisters, in view of the mercies of God, I urge you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God.

This is your true worship.

Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing and perfect will of God.

And that discernment comes through the indwelling of the Spirit.

If you're quenching the Spirit, if you're not following the Spirit, then you are not discerning what is good and pleasing in the perfect will of God because you are fighting the Spirit instead of giving into it.

In First Corinthians 6, 19, 20, it says, don't you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have from God.

You are not your own, for you were bought at a price.

So glorify God with your body.

And finally, in Romans 8, 26, 27, it says in the same way.

I was just laughing because it's the two that precede the one that I used earlier.

Oh, yeah, Romans 8, 26, 27.

In the same way, the Spirit also helps us in our weakness, because we do not know what to pray for, as we should.

But the Spirit himself intercedes for us with inexpressible groanings.

And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit because he intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

I wanted to comment that I think that the people who wrote the movie or the people who filmed the movie, whoever was making the creative decisions, saw the same parallel there that you and I did.

As he's leaving his near death conversation with his father, he runs the collapsing floating island and jumps into the air and he yells, I need you, Kaji.

And there's this brief scene where the suit is coming from the right and he's coming from the left and they touch fingers and it is a mirror image image of Michelangelo's creation of Adam.

Creation of Adam.

Thank you.

You saw my note in the outline?

Oh, no.

I actually noticed it because I paused the movie earlier, right after this symbiote had merged with him.

There's this very brief scene where he stops and he looks at his reflection and it's in a painting of the Holy Virgin.

And they specifically have him look at the reflection in such a way that the reflection of the eyes and the face fit perfectly in there.

And I stopped at the movie and I took a screenshot to use it in the show notes because you know how much they're using religious imagery here.

I think that they intended.

There's no point where Alberto's faith is just out and out said, but it's implied so many different ways.

Yeah.

And I think that there is enough evidence here to suggest that the people who were writing the movie wanted to include this to the spiritual Christianity specifically.

I can't say that they were doing it for.

For Christian purposes.

Maybe they were just doing it because, you know, it's a Hispanic family.

And it really, like you said, it's really all about family and families.

Hispanic families in particular are famous.

Tend to be very Catholic.

Yeah, yeah.

But I think it was intentional.

Yeah, I appreciate that.

That's all I wanted to say about that.

Sorry, no, no.

I think that, you know, that's kind of the point I was going to, is that there's some definite parallels in this whole movie.

Make it easy to.

Just to discuss from a Christian worldview.

And don't get us wrong.

We're not saying this is a Christian movie by any means, but.

Exactly.

There are definitely some.

Some interesting parallels to discuss.

And.

And I'm glad we did it.

I, you know, I'm glad I saw the movie and that you suggested it a long time ago.

And at the time, like I said, I don't remember what movie we did instead, but I'm glad that we were able to circle back to this one and get it in and discuss it.

Because, to be honest, I kind of started avoiding superhero movies.

So it was kind of nice to watch one that I, you know, you talked about, like, the social justice stuff in it.

You know, to me, it just was the environment of the movie to some extent, and it gave it kind of a platform.

And I thought it was interesting because, you know, the.

You had mentioned, as a possible theme, talking about the mispronunciation of Jaime's name or.

Jaime's name.

Yeah.

And I think that, you know, they do that a lot.

You know, it's like, you know, calling Jose Sanchez and all that kind of stuff.

So, you know, it's done a lot through the movie.

And I think that in a way that is indicative more of a cultural thing, because I know, like, I work with a couple American Latinos, and one is actually a Mexican citizen who's immigrated and he has just an English name.

And I asked him once, I was like, you know, so I've never heard this name in a Latin culture.

And he says, that's what my family named me.

You know, it's like they never gave me a Spanish name.

I just always had this name.

And I just think it's interesting that, you know, people trip over those names sometimes, but it's just, you know, their cultural names, and it is rude.

I mean, if somebody gives you their name, you should use the name they gave you, but.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

But culturally, it is difficult.

I know a lot of Asians typically take on Anglican names when they're dealing with the west because they know that not only do people struggle with their names, but they also tend to use them wrong.

Because the Asian culture, I think a lot of times they use the last name first.

And so it's completely different way of saying names.

And so they'll get called their last name instead of their first Name because we just assume the first name is the.

Their first name.

But yeah, so just a reminder that culturally, they were kind of like throwing that to the wolves in this movie.

But I thought there were some other interesting things we could have talked about, and maybe we can raise these questions and people can bring it into our discussion group on Discord.

It'd be interesting to see what kind of thoughts people might have about urban sprawl and gentrification.

Yep.

The idea that I think there was one of his sister's comments was that, you know, over the tracks was ours, but then they wanted that too kind of thing.

It's like we keep having to move away from progress because, you know, they keep chasing us out.

And then there was another theme in there about lethality.

It was that whole thing where, you know, Jaime was telling Kaji, you know, we're not murderers.

We're not going to kill this guy.

And then there was another one in there, which I think I may have of brushed across in a little bit.

It was the idea about college and college debt.

That was a funny line that it's only mentioned in one line, but it was funny and it was so appropriate a response.

There was actually two lines because it was like him coming down the escalator asking the guy and then there was a comment from his sister later is like, I'm not going to college.

I don't want to get in that much debt.

So those are three topics that if you guys want to talk about with us, we'd love to have your input it in Discord.

You know, come and let's start a chat in our Discord before you wrap up.

I don't want you to lose any sleep over this.

So I looked it up.

The movie we did instead of Blue Beetle was a very excellent historical drama, Devotion, about the pilot who had to ditch his plane.

African American pilot.

Right.

And it was also the first movie I ever saw.

Glenn Powell.

Yeah.

So anyway, we missed Blue Beetle and it was in the theater, but, you know, it gave us a little more time to actually dive into it with a couple viewings.

I think that's one of the reasons I like streaming a movie rather than watching it in a theater.

So much easier to take notes and watch it.

A couple times they get irritated with me in the theater if I try to pause it.

Yeah, well, they won't let me into the projection room it's anymore, so who knows?

Well, anyway, if there's any movies out that you'd like to hear us review for February or March, we'd love your input and doesn't necessarily mean we will do it, but we love to hear your input.

One of the requirements that we have really for reviewing a movie is that we kind of have to sort of like the movie because the few times that we've done movies neither of us like the reviews are not as fun because we end up just like tearing the movie to shreds.

So we try to choose movies that we kind of like so that we can at least be somewhat positive about the movie.

And so if you suggest a movie that neither of us likes, we probably.

Won'T review it, but but we'll explain why.

But we do appreciate your input and we hope that you guys will suggest some stuff.

So anyway, thank you so much for listening to this episode of Are you just watching?

I'm Eve Franklin.

I'm Tim Martin.

And don't just watch.

The Christian Podcast Community is a cohesive group of like minded Christian podcasters proclaiming the truths of Christ with expertise and passion in the areas of theology, church history, Christian living, evangelism, apologetics, parenting, homeschooling sermons, and much, much more.

So check us out@christianpodcastcommunity.org org one stop for all your favorite Christian podcasts.

Christianpodcastcommunity.

Org.