Blank Check with Griffin & David - Jurassic Park with Sean Fennessey

Episode Date: April 13, 2025

God creates dinosaurs. God destroys dinosaurs. God creates Steven Spielberg. Steven Spielberg makes 1993’s Jurassic Park and changes movie history. The Big Picture’s Sean Fennessey joins us to talk about this totemic blockbuster, and we’re spending three hours talking about the bad boys of the Jurassic era (velociraptors), the bad boys of ILM (Steve ‘Spaz’ Williams and Mark Dippe), and the bad boy of movie scientists (Dr. Ian Malcolm). Note: this episode was recorded last fall, so some of the takes you’ll hear are a bit…frozen in amber. Yup, you guessed it. Hawk Tuah Talk again. Sign up for Check Book, the Blank Check newsletter featuring even more “real nerdy shit” to feed your  pop culture obsession. Dossier excerpts, film biz AND burger reports, and even more exclusive content you won’t want to miss out on. Join our Patreon for franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter, Instagram, Threads and Facebook!  Buy some real nerdy merch Connect with other Blankies on our Reddit or Discord For anything else, check out BlankCheckPod.com  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Blank check with Griffin and David Blank check with Griffin and David Don't know what to say or to expect All you need to know is that the name of the show is Blank Check Welcome to Poderastic Cast. Great. I had to do it. You could have done a Goldblum. That's what you didn't go for.

You could have done a Goldblum. Well, it has been established on the show over the years that my Goldblum is particularly awful. Oh, interesting. I'm trying to remember this. In my pantheon of bad impressions, Goldblum might be second only to Arnold Schwarzenegger. You're very bad at Arnold Schwarzenegger. How's your Wayne Knight? I'm gonna work on it.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Is Wayne Knight a hundred? I'm trying to get, he's got a very particular rasp. That's hard to approximate. He has, he's inimitable, I mean, which I guess is why Wayne Knight was Wayne Knight for the Knight of the U. I should say, putting a pin in Wayne Knight's ginormous 90s. I mean, just when it was like, you can't say, get me a Wayne Knight type. It's like, get me Wayne Knight or we're rewriting this character.

I would argue Josh Mostel was in the mix there for the Wayne Knight part. Oh yeah, absolutely. He was, but fucking, I mean, the degree to which Wayne Knight big footed his head. He did. He probably has like a voodoo doll. Josh, Josh, still had the netbo juice and he had a head start, right? He's in movies starting in the seventies. Oh man. And he's got an iconic dad. And yet Wayne Knight just said like, come on, come on, give me space. I fucking forgot about Josh Mustell, man. And he just watched fucking Jesus Christ Superstar. That's right.

Which he's great in. He sure is. And then you just look and the 90s, the early 90s in his career, Sandler's using him. He's in City Slickers 2. You're like, he's in both City Slickers, obviously. Like, this is great. And then you're seeing in the 90s, it's kind of tapering off. And then the 2000s, it's like he was in two movies.

Right. It's over. Because what happened? I mean, I don't know. Wayne Knight, I guess just market corrected him to use an expression. That's right. There's the story I love that when they were casting

this movie, when they were planning it out, that Spielberg saw Basic Instinct. Right. And the shot of Wayne Knight sweating profusely. Yes. The interrogation scene in which... In response to... She uncrosses her legs.

He is... Wait, what? She does. You gotta look closely. Then what happens? This is why you gotta go 4K on Basic Instinct. Because the first time I saw it on TV, I went, what is everyone getting so worked up about?

But he is, when you're looking at all the guys in that scene, he's the one we're like, who is this fucking guy? this right and the story is always been that Spielberg watched it and went T-rex cut to that reaction That's a blockbuster that he was just like that's exactly what we need is that guy's response Which is funny because the movie doesn't even really do that Ends up being so different than that. He also, the only man truly focused on Wayne Knight in Basic Instinct. I mean, for that to be your takeaway. Yeah, Spielberg's like, sharing who?

What vagina? But he, yes, no, the idea that he like saw that one cutaway reaction shot and was like, we can build a blockbuster around that. Spielberg magic, baby. But that's also fucking way night magic Okay But when we're talking about Jurassic Park and we should introduce our away night film as far as I'm concerned away No, but it's that thing It's not every single actor in this when they are on screen. You're like man Samuel owns this fucking movie Then like Sam Jackson's on screen. You're like I forgot that Sam Jackson has never been better than in Jurassic Park

right, and then we cut to someone else and and I just feel the same way every single time. Not to crib rewatchables terminology, but this is a hard movie to put through the rewatchables categories. Yes, I did it once and failed terribly. Did you guys do a JP? But are there like 20 apex mountains in this movie? Well, every one is perfect, right?

So it's one of the most perfectly cast movies of all time, plus one of the most consequential artistic movies of all time. Shoemaker and Brian Curtis and I did it. And I think we actually forgot to even say the name John Williams in the pod. So like, if we were doing it today, it would be a nine hour episode. But there's a lot to go through here. There's a lot to go through here. This movie's good.

It is good. It's really good. It is good. It is funny that like, I'm putting this forward as a theory. Okay 1970 1980s 1990s in each decade Spielberg makes a movie that basically breaks Hollywood's brains Yes, is the trying to replicate the definitive blockbuster I mean, I guess Star Wars is the definitive blockbuster of the 70s. But Jaws, Raiders, Jurassic Park is what you said. Well, because we were talking about, we did our Dune episode on David Lynn. I should just say quickly, this is Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin.

It's a podcast about filmographies, directors who had massive success early on in their careers, say, making Jaws. Sure. As their second or third film, debating on how you count it. And we're giving a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion products they want. Sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce. Sometimes they hook, baby.

So many series on the films of Steven Spielberg, the early years. We're using early pretty liberally. Spielberg origins. Spielberg origins. How many kids does he have when he makes this movie? Great question. Let's find out. Two?

I mean, that's, I feel like the most defining aspect of this film relative to the earlier Spielberg blockbusters is this is now a father. Yes. Yes. Yes. This is a dad movie. Yes. I mean, it is, especially when you read the book, which I assume you have.

I did on a beach on Long Island in the 1990s. And I thought hard about returning to it for this, and I just didn't have the time. I assume, Griffin, that you have not. Correct. Ben, did you ever read Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park? No. A book that I had to hide under my bed because it was so scary.

Wow. I remember that very profoundly. Like, I read the death of Dennis Nedry in that book, which is very violent in the book, much more violent than it is in the movie. He gets killed by Sharon Stones for trying to. Honestly, that is something that Michael Crichton would write, we can talk about that in a second.

We'll talk about that. But, and I did the thing, like the joke and friends of Joey putting the Shining in the freezer. Like I put the book under my bed. I was like, I can't even have the book near me. I was so freaked out. Anyway, what was it? Oh, the kid, yeah.

There's not as much overwhelming like, ah, these kids, we have to protect them in the book. The kids are more of an irritation. Well, and that's the closest thing this movie has to like an emotional spine is Alan Grant's journey of learning to tolerate children. Starting the movie as a guy who's like, I could never have kids and by the end is like, I get it.

Right, he learns how to tolerate children and use like seat belts correctly and so on and so forth. It's not a very Spielbergian book. No, sure they're spectacle, but aside from that, man, it's a mean book. His books are fucking mean. The Crichton books are nasty. I like Michael Crichton books as like fun things to read but I recently re-read Sphere because I'm I have twin babies and I'm just

reading a lot of books on my phone right now. Not a humble brag. Reading books on your phone? That's a good eyesight. That's a humble brag. How hard are you zooming in? And Sphere is one of those books. Obviously, that was in a moment of his life where he could fucking write a book called, like, I Took a Shit, and his editor would be like, I can't wait to get this on every bookshelf in America. But like, if you submitted Sphere to me,

I would just immediately pop back like, do you have a problem with women? What did they do to you? I think I Took a Shit was the original title of Disclosure, as I recall. But talking about it not being a very Spielberg-y book, which I just have to take your word for here, it is one of the infamous parts of this movie.

This is the most white-hot pitch to hit Hollywood, arguably ever. He had two children, by the way, you're correct. There you go. With Kate Capshaw. And they throw it out to all the studios as a jump ball and every studio goes like here's our Pitch for what we would do with this text and has their own director attached Warner Brothers makes a play with Tim Burton Columbia makes a play with Richard Donner Fox makes a play with Joe Dante and Universal and Steven Spielberg I'm obsessed with this fact.

Amazing to think about all four of them. But all of them make sense in that way. Where you're like, here's the book as this like median object, and then you could take it further in any one of these directions. Okay, wait, we all love this movie, right? Yeah. I'm going to call Griffin out as not being a Jurassic Park superfan. It's not totemic for me in the way I think it is for the three of you. It is a movie

I have certainly over the years grown to appreciate more and more. You were never really a JP boy in the same way I wasn't a JP boy. I think that's the key distinction. It wasn't one of my movies growing. But we all are positive on them. Do any of those other three sound better to you? No, but well the Dante one is the one that kind of very intriguing but but it's And I say this with due respect to Joe Dante, that is a fun, silly, trashy movie. You know what he did instead of this movie? Was it Matinee?

Which is one of his best movies. Great movie, but so different in terms of scope and energy than what JP is. Yes. Like, the Burton version of this movie does not appeal to me particularly. That's just kind of an interesting, like, well, what would that look like?

Donner would have made a slightly worse version of this movie probably. to me particularly, that's just kind of an interesting, like, well, what would that look like? Yeah, also... Donner would have made a slightly worse version of this movie, probably. Donner, I think, probably would have made the more Cretan-y version. Yes. Wouldn't have pulled it further into his own voice. Donner's the most... Probably not. Sort of like...

Hired hand? Yeah. But like expert studio craftsman. Yeah, but he... Donner grounds things in a motion. Exactly. He's a great studio filmmaker. He does spectacle just fine. It would probably be a really fun movie.

He would have made the most creative version of it. The Dante thing's interesting to me because I do... I have long contended that in particular Jurassic World feels much more like a Dante homage than a Spielberg homage. In a lot of ways. And yes, and it also is meaner than this movie is. Totally. Which feels like a misread of Joe Dante's anarchic humor.

Yeah, yeah, right. The Burton, I mean, like talking about all the sliding doors here, Burton misses out on this, then is like, oh fuck, but I would like to do a dinosaur thing. Then Warner Brothers gets the rights for Dinosaur's Attack, the Topps trading card series. Right, and that's how he found to do a dinosaur thing, then Warner Brothers gets the rights for Dinosaurs Attack, the Topps trading card series. And that's how he found Mars Attacks.

In a bundle deal with Mars Attacks. And they were like, let's do both of these. And then after Jurassic comes out, he's like, I shouldn't fuck with dinosaurs. Let me just do Mars Attacks, which I think we all agree is like better for the culture that Spielberg makes Jurassic and he makes Mars Attacks. It's better that Joe Dante makes Matinee and Spielberg makes Jurassic and he makes Mars Attacks. It's better that Joe Dante makes Matinee. Sure. And Spielberg makes Jurassic.

Joe Dante has made movies about critters run amok. Yes. So like, yeah, I just wonder what his, but like I just would love to see a Joe Dante Jurassic Park. Joe Dante movie. Or a Jurassic movie. Yes. Like what if Joe Dante made Jurassic Park 3?

You know what I mean? Well that would. Where it's like, hey, you know, can you just play in the sandbox and make a silly, fun movie that's not too, we don't have to worry too much about getting this book right. Yeah. Because Jurassic Park 3, which is a movie we both like,

is that, it's just, hey, Joe Johnson, you're good with creatures, you can do some action, keep this movie fun and light and blockbuster-y. But Dante would've wanted to dig into the corporate element. He never would have made... Why am I fucking... What's Ember's character's name? What's whose character's name?

Richard Ember's character. John Hammond. Thank you. He never would have made John Hammond cuddly. Well, absolutely. John Hammond is a mean fucker in the book. He dies in the book, spoiler alert for the book, being eaten by compies who are not in this movie, but they're in the sequel.

They're saving their stomach to eat Peter Stamari in the second film. But as he's dying, he's thinking like fucking kids fucked all this up. He's mad about the stupid kids that he brought to Jurassic Park. I think all the clamp shit in Gremlins 2 is in a way a vision of what he probably would have done with Jurassic. It's still ultimately like when you look at the obvious inspiration for that character in Gremlins 2, Donald Trump, like it's ultimately pretty benign, you know? Well I said it.

I said it out. I said his name out loud on this podcast. But this is the key difference between without calling out names, the director of Jurassic World and Gremlins 2, where you're like the satire in Gremlins 2 feels pointed without feeling like nasty. The thing is, I would argue that Jurassic Park is probably the hardest corporate satire slash finger pointing that Steven Spielberg's ever done. I agree with that. And it's right on the precipice of him becoming a genuine Hollywood corporate titan.

Yeah. 100%. Fascinating that he would, I mean, he is Jon Hammond in this movie. Is he not? Let's call out another thing. At this point in time, I've said some variation of this stat many times on this podcast, but he signs a deal when Universal decides to transition from Backlot Tour to like full theme park, which obviously escalates with Jurassic.

But when it's founded, it's like ET ride, Jaws ride, like we're building this on the back of the Spielberg library. His deal is he gets, it's like 10% of all revenue every year in perpetuity, and they can't break the contract. So by the time he's making this movie and Universal's making the play for it, part of it is like, and then we can fucking put this in the parks. Does he still own a piece of that? Yes.

So he's getting that Halloween Horror Nights money. I'm about to be there in like a week. Every park, every country. Wow. It's like we, so okay, so here we are in this podcast. We obviously, as we I'm sure discussed before. Our guest today is Sean Fantasy. Hi.

The big picture. Our guest is Sean Fantasy, the king. King Sean. King Sean. People are named King Sean. I changed my name to John Hammond. You have a little washing stick. Sean Hammond?

We've talked about Steven Spielberg on this podcast before, his later part of his career, when he is a CEO, and then when he's sort of an emeritus exec who still gets that sweet sweet Transformers money but is mostly just like, I've always wanted to make a musical and I've always wanted to remake this. There have been a couple of these now with like, you know, it has happened only because of like big figures entertainment also getting into product lines where you have your like

Rihanna's with the Fenty and the fuckin' Jenner's with makeup lines or whatever. SIDNEY Yeah, or Jaskalba. DARREN He for a long time was one of the only, like, entertainment professionals who was also a billionaire. And it was because of all these deals that he's making money off anything connected to Men in Black, Transformers, things he didn't even direct, not to mention his own properties, not to mention Universal Studios deals, like all this shit. SIDNEY He leveraged something that very few filmmakers ever did which is that everyone wanted him to make their movie and so he would grab a piece of it even if he had no intention of

making it so that he could produce it forever which you know maybe only five people in the history of movies would be able to do that in the first place but he did it at the highest level of capitalism. I would also argue that for a long time for for several decades, his name above a title as Steven Spielberg presents, even if no one was tricked. Steven Spielberg is associated with this movie in the Vegas way. People are like, oh, well, then it must be pretty good. People weren't even being tricked in a like Tim Burton's Nightmare Before Christmas way.

They were just like, he's cosigned this? That's good enough for us. We were raised on that. Yeah. Is he the first director's name you knew? I mean, I think without a question, right? Like, was the shorthand guy is the guy you make jokes about. You have to like pull a name of a director that anyone knows. But also like in the nineties, like half of the shows on Saturday morning, like television,

the cartoons are Steven Spielberg Presents. Right. Yeah. Animaniacs, Tiny Toons, Freakazoid. Oh, right. Like he had like 10. Totally.

Crazy. There's, and Deepak, I could get into Toon'sylvania and Prehistoria, but that's a whole other episode. So, Jurassic Park, I just, your point, yes, I do, this is in a way, I'm looking at his later filmography, the most sort of nakedly spiteful about like capitalism and the sort of future of business. He never really does that. I think, I think Ready Player One does that a lot.

And I think that these two movies are capstones. And I think Ready Player One, he is more like him at the other side of it, feeling a little jaded about what he half-begotten, you know? And the Mark Rylance character being like, I just wanted to entertain people, I'm really sleepy. Can you go outside sometimes? I can't do his voice. You know he doesn't say it that clearly. Even if you don't have an impression.

I have one as kind as same feeling, go outside maybe. Like, and people criticize Ready Player One for like, oh, God, they like, how dare this movie like invade the shining and turn it into a video game level. And I'm like, I think Steven Spielberg is aware of what that's doing. Some people might disagree with me. I was going to say, the characterization of like, you know, capitalist culture. I feel like this movie is inflating what he starts with Jaws. But Jaws is so micro, a town, a

mayor, you know, it's not like a full multi layered corporation. It's not this idea of like, spitting God. Money is a big concern, but in that movie, it's more about preserving what already exists. And this is about growth, expansion, reimagining what our life is and what the lifestyle of entertainment can be. So, like, they are definitely in conversation with each other,

but this movie, even though Richard Adler was so warm and grandfatherly, everyone in the movie is like, what the fuck is your problem, dude? What are you doing here? This is a horrible idea, except for, of course, the blood-sucking lawyer. You know, who even... Look, rewatching this, it's like... That character is far less two-dimensional than I remember him being.

Gennaro, yeah. Every time I'm watching it, I'm like, oh, he's like a real person. The last couple of moments are him being shitty to the kids, which gives you just enough leeway to want to see him be eaten. You're right. It's sort of a bit of a permission structure for it to be okay that he dies. And Ariana Richard saying he left us is quite... It really cuts, you know, to the bone a little bit,

like her shrieking that, you're like, Jesus. Like, even though you're also like, there's a fucking T-Rex. What's he supposed to do? But compare that to the- The way Alan helps and all that. I was also going to say, like, Bridezilla personal assistant in Jurassic World, where you're like, Janara's like a person. He's a human being. Running away is a human reaction that is somewhat understandable.

It was my contention I set up and have failed to resolve with in the first 20 minutes of this episode. No, no, it's my fault. Please, I can't finish the thought. We did Dune on our David Lynch series, right? That was a while ago. Yes. Excellent episode. John Hodgman. He really brought the heat. I love this show. I told you guys that well like my favorite show your big pictures my favorite show David what's your favorite show?

I'm sorry. It's a talk to it. It's out of this one talk to I'm sorry, it's Talk To A. It's added this one, Talk To A. I'm all in on Talk To A. Talk To A is, we actually, we are pre-recording this podcast and we pre-recorded a podcast because my podcast partner had a child. Yes. We're on the exact opposite end of that. This is our first episode we've recorded in a while.

You're coming back. We're off together, but we recorded a pod a few months ago that has like an extended Hawk Tuah riff, literally 40 minutes on Hawk Tuah, and it's not coming out until December. And you're like white-knuckling, will she remain? Will she be the vice president? You know? What could happen here with Hawk Tuah?

Have you guys seen the photos that Spirit Halloween, and this will be many, many months old by the time this comes out, Spirit has a hawk to a end cap. Okay. It's not just that there's a hawk to a costume They're like ten different products. Are you serious? Yeah What is the costume it is? Are you ready? It is like yeah, it is like an auto mechanics jumpsuit And it's hawk to a auto lubrication spit on that thing. What? That's so... As like a logo.

But then they also have like shirts and like fucking party decorations. That was like a meeting where they were like, we have one day to get this to store. Like we don't have a lot of time. Because what's the costume? It just has to have Hawk 2 on. The costume can't be her because she's kind of dressed generically. We have to create someone who exists in the Hawk to a universe. That was figured out over lunch.

That was a quick little short meeting. That was figured out over the water cooler. Anyway, I assume we now work for her. By April, she owns us. This is a Talk to a production. How did we get to Hawk to a... Oh, Dune. You were talking about Dune.

Dune. Jesus. Finish that thought, please. Yes. So I was saying that movie comes out the year after Return of the Jedi. And we were talking about how in the wake of Star Wars, there are very few attempts to make another Star Wars. They kind of don't start until later in the 80s. You have things like Zardoz and Krull and whatever. But people felt so intimidated by like, how do you build an entire universe like this? That even though Star Wars is obviously the most seismic film of that decade

like Jaws is the first like Kind of classical blockbuster release it sets the model and the marketing and I do think that's the movie studios Are trying to rip off more because it feels more attainable. Oh get three good actors You have one looming threat, you know, they're not just the shitty Jaws sequels, but all the things like orca and whatever I just think that becomes more even like the airplane movies are kind of trying to do something closer to Jaws I would contend and then like Raiders is absolutely something everyone's ripping off even though ET is the bigger hit, right? But also Raiders I feel like is them being like I assume if you're an executive at Rival Studio, you're like, what the fuck? That's what people wanted? Totally. They wanted like a rip roaring 30s, like sand adventure. Like I didn't see this

coming. I was making a space laser play or whatever. Right. But also that the breakthrough there is that thing Spielberg says of like, what if you made a movie that was only the good parts? Right? Like the start of the like theme park cinema kind of thing Yeah my big contention about this movie that we're talking about is that it is it is the end of something and the beginning of Something and the thing that it is the beginning of is still not over I agree with that and I don't know when it's going to end. Yes, and maybe it will not end Yes, but whatever jaws started which, I think you described very well, which is sort of like this collection of actors, this sort of high concept, often like creature or fear

forward, putting you through the eyes of a young child. You know, Spielberg invents a kind of American cinema. This movie is like the absolute apotheosis of blockbuster rising movies. blockbusterizing movies. And then, because of digital created characters and figures, we're in like this, we're mired in the schmear. Like everything has just been a schmear in movies ever since this movie. Yeah, also, I think it's fascinating that like everyone else would try to chase him and then every ten years he'd come back and be like, I've come up with a new evolution

of the thing. And you watch the response at the time and the things are becoming bigger and bigger hits but critics are like, is he simplifying? Is he becoming more and more childlike? Is he becoming more populist? We missed the like fucking Robert Shaw speech from Jaws. Where did the subtlety go? And then like this very year, he bifurcates, right?

It's this and Schindler. You're like fucking Jaws gets a best picture nomination. Raiders gets a best picture nomination. They don't have to nominate Jurassic because they're like, oh, he is split off into Sirius Spielberg and Entertainer Spielberg. And as we covered in our later Spielberg series that was done eight years ago, he like has this weird split where anytime he tries to make a movie like this again, it kind of doesn't work. And his big tentpoli movies tend to be the successful ones. Are the like Minority Report, War of the Worlds, like darker, haunted.

Like he can't go back to just pure joy like this without it feeling a little, I don't know, like he's trying to chase his youth. Why do you think that is? Why do I think that he just like, not sours exactly, but curdles a little bit, maybe because he did it better than anyone and how could you possibly follow up. But then again, he did follow it up

with The Lost World, Jurassic Park. And I feel like that's where he's like, you know what? Why am I trying to fucking do a better movie than Jurassic Park? Or why am I trying to do that again? Like what was I thinking? But that's the key difference. That's what this is the end of, is like Spielberg is not really interested in chasing his own

shadow in playing this game anymore. And then yet we are 30 years past, everyone's still trying to figure out how to make Jurassic Park again, both literally and like generally. If you think about his career, right, yes, you're right, this is the apex. Once again, he's created the decade-defining blockbuster. But then he also, he finally looked inside. He gave us a personal serious film that's also sweeping an epic. It's not the Color Purple or Empire of the Sun where it's like, why are you trying to

make a serious movie? Close but no cigar. Right. It was the first time where everyone was like... You know, reverse engineer a serious Oscar winner. He gets his Oscar. And then it's like, okay, buddy, what do you want to do? He follows it up with like, I'll do that again, Lost World and Amistad.

He takes four years off and then just does the same thing. I'll do the same thing. And everyone's like, not that. And he's like, you're right, not that. I'm going to do shit that's interesting to me. It does feel like basically after this, after that, after Lost World and Amistad, he's like, yeah, I'll just, you know, I'll follow the things that are interesting to me.

Exactly. Which is the end of the thing, but then the start of the thing is everyone else trying to make this. Right. But there's, I think there's a critical thing that happens between Jurassic Park and The Lost World, which is, you know, he co-creates DreamWorks and launches the studio. He doesn't make The Lost World for DreamWorks. It's still a Universal movie. But I think he's making another straight ahead blockbuster.

Because he's like, I still got to be Steven Spielberg. For your gap. And then I still got to hold on to this thing that is my iconography, my name above the title, like you were saying. And I don't know. I've never been a big Lost World person person I really don't think it's very good But I get why he did it

We we always say the same thing about it, which is it is one of the best directed bad movies of all time Right. There's amazing set pieces in it. I kind of love the cast of it. I don't even hate the premise I don't love the third act but like I don't hate the you know Something has survived the sort of wild side side island that's not a park. Like, that's cool. Good Arliss Howard. Enjoy his work in that film. Fucking great. Arliss Howard.

The fossil threat in that film? Yeah. Absolutely. That's fine cut. But we talked about that movie. Yes. And, like, it's funny because Dempel of Doom is also him being like, well, of course I can do a sequel.

This thing is made for a sequel. And then everyone's like, we don't like this. Right. The thing I would argue he doesn't, he either doesn't know how to do again or he gives up trying to do is the Last Crusade, which is like, guys, I'm sorry. Let me just give you a Spielberg

right down the middle home run kind of thing. And like from this point on He either is like sort of I don't know. He's not interested in repeating himself Not too interested and it feels like when he does Not that Amistad is like him repeating himself exactly, but it's a little bit him trying to make another Tony historical epic. He stepped outside of his comfort zone again. It doesn't work in the same way. But BFG feels like the clearest example to me of like, that's him making a movie that he's like Spielberg should make this, right?

And Crystal Skull. Yes. And I defend Crystal Skull in some ways. But obviously, I think he's probably dissatisfied with Crystal Skull. And he feels like they want... Lucas and Ford wanted me to do that, so I fucking did it. Yeah. And there you have it. That's what I wanted to make.

And it didn't really, like, go over. Yeah. And so when they're like, can we do another one? He's like, absolutely not. Right. Like, I'm not, I'm done. Like, and that's him finally making that decision. War Horse is the other one that kind of feels like they were like,

how can you not make this movie, Stevie? Come on. But that movie is good. Yeah. Good. Do you like War Horse? I do not. It's not his best. No. Some people get really mad at us for that episode where we mostly just dunk on how everyone wants to fuck the horse. We weren't dunking on it. We were celebrating. We're very...

It's a hot horse. Sex positive. It's a hot horse. Everyone wants to fuck that horse. I look at this movie and I'm like, this still feels like the text everyone is studying when they're trying to construct their blockbusters. But nothing feels like this movie. No. I don't think you can copy it. Nothing feels like this movie.

This is my wildest take and I don't know if you guys are immediately going to push back on this or you're going to get where I'm coming from. I watch this movie now and I'm sort of astonished by how quaint it feels in certain ways. Whereas at that time this movie felt like as big as a movie could possibly be. And now our movies have gotten so overly complicated that when you're like, this movie has like ten speaking roles. Like it has ensemble cast but there are no like unnecessary characters. It's you're absolutely right. It's such a strange movie in that sense that it is epic. Yes. And yet it's mostly set in like a couple of buildings, like sort of tucked away on

this island in modern version in an empty, unopened, not ready yet theme park with a skeleton staff. It kind of has five sets. Right, yes. Like this, it looks expensive, it still looks great, but I'm just like, there is a focus to this that is the Spielberg problem solving clarity. Like the thing that he is best at is knowing exactly what the audience needs to focus on at any moment and cutting all the gristle and fat away from it to just like simplify the storytelling. In any modern version of this movie, and I'm not just talking about a modern Jurassic movie,

but any movie like this today, Samuel Jackson's dialogue is spread across 10 characters. Right? And there is a clarity to the reason why we love Sam Jack in this movie and he makes such an impression is because it's one guy, and that one guy is given the space to actually have a personality and a feeling of what this means to him emotionally versus like, you know, in the last Jurassic movie, like Caleb Herron, who's a very funny comedian,

is like guy behind a computer for three lines. I forgot about that. And he pops up and it's like, oh, this is fun, they cast a funny person in this movie, and then he disappears, and you're like, if you're gonna put him here Here's a distinctive person give him a lot to do There's some really funny stuff in the last Jurassic movie and I you know on the big picture

I'm I guess known for not remembering what happens in any of the Jurassic World films and chronology Have names that we all know I do remember in the most recent film, because there are so many characters, there's a sequence where, like, all the characters need to get from, like, one station to another station without getting eaten by raptors. And it's, like, 18 people walking in a line because they've introduced so many people.

I would argue that this movie, one, I completely agree with everything you said, just like David. And by the way, at that point in the film, that's us dealing with the skeleton crew. Like, they've whittled down the cast to only the people Justice Smith has been like sidelined I don't know if this is a good story choice or not

But the fact that so few people work at fucking Jurassic Park It's like it's a park full of dinosaurs and eight people work right like what is going on? I know but I right should we be like that's bullshit I think that's- Right, should we be like, that's bullshit, there would be more people, or should we be like, no, this is a story about essentially a startup. It's a startup, yes. Where they're like, oh yeah, we kinda like, as Malcolm said, kinda backed into like,

oh fuck, we can make dinosaurs be alive. But also the cold open of this movie is like 10 characters, most of whom we don't see again who like don't talk. The movie does have the excuse of there's a hurricane everyone left. Like there are, one imagines there are more people that have left. That's the thing, I do wonder if that was almost a strategic choice on his part to be like open with showing a full staff focusing on one specific area to imply at normal times. There's a little more going on.

It does help the movie because it does reduce the number of people you need to remember and who is delivering the information. It helps a book too because in a book, like, really you don't want to unwieldy a group. Right. But I also think, right, in writing this book is like, he's grinding his gears about like, you can't automate things, like you can't just like, you know, create something like this and then just have a guy program a security system.

Like, you know, he's got other gears he wants to grind. Crichton on the right side of the AI debate. He is. I mean, Crichton is often on the right side of things except for like, do women deserve to have a voice in society? And then he is dead wrong. Yeah. Because the whole thing with Sphere is that the Sphere brings your nightmares to life, right? deserve to have a voice in society. And then he is dead wrong. Yeah.

Because the whole thing with Sphere is that the Sphere brings your nightmares to life. We're talking about Sphere. Yeah. It's like they find this weird alien crap. And his worst nightmare was Sharon Stone talking. Things start to truly go bad when the lady goes into the Sphere. Has opinions.

Yeah. That's when it's like, uh-oh. I'd like to circle back to Disclosure. Please. Please. Just Disclosure is a film in which a powerful woman rapes a man. Correct. Disclosure is like him being like a wonderful person. Why are there giant squids attacking us? Please, please. Just a disclosure of the film. Yeah, that's a great... A powerful woman rapes a man. Correct.

Disclosure is like him being like a wonderful woman. Right, dinosaurs, spheres, what's my worst nightmare? A woman in the workplace. Science run amok. The other thing about Michael Crichton is he's like 40 feet tall. So fucking tall. I was like, are you both real? My other favorite thing is that his estate,

and they probably will sue me for saying this, so maybe we should just put a little marker on this, Ben. Keep it in double. Made fuss about Noah Wiley's in a new hospital show. Oh yeah, I saw that. Called The Pit, and it's set in Pittsburgh, and it's basically just ER2. It's just like, Noah Wiley plays an ER doctor, okay?

Get used to it. And Michael Crichton's estate is like, Michael Crichton created ER. So we get royalties from this too, because this is clearly just more ER. You can call it something else, but it's fucking more ER, right? No, O'Wyely not allowed to play a doctor ever again. And it's like, bitch, you wrote a spec pilot in the 70s that then got turned into a TV show. You don't get to just own hospital shows forever.

Can I play devil's advocate for a second though? I am pretty certain that was explicitly... It was going maybe to be an ER's like a sequel, right? I think it was explicitly developed as an ER sequel. And then at some point they went, oh, wait, how much would we have to pay the Creighton estate? Well, probably not just the Creighton estate, but it's like, we reached out to Eric LaSalle. Spielberg, you probably have to pay Spielberg. Yes, but I'm just saying like, fucking Gloria Rubin, hey, you want to come back? And she's like, not for nothing.

Right. The whole thing was just Wells and Wiley are back in the medical world. And I think at some point, they did make the decision of like, if we shift this 10 degrees, it's a new thing. Does this mean that you can't play another intern? Great question. Without the Reitman family getting a bite at that apple? Like, really, what are we talking about here?

Yeah, or just think about this. Or just think about a movie about drafts. Rick the Intern Afterlife? Like, think long and hard what you say here. No, I know. Because this affects your future payday. I mean, Sean does a draft on his show every month. You think he owes?

That's a good point. I haven't made the Reitman estate. Call me Jason. I think if I went to Montecito Pictures and was like, I want to develop a Rick the Intern legacy goal. He's now GM. He's running Isla Nublar. Right.

And then at some point, I like went to a different studio and was like, I have a pitch about a former assistant who then becomes a GM. But I had started the conversation properly first. That's the thing. I think if it was just like John Wells and Noah Wiley were like, you know, it'd be fun to just do a show and not have to pay the Creighton estate, then Creighton's lawsuit would be kind of bullshit. I think they were talking with everyone and then sort of went like,

you know what, we actually have abandoned this project and we have an entirely new idea It's called the pit baby Sherry string field still around what's going on with her? Oh god. I love her so much. Dr. Lewis She was wonderful. Let's see. ER is the greatest TV show of all time Along with the X-Files and Gilmore Girls those and the Simpsons obviously first ten seasons And then I guess Twilight Zone Twilight Zone's a good good shout I was gonna say like I guess like the Sopranos or Mad Men you made The Twilight Zone? Twilight Zone's a good shout. I was going to say like, I guess like The Sopranos or whatever.

Mad Men. You've made the case recently that Mad Men's the best. The Mad Men rewatch really... That actually is my favorite. I've seen that before. Yeah. That show really stands up fantastically. But not as good, of course, as my favorite show, The Romanoffs.

Bring it back! Did you finish it? What if I'm like outside... No, I did not. I didn't finish it either. Did you watch it? I really just wish Matt Weiner would stick to movies. It's clearly where his voice plays the best. Are you here? You are here. Great title. Yeah, I have no idea where he is. Yeah. I mean, the Romanoff's is the last thing he did and that was six years ago seven years ago at this point anyway Jurassic Park it's a film in 1993 that Steven Spielberg directed that was quite successful It was the highest grossing film of all time for a period it was absolutely the highest grossing film of all time It was beaten by Titanic

Yes, yep, it beat. I think it took the record from ET That's right had been the reigning champ for essentially 10 years. Yes. Like I don't think anything beat ET. Well, you're forgetting, I do believe in 97 earlier. Like Star Wars jumps back up. Star Wars re-release and bump itself back up. Star Wars has six months of being number one again before Titanic.

Is the iceberg to that film's dreams? And yeah, Jurassic Park, and Sean likes it, and he selected it when we said we're doing Steven Spielberg. I did. Kind of a risky choice. Was I the first claim? Like did I get first shot? Yeah. Probably.

My memory of your text was 50% of my personality is liking Jurassic Park. Yeah. Well, I mean it is. Kind of have to do it. And we were talking about Lynch. The other 50% might be liking Jurassic Park. Yeah. Well, I mean it is kind of have to do it Yeah, well we and we were talking about Lynch. Yeah, the other 50% might be liking David Lynch So I was forced to choose but honestly, I I take full responsibility for my bad Jurassic Park podcast However, many years ago that was chose why I'm happy How how old are you in this movie came out? I was 11 years old kind of in the exact sweets

They were in the exact sweets bar? It changed my life. I changed my life. You were in the exact sweets bar. I actually don't know if there's a better age. And I read the book before the movie and did the thing where I was like, whoa, this is not like the book at all. Probably the first adult book that I ever read. And it was such a sensation.

I mean, it's extraordinary. That book was in every store. It was in sneaker stores. You know, you could buy it everywhere. And still, the movie just took my breath away. Yeah. But I'm with you. Yes, it was one of those early things where I was like, I can tell you what's different about the book. Like, you know, like, oh, in fact, right, Hammond is kind of a jerk in the book,

and Malcolm dies in the book and all that. Um... But it's one of those things, am I wrong about this? I mean, we have the Dossier right here. But the's one of those things, am I wrong about this? I mean, we have the dossier right here. But the movie was so fast-tracked off of the idea that they're making the movie at the time that the book is being published basically. Possibly. I think they're adapting it off of the manuscript.

Certainly, right. The rights were done and dusted before the book came out. Ben, did you see this film in theaters? I did. You did? Yeah. How did it feel? I remember just being like, dinosaurs. They're alive.

I can see them. It was mind-blowing. It was really, because I as a kid, and I assumed like, this is like very much a boys thing, but like growing up, I was obsessed with dinosaurs. My daughter is obsessed with dinosaurs. So it's not just a boy thing. Okay, sorry.

Dinosaurs are very, very cool when you're a kid. And in fact, David's daughter is particularly obsessed with one dinosaur. I don't know if you've heard about this. The good dinosaur? She was briefly very obsessed with the good dinosaur. I've noticed you an increased number of logs of that film on letterbox. Well, David's just working on his book pitch. We should do a 33 and a third style, you know, monograph.

It's called the best dinosaur. Good dinosaurs and better dinosaurs. That movie is such a baffling series of artistic choices. Can I just say, one of the big things I really want to talk to you guys about is how this is actually the only good movie about dinosaurs. Which is just remarkable because of what Ben just said. I think such a good one. Every kid loves dinosaurs.

Yeah. This is the, maybe you like The Lost World? Sure. People will defend Jurassic Park 3. I like the Jurassic World movies are huge. Let's just set aside the franchise for a second. Set aside the franchise. This represents...

I'm gonna, I've got a list up. I'm just gonna yell some some titles at you. Okay. 65 recently. Not a good masterpiece. It was like, Adam Driver goes back in time and he shoots dinosaurs. I was like, this is gonna be good, right? That movie is unfortunately a dud. Somehow not even a 65 out of 100. Can I add one caveat before you continue to go through it,? Godzilla is not a dinosaur movie. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no What movie movies would you need to name before you got to the Flintstones? Three? I'm struggling here. I'm on Jay's Journey to the Sin of the Earth. I guess that has dinosaurs in it. I mean, the King Kong movies have tangential dinosaurs.

I guess you could call those good, but they're not really about dinosaurs. But they have dinosaurs. I think they make the tang, and dinosaurs aren't top-built. You could argue that dinosaurs are the most interesting thing in the history of this planet. There's a reason. We are fascinated by dinosaurs. The two coolest things, and they're things that kids tend to be obsessed with, right, are that, one, dinosaurs once walked the earth.

Giant monster lizards were top of the heap. We didn't exist. Two is- Their bones are huge. Right, and we can find their bones. Right. Two is like there are planets in the sky circling around us.

One's red. One is yellow. Where you're just like, did a kid come up with this idea that there's just like a blue one and a red one? But so much of that is still speculative. Like the planet stuff is still futuristic because we don't have like commercial travel to those planets.

The dinosaur thing is so wild when you think about how overwhelming a concept it is, but it's presented to kids as like, and by the way, this is like done deal, settled matter, millions of years ago. They're not coming close to your front door. Okay. There's like one million years BC, right? There's like the sort of old kind of adventure. The original lost world.

The original lost world. Land of the time for old kind of adventure. The original Lost World. The original Lost World. The argument is a lot, right. Land of the Time For God is another one. Ray Harryhausen's styles. Yes, yeah. But like, are those really, are those good movies? Like, they're certainly, they're memorable. They're not great movies.

They're good, they're fun. It's fun to see the dinosaurs in them. That's what they got. I also don't think his best films are his dinosaur films. No. No, I agree. It's like Sinbad. It's Sinbad.

It's the adventure ones. The adventure films, yeah. Transformers, when they Simba. No, certainly. Simba. It's the adventure films. Agreed. Transformers, when they have dinosaurs in them, is pretty good. Well, those have dungnobots in them. And I mean, my favorite line reading of all of Transformers is, Stanley Tucci is Merlin?

No, he's good too. But when the fucking thing turns into a dinosaur the first time. You mean when Grimlock turns from robot mode into beast mode No idea what you're talking about and Ken Watanabe who is of course voicing a samurai transformer, which we forget about Says I was expecting a giant car It's such a weird moment of self-awareness where I'm like, the fucking samurai bot is like, don't we turn into cars?

So close to his name. It's not Swift, but it's like that. Drift. Autobot Drift maybe? I don't know. Did you see Transformers 1? I haven't yet. I've been away. I have no one to talk to about this movie. Autobot Hound is not in it, right? His character is named Drift. I have also not seen it, but I did like it. What about Hound is not in it, right? That's my guy. His character is named Drift.

I have also not seen it, but I do like Josh Cooley, who made Toy Story 4. I thought he did a nice job with it. I really liked it. And it has one of the great, like, third act, like, it's all happening moments in recent movie history. Is the second best dinosaur movie, The Land Before Time, the Don Bluth film? That was going to be my take. Is that probably the second most iconic dinosaur movie? Here's what is really damning. Disney's Dinosaur is a mortal lock for the top 10, and that movie is boring as hell.

Right, both. And that's, I think, what Sean is talking about. There have been two bites at the giant CGI dinosaur movie, Apple. Both times you're like, well, that's a good idea. This is perfect, because Dinosaur is so hard to accomplish. Let's do it animated. Both times you're like, well, that's a good idea. This is perfect because Dinosaur is so hard to accomplish. Let's do it animated. Both movies stink. But isn't that just even more of a testimony

to the amazing power of Jurassic Park? They were like, we can't do anything. So I won't harp on this because we covered it in our Lost World episode years and years ago. But I think the reason this movie is not as totemic and formative for me as it is for many in my generation, the generation before and after, is my parents are super overprotective, did not let me see this movie for years.

I saw Lost World in theaters as my first Jurassic and that blew my mind. Oh, interesting. And I think that movie having the impact of like, holy shit, I'm seeing dinosaurs on screen. Yeah, you were like eight when that movie came out probably. Right. It took that juice where I have that memory of seeing that and feeling like it was one of my first, like, kind of scary blockbusters I was allowed to see. And I had that, holy shit, it's on a big screen.

Where then later I came around to this. Yeah. And then I clearly was like, well, this is better. But I didn't have that sort of key emotional discovery. It makes sense. This is like Jurassic Park by comparison to the Lost World is just, it's weirdly restrained and small. Um, which it doesn't, it didn't feel that way when we were kids, but when you watch it now, like you were saying before, like not only are there a few characters, but

you're on an island, you don't even really fully understand the geography of where you are. Sometimes we go to a new place and we're like, what building is this? And how far away was it? And oh, they're reunited? You know, like the mapping of the movie is actually a little bit confusing at times, but it all works out. I mean, there are a lot of Spielberg cheats in this, which he like openly talks about, where it's like spatially things change to benefit him in a sequence if he needs

him to be. He will go against how things were previously established, but it's insane how quickly they get out of this movie. It is. The premise of this movie is so massive, and it's interesting that fundamentally it's a movie about like they take one ride on the ride, it goes really wrong, They leave with two deaths. And the ride is a back-light tour. It's a slow trek. It's a Six Flags Great Safari. Three people die in this movie, right? Wayne Knight, Samuel L. Jackson, and Bob Peck.

Ray Arnold. No, and Gennaro too. Gennaro. Oh, the lawyer. Okay, so there's four deaths. The book has a couple more extra ones that they cut in this. Plus that guy who gets eaten at the beginning of the movie. Yeah, that guy. Yeah. I mean, whoever that is.

Yeah, absolutely. So, thank you for your work. Raptor got him. But like, this isn't even a total, like, sort of slasher film of like, only fucking Alan and the kids make it off or whatever. It's like most of them leave being like, thato, that actually, we shouldn't do that. Like a lesson learned, like geez, that sucked. And none of the main characters died.

No, I mean, famously, Ian Malcolm was supposed to die. Yes, he dies in the book. And was supposed to die in the script. Was originally in production, the plan was to have him die at the moment he gets trapped underneath some bamboo. Right. And while filming they were like, we're gonna fucking kick this guy out of the movie?

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He was short, he became tall. Didn't think women should talk too much. Okay. Wrote lots of books. 1980, he writes Congo, but and sort of stops writing books for a bit and more turns to film. Will ride for the film for the rest of my life. I insist Congo is good. Congo is fun. I have seen it so many times and I know that it is wildly considered a huge misfire.

I love it. It is my friend, one of my best friends, Alex Perlin, shout out Alex Perlin, who I know listens to the podcast, is a lawyer, is a public defender. Congo is his favorite movie of all time. Probably shouldn't be revealing that. He might get disbarred. Impossible. His bachelor party was watching Congo.

Where? That's awesome. We went to Ample Hills. We had their ice cream making class. And then we went back to his apartment and watched Congo on VHS. That's a very wholesome bachelor party. He's a very wholesome man. Can I just, I don't want to belabor this, but Congo, directed by Frank Marshall, written

by John Patrick Shanley, who only writes normal movies. Obsessed with writing normal movies. Sesshokri, Alan Daviou. Edited by Anvi Coates. Incredible cat. Like Laura Linney, Bruce Campbell, Ernie Hudson, Delroy Lindo. Ernie Hudson is really fun in Congo. Tim Curry, Herkimer Hamoka, you know? Delroy Lindo, like one of the best one-scene performances.

Anyway, the point is... Stop eating my sesame cake. He has made me really love Congo through his eyes. Yeah. But Crichton turns to making movies. He's made, he made some pretty good, Coma is a fun movie. Great Train Robbery. Never seen Looker or Run Away. Crichton turns to making movies. He's made he made some pretty good coma is a fun movie. Yes great train robbery Yeah, never seen Looker or run away. No, those are both

Right. Yeah. Yeah interesting. I but they're looker looks kind of cool. Lookers good looks could kill. Oh It seems that this movie is about cosmetic surgery on women. I'm sure Michael Crichton have very normal feelings about that But then in 1983, he thinks of this idea as a screenplay. He's like, I'm not going to write a novel. I want to turn that into a movie. Let's also acknowledge Westworld and Futureworld have already happened in the 70s. He's already set up this theme park that goes wrong then. And he said his approach to writing the story was initially about like the person doing the cloning in secret and he couldn't find a way in

and he kind of put it aside and then he was like, no, this needs to be about like the environment where people are interacting with dinosaurs, right? He didn't wanna do it in like dinos in New York City. He wanted it to be in like sort of the natural world. And then eventually he's like, I'll write a book like that, whatever, that's his way in. And he thinks about the theme park idea, which of course he had done with Westworld.

Right. So he's incredibly prolific from the 60s through the 70s. And then 1980 Congo, 1987 Sphere, 1990 Jurassic Park. He like slows way down. Some of this bumps up against the timeline as established in JJ's dossier, which I fully trust. I'm just going to repeat what I heard and try to make sense of it

relative to this timeline as explained. I went to a very bizarre event some years ago that was a 92nd Street Y talk for the release of Michael Ovitz's book, his memoirs, in conversation with Bill Murray, his favorite client he ever had, he decided to have moderate, even though Bill Murray is famously someone who has not had reps for 35 years. But Ovitz, I think, was his last rep he ever had.

And Murray asked him at one point, like, what is your proudest accomplishment of your entire career? And he said getting Jurassic Park out of Crichton. And he unpacked that to say like Michael Crichton basically had writer's block for most of the 80s. Which I believe is true. Yes. Yeah. At least novel book. Yes. Right. And like could not get something figured out. It makes sense that Jurassic was something that had been floating around in different forms. But then this final breakthrough of like, he's figured out how to frame this story. And that the second like, he says to Ovitz, here's the pitch, DNA, dinosaur theme park, Michael Ovitz, like rubs his hands together and goes to everyone and is like,

I have the greatest project of all time in coming. Spilberg, of course, crosses paths with Crichton on ER, which was conceived of as a film, and Spielberg helps pivot that thing to a TV show that was mildly successful. Being sarcastic, it was hugely successful. Yeah, later inspires The Pit, America's most successful TV show. And that is at one point, Crichton's like,

yeah, I finished this book about dinosaurs. Jurassic Park is getting proof by publishers. He gets the early tip off Spielberg. And Spielberg's like, would love to read that. Dinosaurs sounds cool. Yeah. Now Crichton claims that he basically was like, I don't wanna get into some bidding war.

Like if you wanna make it, like let's make it, but. And Michael Ovid said, I would love to get into a bidding war. Let's make a bidding war start. As we said, Warner Brothers, Tim Burton, Columbia, Richard Donner, Fox, Joe Dante, like, all these studios enter a bidding war for the rights to that movie. James Cameron also claims he tried to buy the rights. Makes sense. Can I just pause you for one moment?

Please. What would be the contemporary version of this bidding war? also claims he tried to buy the rights. Makes sense. Can I just pause you for one moment? Please. What would be the contemporary version of this bidding war? It'd be like, okay, so are we trying to think of like filmmakers who are allied with this, just like Villeneuve and WB, right? Or Villeneuve and Legendary.

So it's Chris Nolan and Universal. Sure. Chris Nolan and now Universal. Villeneuve and WB. Tarantino and Sony, no I'm joking. Would watch it, but sure. No, okay, but like Villeneuve. Your question is who would be the people pitched

for the project if Jurassic Park, the galleys were hitting. Look, I love it, it's Villeneuve and WB. It's Nolan and Universal. Disney is like, I don't know, one of the fucking Contiki guys who made Maleficent 2. Who now also directed Tron. Yeah, that's why they keep being like,

it's one or two of them. I can't remember if they work together or not, but like they yeah I truly could not tell you if one guy has been making all those movies. They've been switching off Paramount would be like Kaczynski or something. I was gonna say Kaczynski for Apple but or Apple or Kaczynski doing Tron You know that all right Netflix is like our new chat bot will be directing this. It would have been Netflix putting forth Russo So now I feel so Russo's have well, I mean fucking the Avengers Five and six being Agbo productions is fascinating to me. The fuck is Agbo again?

They're a production company that they were like Because that was like a fucking name they used in their improv and sketch troupe in college that they found a funny last name and the... Gun to your head. Yeah. Avengers 5 and 6, will they be good? No. I don't think so.

I mean, maybe I'll be wrong. I just think that they... I think it's... I think it's gotten unwieldy. I don't think there's any way to focus things back up. But all I'm saying is... There's ways, but I don't know if they'll pull it off. Their whole thing was, oh, we got funding, we're going to be our own studio.

They were trying to almost do something closer to DreamWorks, making stuff for the streamers and whatever. And going back and doing Avengers could be seen as some admission of failure. Oh, we got to go back and play by someone else's rules. Part of the announcement of them coming back quietly was these will be an Agbo co-production, that Disney and Marvel were so desperate to get them back that they're cutting the company in on it, which is kind of unfathomable.

It is a big thing to cut them in on. I will not defend any of the other things that they have worked on, but those things that they made with that company, I like. The vendors are successful. I really like Endgame. James Cameron, yes, says when he saw the film, he realized, I was not the person to make it.

Mine would have been more like aliens with dinosaurs. Dinosaurs are more for kids. He made a movie for kids. His sensibility was right. I think I would have been too nasty. Classic James Cameron, like weird big dick, like backhanded compliment shit. But right, like James Cameron's always doing that. I'm too much of a big boy for this shit.

My favorite thing is how he correctly injected himself into the implosion of the submersible. He's like, yeah, I knew that fucking thing. Who cares? Fuck that guy. I don't think who the other people would be though that they like put forward. There aren't, yeah. Oh now?

I just, Villanueva Nolan those names are very obvious in terms of who wants to do a big scale thing. There's this guy Colin Trevorrow. I mean he's a real home run hitter. Trevorrow. Trevorrow, sorry. Anyway. Like Borrow, you know?

Like Borrow ideas from other people. Right, or like sub borrows Spielberg said He liked dinosaurs a lot his favorite dinosaur movie the dinosaur now right in the fucking timeline He's like King Kong is certainly the like the t-rex and King Kong is the the the cinematic dinosaur. I remembered best When I read the book the Crichton book it flashed back Jaws for me. I was a huge Harry Howsen fan. I always thought about like, you know, making a movie like that, but he also said,

I'm trying to make a good sequel to Jaws. It's shameless, I can tell you that now. He said that to The New Yorker in 1994. Interesting. That he is kind of admitting like, yeah, this is kind of in my continuum of like, creature feature. Yes. Right?

And the cast is broader, but you do have the kind of core trifecta thing. Yeah. 100%. Right. Like three good, charactery actor people rather than like, you know, Lunkheads. Because it's one of the most fascinating sort of what-ifs with this movie is when Universal spends a bunch of money to buy this for Spielberg, their immediate thought is like, oh, Harrison

Ford and Sean Connery is Hammond. Right. Like, this should be the most all-star A-list movie possible. And Spielberg's like, shouldn't we spend the money on the dinosaurs? Like, just get good actors, which was basically the Jaws formula. Three people who are not obvious leads for a blockbuster. But I also think both of those movies, this movie and Jaws, have the thing that's also the core thing that has always made Star Trek work a lot of the great like franchises which is like you

basically have an ego super ego right you have three fun characters that all represent the sort of corners of the psyche absolutely in in how to address a humongous problem right yes a big shark there's a there's a there's a quote unquote casting what if that I think materially explodes that though. Go ahead. Which is? Kurt Russell. He would be so fucking good.

If it's Kurt Russell in the Sam Neill role, it's a totally different movie. It is. And I think, and I love Sam Neill in this movie. Maybe better. Because Kurt Russell on an adventure, there's not anything better in movies. That's a very fun movie.

I just think that this movie is really special because of Sam Neill, because that's... it's such a curveball to have that guy in that position in the movie. Like this guy where you're like, huh, I'm rooting for this guy? It's not like he's tremendously unlikable. Sam Neill's a good actor, he's got a good presence. But you are like, wait, this is the hero? Is this kind

of like, you know, kind of, he's kind of introverted, like, you know, like, I don't really want to talk to people or like, and not in like some squirrelly like Newt Scamander way, just in a sort of like, don't get me started on Newt. Because like when Newt Scamander, who I think about a lot, I'm like, this movie is setting itself the immense challenge of like someone who doesn't want the camera to be pointed at him. Can't make eye contact with people. He can't look at anyone. He's hiding in his coat at all times.

And like, oh, what an interesting challenge to have someone the most unpersonable guy like be the hero. I think Kurt Russell in the Dante- Kurt Russell, he'll be like, come on, guys. That's harmonizing, right? Don't move! Right. I think Russell would have been a little too winky in this in a way that would have been

fun. If this was the version we had, I'd be like, he's great in this. But there's something about the earnestness of Sam Neill, of him not being the kind of guy who you're used to existing in this kind of movie, him being a little bit cold and thorny. This is like, but this is Tombstone breakdown era Kurt Russell. I know. He's very serious at this time. He's really good at this time.

But I think, I agree with you. I agree with you. Do you not think if you put him in this movie with Spielberg and you're like, you're reacting to dinosaurs, he starts to go a little Jack Burton? He might, he might. And it's a different movie, And I think everything David just said is bang on. Like Sam Neill makes the movie totally unique and unusual. And his evolution as a

character is a big part of why you get emotionally connected to the movie. But I just see Kurt Russell and I'm like, damn, he's like taming dinosaurs? I want to see that. I want to see that today. I mean, he put him in like fucking Jurassic Park 3. By the way, the third thing Alan does, apart from learn how to put on a seatbelt and learn how to connect with children, is he fucking fends off the most direct assault on his girlfriend by the sexiest man who ever lived. Ian Malcolm is like suddenly training his fucking missile sights on Laura Dern and Samuel's like waving him off.

This is one of those rare examples of a performance that is like so parodied, so impersonated, so memed, and you watch the real thing and you're like, the real thing is bigger than anyone else's interpretation of it. It's a very big performance. It's astonishing. It's so clear that Steven Spielberg wants

to fuck Jeff Goldblum the way he films him in this movie. Yes. I mean, with the light behind him. Yes. He films him like Marilyn Monroe. Yes, yeah. It's so funny that they eat their Chilean sea backs in what seems to be like a black box theater with like perfect spotlights illuminating all of them. It's such a weird setting.

This viewing, I've really actually took in that scene. And like, it's bonkers. It's bonkers because a lot of Jurassic Park is set in like an office with computers and like a kind of chintzy Disney worldy kind of, yeah. And then that one scene Spielberg was clearly like, no, let's like the shit out of this dining room scene. It's so funny because it's, of course, this is Dean Condi, the great Dean Condi.

Brilliant. Collaborative to John Carpenter as well as Steve Spielberg. The wickety, what's Wicked's last name? My joke is that Dean Conde looks like an Ewok? but He's he's doing the fucking poles of light thing that Spielberg's gonna like take To the ends of the earth with Yanush. Yes. And and Schindler's the first This is the handoff of course. This is when Yanush is gonna take over after this one I mean all of the sort of like correct decisions

of Spielberg reads this book, he's like, oh, this character feels a little bit like Brundle from The Fly cast Jeff Goldblum. Jeff Goldblum's like, I've kind of done this before. Wouldn't it be funny to play this against type, this guy's a rock star. Right. And they're like, oh, that would be fun.

This is the guy who'll give you the color in the first 40 minutes of the movie and then he dies. And then they're like, we cannot kill this guy off. He is the chief.'ll give you the color in the first 40 minutes of the movie and then he dies and then they're like We cannot kill this guy off He is really being introduced to someone you're like, oh, I'm excited for this kind of jerk to die Right, like he's so high on his own supply 30 minutes of him just aggressively trying to bed Laura Dern is the kind of plotting you do when you're like and by the way This guy's gonna be dead in two minutes. Yes, we're going Water on the hand total that sequence you're like it's about to be this is his final moment Yeah, and there's something about the way, this guy's gonna be dead in two minutes. We're going heavier on him right now. Literally the drops of water on the hand in that sequence. Totally.

You're like, it's about to be curtains for Dr. Anelda. This is his final moment. And there's something about the way he plays him. It's the weird magic of Jeff Goldblum where you're like, this guy's a creep and I kind of have no problems with it. But he's just like in any other setup, everyone is rooting for this guy to be kicked out of the movie. He's the only character though who's written with any panache.

None of the other characters' lines of dialogue have personality. They're machines to push the story forward. The judgment on Goldblum's part, and who knows how much of it was motivated by ego and him being like, I want to be cool. But there's a story sense here that is very smart, of like, everyone else is just kind of doing their job. And Hammond, who's the only other guy who's sort of getting some joy out of it,

is trying very hard to do this avuncular Disney thing. You do need someone who's got swagger. Yeah, he pulls it off. He's on fire. He's on fire. It's an incredibly impressive and obviously iconic performance. David, on your spreadsheet,

do you have any acting nominations for this movie? I was literally Griffin having the same thought. I was watching this being like, I bet David gives this one supporting actor nomination and I'm trying to figure out who he would pick. I have Jeff Goldblum. Okay. Yeah. Ray Fiennes, Schindler's List, Jeff Goldblum, Jurassic Park, Tom Lee Jones, The Fugitive,

Val Kilmer, Tombstone, Bing Kingsley, Schindler's List. That's a pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty good. Yeah, pretty, pretty boring, but pretty good. Yeah. 1993, man, great year for movies. Piano, Age of Innocence, Groundhog Day, Sinseless, Naked. I mean, incredible year for Sam Neill. An incredible year for Steven Spielberg. Sure.

Laura Dern, this is only three years after Wild at Heart, which we've covered semi-recently. Yeah, and she's only, what, like, she's quite young, 25 or something. 24, 25 in this movie? Yeah. Someone who started out as a child star, really started acting in her teen years, is then sort of like a young adult star. The shift to this movie, you're like, oh, this is an adult person. Like from this movie on, Laura Dern is permanently 45 years old, right?

Because of how they style her, and now her style is so cool, but I think at the time, she's trying to... They're trying to style her older. Right? Like, she's got this kind of, like, professional sort of workman-like, you know, thing going on with the khakis. But she has the gravitas. I'm saying she pulls it off. How many movies do we see like this

where you introduce a 25-year-old and the movie says, like, this is the smartest scientist in the world, and you're like, this is a child straight off the world and you're like this is a trial straight off This is Hawk to a face She's not a paleo botanist or whatever the hell if the timeline was shifted nine months Haley Welsh would be in Jurassic City, right if that happened nine months earlier or Jurassic City film nine months later What the movies call now now it's called something dumb.

Jurassic City was the working title, now it's called like Jurassic World Revival. Are these so fucking funny that they were like, we're gonna make a Jurassic Park movie. And you're like, you are? And you're like, yeah, we fucking made it. It's got Scar Joe, it's probably fine. It's coming out tomorrow. Mahershala-y.

Yeah, anyway, Jurassic Park, go ahead. Laura Dern is only 57. This is the thing because. She started out very the thing because she's so young in this movie. She's very foxy in this movie. She is incredibly attractive. She's just really cute. Have you seen the meme about how she sits down? Oh, yes.

Where she goes like. Yes, at the table in the dining room. Very, very interesting choice. All right, back to this dossier. Okay, Michael Crichton. But another incredibly bizarre choice for this film. Michael Crichton, we're on the script. Spielberg's like to Crichton, like,

write me a script. It won't be the shooting script or anything, but can you please just take the first pass to turn this into a movie? Crichton agrees. Then, Molly Oskoczmarmo, who co-wrote on Hook, but doesn't get a credit on it, comes aboard. She says her big contribution was fleshing out Ellie, Sattler, and the kids. And then David Kep, who had written

Death Becomes Her for Zemeckis, is brought on board. And he is the one who's like, we need to have this Grant character have more of an arc and it should be the kid thing. Because that is not present in the books. In the books, Alan Grant has no problem with the kids. He's not like, oh, these fucking kids. That is them going from like,

he kinda has a chip on his shoulder about children for whatever reason to he loves these two kids, is David Kep's big idea. Not to do endless comparison point here, but it is astonishing how relatively understated his arc is compared to say, Jurassic World in which characters keep on calling up Bryce Dallas Howard on the phone and saying, when are you going to stop focusing on your job and have kids?

Why do you keep running this dinosaur park when you could give birth? One of the things I find most fascinating about this movie is every time I watch it, I have a different interpretation of Sattler and Grant's relationship. What is it right now? Right now, I think they have... And stuff only. No, I think they have slept together intermittently a number of times and have never been fully committed but have never had a conversation about whether or not they're committed.

That is how I take it, is that they are romantically involved because they work in this bizarre field where all you do is like sit in a trailer in the Mojave Desert or whatever, scraping bones. And he's handsome and she's beautiful. Scraping bones. And so they do a little bone scraping. But yeah, like, he's too emotionally stunted to be like, would you like to, like, get married or, you know?

Right, she's dating a much older guy who is emotionally much younger than her. Who's intellectually very impressive and is like, what if dinosaurs were birds? And everyone's like, whoa. And is what I think is the nuanced version of this is like that it's not like she's like, why won't you settle down and have kids with me? The idea of kids sort of represents like,

when is this guy gonna like diversify? Yeah. And it takes Malcolm being like, I marry a new woman every year, and she just jumped to the top of my list for Grant to be like, uh, uh, hello. Yeah. You know, he doesn't even like say like,

we are dating. He's just like, yeah. When Malcolm's like, are you two? And he's like, yeah. And like, that's about as much as he can describe it. Right, exactly. Right, he can't go further than that. Right.

Because it's a PG movie. It is a PG movie, which is insane. Or is it PG-13? It has to be PG-13. Yeah, it might be PG-13. The Goat? It's PG-13. In Britain, it was PG.

Wow. I remember that. In the United Kingdom of Don't You Dare. And it was a little surprising because this movie is very intense. And it has a severed arm in it. Let's also just, to the point of that conversation, call out, not the rating, but the relationship dynamics. Goldblum and Dern date for a while after this movie.

The scenes you're watching have the juice of, this is actually working. Yeah, for sure. The water on the hands, I'm like, they're about to fuck. Like, they are moments from fucking. They call cut, both of them are going to the same trailer. She's giving him none of, she's giving Sam Neill none of what she's giving Sam. With Sam Neill, it's more of a like, aw, Alan, you sweetie pie.

Goldblum just looks so fucking hot in the shirt on. It does. Insane. It's crazy. The shot of him with his shirt open and he's laid up and he's re-stubbed, it's crazy. It's like professional It's crazy. The shot of him with his shirt open and he's laid up and he's greased up, it's crazy. It's like professional wrestling or something. And I'm sure there are people in 1993, because in 1993, I saw this film in theaters, I was young,

and then I see Independence Day when I'm 10, right? And I'm like, yeah, well, Jeff Goldblum is like a movie star from movies that I see, I know that. But there must have been so many people going to see this movie being like, wait, this sort of squirrely guy from like fucking Buckaroo Banzai and The Big Chill and The Fly is like now like Earth's hottest name? I have a very distinct memory of my father after...

I'm sure your father was activated by this. Yes, Lost World's opening weekend when it had the biggest opening weekend of all time. Or maybe when it was at the end of its run. But during its box office run, saying to me, you ever think about how weird it is that Jeff Goldblum's in three of the highest grossing movies of all time? Three of the big ones. He was like, that's just weird.

And then- Jurassic Park, Independence Day in nine months. Holy man. Holy man. Holy man was huge. People forget that. So, Kepp says his approach was, yeah, throwing out details. He was like, the minute characters started talking about their personal lives, you don't

care. You're like, I want to see dinosaurs, right? One of those funny little tidbits that like BD Wong is one of like five solo cards. He's on the billing of the poster. And it's because they cast him while they were still adapting it and his character's so big in the book that they were like, well, he'll be the fifth lead. And then it ends up being one scene, but the contract was locked in.

And like the other thing about Jurassic Park is that like, it's not really a fast paced movie. As much as Kepp is saying, like I simplified, I took things out. The movie has an incredible amount of setup to the point of now I love the first 45 minutes of Jurassic Park. I love to like luxuriate in it.

But if I'm watching it for the first time, I'm probably like, can we get to the dinosaur antics? And now you watch it and you're like, this movie is explaining every single fucking thing to you that you need to know for the last half of this movie to be perfect. It's inception shit, except it's the thing that makes Spielberg the king,

is he knows how to do this in a way that doesn't sound like an info dump. Yes, and also in Inception in Act Three, he's like, uh, three other rules I forgot to mention. Right. But like, this is such... Here's how limbo actually works. I mean, you guys know where I stand on that young level situation. Yeah, it's just a movie that does not make sense.

Unlike Mr. DNA, who does a wonderful job of making us understand in clear terms what is at play in the film Jurassic Park. But that's perfect Spielberg magic, where he's, like, making a joke out of the fact that he needs to stop the movie for four minutes and explain the science. Using Greg Burson's voice, who is, like, a legendary animated voice actor

or his animated character. And Spielberg's idea. This is what it would be in this reality. This is how to make it palatable to the audience. You're on tour. It's like you're at the park on tour. It's a brilliant idea. Yeah.

Laura Dern says she was making a film called Wild at Heart, which we discussed on this podcast not that long ago. And she told Nick Cage, who she had just worked with on Wild at Heart, they want to put me on the phone with Steven Spielberg for like a dinosaur movie. So it's like a straight jump, basically. I mean, which makes sense, right? And Nick Cage says, and I love this, you're doing a dinosaur movie? No one can ever say no to a dinosaur movie. And she's like what? And he's like, it is the dream of my life to do a dinosaur movie. It makes

so much sense that Nick Cage in 1990 was like, if you don't fucking get this movie, I'm going to put on a blonde wig and say I'm Laura Dern. This is fascinating because Cage also at this point in time is kind of stuck dead between Ian Malcolm and Alan Grant. He could be Malcolm. He could be Grant. He could kind of do either. He's not quite the energy the movie arrives at, for sure. But has he ever gotten to act with a dinosaur?

Surely, he has. Well, he did pay $276,000 for a dinosaur skull. Right, he's gotten to live with a dinosaur. He has dinosaur skulls in his home. Where is your dinosaur skull here in this wonderful studio? It's a great fucking question. Where is it? I'm still looking for it.

Can we budget for a dino bone? Now that we've done this episode, it could be a business expense. Oh, absolutely. Write it off. Are you looking up if Cage has ever been in a movie with a dinosaur? Oh, I wasn't. I'm sorry. I can't if you want. I don't believe he has.

That's kind of crazy if he's... Yeah. Yeah, he should. Okay. William Hurt turned down Ellen Grant in one of the more insane decisions of his life possibly. But it could play... A hundred percent. But he makes sense. I would also contend like he's ten percent colder...

I agree. ...than Sam Neill. But like at the time that's a very logical choice, right? Kurt Russell and Richard Dreyfuss were both deemed too expensive because this movie was, the budget's going elsewhere, folks, right? And Neill is brought in last minute.

Neill says like, you know, he was going to a job and was basically told like, Steven Spielberg needs to talk to you in like half an hour. And two days later he had the part and three weeks later he's in Hawaii, like making Jurassic Park. Yeah. Um, Jeff Goldblum...

I assume mostly being cast off of like Dead Calm? Yeah, I... He was a guy. Huge possession fan. Yeah. Maybe not possession, but like the Omen movie. Right, I'm like what's... Which is bad, but he's, you know, kind of what makes it interesting.

I'm saying Dead Calm just because it was a little bit of a crossover, it was sort of the timing lines up. Like what was the- I think it's that and Red October maybe. Sure. He's a face, right? Yeah. No, it's interesting though. It's like, I don't know why he had juice.

A certain amount of this run-up, he's tremendously good in the fucking Carpenter movies and piano obviously is the same year as this. Like, it's one of those perfect storm moments where he just fully transcends. Right. But yeah, he's a very odd choice for this. Um, Goldblum, Janet Hershenson, who cast this movie,

read the book and was like, I'm seeing a Jeff Goldblum for this role. Now, Jim Carrey read for the part and they really liked his, like, I'm seeing a Jeff Goldblum for this role. Now, Jim Carrey read for the part and they really liked his audition. And that is another fascinating fork in the road to imagine. But Goldblum was pretty much always their first choice. And Steven at one point during the meeting said to Goldblum, there is some sort of idea of maybe we just

merge the Alan and Ian characters into one character. Why do we have these two leads? Like sinking out loud. Right. And Goldblum fights for his job. And Goldblum was like, don't do that. Like that's a bad idea. I know what to do for this character.

Make him different. Like, you know, don't make me just like the hero of this movie. Because one of the problems with Lost World is he has to be the hero. Yes. And he has to like deliver lines of dialogue, you know, like that are just explaining shit

about what's going on with dinosaurs. And you're like, that's not what he's here for. He needs to be the chaos element. Absolutely. Yeah. I think he might be maybe one of the best bad boy scientists in all of movies. I mean, put forth a competitor, like who even comes close? Who's the rival for that throne? This is basically him defining that as the type that everyone else tries to figure out how to put in their movie. I mean, Dr. Frankenstein, he was kind of a bad boy scientist.

This is true. Dr. Evil. That's a good one. Dr. Strange Love, he was kind of a bad boy scientist. What about Dr. Strange? Do you know that in... Dr. Strange, certainly. In London, a city that David Sims once lived in. True. There is about to open a staged adaptation of Dr. Strangelove adapted by Armando Iannucci starring Steve Coogan. Yep.

I was made aware of this by our friend Tim Simons. That is kind of wild. Sounds fun. When we covered, you were our guest on that. I was. I wish them all the best. That's a huge swing. Should not be touched, Strangelove.

Probably not. It is a moment in time movie that should not be touched. If anyone were to try to touch it in a different medium and format, those two guys working together make a ton of sense, but it is certainly a huge, huge swing. Do you guys see the franchise yet? I've not watched the franchise.

No, is that? No. It's either swings or, you know, he hits or misses. Like it's, yeah. I hope they let him do a third TV show that has a very expensive premise. (*BOTH LAUGH*) Rather than just like offices. So, John Hammond is a more straightforwardly greedy character in the book.

Spielberg is like, can you make him a little more like sort of Steven Spielberg-y? Like he's really dreaming of a utopia and it slips through his grasp. And a little Walt Disney and... Right, very Disney-esque. I think Richard Attenborough is brilliant casting. I think he's incredible. Agreed. He is obviously being cast sort of as a guy

that Spielberg probably looks up to some extent, like in Gandhi beat. I was gonna say, that's most interesting part. E.T.'s ass raw at the Oscars. If you like think about them probably spending that awards season. Yeah. Crossing paths over and over again,

obviously the gauntlet of like fucking awards campaigning was not what it was back then. Sure, but nonetheless, he's the young gun and Richard Attenborough is the old pro. Richard Attenborough is a great actor, you know, who then becomes a incredibly medium director. But at this point, he had not acted in a long time. Probably not. Am I wrong? He has a sort of second wind after this. I think he's great casting because he's got the, you know,

Santa Claus energy that was then immediately, literally, turned into a Santa Claus movie the next year. But there is an element to him where he's like, this guy is tricky or like, there is a little darkness to him. I can't quite guess at him. The Brighton Rock, Ten Relington Place, like there's something sinister. He is so fucking hot. You think it's that classic classic film director thing where like,

all great film directors are kind of manipulators. There's a little bit of like sweet talking, saying different things to different people to get what you want. You're right though, it had been 14 years since he had acted in a movie. What was his last? It was The Human Factor, the late Otto Previnger movie. You know, he's really good in the movie, and the movie's ultimate take, yes,

is like he's a great showman, and he just wanted to put on a show, and he really just didn't know what he was doing. He didn't know what he was thinking, putting live fucking dinosaurs in the same place as people. Which basically feels like the entire entertainment industry is now run by John Hammons, who don't know what they're doing, aren't thinking about the consequences.

Or they're just, yeah, I mean, and there's so many jokes I have to do. But like, I do think this is like a movie about like late capitalism, right? You know, or whatever, like that, I'm not sure Spielberg is saying that when he's writing the script, but this is a movie about like the end stage of capitalism

where like, well, we have the money to do this, so why wouldn't we do it? It'll make money. And it's like, because you have no control over this whatsoever. But also like weaponized, monetized permaadolescence. Like, this is one of the movies that starts to create the world that we all are guilty of living in, of just like constantly being obsessed with the things that we grew up with.

It's like the fucking Edmund Hillary, is it? You know, whoever said, like, why do you climb Everest? Because it's there. Right. It's like, why would you make dinosaurs? Well, we can, someone else is gonna do it if we don't do it, let's do it. But also, isn't that what every kid has dreamed of?

Like, shouldn't I spend all of science, technology, all of the financial capital in the world to make little boys' dreams come true? I wanna be on the record. I think we should make dinosaurs. I wanted to be on the record. I think we should make dinosaurs. I wanted to have this conversation. The critical dynamic of the movie is at that dinner table scene, which is so beautifully lit. Dr. Ian Malcolm keeps pushing on Hammond and saying, you know, you spend so much time thinking

about whether you could you didn't think about whether you should. And obviously, Ian Malcolm is the seer of this film and he understands from the moment that he gets there, this is a bad idea. And the book has the dragon spirals, which is like him. The dragon spirals? Like a dragon spiral. I swear I've talked about it before on this podcast, but it's like a dragon curve, sorry, is what it's called. It's like if you just make draw a line and then you draw a left and then right, you know, like you keep eventually you make these shapes that you would never see coming. This is like fundamental

chaos, the shit where it's like, you cannot predict where this is going. And like the first chapter, you just see a little curve. And by the later chapters, there's a little picture of a dragon spiral. Cause the idea is it's like, they never fore like they never foresaw X Y Z sure but so that's what Ian Malcolm is putting forward. We're not chaos theorists we're not DNA Well I dabble. You consider yourself professor of chaos. Honestly that is true. He's not Professor Crispy he is Professor K.O. Right. Should we should we make Ben wants to make dinosaurs like I think we should make dinosaurs. Yes. I don't think we should.

And this has always been my contention is. What could go wrong? Talk about how few good dinosaur films there are, right? It is the struggle every one of these sequels has had is like this is the ultimate one movie concept where you want to believe that all the characters walk away from it and have learned their lesson. And society at large learns their lesson. I'm a big defender of the Terminator franchise constantly repeating the same mistakes because I think that speaks to something more fundamental

which is like the abstract idea of technology helping us. You could keep falling into different traps with that. The dinosaur thing is so specific that we're supposed to believe that every four years someone else is like, I think I know how to do it right though. It's really funny in Jurassic World when they're like, let's do a pterodactyl. What could go wrong? That's the dumbest idea in the history of time. Right, the thing where it's like building net, I guess, around the whole park. It's a force field.

No, we should not be making dinosaurs, but if you do want to make dinosaurs, please do make it on fucking Isla Nublar far away from me. What if they're small though? Then we could hold you back with them. What's that? So the Charles Band Full Moon production where it was little stop motion dinosaur. You know what I'm talking about the prehistoric franchise. Yeah.

With the kid from last action hero. The hero. The film series you might enjoy. The villain of this movie is Wayne Knight, Dennis Nadry, who is just like this, I mean, again, as written by Michael Crichton, this kind of like slovenly disgusting person, right? Like Crichton is clearly so kind of like, ugh!

But he's also, it's like, he just doesn't have enough money. Richard Attenborough keeps sort of alluding to like personal choices that led him into death. Which I love. We don't know what that is. What do we think it is? But also there's the thing with the- Sam touches the park because he needs money.

So he'll have enough money for new glasses. That's the funniest part. When he's sliding down the mountain. Getting the guy to pick up the tab. Yes, that's such a good- Right for his tie where he's like, don't skimp out the way Hammond has. That's how this happened in the first place. There's a dual pronged thing like, Nedry's bad with money,

but also Hammond's maybe underpaying everybody. And I wrote this take on The Atlantic years ago, but the hero of the movie is Ray Arnold, Samuel L. Jackson's character, who is just fucking doing his job. He is someone who could do this version of a job anywhere. His job is running a large sort of organization, security system park, right?

He could do it at Disney World. He could do it in a non-entertainment function he got the fucking dinosaur park right like that's the job he ended up he's also doing it humanistically this is I'm talking about your character working is like every decision you're watching filter through a human face with thoughts and feelings there is no filter through the end of a cigarette. It's a perfect performance. There is no line from him in this movie, Ray Arnold, that's like, but isn't it cool that I run the fucking T-Rex pen? He doesn't give a shit about that.

And then late in the movie, Ian is like, hey man, can you go to the other end of the park and fucking turn the lights on because we turned them off? And he's like, yeah, sure, I'll get my jacket. And then he dies off screen. And like, right, which I believe there was a full written sequence. And like, this is another thing that makes this movie so different from all modern blockbusters is Spielberg still had to deal with limitations. Right. There was like a storm and it messed with

things. But they were just like, we're not giving you extra days. Yeah. That scene is cut. Figure out which scene you want to cut. And obviously we just see his hand, but there's such a tragedy to like, yeah, man, he was literally just here to make all of the things run in this absurd, stupid enterprise. I love that solution, though, to just have the hand land on the floor, just on the shoulder, because it's pure, like, Universal Monster movie, you know, or you're just like,

oh, my God! Which the movie is, you know, you were saying that it is and it isn't, but it is a movie that he watched on TV when he was seven. That's clearly what he's going for here. Three or four things burned into his brain forever and haunted him for the rest of his life. Pulp Fiction is the year after this? Correct, it is.

Sam Jack is so good in this. He's amazing. Yep. But this is still in his pure character actor mode before Pobfix is coming off Jungle Fever. As much as he's had a few kind of splashy performances, this is still this guy's versatile. He's like a five tool player actor. He'll do whatever you ask him to do. The next year he's codified into Samuel L. Jackson and anyone who is hiring him wants

a little bit of that. Even if he's playing against type, you want some of that. Like, this is the last moment when he can sort of play this role the way he does. He never worked with Spielberg again, right? Which is fascinating. Yeah, he should work with Spielberg again. Like right now. Like, why not, right? And it is one of those things where everyone's like,

Samuel L. Jackson, the highest-grossing star of all time. Like, Jurassic Park is just like a fucking footnote on that list. Yeah. Anyway. He doesn't swear. It's weird. This is what I'm saying. He says, but.

OK. He's like a very button-down, tired, you know? Like, focused, moral. It's like how Jeremy Piven was bald before he had hair. Like, Samuel Jackson looks older in this movie than he does in later movies of the 90s. Well, it's the opposite, Piven. He's got hair in this.

Yeah, I guess he has a little hair. But you know what I mean? Like, you know, he hasn't like kind of clammed up, you know, till like, anyway. Some of the other casting decisions, Ariana Richard, she's told this story a lot, but like they just brought her in office and they would just scream, please.

And her scream was the only one who woke up Steven Spielberg's wife from the couch. Joe Mazzello, who had screen tested for hook and was a little too young for it. He's just got such a sweet face Yeah, I've always really liked him. I do too like now is in a grown-up actor He's still got just that sweet face, but he off of this This is like Kubrick sees this and is like here's the guy I can make AI with and this is when Spielberg starts getting involved in AI Is all on the promise of like Mazzello's my robot Wayne Knight as you said Spielberg says he watched basic instinct waited for the credit stroll and wrote down the name Wayne Knight

He was basically like what's the name of that guy? Yeah Can we just like step through the way night 90s very quickly because even just the fact that he's like ping-ponging between mad about you and Seinfeld That he's jumping between two NBC sitcoms that are like within the top 10 or not mad about you I'm sorry third rock from the Sun Yeah But like two huge sitcoms without getting tied down to like series regular contracts and your beloved to in Sylvania

Well, and which he's great on he plays Igor He does he closes out the decade with Toy Story 2, probably the greatest villain in cinematic history. He's really good in Toy Story 2, even though it's basically just like, yeah, can you do Wayne Knight? Like, you know, that guy? But that's the thing. Like, from this point on, they're just sort of like, I think this is the movie that makes

everyone realize they should be using him as a voice actor. Right, right. He's got a great voice. Because, you like, yeah, like- He's amazing in JFK. JFK, Basic Instinct, like Dead Again, Jurassic Park, I mean I'm skipping over some other things that don't really matter.

Space Jam, I think, is where most kids from that time remember him. That was my activator. To die for, then it's like, right, he's in Hercules as a voice, he's in Tarzan as a voice, he's the villain in Toy Story 2, like that's just triumphant. He was the voice of the zoot suit in My Favorite Martian.

Well, of course he was. Remember that? Yep. Do you remember that? I don't know if I ever saw My Favorite Martian. It's not good. That was my birthday movie. Really?

Yeah. Unfortunately. That was when no movies came out in February that were worth a damn. Rat Race? Yeah. He's fun in Rat Race? Uh, yes. What's he fun in Ratt race? Yes. What's he playing Ratt race again?

I don't know. Can't remember. Is Jeff Daniels is the lead of My Favorite Martian? Yeah. And Christopher Lloyd. Gotta see this one. Elizabeth Hurley. It's not good.

I think he hits Rowan Atkinson with his car in Ratt race. I think that's his role. Like you do. So Dennis, he plays Dennis Sentry. He's phenomenal in this film. Anyway, they filmed the movie in Hawaii. They wrapped 12 days ahead of their 82-day shooting schedule. Despite them fighting like horrible weather conditions.

Right, insane. Yeah, exactly. They were using like the prop helicopters to actually get people off the island to safety. They lost the set. Right. Like, yeah. Film is budgeted around $65 million. People claim it actually went way over. We'll never know because who cares?

Like it made fucking billion dollars basically. Right. Spoonberg had gone way over budget and schedule on Hook and I think was like really intent on like, I am not doing that again. Yeah. Um, and, uh, every action sequence had been storyboarded like two years before. And Spielberg says that's why we didn't go over, but you know, over schedule. Like we were just like really on top of all that stuff.

And, uh, obviously the big sort of behind the scenes story with Jurassic Park is the blending of classic animatronics and CGI, brand new CGI technology. What was supposed to be animatronics and go motion Phil Tippett's proprietary stop motion process. Right. And instead Phil Tippett, fuck, I was going to make a joke about his poker face episode but then I forgot what happens. Anyway, sorry, go ahead. They build a bus that they have to scan to get the eye contact of... I was gonna make a joke about his poker face episode, but I forgot what happens

Anyway, sorry go ahead they build a bus that they have to scan to get the eye contact of okay Yeah, no filter Phil Tippett who had created go motion which like a 209 and the Tonton and Empire Strikes Back and Had sort of figured out this evolved form of the Harryhausen craft that also involved like motion blur, allowing you to photograph stop motion in a way that more seamlessly allowed it to integrate with live action elements. That was the plan. Stan Winston will build these full body things

for closeups, for heads, whatever, and the tip it will do all of this. And I think they were using ILM for some amount of previs. Little bit of CGI is gonna blend in there, but that's it. And Dennis Muren is like, I think we can just fucking make dinosaurs now. Two guys, Spaz Williams, brother of Harlan Williams,

creator of Puppy Dog Pals, and the other guy's name is Mark A.Z. Dippy, who later goes on to direct Ben Spahn. Cool. And he did a perfect job. They're the bad boys. And it holds up beautifully. They're the bad boys of ILM.

Yeah. The, uh, the Kasdan ILM, uh, mini series on Disney Plus, if that hasn't already been Zazlav'd off the service is incredibly good. It gets into this in depth. But these two guys were like, we think we can fucking crack the code. Right. Have you seen Jurassic Punk? Do you know about this?

No. It's a documentary about Steve Williams. Okay. And it chronicles from his perspective, everything that transpires as ILM is starting to make waves and you know, Mark and Steve are, you know, Dennis Mierin won a lot of Academy Awards, but they are largely credited with effectively like, I don't want to say inventing, but executing what becomes the template for all digital and animated figures in movies going forward.

Dennis Maron like co-signed, he backed them up. He supports them, he like builds this system for them at ILM. But they made all the breakers. And Drafts and Punx, you know, Steve Williams has had a remarkable flame out in his life. It's like kind of a sad story. Both him and Dippy now have just gone on to make shitty animated films. Yes. Like, Dippy directed the fucking Pete Davidson Marmaduke movie.

Yes, and they talk about that a little bit in the documentary, and it's very sad, but... Right, not even the theatrical Marmaduke, the other one. No, and did like four direct-to-video Garfield movies. He did. Garfield gets real, Garfield's Fun Fest, Garfield's Pet Force. And Williams did The Wild, which is like one of the most forgotten films of the 2000s. Do you think when they were

talking to each other though, Mark Azeedipi was just like, what I really wanna do is not real Leguizamo in. Just get that guy on the hook and then let go. All right, sorry. Yeah. Those guys. I just think this is like one of, this is part of the reason why I'm like, this is the beginning of something,

because these two guys come up with this idea they convinced their boss that that he should pitch it to Steven Spielberg and his boss effectively pitches it to Steal Steven Spielberg which then more or less sidelines Two of the most significant creators of on-screen effects in the previous 25 years and tip it in And tip it in Winston I mean, this is the peak of famously is the one who said I think I'm extinct and they put that in the movies. Yeah, in Tippett and Winston. In Tippett and Winston, yeah. I mean, this is the peak of Winston's work. Tippett famously is the one who said, I think I'm extinct, and they put that in the movie. And has talked about, I mean, there's an incredible documentary about him as well, but he basically had like a full on existential crisis about this. Spielberg saw that he was spiraling and basically was like, well, you know what, but they don't

really know how to animate. Right, made him the choreographer. Right. They don't understand performance yet, so you, it became the stop motion was used basically as previs for them to recreate in CG, which kept him employed and then he just pivoted to like, I guess I gotta learn computers. I particularly like what Spielberg tells the animators, which is that Tippett understands how dinosaurs move. Yeah, which is like no one does. Like we don't know for sure. Like this is just, we hope this is how dinosaurs move. Yeah, which is like no one does like we don't know for sure Like this is just we hope this is how dinosaurs move

I also here's what I contend you watch tippets work and you're like, yeah, this guy does understand how dinosaurs move It feels that way. I'm not even talking about this film, but you're like watch Empire Strikes Back And you're like fuck he understands how a tauntaun moves. You're like tauntaun's not a thing. You're a hundred percent right? He made it up, but you see. He makes the movement feel realistic For the creed the body we're seeing, right? This like oddly shaped thing we're seeing. And when people talk about like, why is Jurassic Park still more effective as a special effects movie than most films we see today, 30 plus years later, I think the answer is that you

have this melding of crafts, that you have like Winston at the top of his game, Tipit at the top of his game, and ILM like starting to push through something new and those three concentrations meeting in the middle synthesized to like a really strong language of performance for how the dinosaurs move. One thing that I want to say about this rewatching the movie in 4k. The daylight sequences don't look good. The nighttime sequences look incredible. You mean the CG specifically. Like especially Neil going to the Brachiosaurus

where he's kind of gesturing at clearly nothing. Exactly. But that's the inverse of most movies now. Things in the dark now look terrible. The lighting is horrendous and the digital rendering is awful. In the day, actually, when you're watching a Marvel movie, you're like, oh, these guys are fighting now. And it's a fascinating inversion of what we expect.

And you always are told, like, oh, why does everything look dark and bad? And like, oh, it's CG shit. And you're like, but that's not what I was raised learning. I was raised learning, like, Star Wars looked best against the black of space, and it was harder for them to do Hoth and stuff. I know that's pre-CG.

And I think it was like, Williamson Dippy went to Spielberg and were like, it's gonna look better if you do, like, like, it's gonna look better if you do night, it's gonna look better if you have rain, if we can have this deflection. They all strategize together, but there's such intentionality to how those sequences are organized. But I do think when you see the sick triceratops on the ground

and it's this incredible full-body animatronic, that's like a jaw-dropper. It works completely. All of the animatronics are so good. It's the most magical moment of the early daylight section, but then when you get to like nighttime raptors and T-Rex, the CGI becomes like extraordinary. But like they built a gigantic hydraulic T-Rex obviously that is so cool. They built raptor suits that people are inside of.

Right, they're using every technique. The Dilophosaurus is this amazing creation, like that's just the rig of it in the car with the frill, like, is so cool. It's, like you say, it's just, everyone's at the top of their game. It's kind of like Total Recall, we talk about that with Total Recall too. Where you're like, this is the peak of this kind of, like, effect. Yes. That soon will be dying, like, this sort of practical effect. There's a shot that I never processed fully that just kind of knocked me out watching

at this time where it's one of the shots in the T-Rex nighttime barrier sequence where it starts with the animatronic head like kind of coming right up to the window and then pulls away and then within the same shot without an edit it transitions to being a CGI T-Rex. Like he knows the blind spot that allows him to basically do the Texas switch between the two and you buy them being the same creature. Spielberg. Yeah. That guy's good.

And obviously, famously, he finished editing this film, but post was not done. They had to do lots of effects and he just starts doing Shenmue's List and would like color correct this movie at night over satellite or whatever. He's kind of said that's one of the things that helped him from like totally falling doing Schindler's List and would like color correct this movie at night over satellite or whatever. Completely insane. He's kind of said that's one of the things that helped him from like totally falling into the depths of depression during Schindler, that there was some kind of balance. And then he goes to John Williams and John Williams is like, yeah, I can crank out some bullshit for you.

He literally farts out this theme. I think the music, so obviously John Williams' music is most important to Jaws, Star Wars, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, right? Indiana Jones. And Indiana Jones, right? Yeah. And this one, in some ways, this theme is kind of incongruous with this movie.

Yes. Because it is this triumphant theme for a closed shitty theme park that goes wrong at the first dance. But that's why it's important, because the theme is, this is the projection of what Hammond thought this would be, the majesty of it. You watch the T-Rex sequence, which I feel like people agree is the high point of the movie. It's the most kind of... There is no music in the entire sequence.

Of course not. It plays to silence. There aren't even really that many instances of Williams doing like a tension theme in this movie. There's stuff, but yeah, definitely not what I think of. This is the Jurassic Park entrance gates music. But the movie is, it does have, we're getting to the island, we're leaving the island. Triumph is essential for both of those things. So it's a very unusual score for him.

It's very, very brass forward, very trumpet forward, which is not something you usually... It's not as symphonic as a lot of his scores usually are. And it does seem like it's like taking the piss, I guess, a little bit. I don't know if... Did they have a conversation about that? Was he just like, here's what I got for you, good luck? Like, I'd like to know a little bit more

about how they landed on this style. It's very unusual. It certainly sounds like that's what the last 20 years of their relationship has been. I don't know when that starts, where Spielberg's like, I just trust you. I think it's a little bit of that. I mean, I think he wanted to convey a sense of awe, clearly, right?

And wonder, which he can do in space. Oh, Superman is the other one. Oh, true. Those are the five where you're like, I mean, the whole thing I think with John Williams with Superman as well is when Brian Singer does Superman Returns, he's like, I'm just doing the John Williams music again.

Like, I don't want a new score. I would contend that it's not one of his best scores, but like in terms of- Catch me if you can. Well, no, that is one of his best scores. That is one of his best scores, but like in terms of... Can you catch me if you can? Well, no, that is one of his best scores. That is one of his best scores, yeah. No, what I was gonna say is like, Home Alone might be the movie.

Oh, 100%. Where his score adds a full star. It does. It's so weird. It is the most transformative. But that's another one where they're like, so this movie is about a little fucking eight-year-old beating the shit out of Joe Pesci with metal.

If that movie doesn't have that score, it doesn't work. And he's like, shall I conjure Christmas Fucking eight-year-old beating the shit out of Joe Pesci with like Pesci with metal Shall I conjure Christmas on a crisp December night like for you perfectly so it here freezes on your cheek Powerful musical you realize that he's just like shooting marbles at a criminal but this is what I'm saying if it doesn't that score that movies a disaster and ET is like a masterpiece even if it doesn't have a single second of music. Oh, E.T.! I forgot about E.T.! What's the matter with me? That's more important than any of the other ones.

Except for Jaws. Jaws is the most important. Or Star Wars. The craziest thing about his career is that he was making film and TV scores for 17 years before Jaws. So long! Yes! And then Jaws, he's just like, doodoo, you know?

And Spielberg's like, I'm paying you a salary. What is this? And he's like, no, it'll be good. And then George Lucas is like, you're the doodoo guy, right? Can you do like maybe just like bring back Aaron Copeland for my sci-fi movie? And he's like, yeah, sure, my fucking sleep. Also JFK.

Oh, such a good score. Incredible. During the Mr. X. We had this conversation, Griffin, when he got that Indiana Jones and the clock we were like store Yeah, you know he got the Oscar nom and I'm like, oh we asked cuz they're so lazy and they put that on and I was Like this is an 11 out of 10 Amazing shit. I know there was a lot of sort of autopsy of the the underperformance of

Jurassic Park and the circle of nonsense. I was gonna say... Indiana Jones, sorry. I'm the circle of nonsense. I think calling it Indiana Jones and the clock of bullshit might have been where they went wrong. That might have been a thing that turned off audiences. Can I be honest?

Indiana Jones and the clock of bullshit, David. I need to be honest. Five comedy points. I liked it. You liked it? I liked it. I don't really care for it. I'm gonna get back to it soon, but I did not love it. I think that be honest. Five comedy points. I liked it. You liked Dial of Destiny? I don't really care for it. I'm gonna get back to it soon, but I did not love it. I think that it has flaws.

I like sections of it. And these sections I don't like turn me off so hard, even more so than Crystal Skull, which is also a movie I like sections of. I basically love Crystal Skull. And I think Crystal Skull really, on rewatch, really eats Dial of Destiny's luncheon. I agree with that. A lot of choices are made that I think are interesting in Dial of Destiny is light on choices. The thing I like about Dial of Destiny is the last act,

where there are finally some choices. Yeah, I wish the last act was like the second act. Yeah, and maybe the first act. Yeah, I just think the last act is like as bold a thing as you can do in a movie like that. I agree with that, it's really interesting. But I think when we have like Phoebe Waller-Bridge in a fucking casino with him, I'm just like,

this is like from Solo. You know, this is just like knockoff, like, right, like just like rent a Disney movie from recently. I think it's basically a five-act movie, right? The first act I don't give a shit about at all, and in fact creeps me out. The like, deepfake, de-aged thing. Oh, that's...

Which lasts a fortnight, 25 minutes. I don't like that. It's too long for sure. Then the New York section I like. And in fact creeps me out the like deep fake the age It's too long then the New York section I like I like old indie Yeah, like but it's a little sad my note was I just wanted him to stay at the Battle of Syracuse I didn't want him to come back if he had stayed and he was like I want to This and I would know I don't push back on him staying I push back on him dying I didn't want him to die, but but him staying is kind of an interesting choice, although... then what are we... It's like there's some pottery and he's just kind of sitting there like, -"Actually..." -"I just need to see him."

You know, who's the great Roman figure he's with at the time? I wish the movie opened in New York, didn't have the flashback, and started time traveling like an hour in. The horse thing, thing though is incredible. That sequence is great when he gets on the horse and is racing through the subway. I'm gonna have to rewatch it. Yeah, that's the New York section. I like that.

I'm gonna have to rewatch it. I think it's pretty good. People are really, really hard on that movie and they're not hard on much worse Drek and what have you. I like New York and I like ancient Rome and everything else kind of is for the birds. By the time this comes out, a complete unknown will have come out. On this very day, a new complete unknown trailer came out and I almost threw up watching it.

I haven't watched the trailer. You're really stressed out. But I saw, I saw the reactions. This is how I feel every time there's a new Toy Story movie. Like don't fucking play with me. This is disgusting to me. That's how I felt watching it. I went to see the, uh, the substance with my mother, which was a very fascinating

experience. Yep. And she turned to me during the complete unknown trailer and just mother, which was a very fascinating experience. You're throwing up. Yep. And she turned to me during the complete unknown trailer and just went, he doesn't have the arrogance. That was her take on Timmy. To winsome. Which has been sticking with me.

He doesn't have the arrogance. New trailer tries to sell that hard. I'm not sure it gets there. Anyway, by the time this episode comes out, Timothee Chalamet is probably one best actor. That's probably true. If Timmy, she, he's not gonna, so thank God. He won't do it. But make your prediction.

What were you about to say? No, it just, it would be crazy if like another music biopic performance in a shit ass movie wins and then people are like, what happened there? Almost immediately after. That's why I wouldn't bet against it. Yeah, seriously. David. David.

Yes. We're both big fans of public transit. Love to take the subway, the bus. Yeah. The city bike even, anything. You know why? Because we live in a society. True.

And it's nice when that society functions. True. You know what's one of my biggest pet peeves? You're on a crowded subway car and someone is there just taking a phone call. Oh, sure, chatting on the phone. Or, playing their music without headphones. Or playing a game with the sound on.

You know what I'm saying? Playing Disney Emoji Blitz with the sound on? I always have it on mute is the point because this is a public space. We all share this, We have to show respect. But beyond that, an astonishing lack of privacy. Listen, do you really want the whole train to know about your medical test results or whatever you're talking about?

No, I don't. How well you're blitzing? No. The fact that you're listening to the newest episode of insert controversial podcast here. I don't want anyone to know anything. So I use ExpressVPN. Exactly.

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I thought it'd be fun. I was loading it in. You were trying to get it out there. An interesting new method of distribution. Yeah, exactly. Let's see what happens. Let's just like, port it. But now I'm getting it out of there.

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David? Yes? Yeah. Look at the physical work I'm doing here. You're scratching. Do you have an itch of some sort? I got that spring travel itch. Oh, you want to travel in spring.

I want to travel in spring. We all know the term spring travel itch. My friend I just saw, she's off to Nashville. Spring travel. I just, I know someone who's doing some spring travel I think I feel I saw another friend who was traveling somewhere. You're great. You said that in a weird way my friend She's off to Nashville. I saw a travel. Okay. No, I get a friend went to Greece spring travel sure I just went to st. Croix Was on island time and then I the spring I'm sure when you went on a

Caribbean vacation in the middle of the spring you decide to wear your best quince items that you bought last fall heavy sweaters long pants no no recommended quince products that made sense for that season but guess what quince has range like lightweight shirts and shorts for $30, pants for any occasions, comfortable lounge sets, things that are good for spring travel. Yep, and they've got premium luggage options, durable duffel bags to carry it all.

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I like that. Or a bundle if you want both. They got packing cubes. My wife is a big fan of packing cubes. David, I am not surprised to hear that. Yes, certainly not. That tracks. They've got cool little toiletry bags.

They've got one of those passport holders. Yeah, I gotta travel've got cool little toiletry bags. They've got one of those passport holders. I love toiletry bags. Yeah, I gotta travel with like four different toiletry bags. Ooh, I might get this backpack. Very stylish looking neoprene backpack. But what about shorts? Well, sure, I was in their travel section,

but yes, they of course have shorts. Okay. Short pants, as some might call them. Short pants. Yes, I'm gonna get myself some plus fours and a travel backpack, and I'm gonna be the Tintin of Spring. Yes.

Going to, you know, Tintin Inn somewhere, David Inn somewhere. Right, your spring travel plans, of course, is you driving yourself to the beach three times a week for four months. Yeah, can't wait for it to hit 80 degrees. So for your next trip, treat yourself to the lux upgrades you deserve.

From Quince, go to quince.com slash check for 365 day returns plus free shipping on your order. That's q u i n c e dot com slash check to get free shipping and 365 day returns quince.com slash check. Okay, let's talk about the film. This movie opens with a very Jaws-like sequence, right? The sort of, you're not seeing the dinosaurs, the suggestion, the silence.

A sequence you kind of always forget, I would say. Even as someone who's seen this movie one million times, you always forget it opens with creepy music over these kind of ominous titles, and then this kind of like monster sequence. Yeah. Characters we're largely not going to see ever again. It's silence and faces and roars and brutality. this kind of like monster sequence. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Characters we're largely not gonna see ever again.

It's silence and faces and roars and brutality. Yeah. Do we need this? I do think it's helps to set up the world in the way we were saying of like. The movie takes so long to get to the action. Yes. Not in a complaining way.

It just does. You need a little action. So maybe you just need a little kind of activation at the start. Such a cliché structure now. This thing. This like little tease of the world we're going to go to with some violence that maybe it just feels more rote in the aftermath. I think here's what specifically helps, what the sequence helps with in the rest of the film.

One, setting up that we're not gonna see as much staff later, we're not gonna see all the different departments. Right, they're setting up why they need in safety inspection and like exports, right? I guess that's the sort of, right. I also think talking about the cynicism of this movie, there's something very pointed in like it opening

with a death that is never commented on again, right? That the movie starts to be like, oh, and Hammond's grandchildren are in danger for the first time he's starting to question the morality of what he's built. That's a good note, that makes sense. But you're like, there has been this sort of rounding error in setting up this park of like,

how many fucking guys have died just trying to transport these dinosaurs? Right, just like literally figuring out the basics of like, what do we keep them in? Right, I think there's a helpful extrapolation in watching this sequence and being able to then copy paste in your mind, like, so this has probably happened a hundred times.

This is happening simultaneously across different parts of the park every day. This is also just a point that the movie is sort of makes and then has to just, and then we don't worry about it because everything goes wrong, but like this would be largely bad, right? The park experience, they're nowhere near like figuring out how it works.

Because it seems to be basically like, okay, you see some Brachiosauruses or something, right? That sort of, they're easier to see because they're chill, right? But then the T-Rex experience is basically like, drive by this paddock that's probably like a fucking thousand acres. Maybe we drop a goat over there and we'll see some trees rustle like what's the plan? Well as a frequent

Attendee of the zoo. Yes, my young child, right? This is kind of what it's like to go to the zoo is like where you're like you go to the tiger cage and then I Got tigers are sleeping. Sorry come back next time. There'll be another $40 You know like that's kind of how they do it What's that no that the suggestion of like oh fuck I think I saw what yeah, right exactly I guess you're right Keeps you on the line. It's just like you're not gonna how are you ever gonna see the Raptors? They're like hunting animals that like hiding in the fucking grass It's what you just said. They haven't really thought this through yet

They're still like field testing and don't get me started on Jurassic world inventing an invisible dinosaur. You want to see the dinosaur? What is the thinking there? My friends Why would you make it invisible? It is wild because they can david And of course I always cite dan harman's rant about in that movie, Chris Pratt saying, like, so you invented like a new kind of dinosaur that turns invisible and is crazy? Seems like a bad idea. And just Harmon being like, if someone has to say that out loud, your movie is fundamentally fucked up. Like, we know you don't need someone to say that. And this

movie has the way better version of it, which is like Malcolm being like, you're grappling with forces you don't understand. Like, you know,, that's he crystallizes in a much more interesting way But also that Hammond's like the thing is the wonders that we all like get to be close to and possibly touch these things that have Always felt mythological But as you said the thing that's so compelling to children is this was real like from a young age You're starting to have these like mythologies popped of like well, that's like fantasy There's no tooth fairy. This is like fairy tales and. And then you get Iron Man doesn't show up for less than a million bucks. But you're like dinosaurs are the one thing that feel magical to you

as a child and remain real, even though you don't get to make contact with them. It feels like Hammond's like, oh, there's some degree of like people want to feel the danger. But they even talk about they've built in this thing of what is it the fucking? Lyceum like the thing they don't have in their DNA strand that can deactivate the dinosaurs if they get off the island That is yes That's true They need a particular enzyme that they only get from the park and they'll die but like versus the Jurassic World movies are like We have to make these more dangerous. How do we make them deadlier? You're like the takeaway from this would be these people still are on this like quixotic quest to figure out how to tame dinosaurs

and they think if we neuter them a little bit more, they'll be safe. We can control it. I mean, right. Why would you make... Jurassic Park is a movie about science thinking it can control nature and it can't. Jurassic World is a movie about like, mega sequels are out of control and right, like every sequel has to be more, you know, bigger than the last. How do you make invisible T-Rex with knife teeth? I mean, so yeah, so we begin with, right, the raptor sequence. Where we don't see a raptor, we just see death and chaos.

And so, okay, let's meet Alan Grant and Ellie Sattler, paleontologists who are out on a dig. How do we get to know Alan Grant? How about he's just like an absolute demon to this, like, kid who poops velociraptors for being small? That's one of my least favorite fucking online fan theories. Oh, that he, like, turned out to be Chris Pratt? Yeah.

How do we let these things into our life? I know. Whoever posted that originally, I hope, is in Guantanamo. Now this movie obviously and the book made Velociraptors famous. Yes. Velociraptors are actually smaller than they were depicted in the movie. They're more like kind of turkey sized. Interesting. And it's Deonicus, I believe.

Not correct me if I'm wrong. That would be more like this big sort of pack hunting animal, I guess, but also I think like- It makes them the coolest dinosaurs in a way they definitely weren't before the 90s. This is like their fame. Obviously there's a fucking basketball team called the Raptors because of this movie, right?

But yeah, no, it's like- Every kid our age grew up being like number one coolest dinosaurs, the Velociraptors. Which is them doing the math of like, we need to have dinosaurs who can walk through doors. We need dinosaurs who are the exact right size to be a little bigger than kids. Well, and also like, let's, this movie is just like,

can we make alien for eight-year-olds? Right. Because like, that's what the velociraptor is, where you're just like a perfect killing machine that has no feelings. Whereas the T-Rex is a hero in the movie, basically. Do we think they overstate the power of the Raptor? Because you're meant to go down.

Like in the Alan scene where he's talking about, then they're fucking closing in. But isn't that basically PR of them being like, people are going into this movie, they don't know shit about Raptors. We need Alan Grant's instructional at the beginning of the movie to be telling you how deadly a Raptor is,

so you have that in your back pocket That's what I mean. Like are they are they relative to what we actually believe is true of Raptors? Did they make them more of a killing machine? Yeah, they made them into xenomorphs. Yeah But I do think it works in the movie because anytime someone is outside in the last act of the movie you are scared Right and that sequence where Ellie, you know where? The hunter guy fuck with the hunter guy's name. Muldoon. Muldoon.

Muldoon. It's like we're being hunted, Bob Peck. And she just runs. And Spielberg, we're just, you know, and she does the thing where she swings from the tree and you're like, she's got five seconds. You believe it, right? Before like a raptor is just gonna take her out. It's the fucking classic Spielberg shit of just like, don't introduce pieces onto the chessboard too early.

Don't introduce anything that is irrelevant. You know, like you set up the idea of the Raptor that is just sort of seems like a toss off of like showing how bad this guy is with kids. But it's like, no, the last act of this movie is going to be the Raptors. They can be indoors. They can be anywhere. They're fast. They're small. Yeah.

But also the Raptors, it's like... They're just true villains that you can't root for, and the T-Rex is kind of a hero that you love in this movie, right? That's a good point. He gets the victory in the movie. He takes down the Raptors. They don't get any vict... They don't take down shit. They don't kill one fucking dinosaur in this movie. All the little bends of the world are like,

-"T-Rex, man. Yeah, he's the king. T-Rex is the man. Absolutely. And like, he's huge, he's got a big ass jaw. His roar is the coolest bit of sound design in the movie, obviously. We should say she.

She. She. Although, yeah, well they're all women, right? Yeah. Although some of them are flip-flopping with that frog DNA. That's what's going on, right? Yeah, making eggs like finds a way blah blah blah

It's pretty quick. Didn't it? Yeah, yes, I think evolutionarily that would have taken a little bit more time How long this has all been going on? I bet I think if you dive deep on that which an R&D was was pretty intense and drawn out on Jurassic Park Five years 25 years. How long are we talking here? I think... That's a good question. They made dinosaurs. I think between five and 10, is my guess. Five and 10, okay. Yeah. Like, I think these dinosaurs

have been on this land in some form for multiple years before our characters are visiting. Our heroes. So this is an important part of this story. Obviously, the Gennaro character is introduced because he's there to really check up on behalf of the investors as to how this is all going. But it's like, we're good. Like they made the dinosaurs. Like the investors should be nervous if they can't make the dinosaurs.

But Gennaro doesn't know that. I was like, we're good to go. Right. Isn't the idea that Gennaro is like- He doesn't know that. Well, why is Hammond not telling anyone that they've got hundreds of dinosaurs on this island? Right. You have to fill in the back story. Look, these are all fair notes. And I think the best way to think about it is

because he's afraid of corporate plundering, right? Because he's afraid of what will happen. That someone will be like, wait, he actually, the crazy guy did it? You think there's lots of NDAs here for all the employees of Island Newport? You have to fill in blanks here, but that like, Hammond is coming off of a Disney

world level success, where he, dare I say it, has blank check status, where he's going around to people and he's like, hey, here's my new project, you can buy in, I don't tell you anything about it. Like he's going like Mike Lee rules, I need investors, there's no script, I pick the cast, you get to see it when the cut is done. Mike Lee would have been great as John Hammond. Little grouchy. Yeah, I think they would have been grouchy. Closer to the cut is done. Mike Lee would have been great as John Hammond. A little grouchy.

Yeah, I think they would have been a little grouchy. Closer to the book, possibly. But that's my read, is that he has had some series of successes that are so undeniable that he goes and pitches a blind project that's like, it's going to take 10 years, I need this amount of money, you have this percentage, I don't tell you what it is until it's done. And Gennaro is the first guy on behalf of all these investors who is seeing the thing. Not just seeing it, but for the first time being like, that's what the concept is. Isn't it weird that all of our PT Barnum figures are just into tech and politics now and they're into making shit that we like that's fun?

And like tweeting. It sucks. They're just like, the best thing you can do as a rich guy is to fucking use your phone. This is why fucking Megalopolis is a benevolent act. Sure. Because I'm like, this is what our weird rich men used to do. to fucking use your phone. This is why fucking Megalopolis is a benevolent act. Sure. Because I'm like, this is what our weird rich men used to do. Right.

Gaze into my mind! And you're like, whoa! Okay. Right, I'm like, whether or not you like it is irrelevant. This is like the best way people can spend money. Your mind is full of John Voight's boner? Yeah. You love Hudson Yards?

Um... This is my big take, because Megalopolis is about of John Voight's boner. You love Hudson yards. This is my big take is megalopolis. This is about Francis Ford Copeland. He did it. He's sons of, he responded to Hudson yards the way Gennaro looked at it. So Jurassic Park. So yes, everyone is brought to Jurassic Park, but really we only see Grant and Ellie getting the pitch.

Like the kids show up out of nowhere. Ian shows up basically out of nowhere, and Gennaro, you know. And they get the hard sell and they love it. They see the Brachiosaurus, they're amazed. It's the most famous Spielberg face of all time, right? It's the two of them seeing the dinosaur. It gives you several consecutive, him physically turning her head.

Well, you already have a little bit of, like, she's calling out the plant life. Is this incompatible? Like, they're asking follow-up questions that start to be like... Maybe I'm a dumb movie watcher, but I think it was literally this time around where I realized she was a paleobotanist. She's a paleobotanist. I was like, she's a paleontologist, just like this other guy. But she's there for the plants.

She's there for the plants. Which I guess they're also creating, by the way. They don't even get into how they're creating. Well, she talks about the different, yeah. It's extinct plants. But like, where and how are they doing that? Good point. Cool. Where's Mr. DNA for that one? Plant? DNA!

Yeah, see, I'm a mosquito, and I'm like, all right, fine, I'm a mosquito. The mosquito thing, when I did finally see this movie, at whatever age age as a child on TV or VHS after lost world The sap thing I was like holy because I just saw last world on its own and I was like I'm just taking this as a given they brought dinosaurs back I didn't know what the answer was the sap thing I was just like this is the smartest movie solve I've ever seen and I still kind of feel that way 30 years later It is Crichton's idea, right? I mean, Creighton completely came up with that. That's the trillion dollar idea. It's Creighton taking real science

and combining it with pseudoscience, which is like what he would do. But it's perfect. And it's really clever. It's perfect like pulp logic. Taking an idea and then bridging it with essentially fantasy, because I think it's like,

there's no DNA that old that you could ever find. You could find old DNA, but not 65 million years. That's ludicrous. And even if you did, right, you can't just then be like, boop, boing, you know, and then it turns into all the DNA or whatever it is the idea is, but. Missing pieces, just so from a frog in there. It doesn't matter.

The DNA sequence in the movie, the mystery, you're just like, yep, this can happen right now. And I love that it's like. I completely buy this. The carousel of progress. You're the rotating audience, seeing the glimpses of these different like offices.

And then, I mean, I love them interrupting the ride. Like them being, you know, Attenborough being like, do you get it? Do you get it? And then in a certain point they're like, wait a fucking second. Are those G-Rex eggs? Like, how do I get this bar off of me? Yes.

And- Which is what I think they all play very well is if you've devoted your life to these studies And then you find out like wait a second this guy's been doing this shit for eight years in private Some asshole just has like a grow light. They have like a logo and uniforms The merch is already on shelves? Is there anything like that happening right now in the world? I think this is what is part of what makes this premise so compelling that none of the sequels can replicate is the discovery. David and I talk a lot about Men in Black as another franchise we're obsessed with where

none of the sequels can overcome the problem of the reveal of the first time someone finds out, holy shit, this has been going on the whole time. Men in Black is a 97 minute movie where the first hour is like, let's explain what the Men in Black are. And then they're like, and now one sequence and we're done. Bye bye. And you're like, I'm perfectly satisfied. But anytime you can build a movie premise around, hey, you, the average civilian, had no idea this has been going on for years,

it's like money in the draw. That's JFK for me, guys. That's how I felt watching JFK. I was like, so the paramilitary forces of the United States of America have been pushed... The graphic design is, I think, so important to the movie. It's so good. But this is Oh, yeah, it's so good But this is the like Spielberg like fucking universal cheesy way where it's like you would buy Whereas I think a lot of movies like this. I'm like that wouldn't be successful

So the book coat it's not because that the logo is from the film It's not from the books eventually start using the logo but the original book cover was just this exactly which is the Silhouette is it's already compelling. Yeah, it looks good. It looks good using the logo. But the original book cover was just this. Exactly. Which is the silhouette. It's already compelling. It looked good. It looked good. I don't know. But every element of the font, the logo, it's also evocative. I love when you get to the merch store, you have that painting shot of the merch store. Well, of course you would. Why? Of course, I love that. But all the dinosaurs are brightly colored colored where there's that sense of like well kids don't want to buy the realistic looking What's right the t-rex has to be purple? So they are shown the park

They are impressed and then they all sit down and are like this is disgusting you have essentially defied the laws of God Right like what are you doing here? And also there seem to be only like six employees. Is anyone like watching the store essentially? And when you have lines like Muldoon being like, I told you to put fucking locks on the car. You're like, nobody thought to put locks on the car in the theme park. Like, but you kind of buy it as this is kind of like a half-assed operation in some ways, cause it's all been about making the dinosaurs.

We'll figure out the rest later. Right? I once helped launch a startup. It's extremely hard, and there's a lot of things that you forget about. It's not easy to just think of everything, and especially when you're making dinosaurs. Yes. You got to think of a lot of stuff.

And that's, I mean, launching the ringer was as hard as cloning dinosaurs from Amber. And now we are dinosaurs. But did you ever... It all worked out perfectly. Did you ever in the process consider whether or not you should? I think about it every day now actually. Yeah.

As you build a video ready podcast studios or whatever. Yes. A paddock of sorts. So interspersed with this, we do have the scene where Dennis Nadry meets with a character that will later be played by Campbell Scott, right? And in this film is played by a convicted sex offender?

Oh really? That's why he doesn't come back. I don't think that's the only reason why he doesn't come back. He doesn't make a huge impression. I'd argue that's the main reason. I imagine they were like, let's get a big shot actor here. Sure. But also we legally can't bring this guy to set.

Oh boy. Bad story. But yes. But yes, he's introduced earlier than in Malcolm, than the kids. Yeah, like the sort of, this is the wrench in the works. This is all the fucking Spielberg shit

where he just has such a good innate sense of like, what order audiences need to process information in. This place is dangerous. Alan Grant is not good with kids. Dinosaurs exist. But also like Nedry is gonna die at the halfway point. So we need to introduce him early. You can't just introduce him when the characters

would meet him for the first time. You have to start developing this, laying track for this. Wayne Knight is phenomenal in the scene with Dodgson. Him saying Dodgson's here, so funny. Him cackling at the spray can is so good because that's how I would react to that where I would just be like,

what is this James Bond ass shit trade for this like active subterfuge where I'm basically just putting some embryos in a freezer, but no, it's this like adorable, like it works, you know, him putting the foam on the pie. You're dead on though, Sean, where like, I saw Space Jam with my dad and my brother, and I was like, holy shit, people can be like that?

Like, I was just like, to me, it was like, I had just seen a T-Rex in real life. I was like, Wayne Knight, my dad was like, he's in a ton of stuff. He's a human cartoon. Do you think Barbasol paid to get their name on the can or they asked? I don't think so. Okay.

It's just like, it's so huge for Barbasol. Huge. It's an interesting question. That was my shaving cream of choice circa this time on Halloween. Oh, sure. You know, we were sort of all shaving creaming each other and the local neighborhood and then the parents were like, that's going to wipe the paint off of my house. Don't put that on my house.

I imagine it's like the E.T. Reese's Pieces thing, where M&M's was like, we don't want E.T. eating M&M's. He looks ugly. And then Reese's Pieces laughed all the way to the bank. Like, if they go to Gillette, Gillette's like, what, you're fucking smuggling DNA inside our can. We don't want that association. Like, Barbasol's kind of like a little bit more of an old timey brand. They're not hip. like, what, you're fucking smuggling DNA inside our can? We don't want that association. Like, Barbasol's kind of like a little bit more

of an old-timey brand, they're not hip. That's right. And they get the bump from this. I just feel like it speaks well of them that their product still works with embryos. Incredibly well. And then it's really just, what, it's one night, the rest of the movie, right?

It's like Nedry fucks up the park in the evening. I think another bit of brilliant Wayne Knightery is his like seething arrogance when he's sitting there at his console and he's like, no one could do what I have done. Two million lines of code or whatever. And then his pathetic performance is like, I'm just going out to go into the vending machine to,

yeah, don't mind if some things turn off and I'll see you guys later. I'm very normal right now. Just like sure you guys know I'm really normal. This is why I hate this man. I wish him to stop speaking He's the hubris is hitting like a day too early, right? He should start filling this cocky after he sold the embryos, right? He's already just sort of like I'm the master of the universe. But to get out and do what he needs to do, he needs to shut down the security in the entire park. Just gonna have to go with it. There's just no way to get out. You can't just like turn off one door. You'd think he could just turn off one door. This is a dinosaur

park. This is the hubris. He's not thinking through things clearly. He's just convinced that he can pull it off. What is his like, if it were to go successfully, how, is he supposed to hand it off to the guy at the boat and then get back to his desk in 18 minutes? He's not getting on the boat, right? He's just making a handoff to the boat. And I guess he then gets a million and a half, right? That's the number. Yeah.

It's like a good amount of money, but it's like, he should ask for a lot more. Right. It's probably worth billions as corporate... World-class corporate espionage too. Like a huge... I don't know if it's illegal in Costa Rica, but I mean, isn't he going to prison for like 12... Probably, I mean, but also isn't what they're doing illegal? Like this is the other question. This is why I asked if...

Who was on your supporting actor ballot? Because like Goldberg used the huge choice and the obvious choice and the undeniable choice in a lot of ways Wayne Knight is so fucking effective in this movie and in a way where you're just like if he's Ten degrees smaller. It's not popping in the same way and if he's ten degrees bigger it like unbalances the whole film, right? It might even be a matter of like two degrees in either direction and he's off. And you're right, he plays the balance, all the arcs of like...

You're just, he probably only has whatever, 10 minutes in the movie. It's just a really, it's a Dion Waiters-esque performance. I'm just gonna keep doing every watchable's terminology. Sure. But everyone in this movie is Dion Waitersing it up, right? Even BD Wong, sure, he really just gets the one scene. That scene is so powerful.

He makes a huge impression. He makes a huge impression because you're like, this seems like a good person. And he seems to be almost just kind of doing this out of love. The hatching scene is this lovely scene. And it's just, you're like, this is a huge mistake. And of course, the best part being they have hatched a velociraptor. Where they're like, so what is this cute little thing? And it's like God's perfect killing

machine. We're gonna start feeding it so it gets big. He makes such a huge impression that Travarro decides to make him the Emperor Palpatine, Obi-Wan Kenobi of his trilogy. They can't decide which one it is. They keep going back and forth. I think it's partly that BD Wong sort of just had such a long impressive career, right? And like, so by the time the legacy sequels come around, it's like, that's a fucking vein to tap. Bring back BD Wong, right? Well, I think the other part of it, I think there's some just sort of hard math of it,

of like, okay, we bring back one legacy character, like Malcolm Sattler and Grant all did sequels. Attenborough's dead, right? Like Nedry's dead canonically within the film. As is Sam Jackson. Right. The kids, like no one's going to recognize. Right. You're like, by default, I guess BD Wong is the most powerful person to bring back.

You're right. And then, of course, then they brought back the real stars, Locusts. Love those Locusts. Love those Locusts. Yeah, and... But, you know, the film's perfectly structured, in my opinion, in that you are getting all of this explanation in the middle of Spielbergian wonder.

The Triceratops, the Brachiosaurus, the egg hatching and all that. It's the balance. He's just got, like, such a good, like, eye on the clock of, like, without feeling schematic of, like, okay, every 10 minutes there has to be awe. Right. It doesn't feel as, like, diagrammed as that. Right, which, again, not to keep bringing up

the fucking Jurassic world, but those movies have that problem, the classic MCU thing of just like, yep, it's been 20 minutes, time for an action sequence. But also just the feeling of like, why is it from Ken in this movie? Like what are we accomplishing by including his character? He gets killed off and you're just like, I just felt like a waste of time.

He doesn't really add anything to the narrative. Those movies are setting up so many things where you're like, I don't know if this is seeding for future films or these are the vestiges of a previous draft or what? And this movie, it's what you said, Cap came in and was just like fucking focus it, narrow it down. And what I love about, so everything pops off while they are on the T-Rex tour.

And I love that everyone is on the T-Rex tour. They are all awed by the majesty of the science. They are not that interested in the park. Right, like they're actually here to evaluate a theme park, right, in a way. And he's like, take the ride, and the ride sucks. And they're all just sitting in the car. And the movie's energy is starting to be like,

what's gonna, you know, are we gonna get to something? Yeah. Right? Like it's perfectly timed within the structure of the movie for them to finally, for shit to get real. The perfect storm of all these elements colliding at the same time, namely a storm happening at the same time that Nedry is pulling his shit. It's everyone on the beach at Amity Island.

That's what it is. We're all on the beach, we know something's gonna happen. And the T-Rex shows up, and it is the most, like, consequentially... Like, it's just like... The expectations for the T-Rex could up, and it is the most, like, consequentially... Like, it's just like... The expectations for the T-Rex could not be higher in this movie, and the movie, like, surpasses them by so much. Is that right? Yeah.

I was convulsing in my chair at 11 years old. I couldn't believe how cool it was. Is there anything like that since Jurassic Park? I'm fucking serious. No, no, I'm thinking deeply. Avatar legitimately, when I... The first time I... I've told this story many times before. The first time I saw Avatar...

Hell yeah. ...at the Lincoln Center AMC, and my jaw was on the floor. Look. On the floor. We stay in Avatar in this house. We love Avatar. I don't think there's... There's not one thing in Avatar...

It's not the one thing. I mean, as much as I have respect for the Mighty Akron. Yeah, of course and to Rook Mactoe I think as soon as we get into that first night sequence. I look I fucking love it Like Titanic is similar in terms of like Titanic when to me the most like the most like I can't believe I'm seeing this Moment in Titanic is the water coming through the dome. Sure. Where you're just like, that's real water! Yes.

Like, those people are being drowned in one billion gallons of water. But I, yes, I agree with you that like... Lord of the Rings is sort of like, maybe the Balrog, but like, there's not quite anything like this. It's a great movie moment, but it doesn't feel the same. Yeah. It's the one, and what's incredible about it is they basically pulled off the awe-inspiring, positive, romantic version of this moment with the reveal of the Brachiosaurus, and like nailed that. And then for the second time, like 45 minutes later,

they do the inverse of that, which is like, what is the ultimate terror? I don't think there's... He's so majestic. Yes. She's so majestic, the T-Rex. And the entire sequence, you're also just like, this is completely out of control. This is an animal.

Right. And the way it behaves is so perfect, where it's just, where it bites the underside of the car, right? Like, it's like, you know, things like that, where you're just like, right, this is, they have no control over this! Like, it's just rampaging around like any animal would. It looks like a puppy in a way. Wasn't there, it wasn't one of the key T-Rex facts This is, they have no control over this. It's just rampaging around like any animal would.

It looks like a puppy in a way. Wasn't there, it wasn't one of the key T-Rex facts that I learned as a kid that they have small brains, that they're not smart, that there are smart dinosaurs in this world, but T-Rexes, while great killers are not intelligent. I think there's tons of debate over this now, but at the time, that's what we were being told.

That they were stupid. So that animal instinct that you're talking about where it like, it's actually not good at hunting down all of this raw flesh that's served up to it. That's what's scary about it too is you're like, you can't pathologize this thing. Right, right. But you kind of love it. The raptors, you're like, I'm terrified of those things, get them out of here, shoot them in the head.

Which is why world making the choice of like, They're Our Friends Now was kind of a bold one in a way, but then it's also just kind of annoying to me. Cause I just want them to be the xenomorph. Like if there's ever the fucking alien movie where there's someone who's like, I have tamed an alien, I'm gonna be so mad. I would say it is inevitable. It feels inevitable, right?

One day there'll be some, it'll do the walking dead thing if someone's got an alien on a chain Right Romulus. Yeah, or nay Didn't see I had twins bro. I give I I give it an okay. I put it right in the middle I had a good time while watching it. I'm a softie. Yeah, I'm as I'm a soft Yeah, the softest of you see wrong. I did not I don't even have a good excuse I just was kind of like, I'll get to it. There's some Ben stuff in it for sure.

There's some real Ben stuff. It's gooey. It's gotta be gooey. I'm sure there's chains. I mean, if Fendi Alvarez like remade Kate and Leopold, it would be like full of goo. Like, he'd be like, where'd all this goo come from? He's like, I can't help it. If he remade Sleepless in Seattle, it would be full of goo.

It's really dark in this chamber. Oh boy. I kind of love how Jurassic Park is a little gross. It is very gross. I like how it's sweaty Sweaty rainy gooey slimy snotty Using on kids big big poop diamonds, you know Yeah, that is just like it's a movie that goes out of its way to not blarp its characters, to take back an old term in our terminology, right? I mean, this movie is no Lost in Space, to be clear.

Of course. But you got to like split up the crew into a couple little smaller teams. I'm just like, she needs to stay and focus on the poop. It's such a good way to split her off to be able to have splinter units that doesn't feel like the movie's disregarding her. No, I think she has, I mean, people... And she stays present. I've heard that complaint that she has less of an arc.

But obviously, Alan's is really the only arc because Malcolm gets pseudo-killed off. Yeah. I mean, the movie doesn't actually kill him off, but it's sort of like, okay, bye, Ian. He just gets to be the vocal conscious of the movie. Right, he's just like, I was right. Yeah. She's the one who's like going out and actually facing shit. She is.

Like, she in a lot of ways is the most conventional action hero of the movie because Malcolm's laid up for the second half and Grant's primary thing is keeping the kids safe. She's like going out and solving shit. Her limp is burned into my mind. Her dragging her leg running towards Sam Neill. I mean, and Dern doing that face

that she does in every David Lynch movie, this sort of strained face, like is perfect. The stuff with Alan and the kids, I feel like at the time critics were like warm, but not in love with this movie. But right, it's part of their like, I saw Hook, this guy is cooked, man. He can't help with this trickily kid shit.

Everyone was like, this is better than Hook, but like he's been domesticated. He'll never make a movie as nasty as Jaws again. Raiders has more grit and edge. 100%. Even ET has this sort of darker energy to it, even though it's about kids and stuff. And I watch this stuff now, and the stuff with the kids, I think, is very, very effective because the kids are not really annoying.

Ariana Richards does a great scream. And yes, okay, it's a little annoying when she says it's a Unix system. I mean, it's an awesome moment. It's like a meme now. Very hacker forward film. Yes. It's really funny at the moment where you're like,

oh, they're giving her something to do, great. But like, Mozilla saying he threw up, it always gets me because there's a T-Rex. He doesn't need to explain why he threw up, but it's such a vulnerable kid thing to do. He's embarrassed. No, I mean- And like Alan being like, that's fine, it's okay.

Like it's such a, it's like a moment you would have at like a daycare, but it's like after a T-Rex knocked a Jeep over a cliff. I talk a lot about a time I spent with my little cousin who I love, he's a great kid. And it was just startling to watch this movie and be like, man, they really nailed this age group. Right, what that kid is like.

When I hang out with him and he just wants to tell me facts that he's just learned or ask me questions about the facts he hasn't got an answer to yet. So real. You know, like we have a shared interest. Do you know what I know about dinosaurs? And what do you know about dinosaurs that I don't know? My nephew Jack is the exact same way. He loves dinosaurs. And every time I see him, here's my new favorite. Here are the things I know about dinosaurs that I don't know my nephew Jack is the same way He loves dinosaurs and every time I see him. Here's my new favorite. Yeah, that's why I know about it

That's just gonna be a golden error for me as a dad because I have so much useless Like hanging out with this nine-year-old And I'm like who's doctor But I think the stuff with the kids mostly works, and it's also not a huge part of the movie. You have the tree sequence, which is nice, and you have the fence sequence, which is, you know, intense. Scary.

Yeah. The other thing too, I think, related to the critics point that you were making is, historically, critics who are often older, usually in the back half of their life, if they are of some stature in the culture, are terrible on horror. And this is a horror movie. It has all the hallmarks of a horror movie structurally,

all the big scare moments. It is a very high-minded science fiction adventure movie. But at its heart. And it's a roller coaster movie. Yeah, but at its heart, it's horror. And middle-aged critics stink on horror. They almost always do. I'm very conscious of this as I get into that phase of my life,

because you've lost a kind of essence of what appeals to young people who love to feel this way. And this is a movie made for young people to make them excited and make them understand, like, the way you felt when you were six, when you discovered dinosaurs, that you could still have that when you're 60 and John Hammond. It's like a brilliant fusion.

So I tend to not take criticism of deep genre very seriously, no matter when it's come around. I mean, unless you're looking in like Fangoria or whatever, you know, like where there were appreciators of genre as it came, right? Like, yeah, no, I mean, Pauline Kael, like, loved Spielberg. We'll talk about her. Was one of his earliest champions.

And then like when Raiders comes out, she she's like he's become this fucking machine guy. Like I hate this shit. This is just a theme park now. And there's no, it's so funny to read her Raiders review where she's just like there's no exhilaration and then you're like it's Raiders at the Logs. It's built for exhilaration. It's the most exhilarating ride of the year. Are you out of your mind Pauline?

Even though you see those reviews from the time of Raiders, they had to, like, fucking nominate for Best Picture. They were like, we can't deny this, right? Whereas this time, they could because of Schindler's List. Exactly. If there isn't Schindler's List, do they have to nominate this movie? I think so. I would contend. Yes.

In the way that, like, there were the sort of undeniable, like Beauty and the Beast, you know, where you're just like, you know what, this is a seismic enough moment in film culture and like the audience has made their opinion heard. I do think that's gets nominated for best picture if Schindler isn't in the same year and the Academy is like, great, Spielberg has made this easy for us. You know what? We get to split him in half.

Let me throw the question to the two of you and Ben can answer it too. And we'll talk about Schindler's List next week on Blank Check, obviously. Do you have this over Schindler? You're doing a 1993 top 10. You're a critic. Do your top 10. I mean, obviously you can also just do your Spielberg list. How old a critic am I?

You know, you're Sean Fennessy. Right now I'm saying like do a 1993 list for me. I like this film more than Schindler's List. So do I. I certainly understand the magnitude and importance of Schindler's List. Not just to Spielberg, but to the history of, you know, to world history. This is one of the most watchable movies ever made, and Schindler is a movie you have to prep yourself for.

Well, I'm going to argue on that episode, one of the things about Schindler's List that's kind of crazy is how fucking watchable it is. Very watchable. I agree, but it is a movie that you have to be like, okay, I'm ready for this. You're not just going to be like, should we do 45 minutes of Schindler? Like, yeah, no, no, for sure. The interesting thing about that Oscar question, whether this movie would be nominated,

is that this is the year that the Fugitive was nominated. 100%. That is the same exact thing you're talking about. Where it's like, this is pure Hollywood entertainment and it's so good, we cannot not recognize it. How do we not recognize just the most robust kind of Hollywood filmmaking? But like Butterfly Effect, if Schindler comes out

the following year, then I think Jurassic gets Fugitives Nom in that slot. I fully agree. I fully agree. I think so. I think, I mean, we'll get to our final rankings. I think I put Schindler above this, but I put ET and Jaws and maybe Close Encounters

as well above Schindler. I would agree that those movies are above Jurassic Park. For me, in the sort of like, faux objective point of view, it's impossible for me to disentangle my relationship to movies with Jurassic Park. It's impossible. Yeah. But I think I do have Raiders and Jaws over Jurassic.

Mm-hmm. Yes. Jaws, yes, Raiders, no. But I do think as time goes on... Yeah, maybe you're right. For me, for me. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. You know what? I'll redo my list.

And we're not even talking about AI. Like, there's a fan base. AI is my number one scoop. Yeah, so, you know, we did this bifurcated thing where we covered everything from Lost World to, at that point, what was the ending point? BFG. BFG.

We've covered everything else that's come out since then as a catch-up episode. In that ranking, you put AI number one. Yeah, it's my number one. And I can't remember if I put AI number one or number two. I might have put Catch number one. You love Catch. But I also saw AI again recently, was playing at Film Forum, and I'm like, this is my...

I've seen AI so many times. It was such a big movie for me as a teenager, which is why I'm weird and stupid. It was huge for me when it came out. You put, you both put AI at number one. I think, you know what the difference is? We both put AI at number one. I think, you know what the difference is? We both put AI at number one. I think you said AI is your favorite Spielberg period. It's my favorite Spielberg period.

What did I have at number two, Ben? Minority report. And I still have it at number two. Saving Private Ryan, Catch Me If You Can, and Griffin, your is number two is Catch Me If You Can. Then three. Three, Bridge. Hell yeah.

Four, Tintin. Five, Minority Report. That's my fucking guy. He's got a nose for a good story. I know Lincoln is only higher. Lincoln is pure, pure drugs to me. Just like every time I watch that movie, I am like, this is fucking molten ecstasy. I love this so much. As Lincoln is like arguing with his wife over their dead son, I'm just like,

yes! Our son is dead! I'm like being like, get me a fourth blanket! It's cold in here! In 2022, after West Side Story, we did a Top 5 Spielberg episode. And my top five was, it was me and Amanda and Joanna. And it was, five was Minority Report. Four was Raiders. Three was Jurassic Park. Two was AI and was my minority report. Four was Raiders. Three was Jurassic

Park. Two was AI and one was Jaws. Amanda and Joanna both had Jurassic Park at number one. I mean, I think that's that's it for our generation. It is the Spielberg movie. Yeah. Right. It is. I think so for the millennials. That's the thing. You read the reviews. I know you're sort of a cuspy millennial. I'm still officially millennial, but I have some Gen X traits. You had elder statesman critics like Pauline Kael. Sure, she's retired at this point I think. Had discovered Spielberg as an adult and were commenting on the later periods of Spielberg's

career as an adult, right? But the time this movie's coming out, you have a lot of critics who grew up on Jaws and are now going like well It's fun, but it's no jaws. There was a lot of Corporateness of this movie and they were like this feels corporate this feels diagram This feels kind of broad didn't break the record for the most corporate tie-ins But it's it's right at the middle I guess of, of all of it. Right. This is sort of, this movie feels strategic. This is an entire lifestyle experience, is this movie coming out this summer.

Right, and their argument was, none of this has the stickiness in depth of Jaws, which works so well as a character piece in a drama. And I'm like, you could dress up as any of the nine human leads of Jurassic Park for Halloween and people would know who you are. Now they would, you're right. Now they would. Like, and the costume is would. And the costuming is not super broad. No. But you're right. Like Hammond, Ellie.

Yeah. I've talked about this with the podcast, The Ride Guys, where we're like, there's all this Jurassic shit. It's wild they don't have people walking around dressed like Sam Neill because people would lose their fucking minds. That's a good point. Just in the blue shirt. And it's not that hard. No, it's very simple. Yeah, just doing the Galaxy's Edge style thing.

Yeah, that would work. Man, remember Bridges of Spies. Yeah, do you remember? Absolute, absolute jack of a movie. So good. Unbelievable. Do you like Bridges of Spies? Of course.

I mean, he's... He doesn't make a lot of bad movies. He's still as powerful as ever, in my opinion. West Side Story and Fableman's is... It's obscene how good those movies are for where he is in his life. Yeah. As powerful as ever, in my opinion. West Side Story and Fableman's is... It's obscene how good those movies are for where he is in his life. Yeah. It is just the thing too, of like everyone talks about West Side Story. I was watching fucking... Tom...

What was that sound? Dunno. That sounded like a ghost in the walls? Did it not? I dunno. Spielberg is listening. Was that a pipe thing? Yeah, probably.

Yeah, I don't know. Okay. I don't know. John Hammond's spirit calling out to us. Create once more. Five comedy points. I was watching a bunch of videos of Tom Hanks speaking at Oxford. Sure. This went viral a couple years ago, maybe a year or two ago.

I just went deep onto this and talking to students and asking questions and whatever. And he was talking about how much for him he is like a director, actor, and it's all about the different collaborations. And there are multiple people, he's worked with multiple times, they have very different styles

and he likes that flexibility and whatever. And they were like, what's it like working with Spielberg? And he was like, here's like the defining story of working with Spielberg is like on the post I had done like four movies with him already at that point or whatever a lot of the other actors were really nervous about working with him the script was so like word-dense and so precise and accurate that we had to get it right and the actors were like Tom can we please do a rehearsal and work on

this it was one of the scenes where like ten of the primary actors in the Washington Post office are all like fighting back and forth and whatever. And he was like, sure, I'll be like sort of the team captain and I'll help run all of this. And they work it and they get it word perfect and they feel good about the rhythm. Cause he's like, Steven expects you to just show up having done your work, he's not gonna hold your hand.

You gotta show up prepared. And they get to set and Spielberg's like, you know what might be interesting is if the shot is the man carrying the package with the Pentagon papers and we track him over to the desk and he drops it off and the entire thing they had worked for like two days, none of them are in focus on camera at any point. He shot the entire sequence in one shot. None of them are ever in focus. And he's like, that's the thing with Spielberg, is he is like the most incredible, like,

multi-dimensional problem solver of he's just like a genius. It's innate where he gets there and he's like, what's the most important thing? What is the thing I need to convey in this scene, whether it's information or feeling? Well, then also he just knows how to visually think about things. Totally.

In a very, very innovative way. Like, even at his advanced age, it's not like he's fucking Clint Eastwood, but he's an older man. He's still kind of unparalleled at that. There's so much verve to something like West Side Story. Like, and like, it would just be so easy for him to phone some of these movies in and sometimes he does and it's called the BFG. And most of the times he does not.

Very rare though. And, you know, as I know you can attest, father of 100 children, I'm the father of just one child. And I'm like, I need a sandwich and a nap most of the day. Me need sleepy. Now obviously, look, I had this conversation with my dear pal, Caitlin, about the Mets, about Lindor after his daughter was born, was like playing baseball the next day. And she's like, that's crazy. He's an alien. He's an alien. But I'm

also like, yes, but of course he's also a wealthy athlete. He has a lot of help. He can get support for his family. You did the trap episode five days after your twins were born. I did. That's a that's a that's breaking news. That should go into the Hall of Fame. Yes, that was that was but that was hard. That was hard. But I sound okay on it. But you also had also been training for that episode. That is six months writing the profile. Your whole life. Most episodes don't get that level of preparation.

The stress of like, will I finish that article and see Trap and all that stuff as my like, anyway. We knew Trap was so close to fucking due date. Trap was really close. It's almost like you planned it. Yeah. God, the butcher. Finish your point, I'm sorry. I don't remember my point. Trap was really close. It's almost like you planned it. Yeah. God, the butcher. Finish your point, I'm sorry. I don't remember my point. He's a good dad.

You were talking about Matt's, the guy who played after at the bottom. No, no, no, there's no point. Okay. I was just saying, like, Steven Spielberg has, he has the resources at least to be a parent with lots of support, one assumes. Oh, totally.

Like, he's not going home and being, you know, changing every diaper. Maybe he is, maybe Spielberg can call me out. He's not going home and changing every diaper. Maybe he is. Maybe Spielberg is calling me out. He's also just gotten more irons on the fire in his world than we do. He sure does. They'll have to podcast people who are having a very calm, quiet experience in a quiet room. Sure.

Hundreds of people are reliant upon him every day. Correct. Yeah. He still kind of moves mountains with his every word. It sure seems that way in something like The Post is a movie, obviously, that came together immediately because Spielberg decided, I think I'll do this right now. Some of his movies take a long time to get made. I mean, this post-Fableman's period.

Or even to a certain degree post-West Side Story of him slowing way down, taking long gaps now. He's finally committed to a new movie. He's doing the David Kep movie, right? But that on paper sounds like a little bit more of a classical Spielberg movie. It does kind of sound like him being like, you know, I didn't do an event movie for the 2020s yet.

Right. Fuck it, why don't I? I could not be more excited. I couldn't either. I mean, so if we're saying like Jaws is that in the 70s. It's Josh O'Connor and... Look, the guy casts like, Hottest. Emily Blunt?

Yeah. Is it Emily Blunt, Josh O'Connor? Oh my God. I mean, get out of here. There's someone else good in that. Oh, Coleman Domingo? Keep going. This is wonderful.

The whole thing, if you're just... Sean Fennessy? If you're just thinking of this kind of movie, right? So in the 70s, it's Jaws, in the 80s, it's Raiders, in the 90s, it's Jurassic Park. Like, I'm not even mentioning Close Encounters or E.T., like other gigantic, you know, like in the 2000s, is it Minority Report? Is that the closest?

Or is it War of the Worlds? I think it's actually Catch Me If You Can. It's kind of, Legacy actually is Catch Me If You Can. Because that was a, it's not the same kind of genre thing that we're talking about, but it is in a way. It's kind of like a is catch me if you can because that was a it's not the same kind of genre thing that We're talking about but it is in a way. It's kind of like a Mouse hunt movie and it was a huge hit but it sure was huge it but that's the reason why we had this idea to just do the back half of Spielberg years ago was like His post-oscar career is fascinating and the choices he makes when

he feels like he's been validated at the highest echelons, what does he have to prove anymore? And like this notion in the early 2000s of, oh my God, Tom Cruise and Spielberg are going to work together. That's going to be the biggest movie of all time. The two ultimate crowd pleasers. And they make two movies that are like dark and haunted. And War of the Worlds did not underperform, but Nerdy Report kind of did. crowd pleasers and they make two movies that are like dark and haunted. Right. And War of the Worlds did not underperform, but Minority Report kind of did. They both were hits, but like... I mean, Minority Report is, in my opinion, like his second best movie ever.

I love that movie to death. But like, AI, Minority Report, War of the Worlds on paper, like these classic Spielberg movie incoming. Third best. All three movies rule, but it definitely felt like they were received a little bit. Like this is less fun than I thought it would be. Yeah, 100%. Like, I mean, that's what's fascinating.

He read his post-911 especially. Yeah, he becomes tinged with darkness. And by the time, then he does Tintin and Warhorse and you're like, oh, he's sort of doing like more of an old, old boy adventure thing, but Warhorse is quite a sad movie. Yeah. Tintin is not.

And then when he does Ready Player One, that movie's a hit. It was, it was an unambiguous hit, but it was kind of the first time it felt like, eh, I think people are more interested in a different kind of product at this level now. Sure. Right? Like that movie went over fine,

but by that point it's like, nah, people are seeing the superhero things and that's now the sort of definitive version of this kind of entertainment. And Spielberg and Lucas are doing interviews and saying like, hey, this whole thing's gotten out of control. The blockbusters are going to collapse. The studios are like cruising for a bruising. Right.

And of course, he was right. He was right. You look at those quotes and they're insane where he's like, the problem is they make 200, like 10, $200 million a year. And when three of those start bombing in a year and they're insane where he's like the problem is they make 200 Like 10 200 million dollars a year and when three of those start bombing any year, they're fucked They're fucked they can get away with one bombing per year What you should do is and again, I know this move this episode is coming out six months from now or whatever But like what you should do is make a 200 million dollar courthouse musical Yeah, that's money. Well, it is the story of Warner Brothers in 2024

Yes, you know, this is the story of Warner Brothers in 2024. This is the summer of Furiosa and Horizon and Joker and DeFoliet did. They have, they had Beetlejuice, which was like an undeniable fucking home run for them and made for like a reasonable budget. And then they made so few films. You look at like Furiosa being a thing that was largely funded by like, you know, Village Roadshow and like Australian film industry and then like Horizon was a pickup for them. Trap was like a negative pickup for them

And then Joker was one of the only movies that they really put all their muscle behind and built themselves Yep after Mostly selling out on Joker people forget that Warner Brothers Divested itself with a lot of Joker because they didn't believe in that movie and then they made a billion dollars. Anyway, and so for Joker 2 they were all in and then it was a pile of dog shit nobody wanted to see.

I want to tell the story quickly. Okay. We should talk about the end of Jurassic Park. We should. This is a little link to the end of Jurassic Park. Talking about like Spielberg being a next level problem solver. He's making this movie around like historic hurricanes. Yes, crazy hurricanes.

Hitting, right, they're losing days having to like evacuate. And I think at certain points they lost sets entirely. And we're just like, well, I guess we just have to move on. We can't get any more days out of that location or whatever it was. But there's the story of him just trying to figure out how to get as much footage as he could. What's the latest point we can safely evacuate without wanting to put anyone's life in danger?

I think being conscious of like, I can't be John Hammond, but how do I squeeze as much out of this safely? And so like he's filming while sending Kathleen Kennedy to figure out how to get people off the island onto a safer place. And she like finds her way to Honolulu, gets to the airport, is trying to find anyone who can transport the amount of people they still have, and she flags down a guy and is like, you, you have like a plane, can you fly me out? Wait a second, you look familiar, don't you?

And he was the fucking guy who played Jock Lindsay in Raiders of the Lost Ark. A man who was a real life pilot because they need him to fucking fly a plane on camera And then he gets two lines of dialogue right and he was like oh, yeah, no, of course. I'll fly you out You took care of me Kathy. Wow. Yeah It's just crazy to think of like jock lindsey flying out the entire cast of Jurassic Park to safety almost mirroring the end of this Movie feels like the end of the movie. Yes It's weird than a movie like this, so clearly at the absolute center of culture, would have an imperiled production.

You'd think that they would have just built a new sound stage that could have replicated, you know? But there was nothing like that. I know, I know. I'm watching this movie. Even Spielberg making a dinosaur movie, it's like, yeah, okay, buddy, but try to keep the budget under 70 mil. I was thinking this while watching it, where it's like, oh, this is like as big of a budget

we give, but there are limits. You know, you read quotes and you're just like, no movie will ever cost $200 million with something people were saying in the early 2000s. But like George Lucas being like, fuck it, I do Phantom Menace basically self funding it with merch sales. Like that was, that's the beginning of like, okay, like I guess people are writing blank checks themselves. But yeah, exactly like this is still an era where the most powerful person in Hollywood

making the most like slam dunk blockbuster premise and Being like responsible with his days in his budget is like can I have Kurt Russell and they're like Kurt Russell is gonna cost a million Dollars, but if you get Kurt Russell, you have to lose 20 shots of dinosaurs Yeah, right. We're cutting one of those raptors. Sorry, buddy. And if you lose a location or you lose days, then you're like, I guess we cut out like Samuel L. Jackson's death scene. And he's really smart about like, okay, what's the best, most effective way to make like

a gift out of a mistake? How do you make it more impactful that you don't see him die? And that's revealed later. He's still working within like boxing himself into corners. Yeah, or kitchen counters. Should we talk about Raptors in the Kitchen? Sure. Cool sequence.

Here's a take I had. Ba ba ba ba da da da da. I don't know, like we have largely avoided this, but like it is hard to talk about Jurassic Park in some ways where you're like, the Raptors in the Kitchen is a really effective and terrifying sequence. I just find myself saying like, this was cool,

like a lot of the time watching it. I don't. This is the mirrored, you know, when she's hiding in the sliding doors and the mirrored shot and where the raptor runs right into it. I'm just like, that's just cool. The raptor bonking. That's just a cool idea for a movie shot.

And falling over too is so perfect. You're like, the weird clumsiness of them is sort of terrifying in a way. And the way they're, you can hear their claws on the metal where you're just like, again, you're like the weird clumsiness of them is sort of terrifying in a way in the way there You can hear their claws on the metal where you're just like again You're like this is wrong a raptor shouldn't be in a kitchen, right? Raptors belong in 65 billion years ago Well, excuse me David anyone can cook don't say a raptor shouldn't be in a kitchen It's my gusto even just explaining Like unless they can open doors and then hard cut to a door handle opening, you know?

Like, the most dumb shit, but effective, emotionally engaging filmmaking. So brilliant. Here was a thought I had while watching it this time. And I don't mean to put the two franchises on the same level, or put any of those films on the level of this film in particular. But I was watching it and I was just like, this sort of like haunted house, like pressure cooker, the dinosaurs here, the persons here, hanging on the silence of as you said, like

the sounds of the claw tapping and the feel of like the raptor closing in. That is a thing that like, you know, lost world nails in that one sequence dangling over the cliff, but it's the most supersized version of it. And it feels like the later films don't even try to really emulate. It's become an entirely different thing. I do think it's kind of the secret juice to the Quiet Place movies, is they are the best modern evocations of what works so well in Jurassic of just like tight cast, good actors. You characterize them well, and it's just about like,

you know how these creatures work? You put them in long sort of like... One of my big problems with that franchise, which I think is like, a solid... All of those movies are watchable. I agree. I like all... I'm a big defender of that series in part because of what Griffin is saying.

I don't think any of them are masterpieces, but that is why they work. They're good because of the humans. I find the monsters boring and kind of boring to look at. I like how they work is fine. But they're also trying to do the same Jurassic Park thing of like, don't show them too much. Like show some restraint. Don't answer too much.

It's a good example of like what a digitally created creature, its limitations. Because if there was a practical version of that creature in those movies, it actually would be more effective. It would be way more effective. It would be way more effective. It would be so cool. And the fact that they can move supernaturally fast is lame. I agree. I agree.

Yeah. Sorry. What are you typing? My wife's asking how it's going. Must be nice. Okay. We mentioned it, but I feel like there's so many stories about this is not in the dossier that the decision to have the T-Rex re-enter and sort of quote-unquote have the hero moment

I mean this is his Godzilla moment. Was a later decision and is a brilliant one right where it's like how do we deal with the Raptors? How do you kill it? Because like if it just ends with them shooting Raptors with shotguns, that's kind of lame. What's smart is also you kind of show how meaningless this is. Yeah. You're like these dinosaurs had no specific ire for these humans. Right. They're just sort of like out for blood.

But this like, it feels, it finally clicked for me watching it this time that it feels very Godzilla of like, you know, Godzilla starts out as like the most terrifying thing you could ever imagine happening to humanity. And then Godzilla exists as a franchise for decades that is introducing a new monster and the only way to solve it is for Godzilla to kill that monster. And you're like, come on! Is Godzilla our friend? No, Godzilla is still scary. We still can't control Godzilla. But if Godzilla can knock down Hedorah, then we're fine with Godzilla. I mean, I'm not that versed in the Godzilla movies.

And I have the big Criterion booklet, you know, thingy, right? It's a beautiful set. Which is such a wonderful thing. And as I slowly watch all of my discs, I'm like watching every disc that I've never seen before or barely remember, right? So I recently had to watch Rambo Last Blood. Because I bought like a Rambo box set. And have you seen Rambo Last Blood?

Horrendous. A truly like congressional inquiry level like what the fuck happened here. Wildly racist. So racist! Exceedingly unnecessarily violent. Well you're like, why does Rambo have to be so racist? It's very very confusing. Like even though the earlier ones are sort of like somewhat paternalistic about the people in

other countries, this one's just like, no, Mexicans are scum. But also a franchise that was built on how disillusioned he was with America. Yeah, and then- It was such a contained story. It has nothing to do with going overseas and murdering people. It's just very strange. He's like Rambo 4, Rambo, right? That one.

It's kind of bad, but it's got awesome throat ripping and shit. And you're like, yeah, this sucks, but who cares? Rambo 5, you're like, this is mean-spirited. This is horrible. Anyway, I will one day watch all the Godzilla's. But my experience of Godzilla is only movies about how Godzilla is so scary. You know what I mean? This is why I'm making this analogy is in the later films where Godzilla has to defeat

a greater threat, part of what I think is so fascinating about Godzilla movies is that Godzilla still remains scary. That it's still like, okay, he's at least like, we share a common enemy, but we can't control this thing. And this thing's existence in our world is terrifying. And I think Spielberg nails that moment of like, there is triumphant, oh my God, great, the T-Rex is solving our problems.

It's distracting the velociraptors. We can literally just drive away. But it's also scary that they're in a fucking room with a T-Rex. There's a difference though. Godzilla is, while they share this sort of like, man's misshapen creation origin story, Godzilla is like a vengeful god. Like, he is out to

take back what was rightfully his, you know, to get revenge for what has been done to the world. And he's a representation of our worst creations in the post-war... T-Rex is just a fucking eating monster. It's just, I'm hungry, get out of my way. Which is way scarier. Like, there's no intentionality other than, like, I need food in my belly. So it is, it's very satisfying, I find,

when the raptors are getting, get taken out. And shout out to that raptor that tried to jump on T-Rex's back. He gakes a real effort. Yeah. He took a shot at it. He throws him into a skeleton. But T-Rex is a power unto itself. Oh god, it's so good.

And then the banner coming down. The banner coming down. It's just like, find a chest cast. Fuck you, just made you come. Just like a moment. That he has the judgment to execute properly, where if anyone else did it, you'd be like, you're fucking gilding the lily here.

And it's like, he just knows the right speed for the banner to fall, the timing of when it should start falling. And of course, Williams' score being like, I've been here, like we've mostly been chilling, but like, I can pop this score again. They get in the copter, Alan's sleeping, and everyone's like, by the way, Hammond, hate your parks. Zero out of 10, F-minus.

And he's like, agree, see you later. You end on Laura Dern quietly processing everything, looking at everyone, digesting. It's all on her face. Everyone walks out so happy. Who walks out of this movie unhappy? This movie just settles itself. It's like, you know what they need to do?

They need to leave the island. The second they're in the helicopter two lines of dialogue three maximum And then it's just looks there's no like John Hammond holding a press conference announcing his apology to the world Remind me what is how does the book end? Is that like more about what they do to the island am I? bookend. Is there more about what they do to the island? Am I misremembering that?

The island falls apart more significantly. There's a fire from what I'm right. The island is more powerfully destroyed and Malcolm is still on it. And I think they fucking napalm it or something. That's what I thought. They blow it up. That's what I think. That they destroy it.

And that's why you're like, Malcolm's dead. And that's why when then they told Crichton like write a sequel buddy It better be called Jurassic Park 2 and it better have dinosaurs in it. He's like Five million dollar machine gun and they're like, by the way, Jeff Goldblum completely rocked in that movie So he's the star of the next one and he's like I killed that character off and they're like Undo it and in the sequel novel, he's just like, yeah, I didn't die. What cares? The napalm, I guess.

Um, but the, the novel also ends with some kind of like clever kind of movie-esque report of like, and then weird reports of like odd migrating animals in Costa Rica, like behaving unusually and you And you're like, okay, they got out. And they don't do that here. This movie doesn't feel the need to tie up any loose ends. It doesn't feel the need to set up new threads for sequels to pick on. It just ends because the humans have made it off the island. It's over.

Like, which by the way, Jaws does as well. Like Jaws is just like the shark's dead movie over. A hundred percent. Let's come off. We don't have to show them getting back to land, hugging their wives. Both franchises inspired several unnecessary, often uninspired sequels. So this I think is a fascinating quote from Premier Magazine, May 1997, when Lost World is coming out.

Spielberg said, I didn't think it was a perfect film and it wasn't so close to my heart that I need to protect the integrity of a follow-up by preventing anyone else from doing one, which I certainly had the right to do. Among the films that I really think are good movies and that I've directed, it's not even in the top five. But there was such an outpouring of demand from the public, thousands and thousands of letters, and so after all those years of denying them the sequel to ET, which he famously considered and developed. But was also like, I can't find a way into that.

Right. Yeah. I couldn't find a way into that. Right. Right, yeah. I couldn't face the same nine-year-old now saying, okay, so you're not going to make a sequel to ET. I understand how personal it was to you. So why are you not making the sequel Jurassic Park? And I had no answer to that. That because this movie was kind of just like pure exercise for him,

he was like, well, there's nothing like sacred that I don't want to touch upon. The only other thing he sequelizes himself is Indiana Jones, which is designed to be a franchise. And part of Lucas like bringing him on was you have to commit to make three. I want these to be ongoing. But he steps away from Jaws. He like kills his own ET sequel. This is the only other time that he does it. Do some show lore for me right now.

What is your version of The Lost World? What is the thing that you have thousands of letters about that people desperately want you to do? Oh. Another performance review. And you're like, eh, I guess for the money? It's another performance review. Oh, let's do one. Yeah.

Of what? But it's, we haven't found the right thing. In the early days of the show, when we were doing, when we were purely a podcast about the Star Wars prequels We started doing a thing called the performance review where we would go through every cast member and write them pass or fail To judge whether or not the acting was good in those movies And then we did it again for the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe on patreon an episode where we fight with Chris cut it about the last

Jedi for an hour. Yeah. Yeah, but we also find a very convincing Sebastian Stan lookalike on Reddit who does porn. The discoveries in those episodes are great. And people are often looking for when will there be another thing they have covered in its entirety that feels well suited for performance review. We're also arguing about the performances of like the 80th credited actor is still interesting. And I don't know what it is. Yeah, I don't know. Jurassic Park? Like you could zoom out and do whole Jurassic franchise,

but I don't... It's the Fast movies, is it not? Well, if we cover the Fast movies, I argue we almost have to do a performance review. It's so perfect for that because there are a lot of like, oh, I forgot about Cole Hauser. You know, I forgot about like this guy who's only in a couple of them or whatever.

Yeah. I feel like that's the one I see people ask. Oops, all on shorters, obviously. Everyone's always demanding that one. That's our ET2 night skies. That's the one that people think they want. And they should be thanking us for Never Diggity. What's that on the rewatchables? Because you guys did Pulp Fiction.

So what is it now? Probably Almost Famous. What's that on the rewatchables? Because you guys did Pulp Fiction. So what is it now? Probably Almost Famous, though for the CR. You've never done Almost Famous? No, no. Why? And Juliette Littman, who I've worked with for many, many years, has said if she is not included in that episode, she will immediately leave the company.

Interesting. So that's a bold threat that she's made. Uh, I don't know, there's probably a couple of others. Sicario for Chris. Oh, sure. Wow, you gotta do that. Chris is waiting for Sicario. He has not received it yet. He's waiting for his night vision goggles. But I'm wondering if there's, is there a movie that people have been waiting, like a singular film? From you guys. Yeah, because it's different with like the director prism, where people are like, I want this whole series. Lynch was a huge one. So what's the next huge one after that?

I mean, yeah Right, there's the obvious tier of like PTA West Tarantino then there are the sort of personal like people want to hear David go ham on Peter Weir me go ham on 70s altman Ben go ham on Ernest Dickerson Yeah, man. Bones. Bones, baby. Bones back in the news here in October, you know, people are watching Bones again. They're digging it.

Bonestober. Oh, wow. Yeah. No, it's just back. Okay. Great. I love it. Was it a porch movie? Bones? Yeah. Was it a porch movie? You think that thing was watching doors?

You think there was a fucking roof over Ben's head when he was watching Bones? Man of Bones. I said, fetch me another blanket. I've got more bones to watch. This movie was a very big hit. It opened June 11th, 1993. Fifty million dollars, which I think was a record at the time. It grossed, well, wait a second, because I don't want to get fooled here by the re-releases or whatever.

It grossed about three hundred about 350 million dollars. Yeah domestic It's now at 415 and one bill worldwide I think it was slightly under for its original release that was really several times push in the 2010s when they started re-releasing American blockbuster classics in 3d Was like get these movies back in American theaters, but also foreign markets were not as developed. Right. Titanic.

Now we can make a ton of money in China. Right. Never got to play in Asia. Like all these things. This is a version of the kind of hidden money of Hollywood that there is. It's like constantly churning up an extra 50, 75 million dollars against these properties. Right. They did the 20th anniversary Jurassic 3D, which by the way, I think that conversion

is quite good and the Jaws 3D conversion is also quite good. Unsurprisingly, the way that Spielberg just shoots and blocks and edits things works pretty seamlessly in 3D because he just builds that kind of depth into his compositions and isn't frenetically, you know, cutting in a way that would disorient you. The 3D re-release made like 40 million here and made like 400 million everywhere else. Yes, it was just short of the domestic record. E.T. kept the domestic record at 359.

Oh wow, okay. But it beat it worldwide. Got it. And Spielberg, as you say, does agree to do the sequel because he's almost like, I don't give a shit about Jurassic Park, which is kind of interesting. And I also think you're right that, like, in spending four years building DreamWorks,

he needs the guarantor of, like, I need to remind everyone that I'm Steven Spielberg before I go off and start making some weirder things. I think Lost World is a very flawed movie, but it does have very effective sequences and some fun casting. I think Jurassic Park 3 is tons of fun, but disposable. I think all of the world movies are quite bad, but the J.A. Bayona one is quite poor.

Hey, excuse me. Show some respect for our guest here. Thank you. Uh, but the J.A. Bayona one has the only good idea, really, of all of them, which is the haunted house sequence is sort of fun. It has sequences. I had J.A. on the big picture for that movie,

because I love to interview, I had Fede Alvarez on for Romulus, because I love to interview filmmakers like that when they get put in the franchise chair. And I agree, like he brought The Orphanage to Jurassic Park. And that's just the one time where you're like, this is something.

It's a take. He had a take. It's not totally effective, but there are things about that movie I like. I mean, I think if they had hired J.A. Bayona to develop his own Jurassic movie from scratch, I probably would like that movie. That movie is a tour between two poles

of this weird franchise management of the idea of the sanctity of the Jurassic World trilogy and just letting a fun director make a fun dinosaur movie. Society of the Snow, that was good. Dominion is like a completely insane film. It's almost like incoherent. Dominion is so incoherent, it's sort of astonishing, still made a billion dollars. Jurassic Park opened number one. What's number two, Griffin?

Can you just tell me? In June 1993? Yes. What's number two? Is it a new release? Has it been out for a while? It's been out for three weeks. It is a star-driven action film that is good. Is it Lethal Weapon 3? No. No it's not. It's not The Fugitive? No. Okay. Dist not the fugitive. No Okay distributor, please Sony Columbia Sony Columbia star driven It's not high concept, you know in the line of fire. Nope Star driven it's a big star a sort of a minted star a recent star minted star kind of an aging star But this is his last gasp. I think of true sort of a minted star, a recent star. Minted star, kind of an aging star, but this is his last gasp, I think, of true A-list stardom.

He makes some very fun action pictures in the early 90s before becoming a parody of himself. He was always a parody of himself, but truly. Is it Cliffhanger? It's Sylvester Stallone in Cliffhanger, the Renny Harlan film. I'd argue that's his last, like, a studio blockbuster.

Demolition Man is the same year. And I would agree that's the end of him being in fun, good movies, right? Yeah. Would you agree, Sean? You peep that Demolition Man arrow box at David? I have a soft spot for Walter Hill's A Bullet in the Head. Mm-hmm. That's later, but sure.

Film I like. There are not a lot of films from the next 30 years of his career that I like. That's arguably him pivoting to being a bit of a B movie star. After being one of the most titanic movie stars who could get anything made at any budget level. Cliffhanger though. Excellent. Very enjoyable.

Cliffhanger is very fun. Cliffhanger and Demolition Man Rock and then writes the specialist, Judge Dredd, Assassin's Daylight, which is sort of okay. The other ones I just mentioned are not. Copland is him being like, what do you think? And then, but then when he doesn't get an Oscar nomination, he's like, then thank you. I won't try that. Right. That's a bad one. And then he goes to straight to DVD and then he's back as Rambo. Jesus. Talking a lot of Stallone. Okay, number three at the box office is a comedy.

Okay. Sort of an odd couple comedy. Is it house? No? I was putting out the one. Is it house sitter? Why was I getting house guest or sitter? Neither house guest nor sitter.

House guest? No. It is... So it's not really... It's a couple comedy. Okay, okay. Oh, it is, so it's not really, okay, okay. Oh, so the hint was wrong. It's not really? The thing about me calling it an odd couple comedy is it is that sort of, but you know

what the movie is? Yes. The stars became a couple and there's a very famous thing that happened involving them that was sort of sanctioned internally because they were a couple but is now something you hear about and your jaw hits the floor. In the history of this show, this is one of the funniest movies to try to kill. I know even. Can you restate what you just said?

So the two stars of this movie, I believe, became a couple, right? They did. Because of this movie. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. Might have predated that, I believe, became a couple, right? They did. Because of this movie. Okay. I'm not sure. Might have predated that, but yes, they were together. And one of the male star then did something, not for film, but he did something that was seen by people. That's sort of a promotional act. And it's something that you're not supposed to do. It's an offensive thing.

Two huge stars at the time. But he kind of, quote quote unquote could do it back then because he was dating the woman here. Oh my God. I think that's what, you know. Wait, really? What the fuck? Do you know what it is?

It's so good. It's not Hugh Grant or Eddie Murphy, no. No. It's a TV star whose movie career was not nothing but like he never quite was a movie star. He got permission because... Permission is, to be clear, kind of strong because what he did is not good.

I have solved it. Yes. The film is called Made in America. That is correct. And you are speaking of Ted Danson's Friars Club. In blackface. Speech? Correct.

To tribute his then girlfriend, Whoopi Goldberg, who he had left his wife who was in a coma for? Was that right? Didn't he have a wife who was gravely ill? I'm not sure about that part, although it's possible. It's just funny that... Everything about... Ted Danson, I feel like, is now just such a beloved celebrity.

Right? Like, actor too. Good actor. Like, really... An iconic TV person. But his partnership with Mary Steenburgen is so beloved. And then, like really an iconic TV person. But his partnership with Mary Steenburgen is so beloved. And then like, if you go back, you're like, oh, some bumps in the road here. Those photos are astonishing of him in the full getup and whoopee like clapping.

Like he was in like minstrel blackface. Like it wasn't just like they like tanned his skin or like he's like, it's a parody, I guess. So it's not. When you see pictures of it you're like what the fuck is going on? This was not like a Kentucky Fairgrounds event in 1958. This is 1993 that this happened. He is just ending his run as the star of the most beloved sitcom in the world.

Crazy thing that happened. Like 11 seasons of Triumph. But no, no, that's right. I was struggling with Maiden America. Maiden America is like, what is it? It's like her. Maiden America is that. There's a DNA test and is she related to Ted Danson? No, no, no, no, no, no.

It's Will Smith is her son. Right, and Ted Danson was the sperm donor. Right, so it's sort of an odd couple comedy. And he's like a huckster used car salesman, is that right? Yeah, he's like, oh my God, I got a cowboy hat. And she's like, what, I'm Whoopi Goldberg, we're so different.

He wants to meet his dad and then they meet and they don't get along and then they do fall in love. I've never seen it. It's also, yeah, it's just, is it? It's a Richard Benjamin movie. Will Smith's first movie? Is that so? It's certainly his first significant role.

I think it's after six degrees of separation. Interesting. Maybe right before it. It's the same year. I'm not sure which came out first. It's right before it. Just a reminder, this film made $100 million at the box office. Made in America made $104 million worldwide.

$50 million at least in America. And Richard Benjamin is one of those guys where it's like, Richard Benjamin made some big movies. Like, he made hits Richard Benjamin made some big movies like he made Hits he made my favorite year. He made like mermaids, right? But he also made like some true stinkers Yeah, Richard Benjamin's star of Westworld star of Westworld, but also director of Marcy X. I enjoy milk money Oh, I've never seen that where a real classic hooker with a heart of gold Formulations are no no no boys and yes I've seen that, where a real classic hooker with a heart of gold formulation, starring Melanie Griffith and some young boys in Ed Harris. Charming film.

Very good and last of Sheila. Richard Benjamin? Yeah, no, he's a good actor. Yeah, no. It's one of my all-time crushes, Paul Apprentice. Oh, wow. Okay. So, that's number three.

That's a wild movie. Yep. Number four at the box office is not a movie I am that familiar with. It is from Disney, but it is a grown up legal thriller. So was it a touchdown, a Hollywood pictures release? What do we have? It looks like it was Hollywood pictures and starring two real R rated actors. You know what I mean?

I've just seen this for the first time this year. You know what this movie is. I do. I've seen it and there's a reason why I saw it related to an episode that we did. From a director who's quite a big deal to you, but also to Hollywood. A great director, but he's also a director who made one billion movies. So sometimes- Is it a Lumet?

It's a Sidney Lumet movie. Okay. You know what I mean by two actors where it's like, if they're in a movie, the movie is rated R, those two stars. A million percent. Yes. They don't show up for PG. What's this movie called?

Guilty as Sin? Correct. Don Johnson and Rebecca de Mornay in Guilty as Sin, written by Larry Cohen. How is it? Unworthy of the talent surrounding it. It's a real B movie. And it's like in an era of 90s erotic thrillers and stuff, right? Also easily the schlockiest looking Lumet movie.

Very out of shape relative to what he normally did. Interesting. I love, you know, Tom Johnson absolute flames this year in Rebel Ridge. That guy is probably making my ballot. Well, have you seen Rebel Ridge? No, his last 10 years have quietly been on fire. I feel like he's one of those guys where he's kind of like Brandon Nimmo,

where I'm just like, I don't wanna hear a thing about who you vote for or why. I just want you to give fantastic workman-like performances on screen as scumbags and villains. I don't wanna be reminded of the things I already know about you. I love you so much in movies, and I don't want to think about anything else. Thank you very much.

He has very comfortably settled into I'm just a shithead heal and everything, and it works every time. I feel like it kind of starts with Eastbound and Down, where you're like, who is Kenny's dad gonna be? And then the reveal, you're like, that's weirdly perfect. He's in on the joke, and then he's just had this really good one since then. He's great and knives out. Um... Wow. You watched every LEMAT for that episode? I did. And then he's just had this really good run since then. He's great in Knives Out. Wow. You watched every LeMette for that episode? I did. What do you put at the absolute bottom?

The last of the... Blah blah hot shots with... The last of the mobile hot shots. Yeah, with James Coburn. That's your dead last. It's terrible. I've never seen that. I love LeMette. Bye Bye Braverman is like not as hard tourn. That's your dead last. Okay. It's terrible. I've never seen that. I love

Bye Bye Braverman is like not as hard to watch. I have a lot of blind spots I'm probably holding more against it because of like context Gloria for me feels like it's really bad It's so pointless and like why did you do this? So pointless? Yeah, he's got some real stinkers Yeah, but also like ten of the greatest movies. The top The top ten is extraordinary. You made a lot of fucking movies. Number five of the box office came up on our draft that we did recently with Sean. A comedy? Our president draft. Correct.

Is it the movie Dave? It's the movie Dave! The best president movie ever made, in my opinion. A very, very fun film that was a very solid hit. You've also got in the top 10 menace to society I recently watched my criterion 4k of that Incredibly impressive film that is so so so upsetting and dark You've got life with Mikey. Yeah, that's Michael J. Fox Fox, right as a child talent agent David Krumholtz debut film

Friend of the show never seen you've got hot chart part do I don't think that's the title do you want to take a second take on that hot shots hot hot shots part do you want me to do like that yeah if Ben's given a thumbs up I'm also giving it a thumbs up I've seen both hot shots movies but not in a long time and I cannot remember like which is which I've seen hot shots part two probably 15 times and I think hot shots one time hot shots Same group is the one where he's got the chicken on the poster. It's the Rambo, right? Yes

And hot shots one is more of like a Top Gun thing hot shots one is like straight-up Top Gun and hot shots part Do is everything it's just action movies number one American film featuring the word duh in the title, and number two is Joker fully a duh. Okay, what was the final domestic gross on Hotshots Part Duh, and will Joker have outgrossed it by the time this episode comes out? I think it will, because the final gross is 38.

And as much as Joker do, too, is underperforming. It's underperforming in a The Marvel sense. Yeah, it opened to 37. Right. Number nine of the box office is another erotic thriller of some renown at this point. Sliver, the William Friedkin. I'd say that's the Philip Noyce movie. William Friedkin is Jade. Right.

Jade is unhinged. Sliver is bad. That's what it is. Sliver is Billy Baldwin? Yes. And a Joe Esther Haas script. And then it, and Sliver is awful Baldwin? Yes, and a Joe Esther Haas script, and then... Right. And Sliver is awful.

I'm ready for a reclamation. But like, everyone's reclaiming every piece of 90s erotica trash right now, and some of them like Jade, you're like, Jade has juice. Jade is a flawed movie. Also inspires some of the greatest jokes a movie has. 40-year-old version. Be like David Caruso in Jade. Got it.

David Caruso's amazing in Jade. Did you know that Sliver is based on an Ira Levin novel? Yes, I did. And I recently watched Sliver. I do not know why. I cannot remember what I was thinking watching that movie, but it's... Doesn't it have a good idea about surveillance in it?

Yes, it's William Baldwin is the like head of the apartment building and he can like has cameras that look at people and like there's this sort of voyeurism thing going on. Yeah, that is a good idea. Worked for The Dark Knight and Morgan Freeman, you know, just good enough for him. Not good enough for Sliver. Helps him catch the Joker.

Yeah. To go full circle back, talking about Jurassic being like the blockbuster that people are still trying to chase. I think the only three things since then that have similarly made Hollywood go like how do we replicate that are the Dark Knight? Avengers and endgame Right, right, and in all cases every time they tried to follow it it like danger I I think there are some caveats to that. Okay, I think Lord of the Rings Avatar and Twilight are all

I think Lord of the Rings, Avatar, and Twilight are all so influential in particular ways. Maybe not quite the same where Jurassic Park just felt like it ate America for six weeks. But those three movies I always think of because there have been so many... There is no Game of Thrones without Lord of the Rings. There is no...

Lord of the Rings is at the tippy top of influence. But here's the other thing. Outside of Avatar, all of those are adapting huge pre-existing material. That has existed in the culture for decades, whether, whereas- Avatar was adapting Ferengoli, so that's pretty huge too. The fact that Jurassic Park is like, here's this book that came out,

the movie's gonna be out in six months. Right, right. Is very different. Speaking of adapting huge material, number 10 of the box office, of course, is Rocky Morton and Annabel Jankel's great Super Mario Brothers, in which Bob Hoskins looks like he wants to die every minute he's on screen and John Leguizamo is having fun.

Isn't the story that John Leguizamo on set was like, you ever play the game and Bob Hoskins was like, what game? No, it's better than that. The story on set is that they were all drinking heavily. Right. Is what Guzzan Monaz can say particularly. Yeah. No, there's this amazing clip of Hoskins being like, I told my kids, you know, got the Super Mario Brothers. Right, right.

And my kids were like, oh, the game. And he was like, what game? And they showed me this game. And they see this guy going, and I was like, I played King Lear. And I'm like, what the fuck is this? And it's so funny. Did you get that box out? No, should I? That movie is really so ingrained in my heart because I saw it as a kid and was just like, I love this.

Which is so insane because obviously it does no effort at really adapting what those games are like. Look, our friend Patrick Williams did a really good video that was like... It's a hostile movie. Yeah, let people make sloppy adaptations again, right? It was like Don't we have a certain romanticism for the error people didn't care about the material? Not just the area where they didn't care but where studios were like it better not resemble Yes, he video game in any way right and they're like, yeah

No, we want to do like a steampunk lizard movie It sounds good buy a beloved thing and like, now obviously this thing is for losers, virgins. And illumination. Don't make anything that resembles it. Right, they're like, yeah, we need this movie to have gears and bombs and shit. And then like now illumination makes Super Mario Brothers and that movie basically is just like

sucking your dick all day about like, don't you love fucking Toad? And I'm just like, I don't care about Toads. I'm dreading the day my daughter discovers Princess Peach like it is fucking curtains that day happens. It's gonna be Princess Peach all day Yeah, because Princess Peach is tough cuz you like I know they empower her now and she's an adventurous character Her name is Princess Witch from the Witch, you know, Annie Taylor Schaen. Yeah.

Yeah. God. Furiosa is Princess Peach. I do like Super Mario Brothers, the movie. I do like it. That's a film of the year. I like it. Yeah.

And Samantha Mathis is really hot in it. Yeah. And Dennis Hopper's having fun. Yeah, we're done. We're done. We're done. We did a long time on Jurassic Park. It was wonderful.

It was great. Hey, I want to shout out one thing at the end here. Please. The video game on Sega Genesis. Video game is fun. I don't think I played that. What was the idea? It's a platformer, right?

You know, it's a... Scroll, side scroll? Side scroll. You could play as Dr. Grant or as a velociraptor. Okay, that's cool. OK, that's cool. Yes, that's right. Yeah. What was your mission if you were a raptor?

To eat kids? I think you were just basically fighting other dinosaurs. OK. It pretty much was like the same character you could just swap out. Do you know what I'm saying? You would have different fighting techniques. Better, I always ask this when I talk about 90s games.

Better or worse than the Simpsons arcade game. Well, that's the best game I've ever made. That's the, is that not the greatest experience you had as a kid playing an arcade game? I think it is. But I had the Simpsons, uh, Bart versus the evil mutants game that is so fucking hard.

I don't think I planned that. It's like if Super Cool Sin Ghosts was harder, like it's so difficult. And I must have played that first level a million times just because I was like, this is a Simpsons video game. I'm enjoying this. Was that on Genesis? I think it was initially on like the Master System maybe. I had it on a Game Gear. Can I talk about the toys for one minute?

Yep. And then we're done. Yeah. Much like the bidding war for the rights to the movie itself when the book went on the market, everyone was fighting for the toys and then they got the rights and then they were like, wait, what did we just buy? What is proprietary? Anyone can make dinosaurs. You don't need a license for that. And is one of the smartest strategic branding things. Kenner and Hansborough held onto the license for like 25 years until eventually Mattel took it away in the Jurassic World sequels, but their big innovation was come up with a logo which

was the JP stamp. Do you remember this? All the dinosaur toys had this logo that was like a J and a P combined and the ads were all like look for the JP to know it's a real Jurassic Park toy. They created this attitude of yeah sure you could go to museum and buy a fucking figure of a T-Rex, but if you don't have the JP stamp on the schoolyard, that's not the real thing. It was really, really smart, but also this movie was so fast-tracked that they started making the toys of the human characters without any reference material.

So this is what Wayne Knight looked like. Right. That's an icon. I know about that. That's my favorite example. That he looks like an action man. All of them are really funny. And then like a year later, they went back around and made them look a little more accurate. But that's the best one.

Yeah, that's really funny. Jurassic Park. Sean, thank you. Any final thoughts? Yes. I just, you know, I always feel blessed to be able to talk with you guys. Oh, come on. Shut the fuck up. Get the fuck out of there.

Everyone should obviously listen to the big picture and to the rewatchables. Thanks. I set my clock to it. It stabilizes my week. I think it's just a shame we're not on the same coast. It is. It's nice to be here. You've built a very special space.

We like our space. I'd like to doff my cap to Ben for all the fine work he's done in crafting this space. Ben really is the homemaker of Blank Check. Some innovations in this performance style. You know, I've made a pot or two in my time and not quite in this formulation that we're in right now. And now I'm going to take it back to me into the great city of Los Angeles and say, hey, at Blank Check Productions, they might be onto something.

We will, because we'll post pictures sometimes of us recording. People are like, why are the desks so far apart? I've always imagined most photos I've seen a podcast where everyone's crammed around one table. And that's what we always were back in the day when we were at other studios and other networks. And then coming out of the pandemic, we recorded in Ben's living room, where we had to like assemble and disassemble equipment very quickly.

And our beloved editors started giving you notes and being like you know what if you moved further apart if you went to these corners if you had furniture relative to this it was sort of a long exploratory process that landed on Ben realizing this works. Yeah yeah yeah it's fantastic what a pleasure Jurassic Park. Jurassic Park. Jurassic Park. Does it get any better? Is it better or worse to do just a truly five-star masterpiece? I think the best episodes are like rollerball.

Like I think the episode to do that's most fun as a guest is usually just some absolute dog shit. Yeah. But Jurassic Park is fun to talk about. Yeah. Like I think if you were doing Raiders, that'll be hard. Who's doing Raiders? Well, let's not say it in case something changes.

But I know who wants to do it. Yes. OK, so I'll come back for like Quintet. Yeah, that's what you want to do. You want to put your name down for Quintet? Maybe a chess one? Yeah. Arctic human chess.

So you still get to do Paul Newman, which I love. And then just the fiasco of fiascos from my favorite. And Paul Newman did like three fiascos with Altman, but that's number one. He did two. He did Buffalo Bill and Quintet back to back. Right. And on paper it's like, oh, how cool. Paul Newman knows that he should work with Robert Altman. Right. Anti-Western and like sci-fi concept movie. And it's like no.

Arguably his two worst films. Could be. Could be. Buffalo Bill is really boring. I've seen that one. It is so boring. Yeah. You know what's Bill is really boring. I've seen that one. It is so boring. Yeah. You know what's really boring? Quintet. Quintet.

I'm imagining the riffs and the bits in the quintet. Quintet. I'm calling it quintet. That should be the thing that children are writing us letters demanding we do. Well, now Sean will be on it. So. Great.

Don't have to do the credits, Griff. I know. No, I know. I wasn't going to do that. I was going to say something different. Thank you for being here, Sean. be on it. Okay, great. Don't have to do the credits, Griff. I know, no I know, I wasn't gonna do that, I was gonna say something different. Thank you for being here, Sean. Thanks guys. Tune in next week for Schindler's List, a movie that will hopefully be easy enough to talk about.

I think so, we're gonna have a guest who feels very strongly about that movie and has a lot to say. Yeah. And is a friend of ours. Okay. And as always, we were so preoccupied, wondering if we could make this episode over three hours. We didn't consider whether or not we should make this episode over three hours. I agree with that.

Wait, where's Marie? You want her here? Just like in a box? I've not met Marie. Wow. You should meet Marie. You should meet Marie. What the hell? I think I was sitting in the same row as her at the screening of queer that I was at. She was definitely...

And I was gonna say something. You should have said hi. So wait, this is interesting. Talk about our listeners assuming we're all crowded around one small table. You listen to the show and think that Marie's just in the corner of the episode. Even the tap she doesn't clock. Sometimes it happens. I love Marie. Marie rules. Marie episodes. I eagerly look forward to them. So I was hoping she would be sitting in the room next time. Let's let's get Marie in here for ya I don't know or let's all hang out. I'm getting on a plane No, I know you have your you literally have your brought my back. Yes, you're going to JFK. I am you're taking the helicopter You're gonna have to explain to me. What's the best way to get there from here? So

Blank check with Griffin and David is hosted by Griffin Newman and David Sims. Our executive producer is me, Ben Hossley. Our creative producer is Marie Bardy Salinas. And our associate producer is A.J. McKeon. This show is mixed and edited by A.J. McKeon and Alan Smithy. Research by J.J.

Burch. Our theme song is by Lane Montgomery and the Great American Novel, with additional music by Alex Mitchell. Artwork by Joe Bowen, Olly Moss, and Pat Reynolds. Our production assistant is Minick. Special thanks to David Cho, Jordan Fish, and Nate Patterson for their production help. Head over to blankcheckpod.com for links to all of the real nerdy shit. Join our Patreon, Blank Check Special Features, for exclusive franchise commentaries and bonus episodes.

Follow us on social at BlankCheckPod. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, Checkbook, on Substack. This podcast is created and produced by BlankCheck Productions.