Blank Check with Griffin & David - Tomorrowland

Episode Date: June 17, 2018

This week, Griffin and David discuss 2015's retrofuturist sci-fi flop, Tomorrowland. This episode is sponsored by Unspooled podcast, eLiquid.com (eliquid.com/check PROMO: CHECK) and SimpleContacts (simplecontacts.com/blank PROMO: BLANK). Music selection: "多くの巻き戻さVHSへ" by haircuts for men

There are two wolves, and they are always fighting. One is darkness and despair. The other is light and hope. Which wolf wins? Whichever one you podcast. What is the word? Feed. You don't remember that iconic exchange that is shoehorned in and then called back three times in the last 20 minutes?

Wow. Of Tomorrowland. I got to say, it's a movie with a lot of those kinds of lines, though. With like, let me ask you a question. There was an idea. Oh my God, White Neck Fury just walked in here. Hello, everybody. My name is Griffin Newman.

I'm David Sims. Welcome to Blank Check with Griffin and David. We are hashtag the two friends. It's a competitive advantage because we are the only two podcasts who had a strong enough vision of the future. The only two podcasts? Podcasters. Right. Who had a vision of the future saying, what if podcasters were friends?

What if there was a podcast? If you fed the podcast? I don't know know i need to warm up yeah come on come on we're recording from an alternate dimension right now so the tachyons might be reaching you i'm drinking my raspberry coffee you still drink that shit oh my god you're gonna grow a tentacle can't wait can't wait um this is a podcast called Blank Check with Griffin and David. We're hashtag the two friends, a concert of contacts. And this is a podcast about filmographies. Directors who have massive success early on in their career and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want.

And sometimes those checks clear. And sometimes they bounce all the way into an alternate dimension. A field of wheat, baby. Sometimes they walk through a field of wheat and suddenly fall down. This, of course, is a miniseries on the films

of Bradley Bird. Yes. This might be his last live action film. I don't think so. He's coming back. You can't keep this guy down. How chill do you think

Bird is? He seems like a chill dude. You know how there's like the Kinsey scale for like sexuality? Well, like the Bird scale for like chillness, you know? He's like zero. I do love that when you watch like behind the scenes stuff, he like always comes off very folksy. He's like, I just want to make a film about believing again. And people are like, Brad, you're intense.

He's like, yep, I am. And he's from i just want to make a film about believing again and people are like brad you're intense he's like yep i am and he's from montana right we talked about it you know like so he yeah he and he's you know he's a milky skinned man with red hair and uh he says a lot of things that sort of sound like maxims like when he gives his oscar speech where he's like you know i just like believed in my you know and right he, he feels like he's fucking Andy Griffith, but then you know once the door is closed. But he also doesn't hide how intense he is. No, he doesn't hide how intense he is at all, and he's very happy to rant about the things he cares about. Right.

I think the Clooney character in this is like he's looking at himself and picking out a bad version of himself out like a bad version of himself, like a depressed version of himself. Agreed, but we'll get to that. Main series is called The Podcastables. Oh, right, we haven't even said what it is yet. Yeah. And today we're talking about Tomorrowland.

Cool. The big bounce. This is the definition of a blank check bouncing, right? Yeah. I mean, in every possible sense. This is one of those movies that came out after we started this show. That's true. Not long after.

Not long after. And it was on our Blankies episode. You gave Raffi Cassidy a... I did a Best Supporting Actress, which I don't know if I totally stand behind. I think she's very good. I do, too. I don't know if I totally stand behind. I have to look at that year again.

Right, right. I don't think the performance is bad now No I know But this was one of those movies Where we were like Fuck we should do Brad Bird someday Yes absolutely It came out while we were recording something else

Star Wars I would imagine Yeah we were like fuck we gotta do this Yeah it's kind of like Jupiter Ascending Which was that same year Another one that we'll be talking about soon that came out while we had already done the podcast. Wink, wink, wink, wink, wink, wink. Next miniseries. Yes.

A movie that's very blank checky. Yes. Wink, wink, wink, wink. But it's always nice when we can do, we can finally talk about these movies that we've been waiting a couple years to do. You know? Yeah. Like we've been here, we've had the show, we've had the platform, and we've just been waiting for the right time to discuss that entire...

You want to turn your phone off, or do you want it to loudly ding? I just did. Who texted you? That should be the rule. At least he's consistent. At least I'm consistent. Yes.

That should be the rule, though, right? Yeah. If you get a text, you should have to read it aloud. Okay. You want the text? Yeah, sure. Regardless, Henson. Let's not blow henson i don't think you know how invested i am in him and i'd really like to share that

jd motto i won't tell here's the rule i don't have to say who it's from i have to read the content but what if i guess right then i would tell you okay not jd shady. Okay. What a twist. Wow. What a white cheddar bagel twist. Sure. Twisted. I should mention that I am, this is a twisted episode because I did eat a white cheddar bagel twist. That's right. We twisted it up. Yeah.

So, the year is 2011. Okay. Oh, that's when this. Really? Yes. Okay. Damon Lindelof is this... Really? Yes. Okay. Damon Lindelof is having meetings with Disney.

Damon Lind. I remember that when Lost... He's the creator of Lost. Right. When Lost was running, everyone was like, why don't they get this guy

to write the movies? Sure. In the same way that people make that like, why don't they have the guys who cut the trailers cut the entire film? I guess...

No, I think that's not fair. Lindelof's a talented writer. I'm making a joke. I'm making a joke. But it was like Lost was so exciting when it was on. It was so exciting on a week-to-week basis that it was like, this guy should write all the fucking temples. He knows how to do it.

Well, all right. And also, you know, Abrams sort of in general was kind of like, had like smudged over to the film world. Right. Andindelof worked with him very closely on star trek which was quote-unquote written by orgy and kurtzman and then there was a writer's strike yes and then damon lindelof is a quote-unquote producer on the film right and is on the director's commentary talking about the plotting of the film i wonder what happened there.

The film was shot during a writer's strike so it's not like Ortzie and Kurtzman could have been on board. Did Lindelof have any? Anyway. Do you know what's the weirdest writer's strike example

that I always think of? Yeah. There was like an Entertainment Weekly piece about like how productions were running during the writer's strike. Adam McKay on Step Brothers

because he was the writer of the film in addition to being the director couldn't suggest improvs. Right. That's weird. Which his whole style is yelling out like, what if you did a take that was like this?

Of course, that's like the style. Just keep the camera running. But that would constitute writing so he had to like reverse like psychology them into it. Maybe that's an approach you should try more because Step Brothers ruled. And I don't mean to imply that Lindelof like broke rank with the union.

I have no idea. Anyway, I think he had a major hand in star trek um so people are like oh if if someone is not if they're producing the number i don't know who knows who knows who knows we can't report on this but in 2010 lost is over right lost ends then people hate the finale but nonetheless lost was a big deal. Right. So Lindelof is going around Hollywood, right? And so there's stuff like, you know, Cowboys and Aliens. That's 2011. Prometheus, where he's coming on, you know, and taking a pass at them. Prometheus' pass is much more substantive, I think, in terms of what he changed. I can tell you exactly what happened on Prometheus.

Do you want me to? Please. So Prometheus, someone, John uh john spatus or whatever writes an alien prequel script off the heat of passengers i'm telling you that thing was there on the page that thing was there on the page well if you say so well i mean they didn't ridley scott reads this script decides you want to know why it was there on the page why because it knew it was creepy creepypasta right what if a movie knew it was creepypasta? It's called Passengers. What if a movie

thought that it was charming? It's called Passengers. Morton Tilden's Passengers. Yeah. So, Scott, Ridley Scott sees that script and is like, eh, you know, alien prequel, that's fine. Like, we could film this. It was much more of just like, what happened to

make that ship land that they find an alien? Like, I'm going to explain it in a pretty straightforward way. Really? Scott famously, who is uninterested in alien prequels was not excited at the idea of doing a literal alien prequel. Well,

that's what's so weird about it. Well, then he's like, yeah, alien prequel, alien prequel. I'm more interested in like some kind of like paradise lost, you know,

uh, uh, uh, androids arguing with God. So then that was, so he calls up paradise lost, you know, uh, uh, uh, where Android's arguing with God. So then that was, so he calls up Lindelof and he, and of course I interviewed Lindelof. And so I asked him a lot about Prometheus cause I'm obsessed with that movie.

Cause their announcement at the time, the press release was like Ridley Scott's aliens film is no longer an aliens film. Damon Lindelof comes on. It's now original sci-fi. Right. And the way Lindelof put it is he's like I wrote the movie

and he did a page one rewrite and obviously they kept some of the stuff but you know but it's the way those movies work and the way every Ridley Scott movie works

is he's standing there with a cigar in his mouth and he's like and then that should happen and then this is gonna happen. You know he's like it's not really my movie I just write it.

Which apparently he did with Blade Runner as well even though he didn't direct it yes well 2049 he was gonna direct it it was a toss up between the two and my hot take has always been what if Villeneuve and Scott

swapped those films yeah that's interesting I like both movies I do too I think I'd like both of them more if they had directed the other who knows

but anyway it's just like funny to me that Lindelof gets so much shit from Phineas sure I'm not throwing that shit at his feet but Disney's kind of coming to him Who knows? But anyway, it's just funny to me that Lindelof gets so much shit from Phineas. Sure. I'm not throwing that shit at his feet. But Disney's kind of come into him with the idea of like,

Damon Lindelof, blank check, what would you like to do? If you were able to birth something from the ground up rather than taking over someone's project, right? And he goes, I'd love to make a big budget live action original sci-fi film. So he starts meeting with them. He brings on jensen jeff jensen who had is an he was the tv critic at ew and lindelof who obsessively reads everything written about everything he's ever done which is a bit of a riff in that respect yeah one reason that he drives himself so crazy uh real griff in that respect he really respected jensen so he

brings jensen aboard and says like do all the research for me because I am thinking about writing something about like space age Disney thinking like Walt Disney Tomorrowland

the Epcot like you know city like all this shit. Now in the Disney theme park IP boon of the early 2000s

Right. Where they're like let's make a haunted elevator movie. Right. Excuse me it's called The Haunted Mansion. Whatever the fuck it's called the Haunted Mansion.

Whatever the fuck it's called. It's one of the greatest rides of all time. Have you been on the haunted elevator thing? You're confusing two rides. There's the Tower of Terror, which is an elevator, and there's the Haunted Mansion, which is a dark ride. No, I haven't been to Disney since I was a child. Wow.

You didn't go on the Haunted Mansion then? No, it was raining when I went. So I also don't remember the day well. And this is the only time you did it? And it's the only time I ever did it. Was it in California or in Florida? Florida. It rains a lot in Florida.

I know. Rainy place. Yeah. It kind of stunk. I'll say my parents pulled one of those on me, which like we didn't go on a family vacation to Disney until I was maybe like eight or nine. And I want to go every year.

And my mom's argument was like, but I took you to Euro Disney. And I was like, I was a year and a half and it rained the whole time. Everything was shut down. Like I was tiny, but I just remember being in a slicker and everyone being like, oh, no, no, no, no. Fermé, Fermé. No, no, no, no. No, for me, for me. No, no, no, no.

So, the thing that they're trying to tap into, Disney, as they're going through all these different theme park properties, they keep on going like, Tomorrowland's a good bucket to put a movie in. Sure. It's a name. It's a cool title. It's a good aesthetic. Yeah.

And it's this idea of the future as we imagined it 50 or 60 years ago. Right. They announced it at one point as a Dwayne Johnson movie I don't know if you remember this I do 2008 they were like we're gonna make a big budget sci-fi family film yeah but I don't think they ever have any strong take on it no because it's hard to have a take on the concept of 1950s future right like that's not a movie but Lindelof comes it's a theme park right Ben's telling me is it Ben's telling me to be an optimist so lindelof comes in and goes what if we made a movie about that notion of trying to make that future in the 50s

and where we went wrong how we lost that our way and it is announced with a working title of 1952 which was the year that tomorrowland was started and uh it's just funny that brad bird has had two movies in production that are just a year in the 20th century. Correct. He announces that and then very shortly thereafter, Brad Bird is announced as director. And people go, In May 2012. Is this Star Wars?

Because Disney's bought Star Wars. Yeah, sure. Right, right, right. And they go, that sounds like it could be the pair. It would make sense that they would hire Lindelof and Brad Bird to do Star Wars. What comes out is, Kathy Kennedy offers Brad Bird Star Wars. Yes, he was her first call. Right.

I think Nolan was her first call. Nolan was like, not doing franchises, bye. There were, by all accounts, a few people where she went like, I'm just doing due diligence, no chance you want to do this, right? Like Spielberg, Nolan, Fisher. That's like when I'm just doing due diligence. No chance you want to do this, right? Like Spielberg. That's like when the NBA trade season begins where you call the Cavs. You're like, you want to trade me LeBron James? Like, no, thanks.

All right, fine. I didn't think so. Michael Jordan want to come off the bench? Yeah, right. Right. She did a couple of those calls. But by all accounts, her first legitimate swing at the bat was like, Brad Bird, I think you could do this. She said, this is a very rare opportunity. And he said, getting to make an original film

of this size is an equally rare opportunity and I can't pass that up. I think there was a logic to that decision and that is much easier for Brad Bird to now go and do a Star Wars movie

than it would have been for him to do Tomorrowland post-Star Wars. Sure. I think the last five years changed the entire climate in which Tomorrowland could be made.

Even then, it seemed anomalous that the film was produced. This was the number one original sci-fi film of its year. Do you know what the others were? Colossal Flop, Jupiter Ascending, 2012,

no, 15. Wow, it's that recent. 2012 was announced. I'm mixing up the dates. I'm sorry, I'm freaking out. I'm freaking the fuck out. Basically, it's this movie where like this someone is like consciousness you know what i mean oh lucy no no you know he's like consciousness it's like he's alive oh chappy yes his love is real but he did not yeah ben's

favorite movie love chappy because Because Die Antwood are involved. Oh, they're great. Is that what they're called? Die Antwood. Die Antwood. Die Antwood. That's the only like crust sci-fi movie, right?

There should be more. Gutter sci-fi? I feel like they're, I feel like Super Mario Brothers is like an underrated crust punk sci-fi movie. Yeah, that's true. Because like everyone

in that movie except for the Mario Brothers wears like leather jackets and is a turtle. And Toad is a crust busker. He's a fucking street musician. We got to cover that. Yeah, we should.

We should. Cool. Let's do it. Cool. Great. So that's next week. But today we're talking about Tomorrowland. They announce it in 1952 and they start mystery boxing really hard.

What is this project? Oh, we found a box. They literally do this social media thing. They start tweeting out photos where Brad Bird takes a picture of a vinyl record. A secret box they found in the Disney vault and all these clues to what we're making. And then they did D23, the big Disney convention. They opened the box and

they had a camera on it and they showed off each item. Everyone's like, what the fuck is this thing? And then they announce it's Tomorrowland right which still doesn't really tell you anything but at least tells you the direction of of what this movie is yeah that it's not rebooting some pre-existing property it's using this right this this umbrella term that's existed for disney and then the movie is made in pretty much secrecy it's very closely guarded the first teaser trailer fucks it when i saw that tailored trailer i was like i just can't believe we like live in a world where like brad burden makes movies i'm so excited right the first teaser trailer for this movie

takes off its pants finds a enthusiastic and consenting partner right and fucks uh so the trailer the teaser if you guys remember it's just that scene of her in the prison uh you know in the jail right collecting her belongings gets the pin yeah is that bill camp as the cop it's not it's just a bill campy guy yeah it's like an older camp yeah yeah yeah yeah um and when she touches the pin she sees this wheat field in the city in the distance it's cool right and then you hear george clooney like, what if there was a place? Right. Right.

Yeah. There was an idea. Yeah. Yeah. To bring together the land. Swear to me. Unite the lands. Yeah.

My man. Right. This movie, I think like you and I see that teaser trailer and we're like, fucking yeah that's what we're like right we're like sold no i don't need to know anything else brad bird original sci-fi light touch in the teaser stunning visuals in robertson who i was a fan of because she was uh on life unexpected same here Which I inexplicably watched every episode of. Her character's name was Lux. Life on X. Expected. Yeah, and then the rest of the title is not represented in her name.

But she's really fucking good in that. She is. And I was like, this is someone who's gonna pop. This is one of those people who's just waiting for the vehicle. Yeah. And when she gets cast, there's kind of that aura around it of like, Disney's entrusted this 200 million dollar movie to this like, CW star. Right. they're they're anointing her yeah they've decided that she's capable of holding this and then they bring on jacqueline who my favorite man like my favorite

movie star that's not true well favorite of right yeah thank you no but i mean like i i really like your favorite of the traditional leading men. Yeah, movie star. But the thing that I think people don't kind of process when he signs on to this is that he doesn't fucking do movies like this. No, never. He's got his one franchise, which is Oceans. Yeah, but he did Batman and Robin, and that, like, swore him off any of these kinds of things forever. There are five George Clooney movies in total that have made over $100 million. And it's the Three Oceans. It's Batman and Robin and The Perfect Storm,

I think. Is there another one? Siriana. Did that do good? Clayton actually did well. I don't think it made $100. It did well, but it did like 50. That becomes a Clooney success.

He makes an adult drama and it does 50 or 60. It had the most baguettes of a big release that year. You know. It got the baguette prize. I love, I love Clayton so much.

I like it too. I mean, I think that should be, I mean, there's so many of those books. You could totally make a franchise out of that. I don't know. What is,

what is referencing something? What, what do you, what have you confused Michael Clayton with? What do you, are there all those paperback books about the lawyer? You think it's Michael Crichton? You think that movie is a Michael Cton with? What do you... Are there all those paperback books about the lawyer? You think it's Michael Crichton? You think that movie

is a Michael Crichton bio? Those aren't the same? You think that's Michael Crichton's origin story? Maybe it is. He was a fixer who then ran a failed restaurant. 100% thought that.

Saw a horse on a hill. 100% thought that. Okay. Wow, we're really getting into old school because I'm trying to check your Clooney thing and the Wi-Fi is not working.

Well, anyway, we'll get back to that. So Griffin, have you heard the news? Two of our friends are now friends with each other. They've both been on our podcast separately. Now they're doing their podcast together. We're talking about friend of the show, Amy Nicholson. She was on the Memento episode.

Maybe you heard it. We're talking about friend of the show, Paul Scheer. He was on the Running Scared episode. Maybe you heard it. We're talking about friend of the show, Paul Scheer. He was on the Running Scared episode. Maybe you heard it. Together, they're watching the greatest movies of all time on their new podcast, Unspooled. And the first episode is out now. I think the second episode is out now.

They covered Citizen Kane. They covered Ben-Hur. They're going through the AFI 100 list. Oh, okay. No, it's just when you said they're covering the greatest movies of all time, I was like, that's crazy. They're committing to just doing Toy Story 2 every week. That's quite a...

I can't believe they got to that before I did. Well, they're going to watch some of the classic movies you're supposed to have seen, like Citizen Kane. That's the first episode. But they're going to cover everything on this list. Taxi Driver, Graduate, Pulp Fiction. I will point out number 99 on the afi 100 is toy story really yeah where does ts2 rank ts2 yeah ts2 you're saying two

yeah uh not there now there's three oh no three is right yeah but no neither of them there just the first one interesting but they're gonna cover crazy backstories yeah like how a group of hollywood bigwigs tried to stop citizen kane from being made they wanted to burn the celluloid yeah they're gonna bring on film experts to talk about what happened behind the scenes and if you've heard like how did this get made paul's podcast or amy's podcast the canon yeah you know you know this is gonna be fun on blank check there are people who love maybe you heard them on blank check maybe i heard them on blank check and if you're listening to blank check they're people who love movies maybe you heard them on blank check maybe I heard them on blank check and if you're listening to blank check you like people

talking about movies I mean they've they're doing a great job so far I love hearing them talk to each other I agree

they're both really smart engaging people and I realize it was very presumptuous for me to refer to them as friends you were much smarter to say friends of the show

because now I'm worried they're listening to it and Paul's gonna be like I don't hang out with that guy we're not friends I'm friendly no I think Paul's a great be like, I don't hang out with that guy. We're not friends. I'm friendly.

No, I think Paul's a great friend of ours. I ran into Amy and she was like, hey. No, we're all friends and we're asking you to check out Unspooled in Podcast Apps like Apple Podcasts right now. Yeah, there are two best friends. They're the four friends with us. Listen to Unspooled. Clooney is like an A-list star who mostly makes like yeah he doesn't want to make that vanity project he owns a tequila company he doesn't need to this

is part of that which means that this is the last time he will what's this tequila company yeah what's it called again uh tres amigos or something casas del amigos when i when i interviewed him in toronto he had just sold it and He literally said, I just sold my tequila company. I don't ever need to make a movie. I only make a movie if I want to make a movie. Clooney's episode of the Letterman Netflix show is really fascinating.

He talks about all this a lot. He's like, yeah, I'm not really fishing for stuff. If something comes to me and it's really exciting, I'll do it. I'd also be happy never acting again. He seems chilled. Also, he married this ridiculously impressive lady, so I guess he could just hang out with her. He seems like he wants to produce and direct

more, which the American public does not really want him to do. Well, I'm happy for him to do it, I guess. I don't fucking know. He can only go up. It's a weird big deal for him to do this, and it cuts both ways. It's like this seems like a prestige- for like a big blockbuster. Right.

And this seems like a big blockbuster for Clooney. And then they're keeping the lid on it, which I think conclusively at this point, the kind of mystery box marketing, which Abrams has like really ushered in the new era of. Yeah. Is a failure as an experiment. Yeah, definitely. Because I think— People need to know, especially with a movie like this, they need to know what the movie's about.

And not even just a failure in terms of financial success, but I think it almost always impedes enjoyment of the movie because marketing is so omnipresent now that if they're keeping that title lit on it, you start speculating way too much about what the film could be. And when you get into the theater, it's always going to be

disappointing because it's only going to be one thing. So you forgot, you got it right with the Three Oceans movies, Perfect Storm, and Batman and Robin. What's the other one?

His most successful film is number one. His most successful film? He's not the star of it. He's not the star of it? But he is above the title and he is like the second star. Yeah.

He is the second star of the film. Came out just five years ago. Yeah. He is the second star of the film. Came out just five years ago. It came out just five years. Oh, Gravity. Gravity. Gravity. You kind of forget he's in that, but you know what?

So good in it. Yeah. He's very good in it. Yeah. Agreed. But that's the point. Very few. Yeah.

Right. But I mean, yes. But I mean, when you're looking at it, you do see like he makes films like Up in the Air, The Descendants, Burn After Reading that don't cost a lot of money and make surprising amounts of money. Right, like Burn After Reading did like 60 and the other two did close to 90, right? Correct. Yeah, right. So those are Clooney home runs.

A Clooney home run is you make a $20, $30 million movie and it makes $100 domestic and another $100 overseas. Now he was trying to be like a billion dollar man. Yeah. overseas. Now he was trying to be like a billion dollar man. Yeah. Because Tomorrowland's one of those movies that needs to kind of make a billion dollars in order to be profitable. Which is insane that they let him do this. This movie cost

probably I mean, listed by 200 million dollars. With a lot of marketing. Of course. That was vague. Like they spent a lot of money to not answer. T. T? It was a lot of just the letter T. Oh yes, the pen. Like the marketing was a lot of the pen. T oh yes the marketing was a lot of the pin t you know there's a big music festival in europe called tomorrowland so they own the copyright in

a lot of countries this film had to be released as project t which is the worst fucking title in other countries it also had the subtitle a world beyond which is a terrible subtitle true um i will say this is a movie where I think every single cent is on screen. Yeah, I know. It looks good. This movie looks so fucking expensive. It looks great. It looks expensive is a good way to put it though. Yeah. Because some of the visual effects are, I mean, some of the designs are

a little bland. Yeah. I like the design overall. I'll also say anytime it's a practical set, I'm really impressed. There are a lot of big sets in this movie. Ben's making the right face right now. A lot of big sets. So the movie comes out no one's seeing it there's like total embargo like like up until like three days before the movie comes out it's a complete mystery pretty much like really right like serious i mean there was an official trailer and there was i remember i watched basically most of the house escape scene was came out that came out they

released that as like a clip to hype people up and i remember watching that and thinking this looks fucking astonishing masterpiece this is like a just brad bird directing action like just what i want and sci-fi it's cool and i remember there was a synopsis that came out earlier that leaked out from like some disney insider that was like it's about like a little girl robot and alternate reality and they were like not true yeah but that was like, it's about a little girl robot in alternate reality, and they were like, not true! Shh! But that was the only thing out there. The week of the movie's

release, a bunch of critics who were all Bird fans who were like, no way this isn't a beautiful surprise under the Christmas tree. This is gonna fucking stun us. All of them came out and were like, um... It's interesting. He's going for it. And it comes out,

disappoints opening weekend, although does a number that's bigger than you, in retrospect, would believe this movie did. Doesn't multiply super well and is sort of forgotten. Yeah.

Like, not sort of forgotten. And Brad Bird, much like Andrew Stan before him, is kind of sent with his tail between his legs back to Pixar to be like, okay, much like Andrew Stanton before him, is kind of sent with his tail between his legs back to Pixar to be like, okay, I'll make that sequel.

Apparently, Bird also felt like he finally had a good idea for Incredibles. Sure. But it's this interesting thing that both those guys had to do where it's like, I gotta lick my wounds and rebound here. Yeah. Now, Stanton, I heard, apparently agreed to do Finding Dory under the condition

that Disney would let him make another live-action film. Which still hasn't been announced, even though Finding Dory under the condition that Disney would let him make another live action film. Which still hasn't been announced, even though Finding Dory is, no one remembers, one of the ten highest grossing films of all time. Yeah. The highest grossing animated film, period. Okay. I think they end up throwing him something in the next couple years.

Okay. I mean, we're not here to talk about it. I know. I'm just saying, I wonder if Bird has a similar condition. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, we're not here to talk about it. I know. I'm just saying, I wonder if Bird has a similar condition. Yeah. I don't know. I wish he was doing a Star War, but now it feels like their dance cards so fucking filled up. Yeah, and also, forget it. Right. Do something else.

Right. Yeah. But let's talk about this film. Yes. It opens very strangely. So every decision this film makes is strange yes um but yeah opening is weird yeah uh it's a video of judge clooney director dressing the camera yep a really cool countdown clock with light bulbs yeah that's the thing right at the start you're like fuck this is this could be fucking good

getting hard and i'll say this a lot of movies try to like recapture what is the name for those weird like no like countdown there's some name for them and they are specific and really cool yeah um a lot of movies today people go like i'm trying to recapture that like spielberg feel that like amblin-y, warm glow feel. And you watch it and it feels kind of affected. This is one of those movies that really somehow captures that feeling visually.

Not in reappropriating or recreating the way those movies looked. This movie looks unbelievable just from a cinematography standpoint. Claudia Miranda. Who's one of the best digital DPsps he's one of the guys who figured out how to make the digital camera warm what else has he done he left benjamin button he did life of pie did he do life he did there's a he did he won the oscar for life of pie right there's another big digital one i'm forgetting that he did yeah

but he was like not a feature guy essentially before he did like failure to launch was his first feature oh beautiful he was mostly a music video and essentially before. He did like Failure to Launch was his first feature. Oh, beautiful shot. He was mostly a music video and commercials guy. He did Tron Legacy, which is a gorgeous movie. Right. Then Fincher brings him up to the big leagues with Benjamin Button. He's only done a handful of movies. But he's a guy who is able to, because the backhand slap against digital cinematography

is that it often feels kind of cold and sterile. That you can't get those warm color tones and make them feel natural. And this movie has such a great color palette and a real animator sense of how color dictates the mood of a scene. And I do get that

kind of tummy glow from watching the inspirational optimistic scenes of this movie. So even just that slow push into the clock, I'm like, here we go. I'm in good hands. Yeah, baby. Right?

And then interrupted by Britt Robertson offscreen, who's like, you're telling the story wrong. Right, yeah. And now it's the two of them bickering. And get ready for a lot of that. That's my, like, it's cute if this is just it, but it is, on rewatch, I was like, it's cute if this is just it, but it is on rewatch.

I was like, it is crazy how much of this movie is people arguing with each other over weird little details. Yes. Like, what is that? I don't worry about it. What are you? Come on, explain it to me.

I need you to explain to me. I can't explain to you right now. Like, you know, like so much of that. And I read a lot of critics say, I realized at that moment, this movie wasn't going to work.

Uh, okay. Like just, it felt off the second they start fighting but then he's like oh well all right fine like what would you you know what's your take and she's like i'm an optimist right like right like i need the exact dialogue because they're talking about like the world ending why would you do it differently right yeah yeah and she goes because i'm an optimist yeah And then it cuts to his childhood, right?

First. It cuts to his childhood. Yes. It cuts to him, the little boy inventor, making a jetpack. Yeah. And going to the World's Fair. Yes. In Queens.

Yes. And showing off his jet. Which is the World's Fair where Disney kind of presented. Epcot. Well, not Epcot. Tomorrow. Well, a lot of stuff. Carousel of Progress, which is one of my favorite attractions because it's dorky and they use that song here,

it's the great big beautiful tomorrow, that song. And he's there with his jetpack trying to get people to pay attention to him. Now, I couldn't sleep last night in a stunning, uncharacteristic, off-brand turn of events. And so I watched literally every special feature on this Blu-ray. They were weirdly educational into the process of making this film. Right. And it's a lot of people talking about how difficult Brad Bird is, right? And a lot of him talking about NASA and believing in the future and stuff like that.

He originally wanted the cold open of this film to be what we see only for two seconds, which is Frank Walker on his farm trying out the jetpack and failing. And it was supposed to be

like beautiful, like Spielberg-y tableau. Here's the farm. He puts on the jetpack. He goes. It crashes. He goes back. His dad reprimands him.

Okay. And that was going to be the first five minutes of the movie. You don't open with the arguing thing. And everyone's like, yeah, it took us like seven days to shoot that

sequence. It's really tough to do it with a real kid and have the camera moving in sync with the jetpack. He didn't want to use CGI. The movie has a lot of kids. And doing stunts with kids is really difficult. You have limited hours. All the kids, I mean, the two kids, young Frank and

Athena, had to do five weeks of stunt training before they even started filming the movie. Yeah, because especially Athena has a ton of stunts. And Young Frank is mostly flying. Yeah, I mean his one big scene is the jetpack scene. Right, and this other jetpack scene that they didn't end up using. And the producer's like, the thing that's great about Brad is that he comes from animation, so he's got these great shot ideas. the thing that's great about Brad is that he comes from animation, so he's got these great shot ideas.

And the thing that's interesting about Brad is that he doesn't understand how difficult they are to do in live action. Oh, my God. And you just see Brad Burr wearing a hat going like, okay, let's put the kid up on the wires. And they're not in like a green screen place. They're in like a farm and they have this rig and the camera's on like a fucking 16-wheeler. And they scrap all of that.

They just use it as a cut-in when he goes, drops his jetpack onto Hugh Laurie's desk. Hugh Laurie says, does it work? You see half a second. Boom, crash. Kind of. The dash going like, right, right. But that was supposed to be the cold open

that was supposed to go straight to that, right? He feels disillusioned uh and also the other question is what good does this do and he goes it's just fun can't it just be fun right which is weird because that's not really what the rest of the movie is saying no but this movie throws a lot of ideas out there that it then sort of just lets hang out there right um but no and then he demonstrates uh his jetpack by sneaking into Tomorrowland. Well, first, little robot girl in a little blue dress follows him. Right, gives him the T-pin and goes like, follow us through here, but don't get caught.

Yeah. So he gets on the car after them for It's a Small World After All, scans the pin, secret hatch. Now he's in Tomorrowland he's almost vomiting yes right yes weird transportation but i love all of this stuff i love using the iconography of like 60s theme park rides yeah well we're going to talk about it yeah do you know okay so disney was supposed to be two things one on the blu-, there's the option to watch this with a cartoon short before the film. Weird. Like a sort of 60s, like, na-na-na-na-na-na, like that? It's a 2D animated short film that's supposed to look like it's from the 60s.

Okay. And it was supposed to be in the World's Fair sequence as one of the videos on one of the rides that Frank goes on. Sort of Jurassic Park-y where it sets a lot of stuff up for you. Right, yeah. And I think it's really good, and it should have been in the movie. Well, um, I mean at 130 minutes,

but this movie feels like it has a lot of stuff you could cut. Yes. But, but this, if you put this scene and you're able to cut four other scenes later on where people have to explain what Tomorrowland is, right? Um,

this idea of, uh, this movie never really explains what tomorrowland is this video does it that's my huge which is insane that is my biggest problem with this movie right so this video does it perfectly which is plus ultra was right jules verne a secret society comprised of i believe jules verne thomas edison nikolai tes. Which is insane because they hated each other. No, they got along. And Gustavi fell. Right.

And initially, this movie was going to include Walt Disney as the fifth member of this. They decided to strip him out of it. Probably, I'm assuming because someone said like Disney's legacy is way too complicated to just make him a simple like dreamy guy. I'm not sure. They shot that stuff though. It's all in the deleted scenes. I know.

I know. And it's interesting to me because what is so fascinating about this movie to me is that it is so invested in the 60s 50s 60s walt disney legacy of the future like vision of the future shit and that shit is so capital p problematic if you dig into it yes but it's not if you just like do the surfacy disney world you know right and like i guess they were just like we'll like do the surfacy Disney World, you know. Right. And like, I guess they were just like, well, just do the surfacy Disney World thing. And then at some point someone was like, I think it's too tricky. Right.

Like, you know, it has to be. I think it has to be. It also feels weird when you see the characters on screen being like, and Walt Disney himself. Right. Like there's a longer version of the Catherine Han, Keegan-Michael Key scene where they talk about walt disney a lot you're like this is odd they're all talking around it though where they're like what is tomorrowland well it's not walt disney's idea right but like but it is obvious it's just disney you know right the one line they should have kept in was like she goes like the theme park and they go like well that was the cover uh sure right You know, he was in on old Uncle Walt.

Right. But he gets sucked into Tomorrowland. This rubbit almost knocks him out, but then fixes his jetpack. So now it works. Yeah. Which I kind of dislike because it's like, well, then he didn't really deserve to be here, the robot.

Yeah, but he had the ambition. That's what Athena sees in him. And he has the joy for invention, which is Athena sees in him. Right. So then joy for invention, which is Athena sees in him. Right. So then he gets the jetpack on just in time, lands in front of David Nix, played by Dr. House MD. Hugh Laurie.

George Clooney has a very funny line on one of the behind the scenes where he's like, for me, and I think Hugh would say the same, Tomorrowland is a film about two TV doctors who finally get to hang out together. Sure. I wish they would hang out more. Me too. I mean, I also wish Hugh Laurie had like a character in this.

Okay, so you want- Such a talented actor. Agreed. You want my number one hot take or a fix for this movie? Because I think I figured out how to fix this movie. Mm-hmm.

I think Hugh Laurie and George Clooney should be one character. Okay. Okay. So I'm going to go through my fixes as we go through the film. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I think for this

sequence you probably don't get an actor of hugh laurie's caliber to only do this but you have someone stuff shirt to play the guy doesn't want to let him in right yeah then george clooney enters tomorrowland i like all this stuff a lot i like all this young frank stuff yeah me too sure uh i like athena i think rafi cassidy is really good i i think a lot of me giving her the Blinky nomination was just like, how the fuck did they find this kid? Yeah. And also you were just being a griff. It's a real griff pick, but it's also like a masterpiece of casting where it's like,

hey, I'm Brad Burt. Here's an impossible ask. Yeah. Get me a 10 year old who looks 10, but behaves like a 70 year old robot. Right. And who has like the wisdom of years. Right. And also she's going to need to like fly around and do crazy stunts.

Which she did all her own stunts. Good for her. Insane. Like the whole thing's insane. Right. So then it flashes forward to, right, it goes back to the narration where Casey's like,

okay, enough of this. You're going to go through your whole childhood. Yeah, Casey's like, Jesus, all right. And she's like, let me talk about myself.

And you see her looking at the stars as a little kid with her dad, Tim McGraw. Her mom, Judy Greer. Who gets cut out of the movie. Which they shot the film with her being alive. I know. There was a whole different family situation where they were like strapped lower middle class. So they're like the uncle and his kids had moved in with them it was like too many kids in one household everyone's sort of feeling the strain

of the economy uh and the mom's still alive yeah then they were like fuck the home stuff doesn't work there's too much we need to simplify it just down to the dad. And also they shot all of it where Casey was like really disaffected and disillusioned. And they were like, this doesn't work because for the first 20 minutes of the movie, she's just a bummer. She needs to be unerringly optimistic. Which it's like, how did they recognize that that needed to be fixed but didn't recognize all the other things that needed to be fixed? Maybe they did and just didn't have the time. I'm not sure. That makes a huge change.

Sure. The bummer Casey scenes are a bummer. Well, so that's the thing. Now, forget Frank. Right. We're not with Frank. For an hour. Casey, yeah, who is, how old is she supposed to be?

15? I don't know. She's being played by a girl in her mid-20s. Right. Who looks like a girl in her mid-20s. Right. But she's supposed to be 15 or 16. Right.

I mean, I described this to Griffin off mic as like an Alison Lohman situation where if you put her in a baseball cap, like maybe if you squint, could still be a teenager, but she's too old really for it. She's got a very young face. She does.

But she also doesn't look young. No. She's just got the features of a young person, but she looks like her age. And so I'm like, I can't, I just can't, and maybe some people can't watch the movie

without thinking like this is about a 25 year old who lives with her eight-year-old brother and is obsessed with restoring nasa's dominance right like right which i just can't buy her as a kid do you know the first two people they offered this part to who uh shailene woodley uh okay and amelia clark okay all in the same age range right i wonder why they didn't just go hey maybe the main character should be like 25 i mean clearly they wanted an experienced and talented actress which is fine and someone this is a very demanding movie so they couldn't have an actual teenager they need a grown person but also is there a reason the character needs to be a teenager uh um no right no yeah no yeah that's my big question right no no there's nothing gained from her being a teenager no she could still be i mean like she's idealistic and i guess teens

she could play 18 19 it would be the same story. She could be a college student. She could be 22. She could be out of college. But even 20 makes a big difference from like 16 or 17. Not that they say her age. Never. It's just that she's a teenager. And you can tell she's trying to play younger than she is.

Which I think she does a very good job. She's a talented actress. She's very expressive. And this is one of those movies where this is a deceptively difficult performance because of how technical this film is. Sure, and also a lot of her character's arc is demanding to know what's going on from everyone, which is a tough thing to be handled. But I also think a lot of these shots, the way they're constructed, she has to have very precise blocking in order to hit certain marks because of the way the CGI is interacting with it. Like, the tick,

Yes. The show you're on, Yeah. Does well, in my opinion, to make it a joke, that you're not given information. Well,

I disagree. Not my kind of show. I'm not a fan. If you can land that, and the tick is good at it, and I do think other things are good at it, I disagree. All right, quiet.

Because you know what I'm talking about, where it's like, instead of having what Tomorrowland is, which is, can be Lindelof what Tomorrowland is, which is, can be Lindelof's problem in general, which is a lot of circular conversations that just frustrate you. He's so good at making things, making it feel like something amazing is about to happen.

Right. But not yet. And then he strings you along too long. And then by the time you get there, it often feels underwhelming. Right. Whereas like, if you can make it a joke where it's just the information just bounces off of

someone and it's funny. Okay, then you've landed it. But this movie does not do that. So you're saying this movie should have started Griffin Newman type? Yeah, exactly. Okay, cool. So Casey, a little girl with way too much paprika on the sandwich where she's like,

I want to go up there to the stars. Doing the ultimate too much cute kid performance right yeah yeah for sure right and then it cuts ahead to like okay her dad's a nasa engineer but they're about to shut everything down close it down they're dismantling it why because we gave up we stopped looking at the stars and i guess it's like interstellar we stopped looking at the stars you know yeah it has that sort of interstellar vibe of like you know know, then this is the period where even Obama's like, I can't fund NASA right now. The country's broke.

You know, so NASA's like, it's like, what do you want to do, NASA? NASA's like, I don't know. Post-recession,

NASA was like getting fucking axed. Yeah, like, should we, like, maybe a satellite or something?

Yeah. Like, you know, like, that's all they got. They're not like, we're going to the moon! The moon!

And people like Brad Bird who grew up in the space age are like, you know, man, that's all they got they're not like we're going to the moon the moon and people like brad bird who grew up in the space age are like you know man that's that was the good stuff like i was a kid and i watched neil armstrong land on the moon like the space station's last orbit was when they were filming this movie yeah no they're tapping into a real thing wasn't that long that we sent the Mars rover. I understand. We've got all that shit. We've got a lot of unmanned probes out there.

Sure. Probing. Yeah. So we still have a space program. There were two things that happened simultaneously while they were filming this film. One is the space station made its final orbit, and it felt like that's the end of an era. Right. And two was they sent the Mars rover up.

Right. So it was kind of like a baton off, but it felt a little pessimistic at that moment because before the rover landed, it felt like, well, now we don't really have anything going on up there. You know? Okay. It felt like that was kind of shoe leather.

But the dads of a job and Casey keeps on trying to sneak in and dismantle the cranes that are gonna tear down the platform it's not a great plan she comes home, tells her brother is really excited

that now her dad's gonna be able to go back to work or at least have time off to work on his own stuff rather than deconstructing and he's like no nothing changed case it goes to school negativity negativity famine yeah disease and now you're starting to get what bird is doing yeah you see bird just grinding that axe like that scene where the teacher's like the world will like you know scrub something over the board and and she's like what can we do about it and he's like what world thing plus now equals poo poo disease and like anytime you see a tv much like uh fucking the village like it's like tornado destroys country like you know it's always like some like like natural event or war thing.

There's another thing they cut out of this movie was the notion that in addition to all this like terrible stuff happening in the world, art is being stolen. Like the largest series of art heists are happening because Tomorrowland is collecting all. Like the Mona Lisa has disappeared. Right. So this movie, and we have to talk about it as we have, you know, in Atlas Shrugged. Yes. The world's great thinkers and inventors who are like too individualistic for, you know, government and society go to this place called Grant's Gulch where they like have their own society.

Yes. And it's this objectivist vision of like the strongest and the smartest and whatever right it's creepy yes uh that's what this movie's about yes now it's about how that's bad it's a rebuke to that it is but it is fascinating that after years of being criticized is like incorporating a lot of this thinking bird has made this movie that's like trying to wrestle with exactly that idea but i think that's exactly what he was intending to do was like i want to make a movie explaining why that isn't what i believe in right why it looks close to that but it isn't like that's what i love about and that's why he's

putting himself in he's like dividing his personality i think really strongly and you know the uh pessimistic side of him is being put into Clooney right all of the sort of like man we just don't we're not we don't try anymore and we're not optimistic about the future

and the world's gonna end done it's over nothing we can do about it like Art is being quelched you know and like and then the younger version of himself in Casey

which is like tilting at windmills right like you know it takes us believing in things to try and you have to make

this effort yada yada yada right and she knows how things work she knows how things work so Casey tries to go in again

and do another fucking I don't know who cares I hate the fucking NASA thing forget it

like I I like it I clearly like this movie a lot more than you no I actually really like this movie although but it b i i honestly i clearly like this movie a lot more no i actually really like this movie although but it bums me out it bums me out a lot i think that's why where maybe the movie fails for me there are a few films where i get more frustrated by the fact that they aren't great in recent memory than this one like when i watch it i'm just like why aren't you a fucking masterpiece but there are parts of this movie where i'm just so into it and excited

by it but i really dislike the first part because I think it's one, confusing what she's doing. Yeah. Two, makes her seem like a weirdo. Yeah. And I don't know. Like, it just feels like what she's doing is so obviously pointless. Yeah. Is it a justification, though, for why she's recruited?

Like, I don't even really understand. I guess Rafi sees that, I mean, whatever. Athena sees that she's like, refuses to give up on the world. As has Athena. Athena's like the one Tomorrowland robot

who would not like close the doors. You know what I mean? We find out she's a recruitment robot that's supposed to look for those, the dreamers. Right. And yes.

Bleep it. Yes. Bleep it out because I want people to guess what I said so I think what's interesting is

these first three minutes are the stuff that was most reshot and rewritten so I think it feels a little haphazard

in terms of like putting two things together but I'm pretty much on board with this movie it's sloppy but at this point I'm pretty much on board with it

I'm on board with it but a little bit in that Linda Lafayette way of like well what's it about where's this going so she gets this pin the pin gives her these visions of Tomorrowland gotta get that pin give me that pin and she's running around in Tomorrowland it's very exciting and the vision of Tomorrowland

is cool fucking Brad Bird is doing like. The monorail. But on a much more complicated technical level, he's kind of doing the Buster Keaton Sherlock Jr. gag. Where it's like the actor stays the same in the frame and their environment changes around them. Yeah, that's fun. Which I fucking love. And I love just the way the entire color palette changes in Tomorrowland.

You know? Right. Well, right. Casey's world is very bleak. Right. And gray. And the police station is like all concrete. It's like poured concrete.

Right. Yeah. And all of this stuff I think is fun where like she's in the car and she touches the pin and she's like. Yeah, that's cool. Realizing the rules of how this pin works. But then finally gets out into a field, is able to do it for the full two minutes before it runs out, quote unquote.

Where she gets on the monorail but doesn't get to go on. Right. So in her pursuit of what's going on, she goes to Kevin Smith's comic book store. A secret stash. Silent Bob's secret stash. No, she goes to whatever. It's a Blaster in the Past is the name of the store. Right. A nostalgia

zone. Right. Run by Keegan-Michael Key and katherine high the great katherine yeah the great friend of the couple yeah exactly yeah the greatest celebrity couple you can imagine right and they work at a bradbird memorabilia store right at a 1950s memorabilia store we've talked about how limited uh the iron giant toys were at the time that the film came out seemingly all of them ended up in this one store like the entire supply this is where uh where steven spielberg went just to buy all the background props for ready player one right like he just went to that store i think they shot the entire movie in this one set right exactly um what if

ready player one when it comes out isn't like state-of-the-art, like mo-cap CGI, but it's just Steven Spielberg's hands with toys going like, I'm the Iron Giant. Look at me. I'm Freddy Krueger. Yeah, that's what it is. Did you see the new trailer? No.

How's it look? Really? Yeah. By the time this episode comes out. We either loved it or hated it. It will have been three months ago. Yep. So, in a store with all the Iron Giant merchandise and Simpsons merchandise and Mr. Incredible

merchandise. Yeah, yeah. They give this kind of spiel. Right. She tracks down. I like this scene. Through eBay. No, I know.

It's just they want her pin. Give me that pin. Give me that pin. And when she provides the pin. Yeah. But she's there sleuthing. No, I know she's sleuthing. I like journey movies.

Sure. I like this scene. Where it's about this step-by-step trying to figure out, you know, solve the mystery kind of stuff. And she's starting to get the information out of them. When she doesn't want to give them the pin, they start botting out. They're a couple of Robobots. I like that. I just like the reveal that someone's a robot.

I like the flickering of the eyes. When's that bad? They call them AAs, audio animatronics, which is what Walt Disney called the rubbits on the rides, which I think is a nice touch. Yeah, they're Chuck E. Cheese bots. Yeah, like the Hall of Presence robot. Right. That one that looks like John Voight. Donald Trump, you see

the one that looks like John Voight? Oh, yeah. Donald Trump? Yeah. That John Voight robot? Yeah. Kind of like Donald Trump Voight-Bottom okay uh so they start botting out and uh Casey's freaking out they got guns she thinks they're just role-playing items but then boom hole in the ceiling a gag I really like because then she's like how do I get out of this the bird falls down from the ceiling which distracts them and then Athena comes in then Athena comes in. Then Athena comes in.

That's right. And throws a time bomb, which, hello. Love that. Love that. That's good, right? Love that. Yeah, that's good. Yeah.

That's such a cool design. It's cool. And Athena's like doing back flips and shooting. She's got a little denim jacket. She's like, come with me. Yeah. Very terse little girl. Her sped up movement. Yes yes throughout any of these like kind of

fight sequences yeah she runs yeah are so good looking so good um so she gets casey out of there destroys these robots they or they auto destruct yeah and she gets casey throws her into a car no she's a little 10 year old girl driving a car, delivering a lot of exposition. Yes, and that scene, I love half of it, which is a little robot driving a car really calmly and talking about things calmly. I don't love Britt Robertson

just yelling over and over again like, what is this? How are you doing that? What's going on? You know? But here's what I do love. It's just like 20% too dialed up. Here's what I do love, and this to dialed up. Here's what I do love. And this is an ultimate fan praise award. I'm watching. I'm like,

why does this feel so weird? And it's like, Oh right. Because it's a 10 minute stretch of the movie where it's just two female characters talking. Uh, that's true. Especially in a film of this size.

You like, don't see that. True. Like there's not like the one girl who's getting everything explained to her. No, you're right. It's not a Taylor Sheridan movie. Right.

Yes. Exactly. So she starts kind of vaguely doling out the information. A little bit where it's like, you have to come meet this person. He built something he shouldn't have. It's all this like vague, you know, and we know Clooney's their destination because we're like, where's Clooney? But they also don't want her to get to Tomorrowland yet.

So the movie now starts, I feel like, artificially putting brakes. A little bit. On the story. Yeah. Because up until this point, it's pretty much moving forward. Yeah, but I'm fine with this

because I love the Clooney scene. I love the whole escape from the barn. Uh-huh. But I also just, I love that the crux of the movie is the flicker on the world ending thing i do too i like like that's when i get a little fired up and i'm like oh i think i'm into the what this movie is about and that's an hour in right it cluny answers literally aside from the opening yeah

minute 55 yeah now here here's where my fix really comes into effect here's my question though why does raffy cassidy apart from the fact that she just can't do all those stunts, why does she drop her off at the barn and just leave? Thank you. So this is where the movie I think starts artificially throwing in- Stretching things out. Right.

Yeah. Right, which this movie does not need to stretch things out at all, right? It's not like it needs to stall for time. Because they kind of make it like one moment she's like robot on a mission, get the job done, nothing can stop her. And the other moment she's fucking Nick Fury in the Avengers movies

where it's just a little push. I want them to get to it themselves. Where there's no clear advantage to her leaving. Casey figuring this out on her own. So here's my fix. I'm throwing it out here as part of this larger story fix. We get to Tomorrowland minute 60.

Rather than like minute 90. Right. So when Raffi Cassidy is taking her in the car, she takes her to her house where she has the doomsday clock that she's pirating the signal off of. She essentially is Frank in this whole section. I've been living here off the grid. I'm a robot. They kicked me out of Tomorrowland.

Yeah, that's a good pitch. I have a chip on my shoulder and I'm trying to get someone to get me back in. Right. The Dave Clark Five, which is a clever gag. Yeah.

He's, I mean, that actor, Matthew McCall. Okay. Love him. Yeah. I mean, just his like face and his weird smile.

He's the weird robot who's like, hi, i'm here to take care of this situation and they vaporize the cops ding dong oh it's the other bell weird yeah the one that occasionally rings i installed two doorbells you know we're we're lux over here we have two doorbells i'm opening the door wait a second What's that music? Oh! Oh my, hello. Hey.

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your favorite e-liquid try something new maybe grab a starter kit or just treat yourself to an upgrade my dude you're a little upgraded right now vaping ben uh hold on one second you you you really exhale like loud like you're like geyser like sorry that's just how i live now all right well do you also live in a way where like shopping for vapes are simpler simpler than ever like you don't have to leave the house you don't have to go to the store you can just go to eliquid.com uh yes and i'm going to tell you about my experience shopping on eliquid.com because it's really changed i I am not a vapor. You are the vapor of the Blank Check crew.

Yes. Yes. 100% love vaping, love vaporwave, all that stuff. So, eliquid, what it does is it provides you with a huge quantity of different brand names that you can trust. Sure. They offer, of course, you know, I'm a wet guy. They've got a ton of e-liquid available right and these are basically the different kinds of oils that you would then put into your rig or your

product your vaping device they also then offer a wide selection of different kinds of you know again inside people know it's called the rig i had no no idea. This is some Mad Max stuff. Sorry. It's called the rig. Vaping Ben is sort of jauntily holding his mouth up to his hand. Okay. So they have vape accessories. They got about 44,000 items in stock. They have a ton of stuff. And the thing is, too, is they got repair kits.

They've got all kinds of accessories. So this is like a one-stop shop for any of our listeners out there that are into vape life. Vape life. That vape life. So you went to eliquid.com. You got a bunch of stuff. Oh, for sure. What'd you get?

So I mentioned I got the Unicorn Milk, which is a flavor by Cutwood E-Liquids. All right. Actually, I got some, you know, the website too is really easy to use. I'll just read some of the other recommended for you flavors that come up just looking at the website yes for yes so there's alien piss by bomb saucy liquid uh there's orgasm by one up vapor uh and then there's tnt by time bombs vapor so this is a prominent subculture in america right now it's basically the culture now i also alien piss yeah alien piss uh now i also recommend uh this is also a fun way for you to start maybe making smoke uh art like videos or like smoke trick videos maybe if people out there into that

right well anyway let's uh let's give our listeners uh the special offer um david uh yes well if you go to eliquid.com slash check that's e-l-i-q-u-i-d.com slash check you're gonna get 20 off your first purchase you just have to use the promo code check during checkout you go to uh eliquid.com slash check and um you know you're gonna have a great time over at eliquid.com they got atomizers they got batteries they got uh replacement coils tanks what's a tank well that's like that's where it houses the oil yeah all right so anyway you know apparently the website's got uh easy to navigate menus i'm told that they've got fast shipping same day if you order by 2 p.m pst that's excluding um arkansas washington and utah interesting all right guys yeah well

best in class customer service they can help you you Monday through Saturday. It's a very upscale website. That was just a really great part in the song. Oh, yeah. Fair enough, Aping Ben. So, again, guys, for 20% of your first purchase, visit

eliquid.com slash check. That's E-L-I-Q-U-I-D dot com slash check and use promo code check during checkout. Alright. So, I'm going to leave you with this. Okay.

I'm going to make, actually, Alright, you know what? I'll make a unicorn for you out of smoke. Alright, you know what? I'll make a unicorn for you out of smoke. It's prancing across the room. Griffin is just stunned into silence. Thank you for

visiting us, Vaping Ben. Can we have regular Ben back now? Purdue or Ben? Okay, here he is. What a guy. I really think he's cool. He's up your alley this movie is violent by the way super violent but it's robot violence which is so smart but they do vaporize some people

100% the bad robots that creepy ass smile bad robot is this a JJ Abrams one keep talking man but yeah it was really disconcerting That creepy ass smile. Bad robot. Is this a JJ Abrams one? Keep talking, man. But yeah, it was really disconcerting. Yeah.

And it was effective. And I love like their heads popping off or when they like get punched and then they have like a weird like dent in their face. The baseball bat head where his whole face is like knocked in. You have one minute to, you know, like just that smile. It's so deranged. This whole booby trap sequence where they're like, you keep on establishing new devices

like that weird portal thing. I like the little laser grid that like chops them into little bits like in the hallway. Me too. The magnets on the walls. That shit's fun, man. But she's stuck because the hand,

all this stuff. I would have all this stuff happen with Athena. But this, well, for one, I think they're desperate to get Clooney into the picture. Obvious.

They need him there. Two, they do need a big action set piece. And so here that is., I think they're desperate to get Clooney into the picture, obviously. They need him there. Two, they do need a big action set piece, and so here that is. And I think they just want him active. You know, they want him involved. So, ready for this. Athena gets her through the house. They get in the bathtub. They go to the Eiffel Tower, right?

You do all this stuff, but you cut the time. It's just the sort of, like, action of it because you don't have to have a lot of arguing yeah you know athena in case you're on the same point at this at this point in the story they're at the same why am i not speaking oh my god what's happening yes we get it they get to tomorrowland and here comes george clooney in his long coat right hi i was an optimistic kid once like you right i took over tomorrow so you're saying the crux of the movie is now turning him around. Correct. Rather than having him say to Hugh Laurie, I've been turned around by her.

Right. And Laurie being like, well, I mean, I guess I could spend the next 25 minutes explaining everything to you, but I'm not going to be turned around. Clooney was her. He rose through the ranks. I get it. I get it. He invented the clock. Right.

Because this is the crux of this movie. He invents a clock. The crux of the movie anyway. Right. Right. He's able to look anywhere in the world at any point in time and is able to go forward. So he sees when the world's going to end. And at this point, Tomorrowland freaks out.

They kick him out forever. He's got Chip on his shoulder. They kick Athene out as well because she tries to defend him, I guess. And they just go, well, let's just count out the days. Whittle it down to a skeleton crew. Steal the Mona Lisa. Keep ourselves here. But let's not maintain it at all.

Let's let it look really shitty. Which is never explained. What is that? Where do they live? What do they do? What do they eat? How many people are there? 80?

I don't fucking know. It drives me crazy. All the explanation that hugh laurie does he never says like and now we live here and like you know we live over there and it's cool no one ages do they have babies what is happening he mentions drinking his chocolate shake which i guess keeps him immortal or whatever comes in chocolate now um i think minute 60 you get here you get to Clooney Clooney gives the one big speech where he's like

look kid I was like you I believed in all this let me show you the device there's 62 days left he shows her the monitor you made it join me here we'll wait out the rest of the time he shows her the monitor which is this thing which I like again I like the design

I like the weird red ball and he's like look see we look into the future and it's all 100% chance of destruction. And she's like, well, I think if you know that, that's fatalistic. And instead, we can still do it. And then it flickers. Right. And he's like, whoa. Beautiful.

But then, of course, here's some problems. Beautiful then. Here's some problems. Yeah. You don't have a villain. So what's the rest of the movie? You know, you do have to deal with that. You need some kind of like climax.

I think rather than being a villain movie, it is an obstacle movie. Right. That's fine. But then I think Disney is quaking a little bit. But I mean, I think they kind of mess it up anyway because the end of the movie has a very weak villain. Nick's barely a villain. I know. Well, but then... So I'm getting much out of it weak villain. Nick's barely a villain. I know. Right.

Well, but then, so I'm going to mention that. Yeah. Until he gives that one speech. Right. Right. I'm getting to that. But also, you know, the movie does have like some set pieces at the end, you know, which clearly it just sort of feels like it needs to have set pieces at the end.

Right. Like robots fighting and it has the death of Athena, you know. But so maybe. All that's harder to crowbar in. I mean, this would be the scarier thing to them is to kind of make Clooney the end. Robots fighting, and it has the death of Athena, you know. But so maybe... All that's harder to crowbar in. I mean, this would be the scarier thing to them, is to kind of make Clooney the villain. But you go, like, he comes, he shows him around, right? And it's just like, look, we're committed to this, and she's like, I got a solution.

He's like, oh, okay, and he's humoring her until Athena and Casey figure out, oh, he's doing this on purpose. Right. Oh, so you're saying he stays the villain. I'm saying they ultimately have to convert him. Yeah, but if he's been doing it on purpose, you can't come back from that.

It's too evil. Well, I think the other part of it is, and I think this whole plot line works better if Clooney is the villain, okay? I think you essentially make him Darth Vader. Darth Vader, fairly evil. You let him have the redemption at the very end, I'm saying. What you're now proposing is

like a huge restructuring of the movie. That would never happen. But it's interesting to talk about. It only changes from minute 55 on. I know what you're saying. It's just... But it's the same thing where the big thing that really crushed his optimism

more than anything else is that this robot girl didn't love him back, right? This movie is very caught up on this Lolita thing, which is very bizarre where it's like he had this formative relationship that he couldn't live out. As a child. Right. As a child. Right, right. But in the way that Lolita, it's like set up that it's like he couldn't get over that relationship when he was 13. Yeah, I know.

You know? And Athena represents, like, it's all really weird yeah but athena represents like the lost optimism of believing that things are possible right and he's this guy who went irate and started like becoming fatalistic because this robot girl okay couldn't laugh at his jokes can i say something yeah we actually should talk about what the movie actually is about though because now we're so deep in your pitch i agree right okay so let's get back on but but i do think it's an interesting pit and i think that ending is more effective if it's cluny going like i know what i have to do i have to blow up the robot girl and save humanity but why does

you have to blow her up because she's the self-destruct that's able to uh create enough damage to kill the antenna yeah i that's hard to buy that's what it is in the movie i know but it's hard to buy in the movie because you're like it's fucking tomorrowland you're immortal you can't build a bomb like what are you talking about yeah they don't have enough time i think symbolically that actually works well so the the movie's pitch instead is here you have clooney yeah he was part of the tomorrowland brain trust now he's converted but he's still aump. He got kicked out because he wasn't as into their whole, well, the world's fucked anyway,

let's just close all the doors. Right. But he is a grump. Right. As he might be if he got kicked out of paradise. We have 20 minutes of them fighting as they go through,

here's how we get through the house, the bathtub to the secret hut where we take the powder and bandage our eyes, and then the Eiffel Tower. Oh, my God. All of that. I was like, how many more forms of transportation are they going to take before they get to

Tomorrowland? Why is this movie killing time? I don't know. Keep it moving. Like, I think this stuff is fun, but if it was happening faster, it's when this is being intercut with arguments about whether or not what they're trying to do is futile gets frustrating. Or lean into it. It would have been funny if they were like, they get out of the pond, then they get on a train, then they're on a plane.

You know, and then they're like, I don't know, on a blimp. And then they get in a rocket ship. Yeah, they're on a blimp. But that's like. I love it. A zeppelin. You do a six minute montage with all the steps. Right.

And at this point, everyone should just be on board with what they're doing. Like they should be into it. We're going to fucking save the day. They get to Tomorrowland. Right. At minute 90. In this movie. Right.

Yeah. And when they arrive, Hugh Laurie's like, hey, what's up? What are you doing here? Yeah. And it's shitty.

It sucks. It's empty. Which you think if they want to live there forever, they try to, right. This is what doesn't, I mean, I mean, again, also, I think Bird is saying that though, where it's like which you think if they want to live there forever they try to right this is what doesn't i mean i mean again also i think bird is saying that though where it's like right you can't have paradise if it's just like your chosen few you know and he also says like well you know the grass and everything like who needs that was taking up time and energy it's like they start

becoming so didactic that they have milked all joy and wonder out of this environment. It sort of looks like the Javits Center now. That's what it looks like. The site of one of the worst nights of your life. Let's not revisit that. That's when Hillary lost and we live in a nightmare. Yeah, right. I mean, Hugh Laurie was right, let's be clear.

His little weird ball machine was right. The worst night of your life when you were at the Javits Center and then got a text from us saying, maybe we shouldn't record the man who knew too little tomorrow. Yeah. Do you remember that night where we were just like, we can't fucking talk about this movie tomorrow? Yep.

Donald Trump is the president. Yep. It was just a sea, people of color, women, just... All right, wait. I said we weren't revisiting it. No, I just... Now he's in it. Ben's got this thousand-yard stare.

This is Ben's Athena robot. This is the thing he can't get over. So what Nix tells them is, right, we've got this machine. It tells us the world is ending. Right. It's too late. And after a little while yeah

the thing that Casey figures out yeah that Frank has maybe been too close to it to figure out is like it's not just that

the machine says the world is ending they've been broadcasting it into all of our brains it becomes almost a positive thinking sort of idea of like

if everyone thinks the world's gonna end then the world's gonna end right it's fatalism right and Hugh Laurie admits it where he's like,

yeah, man, we were trying to warn everyone. Yeah. And goes on this very specific rant where he's like, and instead of like taking up action and going to their politicians, going to their captains of industry, they've turned it into video games and movies and like all this apocalyptic

talk, you know? And so they're just resigned to it. Right. And one, as you're listening apocalyptic talk, you know? And so they're just resigned to it. Right. And one, as you're listening to him talk, you get really bummed out because you think about this way of the world. Yeah.

And you're kind of like, yeah, fuck. I don't know. Like that. And I don't think that's what the movie wants. What the movie wants you to do is go like, yeah,

fuck this guy. He's an asshole. Like, yeah, he, we just, you know, he's just encouraging negative thinking right

uh and i that's not how i feel and here's what i want to say yeah i talked to lindelof about this movie humblebrag it was a humblebrag it was great it wasn't it's just a breath sure i asked him about this movie and he said i will never do what happened on that movie again which is what happened was i wrote that script and it got greenlit right away, which had never happened to me before. Usually that shit just takes a long time. Yeah. And instead they were like,

we love this and we're going to move on this now. Obviously it took a while to make the fucking thing. Sure, sure. And he said, and it was a real problem because I had gotten a green light from HBO and The Leftovers at the same basic time and so for the first time in my life I had these two really big projects running simultaneously and I was spread way too thin between them and he's like and that and he sort of implied like that's why I

think season one of The Leftovers is kind of a mess and why I think that movie is kind of a mess but another thing he's talked about extensively is that he was in a really deep depressive funk when he wrote The Leftovers season one which is like one of the bleakest seasons of TV ever made this movie isn't maybe quite as bleak but it's still very it has a very fatalistic look at where we are as a society

and I think Lindelof just needed to cheer up a little bit before he wrote this optimistic movie sure but I also I feel like not to keep on harping on this, right? But... He's harping on something. I'm gonna harp. Oh boy. Marsha Lucas.

No, I think at this point, Marsha Lucas is responsible for Star Wars. But I think at this point, the thing that would make the movie feel cathartic is if you were able to change that person's mind rather than it turning into a fight to destroy the technology.

Destroying the technology is just kind of like okay, well now it's just any third act de new mom. I think if the guy in there wasn't such a bummer, if it was Clooney, if you had the prologue where you knew... I think your point is interesting. It's a good pitch. Because I think it should be

about what I think this movie is trying to get at and is maybe the only justification for Casey being that young is that it's the gulf between when you were a child and you think anything is possible and when you're an adult and you come up against-

And you think nothing is possible. Right. Like really, you think nothing is possible. You're just like, this is the way of the world. You start a movie essentially with two stories that seem the same. A little boy in the 60s and a girl in the 2010s your pitch

is good thank you although i do think disney would have balked at it obviously but yes your pitch is good but instead the movie's idea is no a mind was changed yeah athena's mind sure in the 60s that's the movie's pitch right that's that's that literally is it right she's like you may have sort of lost hope and they may have lost hope but you changed my mind and that's why I kept up my my mission

right right and it's like incredibly long monologue had the impact right um I don't know I just feel I feel like Casey and Frank are redundancies like I feel like it has to be about one of the two I get your know I just feel I feel like Casey and Frank are redundancies like I feel like it has to be about one of the two of them I get your point

you know what I'm saying but even them being united it's kind of like they're cute when they're united once they team up with Frank though it's like they're cute what's Frank getting her

that Athena wasn't cute yeah Clooney yeah it's just so weird like by the time Clooney enters you're like

oh right George Clooney he's the guy above the title it is a little surprising that George Clooney's in this movie like he doesn't yeah he's not in it that much i'll consider it once he's in it he's in it the whole time right um like i'm sure he worked hard on this movie like you know it's not like uh and he's in a lot of set pieces exactly yeah i think for a more minor fix like if you just had that athena stuff sing a little more and spread it out a little more yeah rather than when she's dying she's like before i die i have to tell you something talks for eight minutes you know what i mean like then maybe it would hit a

little harder but that's another like lindelof thing where it's like hint hint hint right right and then he's like oh shit uh here it is you here it is. He hands you a briefcase full of papers. You have to read this really fast. Right. I feel like it's equivalent to when I would not write my school papers. And I would be like, hey, I had a printer problem. But I'm telling you, this is my take. It's really good.

And I would talk about how good that paper was. And by the time I handed it in, they were like, this is not good enough to justify the fact that it's five weeks late. You know? And the Lindelof structure of like, and there are a lot of things I love about Lindelof, but this is certainly, everyone agrees that if he has a problem, it is this. He keeps on promising so much delayed satisfaction

that by the point you get there, you never feel fully satisfied because your expectations have gotten so high. Wait till you read my will. It's so good. You're going to love my will. Oh, this is going to blow your mind.

Right. Like even if it's exactly what you wanted it to be, at this point you've also spent hours going like, but it could be this or that or that, and to have it only be one thing is disappointing. And there's a lot of this like a character starts explaining something and then they're cut off and you wait 20 minutes for another character to pick it up. Yep.

Which is frustrating. I think that stuff, I think it should have been more upfront with what Tomorrowland is, how it's created, all that sort of stuff. I think it does need that Jurassic Park video. What do you think about Athena's death scene in which George Clooney is asked to cry over his lost love, a 10-year-old girl, finally admitting that she loves him back and he made her more human? I think that scene would work if he was a bad guy maybe i mean that's i think it because then it's like he's a fucking guy who couldn't get over this all right you've made your pitch my god i'm just asking about the

scene i i really admire the audacity of the scene i do too yeah and here's we gotta talk about this and you're gonna hate it uh- We got to talk about the captain. The captain. Colin Trevorrow. Oh, we do. We do. I forgot that I called him the captain. Ben is leaving the studio.

Okay, go pee. We got to talk about the captain because this is where the captain rises to power. He's too good a filmmaker though. He's too good. Brad Bird has turned down Star Wars. Right. Kathy Candy candy goes is there no way you can do it yeah we wouldn't come out until maybe because this movie came out the same year as force awakens right can you push it back this and that and he said i got half an idea uh what if i was working on tomorrowland and i had someone working as a surrogate to run through pre-production on star wars and then i came over to star wars and he as a surrogate to run through pre-production on Star

Wars and then I came over to Star Wars and he was my surrogate on post-production on Tomorrowland sure and for a week or two they attempt to do that with a guy that Brad Bird says reminds me of me yeah at that age yeah this is if I had to bet someone was the next Brad Bird it would be the captain himself Colin Trevor youorrow even though I don't like safety not guaranteed you can see why a director like Brad Bird or anyone who came up

in the sort of Amblin era would look at that movie and be like oh this guy's on the right track and he also when you read interviews with him

we all like to shit on that movie now and I never liked it but plenty of people liked the movie yes 100% right but you and I were right at the time and everyone else

of course we're smart and we're the smartest of them all and we're big special boys. It's actually insane how big, special, and smart we are. I'm five foot six. So I feel like he also is really good at impersonating the kind of strong-minded, hyper-passionate filmmaker that Brad Bird is when he talks about film. Yeah. Okay. Sure. Right? film. Yeah. Okay.

Sure. Yes. Yes. Yeah. He's like good on a panel. Right. Or at least was. I feel like people are sort of sick of his shit.

Right. So they pretty quickly realized this isn't going to work. Yeah. But Kathy Kennedy is so impressed with this that she goes to her husband, Frank Marshall, nudges him in bed and goes, hey, you know that new Jurassic Park movie you're looking for? Well, listen to this. Uh-huh.

And holds up the phone to Colin Trevorrow. Right. She kept Brad Bird on the phone to Colin Trevorrow. Right. She kept Brad Bird on the phone through her having sex with Frank Marshall? Yes. Right.

I mean, I wouldn't say they're having sex. They're making love. You're good. They're, you know, they've been together for decades at this point. Right.

It's love more than sex. Where was I going to go with this? I have no idea. There's a reason I had to invoke the captain. You wanted to invoke the captain. I don't know he worked on tomorrowland hey ben let's let's let's uh take a break for a second talk about simple contact okay if you wear contact lenses and you find yourself dreading the annual appointment you got to make to renew your subscription you're

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You got me, man. I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know. Cut all this out. Yeah, well, you were like, David, we've got to do it. We've got to talk about the captain. We're talking about the captain. But I mean, surely you had a reason.

I did have a reason. And now I'll remember it. Let's talk about something else fucking idiot embarrassment to society that's all right and we're back um the movies find finale set piece involves some robots fighting yeah oh i know exactly what i was gonna say okay okay here we go here's the fundamental difference between the captain and brad bird sure colin Trevorrow would come up with a scene like this. George Clooney crying as he holds the robot 10-year-old before he uses her as a bomb to explode the device that he made that makes humanity want to kill themselves. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

He would go, what's the most fucked up crazy thing that you wouldn't expect to see in a movie like this? Yeah. Brad Bird follows a plot to its logical end point even if that end point is insane. Sure. And doesn't back down from it. Okay. So on one hand,

it's not like this is a crazy left turn for the movie because the whole movie's been building up to it. Right. But you also go, geez, how did they design a movie that builds up to this? Right.

Like, how did he follow a movie to this end point and go like, yeah, we shouldn't look at the beginning again. This makes sense that this is how the film ends. But I do think Clooney, as I said before we start recording, weaves through these traffic cones pretty well as a performer. He's really...

This scene should be very uncomfortable. It should be. And he's really, yeah, he's really invested in this scene. And I think he solves that it's more about him saying goodbye to the resentment he's held onto since childhood rather than literally a robot that he wants to fuck. He's also an actor who is

famously good at acting opposite children. He did it for years on ER where he played a pediatrician. He knows from child actors. Suburbicon, which is a movie I do not like, has a terrific kid performance in it. Good kid, bad part? Yeah. I mean, the kid is just on the Coen brothers part of the movie,

which is the better part. Sure. And he's just a good kid. Like, he's just, he can turn on, like, the fear right away. Like, he's good. He's like a talented kid. Good kid, bad part? Yeah.

I'm trying to think of, I don't think any of his other movies have kids in them that he directed, you know. But, uh. Uh, Leatherhead Babies. Have you ever seen Leatherhead Babies? That was more of a series. I mean, that's an animated series. I don't know if he was directing the vocal performances maybe he was leatherhead babies is fun um so then they blow up the antenna yes and then we get this

lovely coda of them being like back at the talking to the camera right and being like so it's a year later and the world never ended and we are working on getting Tomorrowland and opening up to the people. Yes. So they open the doors and they invite the great thinkers or you see this fucking Benetton ad of like every single like a cool guitarist.

I'm a fucking sap. I'm sentimental as shit. This thing works for me so hard. This ending gives me fucking goosebumps. It's good. although I have questions. Can anyone come to Tomorrowland? Is it still a closed place? That's my only question.

They're opening the doors, but they're still inviting people. So is it still Grant's Gulch? I think they're opening the doors to fix it. I don't think it is. Because I think that's the fundamental difference in this. What I've been trying to parse of how i think brad bird is misread yeah is that he believes in exceptionalism but exceptionalism said the exceptional people can make things better for others got gulch isn't it it's not grant's gulch i don't i haven't read atlas it's galt's gulch sorry okay yeah because

it's john galt who is john galt that's what atlas shrugged i don't know who is john Galt? That's what Atlas Shrugged is about. I don't know who is John Galt. He's Christopher Paloa. Oh, cool. In those movies. I think that's his delineation is let exceptional people be exceptional so they can help the others. The reason why he hates Nix is that Nix thinks they haven't earned it.

They don't deserve it. Absolutely. They made their own bed. And I think Brad Bird does believe if you have that kind of power, even if people don't know what's good for them, it's on you to help them. What do you think of Nix's death? I mean... It's a very 90s action movie where it goes like,

oh, bollocks, before he dies. You know how you know this movie's expensive? It's very Eddie Izzard in the Avengers, not the Marvel one. Yes. You know how you know this movie's expensive? No. That they actually went to the Bahamas for that two-second gag where they fall through the portal. Yeah.

Damn. Like, flew the entire above-the-line crew and cast out to the Bahamas. Right. To do that, like, two shots on the beach? If that. Yeah. Right. They shot in Vancouver, Florida, and the Bahamas.

Okay. Bahamas. Okay. But this ending, you know, where I guess the idea is, I think they want to make it a place where everyone can come, but I think they also want to just rebuild it first.

Sure. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they see her letting her family and Tim McGraw gets to come. When you say Tim McGraw, you know. You think family. We have so many questions about what is happening with this movie. Yes. That it sort of makes me want to shut down. Oh,

sure. To do the Athena thing where you're just like. Yeah. I'm like at a point where I'm just like, I don't know. Good. I do think it's interesting how long and exposition heavy this movie is and how much it struggles to set up some of its like big concepts.

Yeah. Yeah. And it's also a movie about that's so heavily inspired by epcot yes not the theme park but like um the planned city that walt disney yes was like uh i mean can i talk about it for five minutes fucking nuts like do you know about it like you know he buys all this land in florida through like dummy corporations he doesn't do it regular. He sort of secretly designs this planned community. And what were those purchases?

What was the name that those purchases were made under? The Florida Project. He works with Sean Baker and first he's going to do this movie about... It's Fran Mooney. Exactly. In the last year of his life

essentially walt disney's like theme park forget theme park that theme park's right it's in the corner who cares yeah it's the money maker city build a city it's a circle the people live on the outside the roads are all underground there's monorails everywhere everyone no one is allowed to own property. Everyone rents. I own the property because then I can swap in and out stuff. Like when the futuristic shit comes and no one can like, you know, like he's like building like a panopticon for everyone to live in.

Yeah. And he's like, and it's going to happen. It's going to happen. He dies of lung cancer. Right. And Disney's like, um,

Fox and the hound. We want to put that money into Fox and the hound instead. They're literally like, we, we love Walt's vision and passion for the future. We all love Walt. So we decided to make Epcot, which is like a sort of futurey theme park with a big sphere.

Yeah. And I do think it's funny that the evil machine in this looks like that fucking sphere at Epcot. Yes. I don't know if that's intentional or not. I don't know either. But that is like the notion this movie is fighting is this sense of a future we lost, right?

Because that was the 50s and 60s are the point in time where there's a lot of sort of gazing and going like, what's it going to be like? Yeah. And people today, you always hear the complaint like, why did we get the future people said we were going to have 50, 60 years ago? And you look around us, in terms of technology, we pretty much have it. Sure. No jetpacks, though. Because you can't regulate that. I've always

said, we're not going to have flying cars, and we're not going to have jetpacks, because that's a nightmare. It's not that that technology doesn't exist. No one wants to open that Pandora's box, right? The thing we've missed out on is that feeling of the utopian future. Not just having the technology, but somehow that kind

of leveling out human civilization. It's always been a lie. It's a future that's bland and homogenous and it's a future that keeps undesirable people out. 100%. So much of Disney's concept of Epcot was like, I hate how all the cities have slums. My city won't have a slum because it'll be

illegal to have a slum. Walt Disney! You know, like... I want to make the perfect city. Jetpacks. Moving walkways. Zero Jews. It's the city of the future. Really? 100%. Which is like the difficult stuff this movie's dealing with. There's no better example of that where he

was like, cars are disgusting. You do need cars to bring in... They're the Jews like cars are disgusting you do need cars there's the jews of the road you do need cars to bring in goods so it has to happen underground where no one can see like you know he just buries the things he doesn't want like you know to spoil his perfect vision of the first of all cars wow mater second of all that is also have the theme parks run where it's like the employees are going to walk in tunnels underground so you don't have to see them taking poops right because it's a magic world and right exactly you should never think of this place as being run you can't see the strings but like there's no way for that to function without creating an underclass that doesn't get

any of the benefits of this future world and right and that's what epcot was going to be is like well that's what the underclass can live perfect yeah can't own and the reason why this idea is so preposterous to you is that cities exist with an infrastructure that's already built and his idea is that lock it all down redo it correctly right yeah exactly like it's so impractical yeah new york city listen hey the the subway system is ancient. The design of a lot of Manhattan and Brooklyn doesn't make any sense because it was made when people were horses and buggies. But that doesn't mean you can knock it all over and reset it. That's why I think this movie has to be sort of the conflict, if you will,

is not them defeating a villain. It's an intellectual debate about what is possible. Did you have some kind of pitch on how to change the movie? Yeah. You make Rick Flag the lead character. I just think it's interesting that it's tapping into so much of what you're talking about, the retrofuturism,

and that's, it's squidgy stuff. You know? It's not easy to grapple with that stuff. There's a hook there that is interesting and is also unique, which is why I think Disney greenlit it so fast which is like what happened to the future of yesterday and why did we stop

thinking that good things were going to happen and when it's singing I'm so into it and it is like a lot of the time right but it kind of can't get out of its own way and it can't really untangle its own thoughts right and it has this sort of like reactionary streak that a lot of Bird's movies do

that is really interesting. Yeah. And he makes passionate arguments but then when you think about them you're like,

wait a second, do I actually like think this is on the level? Like, I don't know. Yeah. I want the movie to be that debate though. No, for sure.

I don't want to have an answer. I want it to be like, and the ending should be very clearly, Casey is opening the doors up to everyone because the only way we're going to save the world is if. Here's a blank slate. Here's a new city.

Let's lead with the people who are innovators. Right. Whether they be street musicians or mailmen or elephant studiers. My question is right. We're not seeing the scene where they're like, we don't have enough immortality shakes for everyone. So I guess we have to decide who gets one. Like, you know, is that happening?

My pitch is that, not my pitch, but my read, what I want to believe they're doing at the end because I don't want to be fatalistic about this ending is that they're like,

we're going to go in waves. We're going to start with guys studying elephants and then we'll move our way down the chart. But I just think that montage of all the pins just like gets me.

It's good. It is a bit Benetton-y. And it feels a little Super Bowl commercial too where it's like at the end it ends and then we'll move our way down the chart. But I just think that montage of all the pins just gets me. It's good. It taps into something. It is a bit Benetton-y. And it feels a little Super Bowl commercial too where it's like at the end it ends up being a coke ad but it does make you feel okay about humanity for like 30 seconds. Yeah. But that's sort of the weird thing about this movie.

Like he's very angry about the fact that people aren't happy. Like it's an angry movie about like, why aren't you optimistic? And it's like stop yelling at me. And the whole movie is people getting grumpy about the fact

that we're not positive. Everyone in this movie is so fucking grumpy. Yeah. Even yeah everyone's grumpy except for Raffi. And that's what's crazy

is the original cut Casey was even grumpier. Yeah. And then they were like oh she should be a little optimistic and it's like yeah there's a fucking

premise in your movie. So Tomorrowland Yeah. We're gonna play the box office game. I give it a little optimistic and it's like there's a fucking premise in your movie so tomorrowland yeah we're gonna play the box office game i give it a gentleman's b plus just because i like so much of what it's doing i love it visually and it has some stunning sequences it's a great failure but i can't one of those great failures but i cannot right every time i re-watch it this is i think well maybe this is only my second viewing of it i think i'd call like half of it on hbo i'm like right no no there are problems you know what i mean because you can sort of inflate it in your head and like i want to believe it just works it it is a.o scott and

his review was like this is the most frustrating kind of failure because it is yes a.o scott's review of this is really on point you should read it but it's it's just like this is really smart people with really interesting ideas at the top of their craft who cannot make it connect. And A.O. Scott is kind of, like he had written a very definitive review of Ratatouille that I felt like helped people realize, like

you know, not film critic people but Brad Bird is a very serious artist. Like a serious American artist. Which, forever, it was just like, I feel like even at the time of Ratatouille, to the general public, it was like, that's Pixar. Pixar is a machine.

It doesn't matter who's directing these things. And he was trying to really, like, start the Brad Bird auteur narrative, which also helped because he had one pre-Pixar movie, which the other Pixar guys didn't have. Mission Impossible is part of a bigger franchise, and that's not like his script.

He doesn't have the same kind of stamp on it. This felt like, I think to us, to like hardcore bird heads, like this is the chance for Brad Bird to show I'm a big, serious filmmaker with like a fun piece of pop entertainment, but something that is my story, live action, you can't discount it. And it's so frustrating to see him, like, fucking strike out and then have to go back and do Incredibles 2. I hope Incredibles 2 is great.

I'm excited that Incredibles 2 exists. I hope our next episode is the most positive one we've done yet. Sure. And I hope he gets to do another live action movie after this. Pretty positive episodes in this miniseries. Yeah. Because guess what? Good filmmaker.

Thumbs up. Thumbs up. Thumbs up. All right. This movie came out Memorial Day weekend 2015. Okay. May 22nd.

Yeah. Four day weekend. Right. Tomorrowland opens to $42 million. And I think they said they wanted like 70 and anything below 50

was a disaster. It cost like we said $200. It ends up grossing $93 domestic. $209 worldwide. Not good. No good very bad.

They lost $150 million. Right, exactly. They lost like half of that, essentially. Number two is a film that was a sequel, and while the original movie had done well, it was kind of one of those Austin Powers situations where the second movie exploded. Right. Pitch Perfect 2. Two movies like Austin Powers that outgrosses the original in its first weekend.

Which has made $125 million in two weeks. Pitch Perfect 2. And 3 did okay, I think it crossed 100. But nothing like 2. I can't blame them for going for three but it's also like maybe this isn't a franchise

maybe you got really lucky on the timing with the second one Last Call Pitches? Last Call Pitches They should have released it Christmas That was really dumb It was always a summer franchise Three

It wasn't always a summer franchise The first one was in September I don't know what I'm talking about Go on Everybody, my name's Griffin Newman He really fucked that up I think we should start over. That was such a disaster.

That's also, I'm going to get a lot of heat online for that. Saying that Pitch Perfect was a summer franchise? Yeah, I mean. No, you know what? Because I wasn't going to calm on it. I was like, do you think the sponsors are going to put up with this kind of shoddy content? Also, it's a little hashtag problematic. It kind of is.

I have backlash cultures, so rampant right now. I don't want to be on Mike saying that. Do you want to apologize? Yeah, okay. So I'd like to on do you want to apologize yeah okay so i'd like to formally apologize for saying to all my pitches i'd like to apologize for saying that pitch perfect was always a summer franchise in fact all three of them would come out in different seasons the first one came out in the fall second phone came out in the summer yeah and the third film came out in the winter last call pitches the third film number three at the box office, is one of the great movies of the year. It's called Mad Max Fury Road.

That's right. My favorite film of that year, which I think ended up kind of being what people thought Tomorrowland was going to be. I think it's somewhat surprise success hurts tomorrow. 100%. For sure. But also, that was the one where people were like, we can't get our hopes up too high for that, right? That's going to disappoint

in some way and then exceeded all expectations. And Tomorrowland, we're like, expectations cannot be high enough. Brad Bird, land it. And he didn't.

Is he going to do another Mad Max? Because there's all those, like, there's all this, like, fighting. There's a lawsuit over profits.

He's also an old man. He said he wants to do another movie a smaller film before he does another Mad Max but also hasn't come anywhere close seemingly

to picking another film. Yeah. I hope he does it before we lose him. I do think he'll do another one but it'll be like 10 years from now.

Just kind of like you know it'll take him forever. Right. I mean that's also that movie as wonderful as it is everyone involved

was like yeah that was the most trying experience of my life making that. That was horrifying. Yeah. Like I was also that movie as wonderful as it is everyone involved was like yeah that was the most trying experience of my life making that that was horrifying yeah like i was i was certain the movie was gonna be bad i didn't like doing it and then i saw it and i was like oh i guess that was all worth it like all those months of toil like in like and he said desert in like malawi or whatever i did a very bad job explaining myself to other people. I had the whole movie figured out and I couldn't figure out how to translate it

into words. And then you see it and you're like, oh, great. He had it all figured out. Number four at the box office is maybe the highest grosser of 2015. We'll know though because they were Star Wars. Furious 7? Nope.

I guess Furious 7 is above it too. Avengers Age of Ultron? That's right. It's about two robots debating the future of humanity. I mean it falls into the Tomorrowland category

for me where it's like a movie where I like all the ideas. I enjoy watching Tomorrowland. Some of the execution is bad. I enjoy watching

Tomorrowland more. Interesting. I haven't seen Age of Ultron in a while. I rewatched it recently. I think it's okay. I think it's pretty good. It's definitely interesting. Number five in a while. I rewatched it recently. I think it's okay. I think it's pretty good. It's definitely interesting.

Number five is a remake. It's opening this weekend. By the way, all these movies made a ton of money. Yeah. Tomorrowland 42,

Pitch Perfect 2, 38 in its second weekend. Mad Max Fury Road, 31 in its second weekend. Yeah. Avengers 28 in its fourth weekend. Yeah.

And this movie, You were about to say it. 26 in its opening weekend. 26 in its opening weekend. Yeah. And this movie. You were about to say it. 26 in its opening weekend. 26 in its opening weekend. And this is a movie that doesn't exist. Okay. I don't remember it.

It probably stars an Oscar winner considering that we're recording this months later. Interesting. Sure. Like, even though this movie

I think was seen as a bit of a flop. Maybe. And the title starts with pop. Yeah. Okay, what genre? It's a remake? Horror.

I'm sorry, what? Horror. It's a horror remake. That's right. Pup stars an Oscar winner. I mean, I think he's an Oscar winner now, when this episode's released. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. The film is called Poltergeist.

Poltergeist. The remake that no one asked for starring Sam Rockwell. And also starring the boy who plays young me on the tick. Oh, really? Playing a character named Griffin. Wow. His mom was, could never get over that coincidence. Wow.

She brought it up a lot. A lot. You know, he played Griffin in Poltergeist. The funny thing is, I loved having that conversation with her six times. Number six is a movie we swore we were going to see and never did. Oh, Hot Pursuit. Yep. You've got, number seven was the box office cessation of the year,

Far From the Madding Crowd. Number seven was just one of those franchise films, Far From the Madding Crowd. Furious 7 is up there. If you want franchise films far from the madding crowd yeah uh furious seven if you want to get far from the madding crowd avoid a theater playing that film because they were running rampant that crowd was wild crowd yeah they were madding yeah another film that's very tonally similar to far from the madding crowd uh paul blart mall cop 2 there is one joke in the Paul Blart Mall Cop 2 trailer

that is so good that I sometimes rewatch the trailer and it still makes me laugh out loud. Haven't seen the first one, won't see it. Haven't seen the second one,

won't see it. Paul Blart's got his like legion. He's united the five. He's united the other Mall Cops, right? Sure. To like face off against

I think it's Neil McDonough is like the villain in 2 and he's like you're going to stop me you alone he's like no

me and my army you know he's got his mall cops behind him and he points back and one of the mall cops is wearing a cape and he goes like

wait a second is that guy wearing a cape and Paul Blart goes why are you wearing a cape and he goes I was getting a haircut when you called alright that's pretty funny that's a good show Is that guy wearing a cape? And Paul Blart goes, Why are you wearing a cape? And he goes, I was getting a haircut when you called.

Alright, that's pretty funny. That's a good show. That's pretty funny. That's good. He was so... He answered the call so quickly that he didn't take... It was to mock up. He ran out of the barbershop.

Five million comedy points yeah 50 cape points what else is in the top 10 oh well we already closed it we basically said all the top 10 we closed the book

yeah yeah that's it merchandise spotlight sure you could buy a toy of the the um the pins certainly well no but you could i saw an action figure for the little secret agent robot yeah right so i thought about before something but there's a the line of what they call reaction figures which are like modern action figures they're meant to look like 70s like star wars primitive action figures great and they did a line of

those. There we go. Which I thought was kind of clever because it was sort of like looking backwards and looking forwards at the same time. Right. But no one bought them. I mean, no one wants an action figure of George Clooney just wearing like a decent flannel. This is not like a film where

people have dynamic like costumes no the robot looks cool what do you think of the score I like the score I love it I think it's Giacchino going having a lot of fun the end credits

sweet I listen to a lot he's doing exactly what Bird wants from him yeah exactly and I think he's hitting it out of the park

yeah no I love the score I think the score's one of the most successful elements of No, I love the score. I think the score's one of the most successful elements of the movie. I think the film's beautifully shot. Yeah.

It's a great Blu-ray. I gotta say this. You know, it's a movie. It's like a bad object. Like, it's one of those movies that I understand what doesn't work about it, but I find myself

so drawn to it even though I'm frustrated while watching it. Okay. I wish he knocked out the park, but I question whether it was totally possible, though I think my Griff fix is pretty it. Yeah. Okay. I wish he knocked out the park, but I question whether it was totally possible, though I think my graphics are pretty smart. Yeah, no, I think your graphics is interesting,

but I also get why they would be too afraid to do it. But it's also like, it's weird to get scared at that point. Well, people get scared. This whole premise is so scary. It is. Well, that's what's crazy about this movie. Right, right.

So that's our episode on Tomorrowland. I think it was a good ep. I think it was too. We're recording this in February. No, but I think, I was just talking with Ben. I know we have Incredibles 2 next week,

so we'll be wrapping up. That's what I was going to say. That was my point. Right now, we're in February. The trailer for Incredibles 2, the first one just came out. Right.

And it's crazy to think that in the time you're listening to this, we'll be gearing up to see it. I may have already gone to the press screening. Ding! Your meal is done. Open the oven. Uh-huh.

Here's a film. It's called Incredibles 2. For sure. I just also think, and I was talking with Ben about this, I liked doing the Bigelow miniseries a lot. Yeah. I liked doing the Verhoeven miniseries a lot. Brooksie. Brooks was great.

But more thinking of Bigelow and Verhoeven, especially Verhoeven. You know, those are movies where we can't just be like, and that's great. Awesome. You know, we have to think about things and tiptoe around some things and confront some things. Brad Bird has a little of that, but it is also just like, you know, I like it with the robots big. It's nice to be loving stuff.

And it's weird to think about. I mean, not to wrap stuff up because it's like, you know, we're recording this now. Yeah, but we'll have one more bird ep. Right. Should we say? No, we should wait for that one to say what our next miniseries is. Yes. Yeah?

Yeah. Cool. Okay. There'll be a palate cleanser in between. Sure. Who knows what it is? There may not be a palate cleanser in between. Maybe there should be what it is. There may not be a palate cleanser in between. Maybe there should be.

No. Well, the way we have it structured, I guess we could do one. We have a quasi palate cleanser coming up soon, which is the Hotel Transylvania episode we have inexplicably planned. Oh, blah, blah, blah, motherfuckers. In which I'm going to have to watch two of those and then do a third in theaters I don't know half of one

could I just maybe skip it maybe a Wikipedia browse get ready to zing and you'll get that once you'll have seen the Hotel Transylvania movies should we shoot him in the face you're gonna love him

I'm optimism. Look at the screen just pinged. I started talking about Hotel Transylvania. The screen just flickered. The lights all turned down. 99% I'm rocking the light switch right now.

Yep. All right. We're done. Thank you all for listening. Tune in next week for The Incredibles 2. I'm so excited that we'll actually get to see

The Incredibles 2. Pumped. A thing I thought might never happen. Agreed. I genuinely thought it would never happen. Got to hang out with my old pal, Violet Incredible. Right. Love her.

One of my favorite friends. One of my best friends. Thank you for listening. Please remember to rate, review, subscribe. Thanks to and for Guto for our social media. Thanks to Lane Montgomery for our theme song. Thanks to Joe Bowen and Patuto for our social media thanks to Liam Montgomery for our theme song thanks to Joe Bowen and Pat Reynolds for

our artwork go to blankies.red.com for some real nerdy shit and as always last call pitches last call pitches last call pitches

keep it in keep it in and double it no