Blank Check with Griffin & David - WALL-E with David Ehrlich

Episode Date: June 28, 2026

Put on your pod-day clothes, there's lots of world out there! We're joined by David Ehrlich to discuss WALL-E this week - a film many consider to be Stanton's (and Pixar's) crowning achievement, and a film David Ehrlich's son has watched upwards of a million times. Join us for a long-ranging conversation that includes context around Disney's 2006 acquisition of Pixar, discussion about the film's depiction of humans, and speculation about the mental health of robots. Read: Frankie Muniz Hasn’t Spoken to Hilary Duff in 22 Years, Says Her Mom Interfered in ‘Agent Cody Banks’ Casting and ‘It Pissed Me Off’: ‘I Regret Not Staying Friends With Her’ Check out Erlich’s Review of Lee Cornin’s The Mummy Listen to Griffin on Podcast Like It’s Talking About Monsters Inc. Read Ehrlich’s Interview with Stanton Read Ehrlich’s piece on Alamo Drafthouse Listen to Ben discuss his good friend Johnny5 on The Flop House Cool Dad Raising Daughter On Media That Will Put Her Entirely Out Of Touch With Her Generation Sign up for Check Book, the Blank Check newsletter featuring even more “real nerdy shit” to feed your pop culture obsession. Dossier excerpts, film biz AND burger reports, and even more exclusive content you won’t want to miss out on. Join our Patreon for franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter, Instagram, Threads and Facebook!  Buy some real nerdy merch Connect with other Blankies on our Reddit or Discord For anything else, check out BlankCheckPod.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Time check with... Puter to find podcasting. Podcasting. A series of tangents involving two friends where bits and contacts match harmoniously with bullshit. What's being replaced there?

Especially with bullshit. The actual line is a series of movements involving two partners where speed and rhythm match harmoniously with music. Right. Dancing. Yes.

And we are dancing. We are dancing. A lot of creative liberties taking that. We're in an eternal dance. It's rare that you get quite so much room to free jazz in these intros. You didn't want to just do I thought about it.

I mean, this series is called Patsy. And I was like, can I just do the dialogue where they're trying to explain each other's names to each other? You were able to sell him on Potsie? I was. There's not a lot of options. I mean, it's either in the pot of a cast or as Griffin suggested

Potsie. Becker, last week's episode, did throw out. Would it be funny to just call it podcaster for John Carter? And remove... We can never blow that. We can never do the sort of like, you know what, that's it. It's just called like podcast. There's the meta joke there of being like,

how did this end up with the title that makes no sense and has zero juice? You do like a meta joke. Yes, but POTC is... I'm fine with it. If you perform it, it's going to look so good visual with the double D. With those double Ds on that fucking artwork there. Pod C. Make sure Griff has a giant rack on our pod artwork, uh, path.

No, Ben's Waivering on it. I want to be a stacked robot. Oh, fucking bodacious fish pet. This is my new character. And what is it? And what is this character?

Not even during the Becker talk was I quite as confused. We're going to find it by the end of this episode. We're going to locate this guy and we're going to figure out what makes him tick. How's Becker doing? We're not going down that road here, my friend. He's coming back, right? He's got to be coming back. Listen, Malcolm in the middle's back.

This is exactly. In the world of like a sequels, they're going to keep digging until the world collapses. Becker, colon, life is unfair. Any interest in Malcolm in the middle life is unfair? Anyone watching that? I've heard it's fun. Once you lose Eric Pear Sullivan, I am out. That is always my favorite thing in the world.

He's just like, no thank you. And they're like, everyone's like, they offered him so much fucking money. They were like, this guy's playing such smart hardball. And he's like, I actually just have no interest. No offense. They're offering him so much money to do nothing. Like, it's like, you know, you're just going to. to be the seventh guy and you're just going to go like,

you know, it's just like, no animosity. I love all of you. I wish you all the best. I have no desire to do this again. It's very impressive. Yeah, someone who has no desire to watch that show. I feel like I understand where he's coming. I love Malcolm in the middle, like when it was on, like I was a big fan. It was a show that I tried to rewatch during COVID.

I can't imagine. In my classic kind of, you know, in the COVID way of like, well, this could be something. And I watched the pilot and I was like, there's nothing wrong with this. Like, this is well executed. I remember it fond of. This is so its moment. It's, yeah, I'm not feeling a desire to return here, yes. There's something telling to me in the fact that Malcolm in the middle has not had any, like,

Gen Z. Yeah, sure. Rediscovery. Right. Despite Cranston's, you know, career. That it feels like this show is purely nostalgia for those of us who grew up with it. Which, I mean, I'm only nostalgic for Frankie Muniz's tweets about death. Frankie Munis seems like a very well.

well-adjusted gentleman. I was about to say. I don't know what you're talking about. Okay. Do you remember that period where he was like racing cars and he got in so many car crashes where he was like, I have no memories. Of Malcolm in the middle. I do. And now he's like out there promoting the Malcolm in the middle reboot and he was like, it was so nice to get all together again. And I'm like, don't you not know who Brian Cranston is just that great moment where he was like doing a talk back with Cranston. And he was like, by the way, your wife on Breaking Bad. What a shitty character. She's always in his way. And he was like, you realize I was playing like a. sociopathic drug dealer. It's so funny to be like Cranston, Anagon, uh, fucking Vince Gilligan, I feel like I've been so consistent in talking out

against that line of criticism of the show. He's always been very good and be like, pushing right back. And to have Cranston there with like his fake TV son and be like glowing and be like it's so nice to be all together and then watch the terror on his face where it's like, you have

this fucking opinion too? Um, I mean, Not shocking again that essentially a brain damaged child star would have that opinion. No offense. Someone who was not working during the exact years that Reddit began taking over everyone's brains. Right. Frankie Munez's like triple crown of press was, I think Skyler's the villain on Breaking Bad. Two was I made Shilabuff's career by turning down holes. And three was, did I make out with Hillary Duff?

I don't know. Well, there was also the sub-story about how. because Hillary Duff's mom insisted that she was going to be in Agent Cody Banks, he blocked her from being in the film because he was like, you're stepping on my turf. Yes. He was like 12. But she is in both of them.

Is she not? Certainly in the first one. Whatever. There was some story recently, some actress's mom. I think it was Hillary Duff. Yeah. Who was stage momming for her daughter essentially and saying like, oh, she'd be perfect for the lead in whatever your next movie is.

And I will admit to not being. totally off book on my Frankie Munez filmography. Because we are doing Frankie Munez next on Patreon. Sure, sure, sure. So it's two Cody Banks.

Was he in the Bar Mitzvah movie with Giamati? The Barmitsa movie with Giammati? What? Am I intending movies now that I want to see?

Well, no, it was Piven in the Bar Mitzvon. That's keeping up with the Steins. That's Gary Marshall Nepal Baby movie. Right. That's sort of aspirational Jewish casting.

It's like, I wish Jemati were one of us. No, Munez, you got my dog to skip, you got two Cody Banks, he got big fat liar. And I feel like that's the canon. Right? It is.

It's the American canon. Do you know what else is really funny? I'm sorry, I'm just remembering this. And it sort of makes more sense now that Munez is like, well, they were begging me to do holes and I turned it down and like Shia picked up my scraps. Calling a movie holes. Calling a movie holes will never not be funny to me. I'm sorry. Show holes.

It was what kids were demanding to theater owners. at the time. Don't like it in that. The way you say it, don't like that. Show holes! At, I think around the time that Wall Street, Money Never Sleeps came out, Shia did some interview where they were like,

you've had five or six consecutive number one openings in a row. Like, are you the guy now? And do you feel worried about maintaining that track record? And he was like, yeah, but like, look at the things I was in. It was like Transformers and Indiana Jones and a Wall Street sequel with Michael Douglas. I'm not taking credit for that. Frankie Munez could have opened these movies to number one.

And I remember that feeling like such a weird burn at the time. I was like, who's got negative juice? Shai L'Alobuff, our finest comedian, very level-headed movie star. Yes. Anyway, go over to our Patreon if you want to hear the films of Munez. Moon-Nes. From the Earth to the Munes. Yes.

Yes, that's what we're calling it. That's not what we're talking about here today. Today we're talking about one of our finest movie stars. his name is Wallace E. Is it? Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

His name's Wallacee. No, he's waste allocation load lifter Earth. Correct. Waste allocation load lifter Earth class. Yes. Because later in the film we see the wallets. Yeah. And there's other Bernies and all that, right?

There's all the guys. But the wall A's are axiom class. Yes, they're big boys. Of the same deal. And they still make a cube. They still make cube. They make big cube. This movie about make cube.

This movie is about make cute. There should be a Wally that makes hypercube. Garbage cube, let's say. Sure. It's an important distinction. Yeah. But do you... What's the Robob Emo?

Mo. Fun guy. The best performance in the movie? Yeah. I mean, we'll talk about how my wife sexually identifies as Moe later. But we'll get there and do time. Okay. Today on this podcast, which is called Blank Check with Griffin and David, I almost

fucked up the name of the podcast. It's called Blank Check with Griffin and David Earth Class. I'm Griffin. I'm David. It's a podcast about filmographies, directors who have massive success early on in their careers, such as making one of the ten highest grossing films

of all time, the highest grossing animated film of all time, fish. He said, what if fish were lost and people threw money in Oscars at him and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want? This certainly classifies.

Sometimes those checks clear this movie, and sometimes they bounce next week, maybe. This is also true. It's a mini series on the films of Ander Stan. It's called POT. Patsy. Patsy. And today we're talking about Wally, his true blank check.

And also, it feels like the culmination of, like, a blank check moment for Pixar at large. I would say both, correct on both, for sure. Yep. Obviously, John Carter is a huge blank check as well. But at least with that one, you can argue, like, it is a known property of sorts and blah, Whereas this is, it's truly like him being like, I think I want to push my capital on this and Pixar agreeing, like, I think we should.

Right. And we will get into this, but it's the thing I'm fascinated by endlessly, which is because of the nature of the deal that Pixar had with Disney, a deal that everyone thought was going to end acrimoniously after Cars, the final movie that Pixar owed Disney from a 90s deal. Pixar just started with Steve Jobs' help, self-financing and self-producing movies with no outside interference.

There are three movies they just make completely independently, knowing that when the Disney deal is over, everyone is going to want to be in the Pixar business and they just go to the highest bidder. Iger takes over. Eisner leaves. Iger immediately resets the table

and figures out how to make good with Pixar and inherits Ratatoui, Wally, and Up, which are the last three movies they make And the only three movies they make with just like zero commercial consideration, zero outside interference, zero studio pressure. And you could feel it even in how these three movies were marketed. Griffin, you sound like someone who has a vested interest and passion for Pixar, which feels far out of your wheelhouse.

This is not surprised to me. I'm introducing this threat of my interest to our listeners today for the first time. People were like, why the fuck would Blankcheck cover Andrew Stan? Is that a David push? What? To me? This is a joke. It's a bit. Okay. Okay. What were you going to say? Me? Yes. I like Wally.

Wally's a really good guy. Wally. I've only grown to like him more. Producer Ben, had you seen this movie before? Yes. Okay. Because this is the era. We found out last week. Not a cartoon era for you. That you hadn't seen Finding Nemo. And this is an era where you were opting out of a lot of the mainstream culture. That and just kids movies, I wasn't interested in.

I feel like Trash Planet is up your alley. That's trash planet being the original title. But did you see that I locked in theaters? No. Yeah, you caught up for the later. When do you think you saw it for the first time? God, I could not tell you. I'm just curious if it was like shortly after or like if you saw it in the last decade for the first time.

In the last decade. Yeah. Yeah. This movie has a lot of Ben shit in it. I really relate to Wally. He's a really good guy. I feel. Were you ever best friends with a cockroach?

No. Got to try it. No. Not yet. I really relate to just being a rustic. Garbage Boy. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Our guest today is someone who's made a legitimate bid for most times watching Wally. I think, I was thinking about this. I think it's entirely possible, if not probable, that I have watched this movie more than any guest on this show, or host on this show, for that matter, has ever watched any of the movies you've covered,

with a possible exception being Sims and Ponyo. But I think my son's Wally fixation was so specific and unrelenting that I may have taken that particular crown. Not that I am proud. When we finally committed to doing this series when Toy Story 5 got dated,

we just typed you in immediately. It took months before we even went like, we should ask, or like, we should just like double check. But there was an extended period where as you described it to me, my son thinks Wally is movies. That's right.

He doesn't understand that there's any other movie that's ever been made. Correct. We were, we were on a plane and the only way to pacify him was to put something on what was that? I said Nirvana over here because they have a song called on a plane, although of course it's a different. They mean a plane

like, we were on Disney's planes. Yeah, Disney's planes. Fire and Rescue. Fire and Rescue. A movie I am very glad he is yet to discover. And yeah, we needed to pass by him. Wally was on the seatback screen, courtesy of Delta, and I think he watched it six or seven times, six seven, Jesus Christ, before we're doing the hands.

We're doing the hands. And that was it for the next calendar year. Wally, once a day, twice on rainy day. It was one full year, basically, right? The Wally year. Yes, yes. You probably watched a 500 times. Or it was in your home 500 times?

It was. But you're not always watching. I think at a certain point, your eyes glazed over and you actually begin to retain less of the movie than you did originally. It just sort of blurs together as out of self-preservation. But, and you'll find

that I think I have less of a handle on the details of this film than someone who's only seen it two or three times. Because it's been abstracted. It's like a magic eye. I had a little bit of that rewatching it last night and the same realization.

I did as well. I actually had to like make an active effort to kind of re-engage with it. We talk about this sometimes on the podcast. Can I try to watch this movie fresh again? Can I try to like really engage with it rather than take it for granted when it's things I've seen so many times.

And I, this movie at the time was the most I had ever seen a film in a theater. It might still be. And I watched it so obsessively for years. It might have hit 10. Like, it might have. It was certainly eight or nine. All right. The only way to watch a movie like this fresh eye, in my experience anyway, is through the eyes of a child,

especially a child seeing it for the first time, which is what I, did with my daughter last night. Okay. This is what I was hoping. Tried to Wallypillar. We can talk. We can get into that. I don't know if now is the time.

Our guest today. Our guest today, and this is unique. This is a kind of competitive advantage he has on this podcast. Our guest today is a film critic named David who has children who he watches movies with. I'm a real poser in the David category. Although I did have children first, I will say. If someone's copying someone here, it ain't me. I will never forget.

David, I'm sure I've brought this up before. Being at the theater? to watch Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood. Good movie. A movie I always say I saw it in 40X because I saw it at the Alamo and I ordered a cup of tea and some cookies. That's good. I rewatched that movie recently. It's a great movie.

It's a really fucking movie. I've always been a fierce defender of that movie. So that's Thanksgiving 2019. I had helped you bring a snoo up your stairs that day, that morning, I think. Yes. It was about seven minutes before we left for the hospital. You had texted me being like, hey, we really need to get the

Snoo up the stairs. It's a smart bassinet. It's a... You may find yourself with a snoo one day, Ben. Like, who know? We can talk snoo whenever... Snew should advertise on the show.

It's a great project. I did use snooze myself. And, like, hey, can you bring up the stairs? And then you text me while I was in the movie, Oh, Lord, he coming. Oh, Lord, he coming. And, oh, Lord, he came. A little baby Wally.

You did name him Wally, which kind of maybe forced the issue on it being his favorite movie. Our guest... It's a little bit of nominative of determinism. say my name, bitch. David Orlik, bitch. Finally, after this parade of no-name hacks and losers that you guys have had for guests to start 2026, someone of real cultural importance, someone who had the foresight, the gall to tell the world, Lee Cronin's the mummy.

Not great. That is what you're going to be remembered for. I thought you hadn't seen it. I sure have. Oh, okay. Have and reviewed. And you liked? Did not.

Did not care for it. Let me see what you said. Not a, not a fan. That's not Lee Cronin enough for you. Right. That's what I, it did be more. Under delivers on Lee Cronin feeling. Anyone, any identifiable.

C minus. Yeah. Look, the obvious position they were in there was universal kind of push Blumhouse off of the classic monsters, right? Clearly Blumhouse was like, these are all public domain. Can we keep doing our like takes on them? So they set up a mummy movie at New Line.

They don't have the universal branding. And then they find out that Universal is going to reboot the Brennan Fraser mummy when there's already been three different Universal movies just called the mummy. And their pivot is... Was Brendan Fraser in this one? I can't remember. No. Was to call it Lee Cronin's the Mummy.

Why didn't they just call it Mummy? Yeah. Mummy Reborn. Mummy resurrected. Yeah. If they called it Mummy Reborn, I think it would have. like, we have real mummy at home vibes. Yeah, I think

also like, because of the Brendan Frazier convention of, why don't they call it, here, this will distinguish it from Brennan, the Mummy, Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. There's certainly never been a movie by that time. And put Brandon Fraser's face on the poster, but then be clear in small text, he's not in the film.

All I could think about watching... We just admire his work. Lee Cronin's the Mummy is how hilarious it would be if Brendan Fraser cinema's biggest goofball walked into this dire as hell story about child death and possession. It would be like Brendan Fraser walking into like a Serbian film or something.

Well, he's got the girus. Hilarious. He's got the girth. He's got the girls. He's got the girls. From whom? From Marty Scorchese. Do you never remember this?

I don't. When people were asking him about the Fraser casting in Killers of the Flower Moon and he said he had the look, he had the energy, he had the girl. It's all clicking into place. Yeah. Today we're talking about Walling.

Wally. This is one of my favorite movies of all times. This is a movie, and this was the other thing about watching it. So you think Nemo perfect, but you do prefer this, right? I was swinging back and forth while watching this. I mean, this movie is, it's just very personal to me, and in a way, watching this, I was like, God, this thing was fucking laser targeted at 20-year-old Griffin. It could not have been more of a, like, direct hit.

So it was interesting to rewatch it. watch it and feel nostalgic for what it meant to that guy at that time. Not that it feels dispersonal, unpersonal now. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. No, I totally understand. I mean, this was a movie that when it was announced, I was so hyped by the premise that

it did, at the time, under-delivered for me. Oh, see, it over-delivered from it. Right. My expectations for this were so high that I think I had the experience that a lot of people had at the time that we will talk about of the second act. hitting a little less hard for me and me being like right to Pixar movie like it which i love Pixar movies but i was like right fundamental and i grew to love it much more once my daughter got into it i had a whole re-love affair with wali and now i prefer the second half to the first that's

interesting and i just love it you say half but this is yeah no it's like it's an even third movie yeah third third right it's like the first third is earth but i prefer the um uh the axiom stuff yeah but i love it all to be clear. Yeah, I love it all, too. We're going to get into it. But I mean, both of you saw it at that time. I remember. I saw it at the Village East, I remember. Similarly, I saw this, almost every theater in New York City. But I remember even before it was officially announced, there were swirling rumors of Andrew Stanton's next movie is a rom-com about robots in the style of silent comedy. And I was like, that feels fake. there was a nervousness even at like the the rumor of the vibe of the thing that was so my shit yes right right is this movie steve jobs greatest contribution to society it's a great question i was digging through all the the criterion extras and the only Disney movie in the criterion collection certainly the only proper Disney movie with a Disney fucking logo at the top

that's a great question i have no idea you Yeah, you might be, yeah. I'm like, maybe there's like another, like, Touchstone. Miramax is no longer owned by Disney, but you could say that Disney commissioned at the time. This was a all-a-card, you know, one-off choice. Yes, a personal relationship. Exactly, of a sort of a larger trade.

Although, who knows, fucking Disney just laid off, shut down its entire home media department in order to replace it with Wally's. But what was I saying here? Oh, there's a thing on the Criterion Disc where he said when he was running things by Steve Johnson, Steve Jobs' biggest question slash note was, what is the business model that makes sense for Axiom to be running the starliner?

Oh, I mean, I've had this question. Yes. Like, who's profiting? Right. Like, how does this work 700 years in? And I always just kind of like settle on like, well, they just want to be alive. So this self-perpetuating and they just kind of vibe. Yeah, but Steve Jobs, who never designed anything that did not fail after five years.

by design would never develop a spaceship that lasted for seven centuries. Correct, correct. And it's obviously still a highly consumerist culture. But you're not seeing transaction. Consumers, how?

And you're like, who's getting the money from this? Where does the money go? Right. That's what's fascinating about it. But I mean, I don't think there is money. No, I agree with you. You think of the axiom as sort of the Apple store and all of the transactionality is happening sort of within. Yes.

And the Apple stores do tend to hold up against Warrington, I suppose. I feel like it's more just like the Axiom built these ships for profit long ago. Well, excuse me, B&L bought the ships.

B&L built the Axioms for profit long ago. They made the money. The ships took off. Right. But then after that, right, of course, like human commerce

ceased to exist. Because they assume they would actually get back to Earth and whatever transactions they made on the Axiom would then translate back to a world

with whatever fucking digital Fiat currencies. What do they eat, though? on the ship. Yeah, they have the food in a cup. They're not growing anything. No, it's all just fucking, yeah.

Energy gloop. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, pizza in a cup, whatever. It does raise the question when you see in the movie, the sort of like advertisements for the new products or like everyone's switching from red to blue or whatever. You're like, is that one loop that's been repeating for 200 years? Is the thing just fully stuck in like...

Every generation switches from red to blue? Yeah. Someone also... Or it happens like once a week or once a year. Someone did the math also that humans basically live like 160, 180 years on the axiom because of the amount of captains there have been. Yeah. Like you see the sort of list of them.

Because is it 750 years? 700 plus years. Yeah. does sort of speak to the commerciality that was at the heart of the Pixar ethos in a way that I, like all of their movies particularly early on, you know, thinking about Toy Story, Monsters Inc. And Now Wally, which is sort of sort of an auto commentary on all this, are rooted in precepts of capitalism in a way that I always found as sort of a, not a barrier to entry, but like a low ceiling on how much I could love them.

It was just, there was so distinctly American in that way. Sure. And as opposed to something like the obvious comparison of Studio Ghibli, which just were more of an invitation to wonder for me. And I think Wally, which is so rooted in wonder, if anything, is an act of trying to reclaim that and merge it with the capitalistic impulse. Well, you're also forgetting that a fucking a bug's life is about communism and collective action. I mean, Buck's Life, you know, a remake of Seven Samurai. But even, you know, even that is maybe further afield from. No, but you're right.

It was a lot of the Pixar thing was putting adult structures onto fantastical characters in children's films. Like, I went on our friends, Emily St. James and Phil Biscoe's podcast, podcast, Like It's, and did a Monsters Inc. episode with them, I think, came out earlier this year. I was like, this movie is a kind of like ground zero for a thing that becomes a cancer in children's films, which is, what if, magical thing was a business. And Monster's thing still is the one that's done at the best. But also Toy Story says, what if business was a magical thing? And so it is sort of rooted in Pixar. Right.

What if the dynamics of your toys talked like bored sort of like office workers? And yeah, yeah. And then this movie is the one that's sort of, I mean, I remember the amount of reviews at the time that were like, this message is nice, but also every store is littered with Wally merch. This movie's being released by D. Disney. This is true.

You know, it has a happy meal. This is the world we live in, of course, yes. But if you want to make a $180 million movie, right, you're probably going to have to sell some toys. The call is coming from inside the house, twas ever thus with capitalism, ask Boots Riley. Yes, but you're right that the framework is different in that this is a movie of like someone trying to break down that system and that structure. Yeah, or at least look for the cracks in it to, you know, have opportunities for wonder to sort

of bridge. I mean, this movie is in many ways, which we talk about sort of bridging to worlds. And I think in this particular regard, it's bridging the world of art and commerce in that sense, which is obviously implicit to everything the Pixar does, but this is doing it a little bit more literally. But yeah, they, you got to eat. You know, these movies are made for profit. You got to eat. Wally. Unless you're Wally, and you can just drink up those sweet sweet sunrines. I'm opening the dossier. They fly too close to the sun, which famously, not something you should do. Yeah, but it helps them recharge really quickly. quickly.

Boom. It starts, of course, with lunch. Wow, JJ's getting, like, kind of narrative with his research docs these days. Lunch at the Hidden City Cafe in Port Richmond, Point Richmond, near the headquarters of Pixar. Famously, the teaser trailer for this movie.

I remember this teaser trailer, and I was excited for this movie. I was, like, jerking a big dick watch. I was just like, get the fuck out of here. Do you know about this, Ben? No. So, speaking of Disney, like, making the deal, inheriting these three Pixar movies that they had no say in. And it's like, good luck.

Your next three movies to market are a movie about a French rat who believes in high cuisine, right? At a time where like Americans did not fucking care about food. A silent robot comedy and an old, grumpy old man whose wife died in a flying house. And they're like, the fuck are we going to do with these. And the Ratatooey teaser trailer famously has the thing where it spells out the title phonetically. And it's all like a made up scene of the character

direct addressing the camera explaining to you with the premises because they were like, fuck are we going to do with this? And then the Wally teaser trailer is Andrew Stanton talking about this experience at the Hidden City Cafe. Like the trailer only has like 20 seconds of animation footage in it.

It is basically all trying to explain to you trust us where Pixar. Is that the trailer where they have the Brazil music? I think so. Yeah. Anyway, it talks about it was Lasser, Dr. Joe Ranft, him, and they hammer up bugs, Life Monster, Sink, finding Nemo. And then the last one they talked about was Wally. Yes. So basically, they're in production on Toy Story. They're like, should we be coming up with other ideas in case this thing's a hit? And they ask us what our next movie is. We shouldn't be unprepared. So they sit at this one lunch and all of those movies come out of that one lunch. Obviously not fully formed, but that's what they're fucking framing in. In fact, let me tell you, right, Stanton's actual report on that slightly massage kind of advertised. But the massage of the teaser is, this is the most magical lunch of all time. I'll have what she's having.

Am I right? Yeah, what do they eat? Every movie that came out of this has been beloved. Trust us, this is the final movie from that. They drink story juice. Oh, sure, sure. And they ate movie sandwiches. So Stanton has said, look, we had ideas that inspired those movies.

Obviously, we did not, like, come up with a bunch of. of finished things. It would be fun to have bugs. What if you make a movie about like monsters and children's bedrooms? Yeah. He said the bulk of the lunch was a bug's life. We truly came up with a large chunk of the movie in that lunch. And then probably the second most concrete idea,

even though it was half-baked, was the last robot on earth, a machine left running, not sure what to do with itself idea. There was no name, no storyline. It was really just a character, but we liked the character. Like, we liked that idea. We're in the middle of toys. and we have been really struggling to make Woody appealing.

So I think they were really into this kind of like Robinson Crusoe robot because they're like, that's appealing. That's like a good guy. You're already rooting for that guy. Exactly. Although also a little sad. Kind of a sad, because I remember saying to a friend of mine when I was like really hyped for this movie before I was like, it's about like a garbage robot that like Earth is just a pile of garbage and everyone's gone and he just keeps glad. And he was like, that sounds so depressing. And I was like, right. But, like, that's crazy, right? Isn't that cool?

Like, so the film was initially called Trash Planet. Trash Planet, Ben. I mean, I like Wally's a good title, but Trash Planet really draws you in. The pitch was Pete Doctors. Andrew inherits it. There was basically a Yankee swap. Just like the very, very basic pitch. But for a period of time, Stanton was trying to crack Monsters Inc.

And Doctor was trying to do Wally. And then they end up swapping and Stanton ends up also coming up with finding Nemo, which then supersedes. Thank God they switched. If Doctor had done it, there would have been like a droid named Loneliness, and he would have been like, you know, there would, yeah. But that's why Doctor gets the co-story credit, because he basically was the one who incubated a very different version of this first.

So Stanton's working on Nemo, he starts dreaming of Trash Planet again. It basically becomes his like Barton Fink to his Miller's crossing. While he's working on Nemo, where when he's hit a wall, he's like, let me, let me noodle on this and type some shit out. He said basically that the first act, his quote, fell from the sky. He was like, that felt like so complete to me. Right. What do I do? And then I never knew

what to do once he leaves the planet. Then he's like, well, the opposite of loneliness is love. So it should be a love story. Okay. He was seduced by this idea of like he falls in love with another machine. Okay. So where do the machine come from? Right? What does that machine have interest in? Now, this is, as you've

noted, the man is religious. The greatest commandment Christ gives us is to love. But that's not always our priority. is doing a lot of heavy lifting then. So I came up with this premise that could demonstrate what I was talking about, that a rational love could defeat programming, right? You got these two robots with the base directive,

but then the love kind of overrides it. Yeah. This is what he's saying, not me. No, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm going to sit on my read on this movie for a moment. Okay. So, you know, obviously this is a risky thing. They are a little worried.

They do have the blank check status of Pixar's huge success and especially Nemo's huge success that, like, I think Stanton can sort of ask essentially what he did, which is like, can you leave me alone? Can I try to write it? Like, let's not do the sort of big edit room like together or whatever. And, you know, like, can I write like an original sci-fi movie? He loves sci-fi movies? Alien?

Star Wars? Yes, these are big movies. 2001? I've seen them. Eventually, Jim Reardon, who's a Simpsons guy. He directed many of them. He comes in to co-write. The best Simpsons episode.

of all time. Such as what? He directed King Size Homer. King Size Homer. You know what? King Size Homer is pretty funny. I'm going to give you a list in a second because it's actually astonishing.

No, it's often just amazing when you see those Simpsons vets where you're like, oh my God, everything it did is amazing. And you're like, of course. Yes. Everything the Simpsons did was amazing. He kind of had a reputation

for a while. He was a CalArts guy as well of being the best animation comedy writer of his generation. He became more of a writer guy but that he directs many Simpsons.

He worked on the Mighty Mouse cartoon under Ralph Bakshi with Stanton, which is where they became friends. His big breakout was his student film was called Bring Me the Head of Charlie Brown.

That was a peck and paw version of Peanuts. That was semi-viral in a tape trading kind of era. I think we remember, right, yeah. Episodes he directed if I can just fucking like... Give me a couple.

Yes. Itchy and Scratchy and Marge, Bart's dog gets an F, brush with greatness when Flanders failed, Trio's of Horror 2, Homer at the bat, dog of death, Bart's friend falls in love,

Homer the Heretic, Mr. Plow, Duffless, margin chains, Homer goes to college. Like, insane lineup. Homer at the bat is huge for me. Bart of Darkness. Bart of Darkness is so fucking good.

Lemon of Troy. Lemon of Troy is so good. He directed like a lot of the best ones from the best era. The Simpsons. It was a good show. Yes. It was people like it.

It ended, I guess, 99, yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, they have the idea of Eva, Eve. He brings weird in it. She's like got this idea of this sort of sleek, futuristic techno robot. This sort of the opposite.

What if you falls in love with an iPod? First version wasn't set on Earth. Oh, interesting. It was just a trash planet. Like, we don't know what. Steve Jobs is the one like, I think you should set it on Earth. Like, I think you should have a little bit more of a commentary here. I thought there was a thing he said in the

at the Craternity Disc where he was like, when I made this movie, I did not want to comment on or engage with humanity at all. When I was like... Relatable. Developing it. I was like, the whole appeal to me is like isolated robot, outer space, remove ourselves, distance ourselves from this. And people kept kind of noting it in a way that brought it back to needing some human connection to make sense of the movie. Now, is he identifiably in New York City or has Wally just been inspired by the architecture of New York somewhere deep in his coding to build a New York City out of Cube Trash? I think it's the latter.

Okay. So it takes a long time to get the second half right. The iPhone comes out in 2006. He was one of the first people to get one because... He had an end. Jobs gave him one. And through playing around with the iPhone,

the sort of addictive quality of, like, a smartphone, he comes up with the kind of, like, humans addicted to screens living in the axiom, like, thing. He said also, like, when I, first got one and started playing around with it, I was like, I have not felt this in cigarettes. It's crazy because I feel like so much of what was compelling about the iPhone back in 2007 was like the social cachet because there was very little to do on it.

There was less to do, but we made do with whatever late-maps. I mean, I didn't get an iPhone until 2012. I had a Blackberry. You were a Blackberry guy. I was a Blackberry guy, for sure. Yeah, I mean, it was a work thing. Like, yeah. It was a work thing?

What do you mean? Yeah. Well, like, my job gave me one. I was Germans. Oh, oh, okay. A little Buckberry. Little keys. Little keys.

Stanton says, I'm not making a comment on obesity. I'm trying to just make everyone a big baby. Like the idea of the humans on the axiom is not that they ate too much. It's that they have turned into babies. Well, okay. So let me get into another thing here. Because there's a thing we sort of skipped over. Originally, he doesn't want it to be Earth.

And then there was an extended era. They only make this change, like I think about two years before the movie comes out. it was supposed to be a ship of like green gelatinous blobs who didn't speak English. There were two different versions of it. I don't know which one came first, but at one point it was truly like they are aliens. They have sent. They were gel people who spoke a language that was like Monty Python sort of IKEA speak or whatever.

Which was teeing up a Planet of the Apes ending. And it turns out that near the end of the film, it would reveal that they were once humans. Right. Yes. Like a Planet of the Apes style. He talks about like there was a version where. it was like they were truly impartial aliens. The implication is that humans died off. And now these aliens have abducted these robots and trying to study, you know, extinct cultures, right? And that they

have a bunch of robots and the movie was like a robot Spartacus, as they put it, where the robots are second class citizens under the aliens. And Wally becomes like a figure of the uprising. But would it be that they're evolved? Well, well, so then there was a different, version, I don't know which one came first, where it was the blobs are the devolved versions of humans. That is the twist that we've devolved that much and that they don't even remember or understand that they're connected to that lineage. And that's what Wally helps connect them with. And they got very far along in that. There are like animation models that were built and they had written the whole sort of version of that and done the story reels of it. And they were just like it, the lift became so

hard and heavy to get audiences to connect with the blobs who aren't speaking. It is this thing for me where I'm like, I accept and I buy, they just tried and couldn't pull it off. But the second I heard that I was like, Jesus Christ, if they had made that work, it would have been astonishing. Listen, I say this is someone who has never found a blob that I haven't been able to connect with. We love Blabies.

Sure, too. Especially Blobby, the OG. But Best of Blobby, one of the most important pieces of media. very important that Griffin introduced me too. But I think it's just thematically, it doesn't really square because it, you implicitly, there's no reason to assume that being blob is worse than being human. Right. They need to be babies. Like I said, the axiom stuff is what I like more these days.

They need to be helpless. They need to have learned helplessness. But the iteration was like, right, audiences aren't connecting to this. Maybe we have them talk. It's hard for the audiences to connect to the blobs to make them feel like distinct different characters. There was an era where it was like aristocracy. There was like a king and a queen and a prince. There was a royal wedding.

Modern structures. And then they're sort of like, let's put a nose on the blob. What if they're not green, but they're like flesh colored, you know? And then it slowly evolved into the baby thing. And in doing the kind of like classic Pixar research, he spoke to a scientist who said like, if multiple generations of humanity were to live in space, they wouldn't just have their muscles atrophy, their actual physical composition would change. Do you see the video of the astronaut?

I mean, we're recording this in the middle of April, but people just came back from the moon or going around the moon, and they had the video of the astronaut who hadn't walked on Earth in 10 days, just 10 days, and she could not pull herself along the parallel bars. She needed to be supported by three people. Right, right. So it's like, if you're the seventh generation born into space, you don't need like muscles anymore.

You don't need your bones have just sort of like shrunk with. into your bodies. They're big babies. Fortunately, technology has not had any sort of negative effect along those lines on us. And this movie has turned out to be not prophetic at all. It's the problem with this movie. It got it all wrong. We solved everything.

They also can figure out the ending. Or for a while it was always going to be like he has to give her his like heart battery. There was like a sacrifice. They never liked it. Finally, they had more the idea of like he loses his memory is the kind of crisis at the end. You need to interject with this because it's another just. kind of like fascinating Stanton story cracking moment like the Finding Nemo Barracuda thing. And all of this is important setup to John Carter, where he breaks his own story roles in several

ways I've never been able to understand. You know, they watched a lot of silent comedies. And they watched a lot of Chaplin and Lloyd and Buster Keaton especially. Because I would argue that Wally is most closely aligned with the Buster Keaton character types. Even if the movie, I think, leans more towards modern, not modern. Well, there is a lot of modern times in it, but also city lights. It's like a Chaplin movie with a Buster Keaton character. And he said the thing we kept trying to figure out what Wally's emotional arc was and trying to force one and what's his growth and how does he change.

And then we started looking at those movies and it's like very often Buster Keaton is an unchanging figure in the center of things. And what he does is subtly affect everyone else around him. Sure. What is stone face, but of metal. Exactly. And so he kept being like. well, Wally has to become empowered

by the end of the movie. He has to save Eve. He has to become the dominant one. It is one of the latest major changes in a Pixar film because the last 20 minutes

were basically completely animated. And they did a test screening where they hadn't done final lighting passes and whatever. And it wasn't even a note he got back,

but he watched it with the audience. I think it's on the disc. You can see him. There was one guy in the mall in Arizona who was like, yeah, what if Wally falls asleep? What if he's,

was a girl boss she had to save him um but there's a there's a clip of him going to the pixar team and being like guys i'm so sorry i'm about to ask you to do an insane amount of work we have to redo the entire last 20 minutes and usually it never gets that far you you identify those issues at a storyboard phase but it was completed physical animation there are scenes in the trailers from that version of the movie you can see that aren't in the final film which like shit never gets cut that finished. But yeah, he was like, it has to be inverted. It has to be that his worldview has actually affected her enough that she needs to pick up his mission and carry it out.

But you can see a lot of the extended deleted footage of Eva's, like, battery has been fried, and Wally has to save her, and he's flying around with her at the end. Stanton, very shy about any kind of like topical discussions. not interested in talking about global warming like sort of dismisses a lot of the environmental stuff because he's like I don't have a political ban the last thing I want to do is preach

like all this just sort of made sense for my story asked about consumerism he's like yes there's lots of things disconnecting us from each other and that are consumerist but the reason I made them look like big babies because it was like a nasty guy told me you know that's what they would look like Bob

you know like he's like the last thing I'm trying to do is make a message movie like he's very whether or not you want to take this away from he's sort of seemingly uninterested in addressing that. Wait, that's so weird though. I agree.

But that's not my job. May I give my read on that for a second? Sure. Because this criterion just came out in 2022, right? And that is this framework of now here is an adult sin-a-s physical media package with curated supplemental

material to like frame this within an intellectual conversation. and the new material on the Criterion Disc is so much more pointed and transparent. There was a lot of, I have to imagine, Disney inheriting this movie, and I think it's what's fascinating about watching this movie now, where, like, the greatest concern was a kind of like an anti-intellectualism and an apathy. That's what culture is falling into. And that anything in this movie that could have been seen as elitist or crudelytile.

critical of an American apathy would have become like a fucking talking point. Right, because apathy would become Disney's lifeblood over the last 10 years or so in the live action remake era. It does feel like there was a little bit of at the time

you cannot fucking politicize this movie, right? I think so. I mean, a lot of these interviews are also from like Christianity today and like 20... That's the outlet I was working for when I spoke to him in 2022. I talked to him not for Christianity for around the time the Blu-ray came out, and he was very receptive

to talking about the sort of political valences in the film. The more recent interviews, it seems like, he will be like, I mean, of course I do get a lot of boxes from Amazon and wonder about that. He said that was one of the main activating things was like early 2000. He said that in 2020. Right. He didn't say it at the time. No, no. And he softened up a little bit. I do buy that he wasn't like trying to grind axes with this movie.

And I think you hear him talk about organically how the story locks into place. But also it was coming out of personal observations. Wow, I got a smartphone. I'm addicted to this. I now there's a website that sells everything. My house is filled with boxes. Yeah, I mean, my sense talking to him was that all those things were true, but I do feel like the sociopolitical commentary sprang out of what you were talking about earlier, which is this like deep rooted love for the movies, the early movies in particular, the movies that were formative for him, where he really sort of sprang to life,

which was very convenient for my purposes, was talking about. the movie as a expression of the joys of parenting, as the act of, you know, we were talking about a bridge earlier, sort of like the act of taking something from one generation, showing it to another, robots acting like humans, to teach humans how to stop acting like robots, the transference of going from consuming everything

as Wally's done for hundreds of years, to displaying that, to showing that to someone else, which is a completely revelatory. and transformational experience for him. Elevate your gaming performance with Alienware dates of deals happening now and bringing you tremendous savings on the gear you need to game. You can buy any Alienware PC and get 50% off

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You can also find great offers on displays, keyboards, and mice to help complete your setup. Do not miss this chance to upgrade your gaming experience for less. Head over to alienware.com slash deals today and claim your gear before these offers. And on June 28th, upgrade your game at alienware.com slash deals. Wally. So in the screenplay, obviously, I guess you guys probably only know this, but I'll tell you anyway. Like, the dialogue is written, even if the characters don't speak. So he would say, like, in brackets, like, here's what Wally's trying to say.

And then obviously later they put in, you know, all their little noises. Ben Burt. The great Ben Bembert. The legend, Ben Burt. Ben Burt. is Ben Hasley, the man who, like,

invented the entire Star Wars soundscape, among many other things, but one of Lucas's closest collaborators and, you know, just these things we take for granted of just like droid languages and lightsabers and the sounds of ships.

And he created that probably with a Moog, like, analog synthesizer. There's another great thing on one of the Blu-ray releases. That's a breakdown of, like how many people at Pixar have to touch one single shot of a movie, like how many different departments work on it. And they cut to Ben Burt explaining what his contribution is.

And he was like, I was trying to find the right sound for this movie, for this shot. And then I remembered that in around 1997, I'd gone and done some recordings of Niagara Falls. And it's very indicative of how Ben Burt works, which is he just kind of fucking collects sounds. Right. Always collecting sounds. Right. So there are things that he would sort of

just like construct, but more often he just was constantly building a sound library and then being like, oh, you know, it'd be interesting. What if the sound of

this ship is this plus this? What if he was collecting sounds one night and collected the sound of a murder? I mean, this is the question. And David. Did he invent, did he invent robot

leaps and bloops being cute? Because we had leaps and bloops. We had forbidden planning. Let me tell you. I would agree to you. that no, bleep itself, I think, was not cute until R2. Right. Right?

I don't know. Yes, I think so. I would love to look at a list of, like, history's robots. Like, you know, who was there? It's like, Robbie's not that cute. All right. I'll look up best bleep bloops. Okay.

So, during, while they're preparing this, Andrew Stanton, keep saying, like, I need this to be like R2D2. And finally, Jim Morris, who is the former president of ILM, who now works at Pixar, says, do you want to just get Ben Burt? like the guy who did R2D2. Which is basically the equivalent of, like, casting Tom Cruise in your movie. It's like, this is your main actor, basically.

Not only does he literally end up being the model for the voice of Wally, but it's like, this is the guy who's going to figure out whether or not your entire movie works. If he can make these compelling and distinct. Now, Ben Burt, as he puts it, had just finished what he considered basically 30-year tour of duty making Star Wars movies

and was not that enthused about robots. He was coming right off of the Rebels. Yeah, he'd just been working on. the prequels for so long and was like, I just don't want to do any more robots, but that kind capra romance, buster, Buster, hero thing.

That's an interesting challenge. And, you know, the idea also of like, they're going, it's just, they're mostly communicating with each other, so bridging the sort of robot communication gaps, right? Like, which is sort of like the R2 3PO thing. Yeah, yeah. He likes that.

But you're removing the... The humans going like, what? You know. Well, and also, like, I mean, they come in. You know, C3PO is human cyborg relations. His job is to fucking translate things. And it's like, what if you're not translating it? And how do you still make it read to the audience?

What a crazy guy that guy is. Ben Burt? C3PO. Yeah, sure, Ben Burt. C3PO, though, there's a guy who could use a crush. Am I right? I don't think, I think that would just make him anxious. It's kind of wild nine movies C3PO never even like.

Carry on. finish your thought they're even like fucks it's supposed to everyone else and the phantom menace is just fucking left and right you know Artu could get it

Artu can get it and I think he's getting I think sometimes he's rolling off to the side and you're like where did Artu go and you're like he's gone he's hitting

so you know the usual Benbert thing of like okay now I've got this challenge of like creating character voices all distinct all have to sort of sound human, sound relatable. It's tough. He records in a little chamber, he says. Boop, boob, bo bo bo bo bo, bo, bo, bo, takes those recordings, runs them through his computer.

He analyzes the sound and breaks them into component parts, like you would sort of break light through a prism to get colors, he says. And then you start refabricating, you know, putting it all back together again, but you can control, you can be like, maybe a little more of this, a little less of this. Hold vowels. Stretch vocal cords in a way that you could never, you know, pitches and, you know, if sound was silly putty, you could stretch it and make it longer,

he says. I found a way of working on Wally where you could do that. It sounds like something I would not be good at, but it sounds very, very cool. He's very cool guy. He also just, I mean, I've only seen him in countless making us, but it just seems like a friendly fella. I was going to say, it seems like a

sweetie pie, super charming. He's not like, this is intense. No, I also think some of these Lucasie guys in interviews, you're like, you're like, you are the spectrum. You seem like a nice person, but you almost like are a robot looking for another robot to talk to. Ben Burt, I think is, I got to meet him when we went with George Lucas to Skywalker Ranch. Cool. And he has since retired, but was there giving a tour to his friend from high school. That's cool.

I mean, he's pretty old at this point. He's in his late 70s. I assume you must have talked at length on this podcast about the trip you just mentioned. But I have no memory of hearing about it. I haven't talked about it much, but it was pretty incredible. It's a very casual George Lucas took me to his house. George Lucas did not take me to his house. George Lucas has not acknowledged us.

Okay. Yeah, the way you presented it is something like that. Sorry, sorry, let me clarify. Yes. Go ahead, yes. Other people within the organization like the George Lucas talk show. Darth Mall. and have always been like, I don't, I wonder if George would like it.

There's always been this sort of one degree away. George does like comedy, but he's really sensitive and self-conscious. The extent to which he can find humor in himself and his work. Yes. It seems to me, it's more than it was, but I'm not to take a ton of it. It's more than it was, but also like every year at like Comic-Con, they would do a panel that was like Lucasfilm's favorite. fan films and parodies.

Like, he's always embraced that shit. And Connor, Connor Rallif always tells the story about, like, the first time Star Wars was on the cover of Mad. They were sent, like, a cease and desist. And George Lucas, they, Mad responded to George Lucas's lawyer,

saying, like, really? Because this is a letter we got from George Lucas last week. And it was George saying, like, I'm so flout to be on the cover of Mad, can I please buy the original art? But we walked into, like, the Skywalker Ranch Library.

and the librarian looked at Connor and went, I was wondering if you were ever going to show your face here. It feels like all of them watch the show. Yeah, fascinating. I have to say, some of the only joy I've known in the last few weeks was watching Jared Harris on the George Lucas talk show, where it was just the first half of it. He's like, what decisions have I made in my life that led me to this moment?

That's the joy of doing the show, is watching people go through that and then by the end of it be like, I'm all in all in. Right, right. But it was so cool to watch, basically, we were being given a tour adjacent to Ben Burt giving a tour. And it was on a day where there weren't a lot of people. It's like you could walk 15 feet behind him and just hear echoes of what? Yeah, is that up front?

And watch him talk about it and whatever. He's a lovely guy. So, Sigourney Weaver, obviously, is involved with this movie. As he put it to Sigourney Weaver, you get to play mother now. Right. What if your mother? She likes that idea. She does it.

Weaver, I feel like also like seduce stuff. It does feel like a great way of insepting your kids with eventually watching Alien when they're seven. It also is on the timeline. It also speaks to the tough sell of this movie where I remember like Sigourney Weaver doing fucking like the Today Show and Good Morning in America

and whatever for this movie, even though it's almost like an extended in-joke cameo because they were like, we have no stars in this film. Like Sigourney Weaver's the computer. The other lead actors are Ben Burt, a Pixar employee, and the maxis. text to speech program. And two men who have been accused

of being sex pests in different varieties. Yes, you're right. So that's not nothing. Who was the other? Two Pixar's favorites. Well, Jeff Garland has gotten some blown back.

And Fred Willard jacked it in a theater. No, he's no past. Listen, I didn't say I was... He jacked it in the place you're supposed to jack it, right? He was appreciating the art. He was engaging with it in the manner in which it was... It was in a porn theater, right? It was the takey theater.

You take that back. I didn't say sex pest in a derogatory way. You did. Well, pest is a derogatory word. You can't just be like, I'm being a pest. And everyone's like, ah, yeah, you're my favorite pest. I would call him a sex fan. He's an appreciator of sex.

Sex minister, yeah. But yeah, no, it's right. Willard Garland, John Ratzberger, the big three of the 2000s box office. So, Wally, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right. There is the, I think. I think at the time for Pixar, somewhat revolutionary thing of, like, we will have humans in the movie. It's still the only time they've done that.

Right. Like, they've never done anything like that since really? No. No. Yeah. So you got Willard, obviously, is like, it's a good joke. I mean, it's sort of like, we will turn into CG. Yeah. We were once humans and we turned into CG. Yeah. This is also the movie where, and Stanton talks about that this was kind of his main project of like, if we're putting humans in it, then we're presenting this not as a form. of like photorealism, but we have to sell a sense of versimilitude. And so the technology has finally gotten to a point. And this is still an era of Pixar where almost every movie is built around a new technical challenge can we solve, right?

Like there are actual basic building blocks of this medium working that still have not been cracked yet. And his big pet project on this one was, can we truly make the virtual camera feel real? unlike in 2D animation where you are, the animator also basically the cinematographer to a degree and that you are composing your shot, but you're very limited in the kind of camera movements or even approximations of camera movements you can do.

CGI inherently has like a virtual camera built within it. You know, this is a movie where it's like, we want to make the camera feel real. We want to own the imperfections and the struggles of what a camera... Yeah, they did a lot of analog 70mm. to try and capture that kind of, you know, the lighting, the texture. And they're like, where is the barrel distortion? You know, where are the imperfections?

They got both Roger Deacons and Dennis Miron to be consultants on this movie. And he was basically like, I explained to them all these things that have driven, like, Russian lens makers crazy for decades that they've never been able to solve. The weird quirks of just, like, human limitations that then Pixar. is trying to replicate rather than a computer, which is always trying to perfect everything. And a thing that happens... Computer kind of bad guy.

Computer kind of bad guy. In this movie. But, like, especially in the sort of LeVian Rose montage, there's a lot of, like, you feel the camera operator, and they talked about this of, like, especially the scene where Wally triggers all the shopping carts, and they come, like, rolling after him against the wall. Like, the camera is,

struggling to catch up with Wally and keep him in the frame. There's like an overcorrection of the camera movement. That's basically the stuff they started fucking with in the bloopers. Yeah. Like the Toy Story, Bugs Life Monsters and bloopers have that kind of like, isn't it funny to acknowledge that someone needs to like refocus? I don't care for those. The bloopers are funny.

David, I understand. I don't care for them. You don't care for them at all? No. I liked them when I was a kid. It's funny that animation would have mistakes because you'd think. they would just erase it along that way. We also, we didn't call this out and finding Nemo, but that was one of Stanton's moves also

where he was like, these movies can't start to feel like they're fitting into a pattern and a formula. 100%. We got to break the blooper thing because, like, we're about to start repeating ourselves. Yeah, yeah, I don't like the blooper thing. And this movie does not suffer from Pixar boardroom story brain in a way. This is what I'm saying. He retreated from that.

Yeah, like, I mean, very clearly. I mean, obviously, Brave, their best film was still to come. Change your face. Do you want to change our fate? Was it the Wisp? Now the film begins. Oh, how does Wally fit into the Pixar theory? The witch turns into Woody and then where's Wally in this?

Wally's... Is Wally pre-cars? Like, will cars come after Wally? I think Wally is post-cars. Like if Wally charts the apocalypse and then... But yeah, is it post-cars? Yeah, I think it's that after the cars have died off. Wally was not originally invented to clean up a...

What's name? and McQueen, Lightning McQueen. Yeah, Wally is postcars. Of course, guess what's post Wally in the Pixar timeline theory? Onward, of course. Set in the 4,000s. Fuck you.

Honestly, fuck you. I mean, I don't know what you're talking about. Is it worth diving into? No, no, no. No, no. It's worth saying what it is and why we're not giving it any validity.

It's not a real thing. The Pixar movies all have these Easter eggs, right? Where it's like, the Pizza Planet Truck shows up in every movie. There are things like that. And most of the Pixar movies include a preview of the next film. So we called out in the Fine Nemo episode in the waiting room, the dentist, a kid's reading an Incredibles comic. They would seed kind of the next movie in a little way, right? At the end of Monsters Inc., boo has like a Nemo toy. There's always that kind of shit.

And a very annoying corner of the internet started taking it literally and being like, oh, that means they exist in the same universe. What is the timeline that justifies all these things happening? And with every added Pixar film, it becomes sweatier and sweatier. But you can watch like hour-long YouTube essays where it's like, so. I mean, I believe there was like a power point presentation. It's something that. Kick this off.

Then when the cars kill themselves, Wally cleans up our garbage. Wally starts with a real shot across the bow in, you know, you like immediately it's just out there you know and it is so immediately removed from Pixar tonality up until the point I thought about our Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon episode where you said has any movie more quickly announced itself as a masterpiece well with the opening strings Crouching Tiger still has it uh yeah I don't know if the quality is implicit so what all he's doing because Crushing Tiger Hidden Dragon begins with boom and you're like but in context you this is telling you it's lovely you know circa 2008 and you

You're sitting there in the theater. This is not your daddy's Pixar movie. No, you're also, there's no soft ease in. You know, most of the Pixar movies, like, have, like, a cold open before you go to an opening credit sequence. And then they start to really minimize the opening credit sequence. This is, like, Disney logo, Pixar logo. The short before this was Presto, which is pretty good in theater. Pretty good.

You love Presto? I think that's the best one they ever did. She's like, that's the best one they ever did? Apart from, of course, my beloved Red Stream, where the bicycle. Yeah, what's your favorite? And lava. Lava. Lava actually should have gotten Pixar shut down.

You know what I mean? Like, everyone's like, we appreciate everything and they release lava in the government immediately. He's like, I'm sorry, you're done. I came home and found my daughter watching Lava, and it was like coming in home. You threw the TV out the window, I hope. And seen your kid watching the ring tape. I was just like, no. What's your favorite of the shorts?

I think Presto is so goddamn funny. I love Presto, but I'm like at the time. is interesting. What's the top? I gotta think on this. It better not be fucking... Lava. Well, yeah. I mean... It better not be fucking what?

I was about to say a funny one. Bounden, but I do enjoy Bounden. It's lovely. He's Bounden. Yeah. I like... Yeah, I like lava the most. I... Look, lava the...

I mean, sorry, presto, sorry. I hate lava's the... I love BOW. And I've seen Bows so many times, because my daughter... really loved bow for a long time. They sent me the little plastic prop bow when that came out. I want that. I've been living in my freezer for like eight years now. It's in your freezer.

Because it's a frozen bow. I don't know. I put it up there. I hit it in the corner. Yeah, well, it's awesome. I'm like, is Jerry's game my favorite? Is that a little bit? Yeah.

Jerry's game very good. He's joining the MCU soon, right? Can you name which ones won the Oscar? Did Jerry's game win? Jerry's game won. Okay. Oh, so the, all right, Luxo Jr. won. incorrect. Luxor Jr. was nominated.

Rude. Tin toy won? Tintoy won. That's the first win. Did Nicknick win? Nicknack sadly lost two stack, two bodacious. Right. Jerry's game won? Yeah, that was the second. For the birds won. I remember that. That was in that era where it was kind of like, are they just going to win every single time they do one? Because it was too consecutive for it. Bound and got its ass kicked.

Bound and did get its ass kicked. Then it doesn't win, they don't win again for a while. Did Day and Night win? No. La Luna? Uh, no. My daughter also loves those nominated. Yeah. La Nuna is, is a Luca prequel.

Yes. You know, it's got like Luca style. Yes. Lava didn't win, did it? No, thank God. Lava, not even nominated. Did Piper win? Piper won.

Piper's good. Piper looks amazing. Yes. Piper just looks incredible. Yeah, but there's not a win between 2000 and 2016. And then BOW one. And then BOW won. Yeah.

BOWs so good. She eat the bow. She eat the bow. Do you remember when they announced BOW and we were all like, this sucks. I don't want to watch. a food baby and then everyone comes out of bow cry bow fucking rocks and then of course turning red

rocks yeah turning red is the best yeah uh god turning red so funny now i'm just thinking about it with all their faces go funny anime style it's so funny i just think the immediate quick cuts establishing shots of space straight it with fucking hello dolly lyrics the weird juxtaposition of like what is the fucking tone of this movie the hello dolly of it is very funny

and that that movie is so flawed. I mean, this is that now that movie's greatest legacy. Exactly. Stan's also said that. He's like, I find it funny that Wally has bad taste. Well, it's like, I always imagine. He's a bit of a cheeseball. Yeah.

Listen, Wally was not exactly, you know, had a blockbuster video at his disposal. Guys, he just wants to hold hands. He does. But I always do imagine, like, what if Wally had found, like, a VHS of Citizen Kane or something? He'd just be throwing out. Yeah, I think Citizen Kane's no fun. Right. Obviously not as funny.

Wait, what's the gag where he throws out the good thing? The ring. He picks up a ring and he keeps the box. Yeah. I love that. Great bit. But I think that's part of also, like, it feels reflective of, like, you're lucky Ehrlich that your son hyperfixated on Wally and that was the movie that had to play 500 times in your home.

Oh, there have been other much worse hyper fixations in its way. Exactly. You're like, he's like a child. Ice Age, the Meltdown. For some reason, he's fucking locked in on. Meltdown's tough. That's a tough movie. So step up from the first Ice Age.

No, it is not. Step down from seeing yourself in the face with a hammer. One time I went over to your place and your son was insistent that we all watch Ice Age the meltdown and got really angry when anyone else was talking to him. Oh, yeah, yeah. He loves to do that. Yeah. This is part of why we had such a blowup at the Alamo draft house recently. Well, yes. What was the blowup?

Where are you seen? We had about it online. You didn't read it Ehrlich's draft house piece? Oh, I did. Oh, yes. Right. But that was not entirely his fault. No, not. Not. Not a lot. There was some problems.

But no, Asa is, you know, very serious about taking in his his Ice Age. It's not like people talking over it. Everyone has to find. I really don't like going to. I've been to Draft House twice with my daughter and I don't like it as much as the night off with her. Please do not even get me started. Obviously, draft house is right. Ice Age boiling points. The Nighthawk has been

better. Draft House is now. I agree with you. The worst place to see a movie. But so easy to fix. Like, it's just like, it You have the infrastructure. We can fix this. Roll it back. Right.

We all told you not to do this. And now it's not going well. I can't tell. I'm holding out hope for common sense to prevail, but I also think that they are so deep in it and are so invested in transitioning their workforce by which I mean. Firing lots of people in reducing their hours and having no more seasonal workers. That was their whole thing too,

was they were like, we're rolling this out as a test program to see if it works. The feedback was terrible. And they're like, great. We're going to go. go ahead and force it on everyone. And it was like, this was your plan all along. You didn't care how anyone felt about it.

Yeah, of course, right. Some real B&L shit. It is some real B&L shit. But I was just trying to think of the other movies that I've had to endure this many times. He's now really into Big City Greens, which is not a movie now. It's a show that I had not heard of until he happened by me. You mentioned this to me. I've never heard of it.

It turns out that like roughly 60% of the guests who have ever appeared on Blank Check have done voice. cameos on Big Zincreys. Not one Griffin Newman. One host. No. Zero hostly's been on it. Yeah. He's in an arc. He's a regular. But yeah, that's his latest thing. I'm still trying to figure out what it is.

Hi, Ben. My name is David Erlich. You might remember me from such blank check episodes as Wally. So I figured that I would send you a quick voicemail because something has really been troubling me since we recorded our Wally episode a couple of months ago. You know, any number of things that I've said on blank check over the years have plagued me.

But nothing has really kept me up at night quite like how callously I dismissed the children's television show, Big City Greens. I think at the time I was myth that my six-year-old son, Asa, was forsaking the infinite riches of children's cinema in favor of a streaming television show during his limited after-school television time. but it turns out that Big City Greens is a fucking masterpiece. It's basically The Simpsons for eight-year-olds or younger. I think it's a little bit aged up for my son, but he seems to rock with it anyway. It's actually a gateway drug to The Simpsons that I came home one day to find my son watching completely unprompted. I didn't even know he's aware that the Simpsons existed, Marge versus the Monorail,

which was a really profound moment for me. Anyway, in summation, Wally good, big city greens, very good, Chip Whistler Evil. That's what I got. Thank you. Love you. Bye. Here's a question for you. How long had it been, do you think, since Aisa had seen the movie last, after watching

it hundreds of times? There's a bit of a gap when he discovered all the movies. Right. Until before last night, when I had to sort of, because he's so resistant to anything that is no longer his choice, anything that he thinks is his sister's idea or preference is not going to fly. So I actually, thinking that he would be just sort of enraptured by flashing lights as he's prone to do, I had my beautiful wife, Mo, turn on Wally as I was bringing the kids up

the stairs. Yeah. So that when he walked in, it would just be there. And sure enough, you know, Slackjaw, you know, like he's the thing from Batman forever. Yeah. Just fucking watching Wally. It did immediately suck him in. It did.

And they ended up watching the whole thing. Yeah. But it had been probably three years. And your daughter had never seen it before. Never seen it before. Immediately, immediately fell in love with Wally, a la Wally falling in love with Eve. However, it came from a place of profound concern. I think my daughter, unlike my, I hesitate to call him a sociopath on a podcast that will outlive me.

But he'll love my life, Aza. But he's not quite the natural empath that my daughter is. every three seconds, would just be like, Wally, no, is he okay, Wally, Wally? He's constantly in peril. My daughter would get so anxious about when the rocket lands because that is, I guess, in the first act,

pretty much the only moment of real peril. When he's chasing the red dots. Yeah, and then, like, the flames. And she would just, you know, and she had to always be reassured. I would be like, he's fine, he's fine. Also, Eva does shoot Wally several times. She does, but,

like, that's played more for laughs, I guess. You never really feel that threat. And then the later existential threat if he loses his personality, I think didn't quite land with my like three-year-old daughter, right? She didn't really get the peril there. Uncle Griffin did buy a, I think a Wally and an Eva. Or maybe I bought the Wally. I think you bought the Wally. They're still making new Wally's and they haven't made a good Eva in a while.

And I bought a vintage Eva. Pretty good. No, it's pretty fucking fun. I mean, it doesn't fly. None of them do that. It's, please, trust me, I did the work to get the best one I could, but it was vintage. Like, I don't think they've produced a compatible. It does have a canon in like 15 years.

Yeah. Which has blown several holes in my apartment walls. Is there an Eva Funkopopop? Yeah, of course. Yes, yes. But, right, her name is technically Eve. Her name is Eve. But he calls it, Wally.

And she says, Wally. And can we just say that she's hot? Or should I just, should I not do that? Like, I walked out of the movie with two... At the time, being like, well, I really liked that. It wasn't quite as transcendent. I was hoping at the time.

I remember the field. But then my second was like, that bossy robot. Well, sure. She is a bossy round face. Her face could not be rounder. Correct. And she could not be bossy. She's an upset down egg.

All she does is go, Wally! And he's like, you know what moment I really love? Please. After she kisses him and electrocutes his face in space and he's like frozen and floating away and she goes Wally

Wally. For the first time she's like kind of like come on you old silly goose I know that my sexual power is totally fried your operating system. She like waves her arm over David Yeah Ben and I are four-eyed cool guys and here's the thing with glasses

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this is the fix. And a six-movie day, that is impressive. And our hats are off to you. Very good. We start with, though, while he lives. As you said, Stanton's like... You start with out there. Well, that's true.

But, I mean, re the first act and the silence and all that. And, you know, Stanton says, we were breaking rules. This obviously was not a done thing. But this is my point. You start with the fucking Blair of like... Yes. An obscure musical song and you're like, this is not how this movie starts. And then it winds down to absolute silence.

But then it's also... Like as we get closer to Earth. The pivot that they make to the first notes of Thomas Newman's score. which are very ominous. Score very important. And that is a huge... That is a huge jarring moment, I think, is similarly unexpected. We're like, oh, we're going from the joy of that song to something is unnerving.

The palette of the first three minutes is already, like, throwing you totally out of whack of, like, don't expect this to conform to the comforts of the usual Pixar movie. Why are they using, like, an old Hollywood song? Why is there now just kind of silence and isolation? and they film Wally from like such a distance. And you're sort of focusing on the spaces and then watching him cross and clear frame. And not even clocking necessarily

that he built everything we can see. Totally, right. And then the Thomas Newman score only kicks in once we sort of zoom out and understand, oh, he built these structures. And he's sad and alone. You watch the process of him, Saan's music, doing the cubing,

stacking the one, the sort of pride he has in doing it precisely. There's a great stand-in clip on, And there's a, there's a, like, 20-minute feature on the criterion. Ben, to your question, you asked famously in the early days of podcasting, how do you direct animation draw faster, right? Yeah. There's a really good, like, 20-minute.

I don't know, but also better. Yes. Sort of, like, mini-documentary of showing what directing animation is. And it's just kind of a compilation of reviews that Stanton's doing. He said basically that, like, as he puts it, directing animation is you have to. to make a choice every three and a half minutes. He's like, I arrive every morning. My assistant gives me what they call the dance card.

And it's here's everything you need to review today. And the list is so long that basically on average, every three and a half minutes, you have to make a definitive choice about something. Whether it's approving a design thing or a sound thing or an actual shot, giving a note, you know, deciding when a thing is finally finished,

or what needs to be adjusted or any of that. And there's a really good clip of him in a meeting with a lot of the story team, the design team, trying to figure out, okay, how are the robots going to work? And much like finding Nemo where he said, I really didn't want to anthropomorphize the fish. I wanted to find a way to make the fish expressive while sticking to basically the physiology

of how a fish could actually move. Secret. What if Jewish solved? The answer, right? But for Wally, he was like, I don't want them to mirror our bodies that much. I want to play with Lillian. I think that's fun. Right, right.

It's more interesting to me if their bodies can do a thing that we could never do. And so Angus McLean, who is a big part of this movie, it later directs Lightyear, which rewatching this, I was like, oh, yeah, the whole fucking design language of Lightyear was ripped off from this movie. It is what if Buzz Lightyear had Wally designs. Even all the tech, all the ships have the same kind of weird, like rounded edge. Is that the movie that's the origin story of the action figure? Oh, my God, Erlich.

It's not a movie about the action figure. It's about the real man that the action figure is based on. Because in 1995, a young boy watched a movie. I'm pretty sure we made a joke, the same joke on the Nemo episode. So I think we'll just maybe have to do it every time during this series. He has this great line where he's saying to Angus McLean, he's like, can I make the argument for giving him elbows? Right? Like, Angus McLean's making this plea of like, it's going to make all of our lives easier if we can give him an elbow.

And Stanton goes, I'd rather give you a real. wrist than an elbow. And everyone in the room goes like, huh, and you watch him explain for the first time. Like, it's coming to him. Like, what if his arms are like this? What if they're small and they're out like this? And his wrist can extend in this sort of way. And that's now coming up with a language of movement that you couldn't do with a human being, which is, I think so much of what Stanton finds interesting in animation is like finding these midpoints between the language of live action film and the language of animation, which is like, how do you kind of, you kind of of shoot and cut a movie in quotes with what we understand from live action, but depict on-screen

things that we couldn't ever film and find the sort of midpoint between human behavior and what kind of characters are projecting. And with Wally and so many of the robot characters in this movie, it is all in the eyes, which are obviously a cheat for animation, you know, whenever they're trying to anthropomorphize something. But I think is so resonant here because Wally is really kept alive not so much by solar power as he is by curiosity and wonder. I mean, this is what separates him from all the other Wally units that have been decommissioned. It's that he gets off on discovering things about the world and that has sustained him for centuries. So tiny pin in this.

He, the other sort of part of the lore of this movie is he was at like a baseball game and he had like cheap binoculars to watch the game from the cheap seats. And he got hyper fixated on the hinge of the binoculars and how he was. was like, oh, if you tilt them down, they look sad. Yeah, it's brilliant. Right? I mean, it's so clever. Which is the starting point of the design of this character. Obviously, the trash planet idea had existed.

But that kind of reactivated the like, you could build an entire character where that's the only face you have. And there is the subtle thing. And it's like part of the language the movie teaches you that pays off so effectively at the end when Wally like comes back is, oh, all these robots are supposed to have a straight line for their eyes. And that's right. when he turns personality list, he goes back to the straight guy. No, no, the droop is when he gets good again. Right, right, but that's the moment where you're like,

oh my God, our guy is back. Yeah, it's our guy. He is our guy. They've taught you this thing where suddenly seeing the droop conveys so much to you in this classic, like, Pixar teaches you a technology that is meaningless, and by the end of the movie, it can communicate a complicated thing in one movement. I think that is sort of the defining thing that this movie is about, is like it's not about artificial intelligence in a sort of designed, we want to create artificial

intelligence way. It is this fascinating like what creates a personality, what creates a soul. If a robot lives long enough, do like aberrations start to happen? Which is why it tracks so well into a different context of artificial intelligence, which is as a criticism of something it couldn't anticipate necessarily, which is AI. Right, right. And the movie being a very obvious now in hindsight, broadside against what would happen if we just delegate all of our thinking and ability to automated systems.

Which this movie is basically all the robots you see in it aren't trying to comfort you by seeming human. They are there to serve a specific function, right? This is just like, what if a robot did your fucking makeup? And that's the one that needs to impersonate a social interaction because that's part of the dynamic. But otherwise, it's just like, what is the one thing this fucking robot needs to do? And it doesn't need a face and it doesn't need a personality.

it's just going to serve this one job that we can clean up, in some cases, literally make the robot that cleans up. All of the main robot characters in this movie are defined by a moment where you realize, oh, something has weirdly evolved in them, where they now have a personality, where they now take some specific pleasure in doing what they do. It is no longer programming. There is some joy in this that is basically like a malfunction.

but in that malfunction like feelings are developed so you start with like Wally the sense of pride he takes in the garbage is that the reason that he has outlived all the other models sure yeah probably right because like

there are all the other models burnt out we assume dead and you watch one interested you know whatever yeah he's making architecture out of the garage yeah and as I would say that little gesture with the wrists is just like you see

the satisfaction of like another clean wall. But he loves to curate stuff. He's got his lunchbox. Yeah, he lives in my apartment. I get this guy. I really get this guy. He hasn't quite made that connection, but right. Kind of hit me like a ton of bricks

watching it last night. Because of course, like, Wally, right. Outside, he's making towers out of bricks and, you know, all that. That's what I consider podcasting. He lives in a garbage truck with the kind of like the rotating, you know, he's got the kind of the tie rack of garbage, right? Like the, the curation.

Right. And that was supposed to be the racks of all the other models of him. And he hangs his favorite pieces. You know, that was one of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of ships that were just supposed to be levels of Wally's all sleeping in little boxes. He's the last one. We see in just such fucking, like, clean, quick visual storytelling of his tread start to wear out. He needs to find other dead models. You're like, this is how this one guy has survived.

he's basically been frankenstining himself from his dead brothers like this isn't even the original wali at one point he just became a yeah hodgepodge of other wallies but you're you're like right the other guys all burned out why is wali still here because wali wants to be alive why does he want to be alive because he likes doing this it's not just that he's programmed to do this he enjoys it and then in in his enjoyment and also the isolation of everything else around him and the mission becoming impossible you know unending he starts to get a obsessed with the other objects. Well, it dovetails with what Stanton said, which is irrational, the theme of the movie for him that he would put on like a coffee cup so that everybody who was working with him could understand at every chain in the system. What movie they were making is irrational

love defeats life's programming. And so it's like, if take that to a literal place, it's like his love of this activity literally overpowers, you know, the programming and the obsolescence that's coded into his programming and whatnot. So I also think Stanton is a

guy who's like constantly wrestling between instincts of cynicism and sentimentality that I relate to very hard. And I think his characters and his movies are usually about that. Wait, and do you see, if you haven't already, in the blink of an eye. It will be seen. Okay. We have to. Do we have to?

Legally. The first episode you do where no one has seen the movie. Legally, we must. But yes, there's always this battle within him between. the two. I also just like love the idea that it's like he finds the pleasure in doing his job and stacking the garbage and then over time he's starting to like pay attention to the garbage and curate the garbage and study the garbage. Not to overplay Stanton's religiosity, which I think we were talking about mostly before we started recording, but like his vested Catholicism and whatnot

that there is an issue or an element of like stewardship over the earth. And there you could easily abstract Wally looking to the heavens as, you know, waiting for a sign from God. Waiting for Eve, in fact, you know, to come down. Indeed. They indeed even, of course, thought about the on the nose. Do we call him Adam or something? But he just was like, Wally is the sad sack name.

Like, I could. That's the best name. You know, like, and he's very, very smart of him. He also said Steve Jobs' single biggest contribution was that the movie was originally called W-A-L-E. and he's like, I don't like that name. And then they were like, like wallet, add an L.

And then it works. Exactly what Steve Jobs said. Like the rapper. I think another contribution Steve Jobs made was his money. That's another one he made. He threw his wallet at Andrew Stanton. Yes. And so do whatever the fuck you want.

I mean, this is just like a really, it's a rare moment that is very, very short of just them feeling so empowered and having so much money to play with. that they can just do whatever the fuck they want, and they're confident that it will have to be supported by whoever ends up releasing it. But you get the sort of like Wally activating the video screens,

the sort of physical pop-up ads of the by and large deterioration. This one company, a Walmart Costco S company, has taken over all of the world. Our consumerism polluted everything. We had to leave. The robots were supposed to clean things up, except it was too late. They never fixed it and humans never came back.

It's interesting that Fred Willard's character, I mean, maybe there is a distinction made, and I'm just not remembering, but he's the president of by and large, but he also seems to exert the president of the United States and possibly the world. Yes, but what I love is I feel like whenever you see his title in Kairons,

it's like he hasn't actually become the president. It's that being the CEO of B&L has maybe become more important than being the president. It is... A hundred percent. Yes, yes. It's just right. It's like a capitalist all across. whatever it's like what we became does the president not matter anymore do they actually not exist it's not that uh walmart you know still walmart's still important but like by and large feels

walmart coded i know it's obviously also amazon or whatever but like and it that does feel of that moment i was there's stuff in this movie that is fascinating to watch now where you're like the culture has changed more than i thought yeah yeah where you're like the walmart thing of like right in 2008 we all agreed was like is walmart the most evil company that is like going to kill us. And you're like, Walmart's so far down on the list now. There is something quaint. Walmart almost feels cute. There is something quaint about this era of consumerist critique because we, yeah, the evils that

have supplanted it and stood on its shoulders are so much more pronounced and existential. But he also said like the environmental angle of this movie, he was like, this wasn't motivated by me feeling like the movie was a call to arms to shake people into action. Oh, right. Again, that just doesn't seem to be this vibe. He's not a polemical filmmaker. No, but also like 17, 18 years later, I'm like, I can't believe how much fucking worse this got. And if I knew how little we were going to do to fight this issue, I maybe would have made different choices in the movie. But yeah, at the same time, it's sort of central driving energy about humans needing to sort of regain control over their own fates and not surrender to automation and thoughtlessness and helplessness is as, you know, relevant.

as ever. Well, that's the weird thing in the movie that simultaneously feels like quaint and still prescient to me at the same time, which is the greatest concern being apathy, right? Like, people just don't want to fucking care. They don't want to think there's just like a complacency, which I think right now in America, or one of our biggest issues, if not our single biggest issue, is that has basically been replaced with an overriding anger. There is like a rage that is fueling everything in all directions where the sense of being this passive is a little hard to imagine. And yet, we are on the scary precipice of, are people going to start opting out of having to do shit in order to have everything automated for them?

Sounds fine. It does. But I think, you know, the movie sort of indulges in the sort of AI proponent fantasy of, oh, like, when we have a full automation, no one's going to have to work. We're all just going to be on permanent vacation. But then you're like, what is life? We've already seen that that is not at all the reality. No, and it is wild to watch it now. And it's like, there's like networky elements of this where you're like, oh, this doesn't even read a satire anymore. But the idea that they're like by the pool and everyone's just looking at their screens

and not going in. They don't even know the pool's there. Right. I'm just like, that felt really like exaggerated in 2008 when smartphones have barely existed for two years. Right. And now you're just like, yeah, of course. The fucking traffic jams of nowhere.

looking where they're going because they're all just watching the screens, you're like, right, I get the, the heightening here is the hover chair. But the relationship to the screen does not feel heightened. And at the time, it felt silly. World's good. World is good.

Wally is good. Wally has one friend. Cockroach. His name is Hal. What's his name? Hal because of Hal Roach. Funny. It's a fun show.

I mean, you know, I'm not laughing out loud. You went, and you smiled. You got me. May the listener note that you smile. As you already mentioned, Stanton says, they watched Akitin and the chaplain

every single day. They were very and, you know, like, interested in, like, pantomime conveying everything, right? Like, can we make a movie where you turn the sound off and know what's going on? The kind of Chuck Jones... Right. There's... Axiom, of course, also is the name of the shit.

There's a true challenge of, like, let's actually test our fucking bones as animators to see if we can tell a story through movement. And when you remove the kind of recognizable autonomy of a human body, then how do you convey these things? What I'm talking about of him not wanting to do the cheats of giving them normal human movements and whatever. And then he's also like, by doing that, you also test every other department more. If you're not going to have words, even though we wrote those words into the script, then I'm asking the music to convey those things. I'm asking the camera to convey those things.

I'm asking color to convey those things. Ralph Eggleston, who was one of like the early Pixar guys and is the production designer in most of their movies and was part of that Cal Arts group. He passed away 2022, I believe, very tragically. What was a genius? Ralph Eggleston.

And the Criterion release has a really nice feature that's basically like a eulogy for him, but also explaining how important he was. I brought this up a little bit in the Finding Nemo episode, but the thing of the color scripts where they do a kind of visual script of the movie based on the color palette of every sequence so that you can chart the tonality

of what you want to convey through mood and color. You didn't need to do one of those for John Carter. Red. It's a lot of red. But Stanton said, and I'd never heard it put this cleanly before, he's like, it seems a little indulgent to people on the outside, but in animation, it is not a standard thing. Eggleston basically made it a new thing

because he was such a student of production design that he found out that William Cameron Menzies did these on his sci-fi movies of like the 40s and the 50s. They're crazy 40s British, you know, like things to come. Which are super kind of like expressionistic in his color. Right. And would think about like what are you conveying in color from setup to setup. And Eggleston was like, this was a cool thing.

And those movies look really cool. We should try to bring this back. And everyone thought it seemed a little indulgent. And when he did it, he was like, right, animation is so piecemeal that you don't actually see the final version of everything until the last moment. You're not getting

location scouting. You're not shooting things and being able to recognize the color temperature in front of the lens at the time. It takes so long to add color and lighting and all of that to have that as like a guiding force at the beginning to know you're working towards really

helps. One thing I want to note in here that we haven't mentioned but it's not something I ever thought about because I don't like... I've never seen this movie. A lot of people noted that, like, possibly accidentally, while he does look like

Johnny Five, from Short Circuit. One of Ben's best friends. He is one of my best friends. Though I'm short circuit to having revisited it on... There's some issues? An episode of Flop House. It solves racism. Oh, no.

It was something that I didn't pick up on as a young kid. And as an adult, I was quite shocked. What's this here? Fisher Stevens lives in my neighborhood and every time I see him at a coffee shop I'm just like immediately short circuit. The human bobblehead.

I feel so bad for him. He's done so much work. You're right though. I've never thought about that. They're very similar. It's the eyes. It's the eyes. And sort of on the long neck.

Right. I found that infuriating as a talking point at the time. It was a little mini version of the avatar is literally just Fern Gully thing where I'm like the fucking, come on. Like there's a thousand other things going on in this movie. I agree. I agree.

So, Wally. But Johnny 5 innocent. Sure. He never did anything. Wait, I'm seeing that Johnny 5 here was at a J6. No? You basically get... Wait, where was he on January 6th?

He's trying to get up the stairs at the Capitol. He keeps, like, falling over. I don't know. It's a funny mistake. Yeah. He's just sightseeing. He's next to Jay Johnston. He's next to Jay Johnston.

All right. You basically see one day of his, right? Yeah. You see a normal day of his. day and then you see the weird day. It's a perfect way to do it, I feel like. Yeah. Eve comes in at like minute 13. I mean, it's like so efficient while you, you feel like you've spent a lot of fucking time with him. I think a lot of that is the silence makes all those moments really you lean in and they matter more. But yes, him going back home, the organization of where do I put the spork and all this

sort of stuff, the understanding of the level of feeling and thought he's putting into everything. and then his nightly ritual of like the iPod video playing the Hello Dolly sequence that he obsessively watches over and over again. I think it is such a beautiful, simplistic boiling down of like if they're robots and they like don't have any biological drive to procreate. Sure. And it doesn't make sense that they would like need romance. Yeah. That he's recognizing something of like what is being expressed in the statement of holding someone's hand. as a show of intimacy or having companionship.

It's such a nice, like... You know, God gave him hands for a reason. It's so good. I mean, are they hands? I guess they're kind of like loaders or what? They're part of his sort of, you know, his cubing power. He also said that basically in the time that they were developing this movie, the iPod video got introduced.

And he asked Jobs for permission, can I put this in the movie when it was a brand new thing? Who among us did not watch the first episode of Battlestar Galactica on an iPad classic, an iPod classic on a flight screen that is like one inch I was watching Lost on those on the fucking post

I remember Lost was kind of like the first show where they were like like iTunes video like you know 99 cents an episode Yeah right I was I mean I watch it on broadcast

and then when an episode was good I'd be like purchased rewatch at school Wow but he asked Jobs permission because it was such a new device and he was like I bet by the time this movie comes out

it's already antiquated technology and he was like, sure enough, like iPhone comes out a year before this movie comes out, replaces the iPod video. It already was while he has an antique. Yeah. But here's the thing about Eve. And Griffin, I feel like you can relate to this along with me, which is that I don't know if there is a better evocation in film animated or otherwise of what it feels like to be a neurotic teenage boy and have an intense crush on somebody. This is where I'm saying, I'm not getting even to say for better, for worse, this was the primary concern of my life when I was 20 years old. Like you're awed by the girls you like terrified of them.

I don't know how to talk to them. They are involved in things that are so far above your station. Until I have a crush on someone and then I show them green plants and they go catatonic. I mean, Sims, you had to like deal with even a little later in my life, the versions of this where we'd be at a bar and I'd be like, I don't even know what, how would I start a sentence? You once, instead of talking to a woman who I think may have been interested in you, can't remember the specific. Of course the tragic irony was, they often were. Yeah, of course.

And I would fuck it up. That's that bullshit. Drew a picture. I wish I could find it. Let me see if I could find it of just a sad little guy. Oh, I remember. That's Jesus Christ. You do remember that.

This was a videology. Oh, yeah. With a girl, you met a videology, drew a picture. No, no. Instead of like, you know, being a person who talks to another person, and he was just instead drew a weird little picture. You passed a note like, no, no, no, no, let's clarify this story. Just gave it to, yeah, well, people keep talking over me.

This is videology trivia. And for like 10 consecutive weeks, I turned to Dave and I'd be like, I have such a crush on that girl I cannot speak to. Yeah. And David would be like, go talk to her. I'd be like, I don't know how to do that. And it was one night where David was trying to, like, height me up to be like, just like, walk over and say something about trivia. And instead, I drew a sad face. you're missing out because you know what's great

then when they're mean to you you're like oh that's what Wally learns sometimes they have fully loaded cannons for arms and they blow up giant ship no I do think this movie is one of the greatest depictions of that and I love the Buster Keaton movies that lean romantic

because they weaponize a similar dynamic except the difference is that Buster Keaton often seems kind of oblivious right that he's love struck and then it's just sort of like him chasing after and he doesn't realize how much the world is trying to stop him, whereas Wally is like smitten and also terrified. And it's like, yeah, it's the combination of being smitten,

being terrified, and being, there was the third thing, and then you sort of took the words on my mouth. But anyway, odd. Odd, is the other thing that I think completes the picture for me. It is maybe my single favorite moment in the movie and speaks to what I was saying earlier. He sees the red dot. He's chasing it.

You realize the ship is landing, right? He's hiding behind the rock. He sees her coming. out, everything is very kind of routine, right? The arm comes out. It unleashes her. She activates. Her design is still so fucking cool, where it's like seamless unibody thing. And then the head and arms can float off to the sides. And the hands, the arms can turn into fingers if need be and all that sort of shit. Wow, I found a picture of Wilder. I'm so far back in my photos right now. That's Wilder. Alan Smith? Allen's son. Yeah. What happened? Wild.

I know. Ben's arch nemesis. This is 2015, so he's probably like, I think he was like one or two. He was like two, maybe two. Yeah. If you're trying to find the trivia drawing, that would be like 20. I know, I know. I went too far.

Yes. I went too far. I think my favorite moment in the entire film is like Eve is there. She's like locked in on her mission. The ship starts to leave and you see her kind of clocking once she's out of the view. And then it's like she takes a breath and has just the joy flight. Yeah. And it's that moment of, oh shit, she's like him.

For some reason. She's a little different. She finds joy in doing things. She is doing things for her own satisfaction. And if he wasn't already going to be smitten just by like, I've never seen a fucking robot like that, there's a personality there. And as much as she then tries to immediately cover it and be like,

I am all business, it is every robot we meet who is a primary character. It's the same thing with Mo. When we get to Mo and he makes the decision to jump off the line, because he loves cleaning so much. He does love, he do. That's his art. That's how he, you know, whatever, finds joy. Every one of those activation moments is so satisfying to me.

Is Moe driven by joy or is Moe driven by intense compulsion? I found it. This is the drawing Griffin made rather than flirt with a girl. Huh. Okay, we'll make sure to post that. I don't know what to say. What is this number three? I have no idea what the fuck was going on.

joke might be like you're not even number two, you're number three. I don't quite know. It could be a kid cuddy reference? I don't think it was. We can pull it out. Yes. Chance the rappers. Yeah.

Oh, no, but it would have predated that. I think it predates. Yeah. Well, we'll post it on the Instagram. But yes, Wally's just like chasing after her. And then there's the moment where she hears him exhale. And then just immediately fucking like turbo canons him. Love it when she turbo canons him.

Hotest part. It's their meat. cute is she thinks she's murdered him. Gosh. Just imagine dating an egg robot with an arm cannon. Pretty cool. Obviously, she's... Got to build a cold shower into the back of

Blanktonchik Tud. She's indirectly inspired by Apple products, but obviously she's also kind of like a nesting doll design. Like, she's got the sort of matrioshka shape, the egg. This is from Angus McLean, who... Is that the guy who, the Presto guy?

No, that's... Which one is he? Am I wrong in thinking? No, Presto wasn't Teddy Newton. Is Presto Teddy Newton? Let's find out. Presto film. Because I remember, like, that director. Doug Sweetland.

Oh, Doug Sweetland. Meo, he's being like, when's he making a movie? And then he ended up making Storks. You know, he left. I never saw Storke. This Storke's was a Nicholas Stoller joint. He wrote it. He wrote it.

Did he co-directed with Sweiland or Sweener? He might have... That was that era where they kept... Snuck a co-director. They were like, we only led an air. animation guy co-direct a movie with a live action guy or a comedy guy. Correct. It's clear. It's to both of them. Angus McLean is the guy who co-directed Finding Dory and then directed Lightyear.

What year was Storks? 2016. Because Storks was in the like in my come to Jesus after my come to Jesus moment of recognizing that forgetting Sarah Marshall is the greatest of all works of art and culture of the last 100 years and being like, I will see literally anything Nicholas Stoller makes next. And he's like, I'm directing a movie about Storks. delivering babies and I was like, I guess there's a line somewhere. That movie, never saw.

I found to be a bit of a rough hand. Doug Sweetline is like an incredible character animator and especially incredible at like animated comedy, physical comedy and has is responsible for... That's why Presto so funny, all the hijinks. But like a lot of the best Pixar physical comedy moments,

I feel like the one that's always pointed at is Woody acting out in Toy Story 2 when they're like playing Woody's Roundup and he comes out of the box and is like being all hot shit. Angus McLean and Doug Sweetland felt like the two guys were

it was like, when are they gonna let them make a movie and they let Doug Sweetland get away. Right. And then Angus makes Lightyear, which is worse than making a movie. It's so bizarre. It's like making a negative movie.

But he did Bernie, which was the short that accompanied this. Oh, yeah. Really good. Yeah, that's fun. And he did, uh, Toy Story of Terror. Jesse finds a way.

I feel like you should watch one of those early Pixar movies. You might like them. Yeah, it's a total blind spot for me. I'm just reading off the dossier. Anyway, Jesse does find a way. To quote, Angus McLean, she looks dangly. Eve, she looks dangly and wind-chimey when she's

in automaton mode. When she gets emotional, she does more arcs, like a porpoise flying around. Yeah. Well, that's when this moment of joy where she just kind of flies around like a fucking flower. They loved the cockroach idea. Also, just like, that's a fun challenge. Like, making a cockroach cute. Yeah, it doesn't have a face.

Doesn't have a face. So, one other note on production design. Act 1 is all romantic and emotional lighting, and then act 2. They say act 1 and act 2. You're right that the movie is really in thirds, but I guess they basically mean like planet, then spaceship. Act 2 is like get to know the axiom. Act 3 is like the uprising. Yes. But then, you know, act 2 is essentially the axiom

is sterility, order, cleanliness. It's when it goes from being Buster Keaton to Jacques Tattee. Right, right. But then... Yes, sorry. They try to make the lighting more romantic as Act 2 goes on. Like, you know, they try to... They sort of soften it as, you know, personality enters. Well, the movie starts out really washed out.

Then you start to get some warmth when Eve enters. I think the most beautiful sequence of the movie is when there's, like, the big dust storm, and he brings Eve inside. And the way Eve reacts to the darkness of the room where she's, like, glowing, and you see the weird ring of, like, fluorescence inside of her neck. and also the reflections of the Christmas lights and everything off of her. And you get the singing fish, which is between this and the Sopranos was having a huge cultural moment. Billy Bass was one of our greatest.

But yeah, she basically almost accidentally shoots him and then is just like, the fuck are you? And then you get your sequence, the Livian Rose of him just kind of like following after trying to get her attention. Who among us hasn't had a crush to say, what the fuck are you? She's just like, I'm working. I do feel like it's important to point out, though, that Eve, comes into contact with Hal, almost shoots Hal the cockroach, but instead...

She likes him. She likes him, and they both, Wally and Eve get tickled by the cockroach, which is really sweet, but it's showing that she's kind. Right, right, right,

but that happens before she meets Wally. It's like, Wally making such an advanced overture to her, she's like, no, get away, I'm working. She wishes almost he hadn't seen her be nice to HAL, because she wants to put on the face of all this. Maybe the best shot in the movie.

is right after she's exploded all of the oil tankers. And shot from behind of Wally and silhouette, just sort of saddling up slowly beside her. But also that he recognizes that's the moment where it's like, oh, she's shown like emotion in being so frustrated that she caused this much damage, that she had her fucking Adam Driver punching the wall moment. But also that he witnessed.

So little game that he's like, now is my time to strike. But it's also so funny to say. see her and it's like, it's like they convey physical tension in her body, even though that shouldn't be possible. As she's watching the ships burn, and she's just sort of like her eyes narrowing, like wanting the

catharsis of watching something be destroyed. When her eye go grumpy mode, the eyes are so good. But he senses the opening of like, okay, if we can just exchange names, we're cooking here. Right, right. And she's charmed

by the fact that he can't say it. Uh, wow. It's a little funny. He brings her into his home. She loves his collection. Yep. It's possible. And like the ultimate fantasy of showing, showing her one object that is going to so blow her mind.

Right. That she's false a same. Well, that's, that's not part of the thing. You show her a boot with plant in it and she goes unconscious. But all of those gags of handing her the light bulb and then getting so kind of like frustrated that he can't turn it on. I like when fixing the Rubik's cube. Yes. I like when she laughs.

When she goes like, Like or whatever. Yeah. The pop in the bubble wrap. Like, she's finally just totally let her guard down and is as fascinated by every object he shows her, but also able to solve them so much faster. We also see him turn into a cube. Oh, you mean when he goes into like sleep mode? Yeah.

Yeah. And we know that he's charged by the sun. I think it's just awesome design that he not only makes cubes, but is a cube. Yeah. Which, like, this is a classic Pixar logic thing. Stanton is always the first to point out, it makes no physical sense. If you keep seeing the way his stomach opens up

to be able to compress the trash, there's no space that his body could actually suck into. Sure. And it's like, we make phones now that can like fold on top of themselves, man. Anything's possible. They communicate it to you in movement so much that you're like, I just understand what you're asking me to accept. But yes, he's showing her all the objects.

He's trying to show her hello dolly. She doesn't give a shit. She can't even like pay attention to it. and then he makes the mistake of showing her, of course, plant and boot. Do you think that if he had shown her a scene with Walter Mathau, she would have been a lot more locked in? She'd be like, and this guy was like a major movie story? I now understand.

He did like all genres? He'd be like the romantic lead in things? Mathow? This spring, denim gets a softer, lighter update. Introducing Old Navy's drapey denim wide leg, a new fit that moves with you. It's everything you want denim to feel like for summer. Easy, breathable, and effortlessly cool.

With a fit that creates natural movement and a wide leg that feels modern, not overwhelming. Plus, that signature, wait, for this price, moment. Old Navy's drapey denim wide leg. I'm watching a clip or I'm watching the movie here. He makes a little Eve statue and she is unimpressed and then he kicks a bunch of metal pipes and it falls all on her. Come on. It's great stuff. And his little, these little treads like flip up.

It's adorable. Yes. I mean, it's very childlike. Even as he's like sort of transitioning into like an almost parental mode, although we see him into parental mode with the cockroach. But I don't know. If you've ever seen your child like fall off a bed or something, it's like you're so concerned for them.

But immediately it's very funny visual. I don't know. Yes. It also helps that where you're just like, this guy, his center of gravity is so off. And his build is so awkward that doing anything other than rolling on a flat surface, you're just like, I don't know if he's going to make it. But there's also, I mean, I don't know how deep we need to go into the imagined lore of by and large, but some practical application towards designing him to be cute on the company's behalf. Yeah, because they don't want these things to be threatening. Right.

Versus the robots on the axiom are less cute because people aren't even really paying attention. Right. They're all in the bowels of the ship. Yeah. Do we think there's a flaw in Eve's design? No offense to my perfect queen. Go on. One boot with one plant is enough to turn around like a ship with 600,000 people on it. Be like, well, Earth seems ready because, like, I'm looking at Earth.

It ain't like ready, ready. Sure. We might want to wait for like a tree or two. Yeah, but that's like centuries ago. I know. I know. It's just funny that she's like, well, you know, like there's one plant baby. Yeah, it's not a flaw in.

great kid logic. She's doing her job perfectly. That's maybe a flaw in the criticizing the work she's doing. You also have to imagine that their thought is we'll put everyone on a starliner for five to ten years maximum. And if we see the first sign of vegetation,

that means, oh, it's coming back. It's ready to go back there. They didn't know that the world was going to become that fucking awful. And the idea of this one boot making it would be so against the eye. They knew. What if there is a guy on the axiome?

Resendus. They knew. And they did nothing. Mark Ruffalo. Resend his spot. So, yeah, what else happened?

Now she's just, she goes sleep mode. Coma mode. And Wally still tries to like, you have the, the, Thomas Newman

kind of Musack, Wally doing date nights with Coma, Eve. Oh, we gotta call out. He dances for her. He does the little... It's so sweet, and he had picked up

the, like, trash lid, he's off, he's like daffing his hat. He's a cool guy. The top hat. I also love that... Then she tries to dance and she fucking shakes the whole thing and smashes him into the wall. She's a clomper.

Dude, it is so funny, though, when she, like, Hulk loki's him, right? Like, you're like... I also love the moment of him. Forget how he injures the eye in the first place. I can't remember, but when he gets the new guy, she's anxious about it. And he has to replace the eye and he's so embarrassed. that she's like seeing him naked having to plug the eye back in. But it also teaches you like what it's going to look like when he's recalibrating.

Oh, it's when he falls. I'm watching it here. It's when he falls. It's after the dance. She slaps, slams him into the wall. He falls down and breaks one of his eyes. There's a lot of very clever, some more overt seed planting there. I'm thinking particularly like the fire extinguisher, things that are just in front. I mean, even when they introduce the boat, the boot, it's not even the focus of, it's like a half second throwaway. It's just part of his collection. Yeah, but they don't give it any special emphasis.

No, he puts it in the fucking igloo cooler, but it doesn't get any more attention than the bra. It gets less attention than the bra. I mean, the bra kills. Yeah. That's why. Because Wally's rocking double D eyes. What about the lighter?

Ben, but there's like, it's like two robots and on this, you know, abandoned planet and they're looking at the original source of like energy. Yeah, it's premedian. Yeah. But the other thing, Ben, is in the version of the movie where Wally has to save Eve and she is the one who gets crushed and he's carrying her for the last 20 minutes. There was some Chekhov's gun of the lighter being the way they reactivated her. It's why they put a lot of emphasis on it at the beginning.

It's still a nice moment. Yeah. Which is why I'm sure they kept it in. But it was supposed to be in some way he replaces her battery with the lighter. It's also a machine using machine. it places him, like an even more antiquated machine, sort of places him in this continuum where you understand him as a relic,

but also as a product of the future. And it's a machine with a natural force inside of it, you know? It's like organic versus an organic. I mean, it's exactly right. I mean, it's a machine that can create an element, which is so crucial, just as he, you know, metal box can feel love. It's, you know, an analog. Right. He's got a flame inside of him.

A question that made me, a question that I had watching the first, 30 minutes of this movie again was if Disney would ever dare make a live action adaptation of a Pixar movie or if it is a tribute to the ineffable quality of Pixar's better films that they can't be conceived of in live action in the way that Moana can yeah i have that thought watching this of like are they ever going to dare to do this and it's like what would it be you know like it's the the line between this and doing a more mom It basically becomes just like a fucking PS5 rebuild of a PS2 game. Right.

Like, why bother? I mean... Right. What is... Now, the disturbing thought experiment of like, what is the most live actionable... Up. It's up. Upper Incredibles.

Yeah. I have gotten the sense, and I say this with no inside track, but the vibe I've always gotten is that Pixar retains the right to say no to that shit. And it feels like they have to exercise every morning. 9 a.m. when they get the daily email. Yes. Exercising it fully. This is the other thing.

Is Moana one yours? No, great. It's no surprise that like Disney inherits this batch of films in acquiring Pixar and Iger's like, great, we're going to put our full muscle behind them. We will try to make all of these movies hits. The fucking Toy Story 3 is next, right? Like the sequel run starts right after this. Yeah.

It was like, we'll treat these movies as precious gems, but you got to start fucking playing ball with us. Well, up is right after this, then Toy Story. But Up is the last of the three films acquired. I'm saying the first film that Disney commissions is like Toy Story 3 now. It is like the Ratatoui Wally up. Toy Story 3 is Bridge, a movie I like, although not as much as some. And then Cars 2 Brave Monsters You.

Like, it's a crazy down show. Yes. Like crazy. Yeah. It's you got to play ball now. You guys weren't fans of Cars 2? I've never seen. I have been working on this theory.

and I rewatched the film recently. Did you know? And I did, I truly did. You know that Michael Cain's in it. It's based in truth. He plays Finn McMassau. Well, truth is in, truth in comedy. He plays Finn McMassal, who's a MI6 car.

His sidekick, of course, is Holly Shiftwell, which is pretty bawdy. That makes me uncomfortable. I was watching Cars 2. And I was like, you know, this really isn't as good as Cars 1. And Cars 3, which I've never loved, has at least more integrity. Now, how do they all stack up against Planes 1? I was thinking that Plains Fire and Rescue makes planes look like Cars 2. And Cars 2.

It's getting too complicated. It might make Cars 3 look like Cars 1. The only Pixar movies I have not seen are Cars 2 and 3. You've seen Onward? Yeah, like Onward. Yeah, Onward's good. I've seen over multiple times. You know the only two people I've ever met.

Yeah, I've seen multiple times on the steel book. That I can't say. I don't own the steel time. Nice deal. Big fan of that. The denim jacket with all the patches on. Yeah, because I've seen, yeah, I've seen everything else. Yeah.

The ones that I've seen a lot is disturbing because of my daughter. So like, well, it's not disturbing that I've seen Luca like 25 times because I like Luca. But good dinosaurs disturbing. When you told me she was going through a good dinosaur phase. That was a pretty brief phase. But it did exist. But like, the turning red phase was so. great. The Ratatoui phase, amazing. Wally, great.

Luca, that's a good movie. Like, it's not my favorite. It's a simple movie. It's really easy to have on. Yes. I love it, though. I feel like you've come around on Luca. I've always been a fan of Luca, but yeah, certainly. I feel like your son had a phase where you were happy. I think because it pushes against what we were talking about earlier about like the capitalistic, you know, fumes around Pixar stuff. It's, uh, it's fun. It's a little bit more. It feels like pointedly small. It sure does. Although I wanted to, you know, We were bad mouthing with good reason, the good dinosaur. But a shout out to Peterson.

I have definitely had a Stockholm syndrome-like experience with Elemental, which was the first movie I ever took A-Sid to State theaters, did not click at the time. Can I call this out? Yeah. I mean, put them on blast. I believe it was in our Wind Rises episode. Yeah.

I mean, I wasn't here for that. Weren't you the guess on Wind Rises? I mean, if only. No, I was here for Castle, not the Castle, fucking House moving Castle. Oh, right. Good app. Right. That's the one where I announced Matrix Reseractions.

Yes. I can't remember if it was that. It's so crazy that they let you make that announcement to the world of all people. But you did it well. I mean, I was a big fan. There's some episode that people have invoked where you say, I will not let my son watch Western animation. This is a classic, uh, kirlikism.

Whereas like the one, the one thing I, I know, like this child will not be loved. I will not be provided for, but they will not see any sort of CGI Western animation. You wouldn't show your kid Ghibli movies because you were afraid he wouldn't like it. It turns out that you're mentally ill. It turns out that. It turns out that the reality of raising a child. It's very different than how you imagine it. Your reality is a weird reality, my friend.

At two years old, I was like, son, this is an Apple TV remote. That is the bed where I am asleep in the morning. Use this to watch whatever the fuck you want As long as you're not waking back You're just so confident that you were going to hold The line of artistic purity And then your son is like obsessed with Italian break rot And he's got good taste

And watch as many good things I have watched your son watch YouTube videos of 10 wordles being sold for once So I also have this competing instinct of me Which is like I cannot be that parent Who Foise the cool kid stuff And you don't want to be the onion article Exactly

So I was like it means more to me that you come to my favorite movies organically and like them on your own terms and I'll show them to you, you know, selectively when the time is right, but I'm not going to shove him down your throat. I'm going to let you reach these places on your own. Elemental was what was playing.

I wanted to take it to him. He came back around on Elemental in a huge fucking way. And he really... My daughter did have an elemental place. I just want to call out a very distant conversation I remember having with you, which was, I feel like I'm almost ready to take Asa to see a movie, but his first movie needs to matter.

And I was like, Elemental. What matters more than Elemental? And you looked at me and said, my son's first movie is not going to be a Pete's zone. Wow. And then like, six weeks later, you were like, took Asa to Elemental. And I said, why? And you said, it was raining or something.

It sure was. It woke up. It was a Sunday afternoon. It was raining. And those are dark times for a parent. I love seeing the movie. But listen, New York City's own, Pete's own. Yeah.

Respect. But I also took your son to. You took him to Totoro because I could not be there for that. You were like, I couldn't sit there and watch him potentially not like it. Mental illness. Wallet. It was the same screening that you took your daughter away theater for the first time. I'm having, I'm commuting with my kids.

You happen to be away from me. And I took Arilic's son and you were like, if he doesn't like it, just don't tell me. Sure. I mean, my daughter, but like the difference being, my daughter had seen Totoro like 20 times. It was one of her first movies. And my, my daughter, uh, who is a lot more pliable and responses. to, you know, the studio give, believe it all, is obsessed with, and turned me on

to, really converted me to the power of Pono. Which she now wants to watch either that or TOTO. That was my daughter's first, anyway. PONO. TOTO was like, so good. Yeah, dude. Elemental has some charm. Yeah. Great music. I have really struggled to locate

the charm of Elemental, and I've seen it a lot. It has some. Wade is a little bit of a nuisance, but it's the main character. But I like when Embers be Fierish. I find all of the... I like the music

when she's driving on her little road her brother. Yes. Listen. Do you own that film? Elemental? I do not.

Ben. It's actually a really good question. I own it. I was... But, uh, because Disney sent me a free copy. Okay. I was maintaining... I do have a blue.

I was maintaining... Not even a 4K. No, they sent me a blue and I was like, I'll put it on the shelf. They were like, do you care about the Ks on this one? Uh, I was maintaining a... own every Pixar film. And even in the pandemic, I like broke down and bought 3D blue rays of good dinosaur and maybe

cars too. Another one I like didn't like. And Elemental was the one where I was like, I don't need to own this in any form. Thank God. I'm truly relieved. Now, who knows? Two months from now, I might hit a rough patch and start trolling eBay for the Elemental Seal Book.

But as of this moment, I own Elemental in no form. I don't even own digital. I'm going to say right now, my daughter's first movie in theaters will by no means be minions, monsters and minions Well, she's, wait, your kids three now. Thus guaranteeing that's exactly what it's going to be. Minions and monsters I've seen the trailer for

at every movie I've taken. And I'm always like, I think it's time for me to catch up with the minions. The minions bounce off of me. I have never gotten it without any judgment. But I see that trailer and I'm like, do I got to do the fucking deep cut?

Because it is a little galaxy brain to be like, the minions obviously love early as like sworn sandal cinema. And you're like, well, of course. I think that's fine. That's great. Is this their like Wally moment?

You know, where Pierre Coughans like, I've made you so much fucking money. Right. I want to make my passion project. Right. Yeah. Can I use the minions to express my interest in the birth of cinema? I feel like nobody liked the second minions, right? Rise of Gru.

That was the one I feel like really passed on where I'm by. That's the only one I've ever seen. But you could slap the word minions on anything and it would mint a hit. You could have the minions, minions and mosquito coast. Yeah. of the episode of your show that most recently aired. And that thing would print money. Minions and Solo.

Well, maybe Monsters and Minions will have a shout out to Solow. It doesn't really fit into the five, but why not? Yeah. Minions movie needs it. Sing 3 could be entirely Sallow dependent. I feel like that would fit very organically. That's another one where I'm just like, I don't get this fucking thing.

Okay. So they get to the Axiom. I think we need to get to the axiom now, right? Axiom time. He's just trying to take care of her, right? As she is now in firm, basically, in Shuts. down until her ship returns to retrieve her. But he's staying out in the elements.

He's getting struck by lightning. He's getting rained on. But he's then covering her up with the garbage can. He's really sweet. But her ship comes and he has to make a split second decision, which is like, I'm going to grab onto the back of a fucking spaceship because I don't want to lose her and I don't know where she's going. Him telling the cockroach to stay put where it is is as anthropomorphized as I think

Wally ever gets. Yes. And now two hours into the episode, we've hit the 30-minute mark, which is when he blasts off into space. Yes. And you have the beautiful sort of five-minute sequence of him seeing the solar system, touching the rings of Saturn. Just beautiful shit. We argued in the Finding Nemo episode that that's Thomas Newman's best score. And I think it's the best, like, use of the Thomas Noonan thing.

Thomas No, Thomas Noonan, the great Tom Noonan, who recently died. I think Finding Nemo is the best version of what Thomas Newman does really well. I was surprised rewatching this how different it is from most of his work. It has the strains of the motifs. But I think partially because the movie is putting so much more weight on the score to convey story, it has like five different tonalities that it switches in between. And it feels like this sequence where it's, you know, the kind of, of like magical beauty of the stars

is when Newman goes into Newman mode for the first time. And they're flying too close to all of these planets. They are. But he lands at the Axiom, which is a luxury starliner, where babies just do baby shit.

And he meets the main character of the film. Mo. Mo is incredible. And I feel like Mo had largely kind of been hidden from the marketing. I think they hit a lot of the Axiom stuff. They really front-loaded. Yeah, they did because I remember

everyone being so focused. on this movie and being like, and if you watch the trailer, it does look like it's not all on the plan. There's one shot of the captain in the trailer. Right. Yeah. But no one was really prepared for any of that, which I think might have been also part of why it did bounce off some people.

Like some people did bounce off it a little bit. I also think, I mean, I compare it to like shit like full metal jacket, right? Where it's like. Often Wally is compared to full metal jacket, yeah. It doesn't feel like you had a lot of people being like Wally sucks after the first act, But you had a lot of people who were like, the first act is so transcendent. That was the normie take amongst my friends. Right.

First act, incredible. Second act is fine. It goes from being like, right, perfect to being really good. I have always liked all of it. But the purity of it is, it's just astonishing where you're like, I can't believe they're getting away with this and it's working. And I think it's all good. I love the first act.

And I think it's so special. But I think the movie needs everything that happens. I, the sci-fi kind of dork that I am, just like. love the axiom. And I love all of the kind of like kids' version of rebelling against you know, the ship computer and all. Like, it's just like, it's classic sci-fi storytelling

that I respond to. I think it's so well done. I also... And I like that it's goofy farce. Like, that it is like a madcap chase. That's where you feel the reared in two of like him bringing in a Simpsons guy. And obviously, just the Pixar's Inc. has a bit of that. And of course. I also, I

really like the captain. There are so many bad versions of this where you're like this is the cop out that we finally introduce a character who can speak all the subtext and explain everything directly to camera. But I think the arc of the captain is really well rendered. And I completely agree. The captain could have used a wife who kept telling Wally to get the fuck out of her house. That really would have added.

And bossy face. Well, Otto's kind of his work life, I suppose. Yeah. Otto, the true villain of the film. Right. There's Captain McCray, Jeff Garland's character who does not. He's only called the captain, really. but who is not a villain, right.

And then Otto voiced by Mac and Speck and MacTalk or whatever it's called. It is voiced by, and credited, in the uncredited. Macintock. Macintock. It's called Macintock, right. Right, which was that that era's talk to. When is deliberate that the antagonist of the film is the only one not to have any sort of trace of human? Right.

Like Ben Burt didn't do that. They just typed words into a computer and that's the Mac voice. Portal is the year before. Right. The portal connection is strong. But I think it's in. parallel thinking. It's parallel, right?

Because it's not, but I remember at the time, Portal, obviously, the greatest video game ever made, equaled only by Portal 2, like not being able to shake that, that comparison, yeah. Yeah, I mean, obviously,

Glados, obviously Auto is a lot more howl visually coded. I mean, the red eye at the center is, it's kind of dominant. But yeah, I mean, I think it was like the Mac aesthetic, combined with evil superintelligence, gives you Gladys slash auto but I just want to talk about Mo. I married Mo as I alluded to earlier in this episode

and well can you speak on that? Yeah I mean I'm trying to in that sort of pause figure out how best to do that in this very public forum. Your wife a lovely human being, one of my favorite people. Lovely being. I don't project what you're saying

as derogatory but I need you to unpack it so the audience understands. Anytime your wife texts me, like, you know, are you going to this screening tonight? Like, you know, David's out, and I'm like, no, divorce him. I'm just like, divorce. Anytime you like, go to Cannes, I'm like, divorce. What's he doing? Go to Canne?

If she could carry our children up to our fourth floor walk up, maybe she would have a good reason to. You're one task. But I am definitely the, every relationship needs a Wally and a Mo. And Eve is sort of off in her own lane. She's the other woman, as far as I'm concerned. But yeah, on one of our first dates, I drew

similar to how Griffin drew a sad version of himself at a bar. I drew a crude, maybe the best thing I've ever drawn as someone to know artistic talent whatsoever, a little character of Moe on her legs. Wow. And on both across both legs. A rag. Yeah, that's bold.

And the ballpoint pen. It turned up pretty well. A lot of just boxes. You identified this movie as a shared point? Yes. we've been dating, fuck, we've been dating, started dating 16 years ago. So a year or two after Wally.

Yeah, I mean, we knew each other since college, but we didn't start dating until got drunk one night, as happens. But the, yeah, she is very compulsive towards cleaning. And I am more of a Wally type in that. I like arranging and collecting things that other people might think of as trash. I did appreciate there's a thing on the Criterion Disc where Statenin calls out. that he is an obsessive physical media collector. And it's like the balance between being like,

I buy these things that give me comfort, they make me happy. I want to be in a room surrounded by all the things I care about. It doesn't actually solve anything. I'm not critical of Wally's compulsion. Right, of course. But I wonder about Mo, you know,

it's sort of the classic one must imagine Sisyphus happy sort of thing. Like, is he delighted or she delight they? I mean, the robots are aggressively coded in this movie. Mo, not so much, but aggressively gendered, I would say. But is Mo happy to have the excuse to pop out of letting clean something? Or is Mo more irritated? This is a question I am often asking in couples therapy with my beautiful partner. But, you know, when Mo sees the dirt trail, goes, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

That moment. I mean, he'll not let him live on a- He, like I get my word cut out. He lives on a line. Yes. Again, from Portal 2. Everyone on the AXAWRRRRN, basically. The AXA ball runs on lines.

Right. His big moment, obviously. is daring to jump the line and one assumes tempt death. Like I feel like he's thinking like if I jump the line, will I just explode or shut down or something? But like his job is to obsessively clean everything in what is a very sterile environment. And Wally enters the ecosystem covered in dirt

and creates a new... But does this give Mo a purpose that Mo has never had before justifying Mo's life? And therefore, should Mo not be pleased to have the opportunity to clean up after someone's messiness. I think that's a great question. I would argue.

I think similar, when I was saying, like, what defines Moe and makes him similar to Wally and Eve is that he takes pleasure and what he does, and you said, is it pleasure or is it, like, obsessive-compulsive? There is an argument that Mo is, like, mentally ill rather than, like, driven by joy, but it still is an aberration that gives him a personality. I feel like we're broaching territory that is no longer fair to discuss without my wife president. Sure.

I'm speaking solely of Moe. I speak not of your lovely one. Yes. Anyway, I will say that the dynamic between Wally and Mo is, I think, a very complicated and familiar one to me. Yes. And I love Mo very much.

Moe is so funny. Everything about him. His intensity. Yeah. Yes. Very intense. I mean, he's earlier on a journey that Wally is far along on and even Eva is a little further along

on, right? Like, we're watching just the beginning spark of rebellion or consciousness or whatever. Maybe that's the question is like, Wally and Eva, when they start sort of deviating, is it at first out of an obsession that then they let turn into a joy? You know, is very Marie Kondo. Yes. But Wally has, for hundreds of years, we assume, been iterating and thus getting weirder and weirder.

This is most first moment of activation. And then the other droids, we end up seeing the kind of like, I forget what they call. Bar and contaminant. Yes, but the sort of like reject bots. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Are all like, they've had their first kind of... In the diagnostic bay.

Right, right, aberrant behavior that is maybe the activation of something else. I'm just watching a Moe video now. It's just so funny. He's so disgusted by Wally. Wally's so filthy. I think Mo's a little forgotten. Like, even just within the Pixar canon

and the characters that are like often invoked. Mo was in line to replace Tim Cook it out. Yes. I think he was one of the three. I think he should have. There's a lot of politics. You know, Mo doesn't always, you know, he's tough to need a big personality. I like that the way he says his name has all this wind up to it.

Like, Wally, it's effort. And, like, Eve can get out quickly. And Moe, it's... Mop. He's efficient. Just want to clean so bad. That's all he want to do. He just want to clean.

Okay, so Wally is chasing after Eve. We get to the roadway. Yes. And we see another aberration, which is that we're seeing the humans. They're laying on these little beds. Right. Yeah, they're in these like chairs. Chair bed.

Which I'm assuming there's a toilet built into it. I think we'd have. No assumption necessary. That's going on. Yeah. Wally runs into the first human. This is where we start to get, right, the Keatney thing of, can Wally just start to throw things a little bit off out of Wally?

whack, right? He, the amount of dirt he introduces in the ecosystem makes Mo jump the line. Him chasing after Eve, uh, knocks John off of his axis. He's looking away from the screen for a second. He makes the introduction. And I think it's a beautiful moment of Wally introducing himself and John being like, uh, uh, John. Like, he's out of habit of needing to, but he probably hasn't done it. He knows what his name is, but he's sort of like, what am I? What do I do? do hear it. Almost the last time he met a new person or a new anything. Yeah.

But I do need to give a shout out to the brain bug computer that I will never be able to look at without thinking of the brain bug from Starship Troopers. The secretary. Yes, with the little finger. And I love that we don't really go back to that guy, but it's, I say guy. But the same thing of like Wally waving makes them sort of look at their own articulation point and be like, can I express an emotion? There's go for.

The gopher. Well, those, that's, they're like, they are legion. But, but there's the first mate one that's the one that, like, tries to be in the, uh, plant. I mean, they suck. They're cops. They're, fuck them. They're, they're little fucking dweeds. Trying to think of other, uh, Wally robots.

Um, the, the painting one is named Van Gogh. All right. That's a little too cute. It's really good. Um, but then you have the beautician bot. You have the boxing robot that's supposed to be the workout. Smash bot rules. I don't know what his job would be.

No, the idea is that he's, for physical training. He probably has not been used in a while. He's supposed to be the exercise bot that like... He's like the Vision Pro of the ship in that sense. Right. He's your coach. And you have the defibrillator bot. You have the vacuum cleaner bot...

That's a cell one this year. That also has allergies. Yeah. I'm just like there is an incredible amount of entries on the Pixar Wiki. There's a golf bot called Birdie. Oh, sure. You see, yes. There's also Bernie who got his own short film.

Yes. Yes. There's also Bird, comma, Brad, who made a lot of movies a fixer. He did. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you for acknowledging that. Yes.

What is Bernie? Bernie's like a welder. Bernie's a welder outside of the ship who gets locked outside. And it's sort of a blackout gag of like, what's this guy going to do? And Angus McLean pitched like, what if there was a subplot of him trying to get back into the building? And Stan was like, we don't have room for this in the movie, but like, I think that's a good short idea. and this was the era where there were enough shorts being commissioned as developmental to play in front of movies,

but they also always wanted a short on the home video release. Yes, you had your Jack Jack attack. You had your Bernie. You had your Mike's new car. But Bernie is really fucking good. They're often good. I always worried. I always thought with those,

like wondered with those like, is it annoying at Pixar where it's like, hey, you got this sort of cute spin-off versus the original short? Like, more people might watch it, but it's, you know, in the shadow. Yes. It's a little bit of a double-edged sword.

My daughter's obsession with Jack Jack Attack was very intense. They basically fall off a cliff right after this. Yeah. Because Jack Jack Attack was directed by bird. Yeah, birds involved with that. But a lot of these things are gifts to parents, especially in the streaming era,

whose kids are obsessed with these movies. And instead of watching Frozen 2 for the 97th time, you can watch Frozen Fever or Olaf's Snow would vent, whatever the fuck is called. Well, that one that they played before Coco, that started a mutiny. It's like 40 minutes long. It was insane.

But the one of the one of the one of the, stars Olaf. The one on up, they don't even fully animate. Yeah. It's like on the disc as like story reels where they were like, yeah, we ran out of time money on this one. But I find shorts before, now like bringing kids to a movie, a short before a movie is very, very anxiety-inducing for me because there's a narrow

window where the kids' attention will be locked in enough to the movie and the candy won't fry their brain. I mean, pictures dropped it. Kids are very different. I think elemental was the last one. Or your anxiety is too high. I would say. Wait until B-B-B-B-B-B-B-Steady

are a little bit older and exerting that boy energy. It is very possible that I am in for hell. What I placed on your desk, David, in the little tray. You know how you always struggled to remember which one's B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-Roc-Tiddy?

I gave you a little study guide that has a photo on one side and the name of the back. My B-B-B-B-B-B-B-Tis-Tis the toys are still in separate cribs. B-B-B-B-B-R-Tty. But at the start of every morning, B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-T demands both.

Like, he points. He's like, I give him both, and then he plops in my lap and holds them. It feels great. And what does Rocksteady do you do during that? He's still drinking his bottle. My B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-s the one, which is his energy generally. Whereas, Rocksteady's a little bit more like,

I shall pause, you know, I don't want to drink six ounces of milk. B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-s the one I have my eye on re-attetetetet. He's got some bruiser energy too. Yeah. Yeah. You posted a very funny picture of Rocksteady reading a book the other day. He's so fucking funny.

He looks like a little intellectual. I mean, that's just what is. Rocksteady likes to find a corner. He likes to find like an egress. You know what I mean? Like if there's a part of the room that he can kind of wedge himself into, that's where he wants to be. And then he had him driver's the wall.

No, no, no. I'm saying like he then he picks up his book. Oh, sure. That's Rockste. Whereas Bebop likes to just like walk around and throw shit and stack things and, you know, put things and other thing. You know, classic baby stuff. My crazy children. Other robots is the flashlight.

There's the umbrella. I mean, there's so many of them. There's the makeup robot. Yes. But what I like is that it feels like one of the things that's activating all these robots is that they're barely kind of engaged with anymore. There's something about much like Wally, they're forced to do a routine behavior over. and over again without even engagement. Like when you see the golfing

robots and it's, they're watching the screen rather than watching the bot itself. Right. Yeah. Yeah, everyone's, it's not like they're depressed. They're just in a daze. Yeah, and Captain McRae is the one

who's sort of like half in. Yes, he is the one whose brain has to be the most awake even though it's only a little awake just because he does have to do like daily activities. Talk to other people, but he needs to perform. He needs to get on a fucking Zoom and do the announcements. Be like, you're getting a new cup this week or whatever, you know, whatever your new merch is. Right.

His brain's still a little bit active and he thinks of himself as more engaged than the rest. He's the only thing, only person who has even an illusion of responsibility. Yes. Even though at this point it's like, to what end, Otto doesn't even wake him up. No. No, I mean, he does the morning announcements. It's his only joy. Right.

And the idea of switching from day to night, which no one even notices. Like, he oversleeps. and then sets the time back to morning so that he can do the morning. Because he's his only thing he gets to do. He loves to do it. He is sleepy king. He's a good boy.

Obviously his big triumph is walking. And to me, it's another just triumph of physical animation as good as the robot stuff. Yeah. He's like making his walking like compelling.

You know, he's like, okay, I got to actually get on my feet and walk. It's so funny that, the uniform, they've made one size. Right. And so it's just become, yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Do you think, like, children immediately understand thus spoke Zarathustra as like, yes, this is, of course, the music you play when someone is evolving, that it's, like, so hardwired into our DNA at this point.

So, it's like, you know, it's like the fucking, oh, this is what you play when someone's graduating. This is what you play when someone's getting married. It's dramatic music. Yes. They should play to graduate.

Yeah. Yeah. But I like that it is this sort of reactivation of curiosity that drives him. Well, it's the, yeah, the machines becoming more like humans. The humans have already become machines, but then the humans then have to reactivated into their humanity by their machines. Right. The two-prong thing of Eva's showing up with a specimen, and he's like, wait, specimen, right. That's what I'm supposed to be waiting for. Yeah. But it's been so long that it's felt like it could even happen. I don't even know how to react. to this. His moment when Otto hands him the like guidebook and he lifts up the one page and it's like, wow, what do you look at there? Right. I think he speaks to it at first. Yeah. Yeah, that's pretty

right. Right. Right. He talks into it like a tablet. But I do think it's always a morbid line for me when Fred Willard says that like, oh, just a few laps around the jogging track and your bodies will be right as rain again. It's like, I think in reality, when they go back down to Earth's gravity, they are going to be plops. They're not going to be able to function inside of society. It's hard to imagine quite what their life will be. You know, this is why they put in the uncredit sequence, because when they did the test screening of the almost finished movie, the first note everyone got back is like, well, I don't think they survive.

Right. Don't they just die? Right. And they were like, we have to put something on that tells them like, they're going to do the work. We'll figure it. We'll see how far are going to work. Yeah.

And that's basically the credit stuff. Yeah, the cute, like over the, is it Peter Gabriel? It's Peter Gabriel. I'm going now. Because this is the year, this is slum dog. I'm going slum dog. Giant Ho beats this for best original song. I have a logic question.

We see babies. Now, I think there's just a crass question. There's some harvesting going on. I think this is an artificial situation. Okay, because I was going to say, how do they fuck? How are they extracting these things? I don't know. Are they pump in or they just test tube in?

Who knows? Yeah. Are they Jeffrey tubing? Because we see the relationship They're on Zoom once and a while. They're on Zoom all the time. They might actually have to tube it.

What's the last time someone didn't tube in? Because we see the relationship with the two humans. Yeah. I don't remember the character's names. It's John and Mary, I think. But it's clearly like

voiced by caffeine, Imaging. People haven't touched one another. Yes. The act of them just making skin contacts. It would be like the elevator or an old boy.

They're just like instantly ejecting. It is funny. They're like, okay, let's nominate two songs from Slung Dog, one song from Wally. I think we're done.

Those were the nominees that year where they couldn't even care to nominate five. Right. They're like, yeah, you know what? I think that covers the songs of 28th.

Diane Warren didn't have something Ryan Warren should have like written a Frost Nixon song. Was 06 the year where Dream Girls has three out of the five song nominations? And then they're like,

what are we doing here? And then I think they sort of went. I think they went to a sort of like, it can be up to five, but it can be smaller. It can be lower and no movie can get more than two. Three girls did get three. I wrote an article at some point about Diane Warren,

the scourge, the scourge of Oscar season. And I saw, I don't use Facebook anymore, but I got an email that said Diane Warren has sent you a message. And I was too afraid to look at it for an entire calendar year.

And then finally after she lost another Oscar, I was like, I'll go check what it was. And it was just a smiley face. It just is so funny. We need to rip off that fucking band. And give her an award. But she has to stop writing songs for movies that are like, Diane Warren, the Diane Warren story or whatever.

We reached a new last year where she wrote a song for a documentary about how she always loses the fucking Oscar in this category. Sometimes you lose. And people are just like, we're not giving this to you. I'm sorry. Like, fucking famous people write songs. Sometimes you lose. David mimed holding a microphone while he was singing that,

even though he is sitting in front of a microphone. The documentary about her. I mean, she does, she does like we- She has written a lot of great songs. Sometimes you lose. She is on the spectrum. I don't want to be overly harsh, but like, she is so embittered.

Even when she lost to like fucking like Billy Eilish, like Lady Gaga for Starsborn, which was like she was never going to lose harder than that. You're not winning this year. She also immediately like picks up her shit and walks home. Right. The problem is that there were so many years where it felt like this category was so irrelevant, where people were like, do you just fucking eliminate it from the telecast entirely?

And we should have given it to her one of those years. Now I want to find it. I want to find when do we give it to it? The last 10 years has been like songs that people actually know written by giant pop stars. She's not going to beat her. I'm just going to give you some of her losses. Her first nomination was for Nothing's Going to Stop Us Now for Mannequin. An Incredible song.

What beats her? Time of my life from Dirty Dancing. You're not beating that. No, but you're like in any other year. Maybe. But I think that's like, okay, here's when she should have won. It's her second, although I wouldn't give it to her. But her second nomination is for Because You Loved Me, Oh, Beautifully sung by Celine Dion, from the forgotten film of Close and Personal.

It loses to you must love me from Evita, which is ass. Yeah. Might as well be called ass song. That should have been her win and we could have avoided a lot of pain. Now, the correct winner there is that thing you do. Yeah. Which is better. And was nominated.

And was nominated. Yeah. But if they'd given it to Warren, that's still better than the stupid of Eda song. Okay. So that's nomination two. Nomination three is, how do I live from Conair? A banger. Oh, great.

Hilarious that it's from Conner, but a banger. What beats it? My heart will go on. Yeah. You're not winning. Break. You're not going to win. Okay.

So then the year after that is don't want to miss a thing. So the next year, she has, I don't want to miss a thing from Armageddon, beautifully sung by Erasmith. There she loses to when you believe by the Prince of Egypt. I think we could have given it to her there. I think that's also the best song. I don't really like, right. I got pretty sick of it,

but like, I don't think there's a huge problem skipping fucking when you believe. There is definitely an element of continued injustice that has fueled her. The next year, she has, what's it called? Music of My Heart for Music of the Heart. Well, that's... She's starting to get that. That loses to you'll be in my heart from Tarzan. And that's obviously

blame Canada. Right. But that's an in-sink, Gloria Estefan song. I remember in sync performing at the Oscars. I, I I definitely remember Gloria Asthma. Cater is my winner, but you'll be in my heart. You guys talking about that's the when she loved me from Toy Story 2 year. That's what should have won. McLaughlin and Newman.

Now, I'm going to shoot you in the head. Don't do that. Now, the next, her next nom is for, there you'll be from Pearl Harbor. A terrible movie with, it's regular Diane Warren. It's diet. What's the fucking Con Air song I'm already forget? How do I live? It's very similar.

Yeah. It is. It loses to another situation of the Oscars giving someone their much delayed award. Randy Newman for if I never you. Right? So they had to give it to Newman. Then 13-year drought. That's why.

Warren vanishes. Because I feel like the kind of work she did was no longer needed, right? But those are the years where she could have eeked out a win if she had gotten away. It was the hero we wanted, but not the one we needed or deserved. but not the one we should. Is it the sexual assault on campus movie? Is that her turn?

In between that, the hunting ground and Pearl Harbor is her song from Beyond the Lights grateful, which is pretty good. And that loses to glory from Selma. So she could have won there, too. No, glory is strong. It's fine.

Glory is strong. It did make Chris Pine cry. Let's also remember that year was the whole thing where Selma only got two Oscar nominations. And it suddenly was the only cell mode. And it was like, if we don't give Soma the Oscar win, we look like assholes. She definitely could have won for the documentary about sexual assault with the Lady Gaga's song.

And Joe Biden. Yeah. Because writing on the wall from Specter won. A song that sucks. Another loser. Yeah. Terrible. That's the Sam Smith one.

Yeah. Especially given the one that we eventually heard the song that Radiohead wrote for that movie. Yeah. It's incredible. So, like, I do feel like. everyone thought she was finally going to win. And the fact that Joe Biden was on stage presenting the song with Lady Gaga, it was like,

this feels like a moment. And then they were like, you know, whatever. Since then, it's been like, stop it. Because like the nomination's been for Marshall, R.B.G. Breakthrough. The Life Ahead, which was like an Italian movie.

What is breakthrough? Breakthrough was a Chrissy Metz. Yes, she's like stuck under the ice. Josh Lucas. A kid falls like. Sometimes! Sometimes you're under the ice. They pray a kid back to warmth. That's truly what that movie, like based on true story.

Listen to these movies you've never heard of. The life ahead. For good days, which is the like Milacunis heroin addict movie. David, why are you reading off my Spotify rap? Then in 2022, the Oscars are like, here's an honorary award. Stop it. She gets four more nominations after that. Tell it like a woman flaming hot.

Yeah. She got nominated for the Cheeto movie. What's the song? It's called. the fire inside. Jesus. Is that the year that Billy Eilish

beats her for the second time? I mean, I don't think she was ever going to win, but it does, yes, Elish wins for Barbie. That's the year that

I'm just Ken should win. Yes. And instead they give it to the Eilish song. But the Dulelepa song wasn't even nominated. She's too hot for the Oscars. Okay.

Well, they famously never give Oscars to hot people. The six triple eight and then, yes, last year she was nominated for the movie, Diane Warren,

relentless. And relentless she is. Yeah. And we cannot deny this. And I just like that it wasn't even considered to give it to her. You felt like everyone who wrote her in on the nomination ballot put parathetical, but I'm not giving her the way. As a joke.

In the fucking golden year. Yes. All right. Wally. Wally. I would just to end this tangent, to close this loop, what do you think she would need to do to win? Like if we were like- I think write a well-regarded song from a movie that is in theaters.

Like, Diane, you're not going to rope a dope us into giving you a competitive win. We're not going to be shamed by you. Like, we stopped being embarrassed at NOM 10, and you're at, like, nom 24. You're embarrassed now. But the problem, as you were alluding to earlier, now, it is also not just for the end credits, but baked into the meat of movies nowadays, like, very strong original songs by major artists. And I think that has never been so difficult. It's come back around.

Stuff like Golden, you're like, right, like, you're not, this is not a kiddie category. I mean, like, these are right, big pop songs make it. And the days when she was writing songs that could compete with. golden. They existed, but they are It's so funny that they were like con air. Okay, it's like a really violent R-rated movie about like cons on an airplane. Like, do you think we need a fucking

just ballad. This is the era I miss, which is what I refer to, even though often this was not the proper title, blank, blank, blank, parenthetical love theme from. Any like action movie or disaster movie. Blade Runner, I think,

is famously. The one I always show people, because it feels like this was too late for this to be happening. It feels like an aberration that it snuck through and I'm constantly pointing at and saying, like, can we bring this back? Is Adam Lambert's Time from Miracles love theme from Roland Emmerich's 2012?

Which has a music video of him, like all decked out in leather and spikes, walking through the wreckage over, like, shots of John Cusack driving a limo over, like, the fucking Pacific Rim. My friend, I watched this video once a month. My friend Carolyn never seen it. I watched it recently. We watched Independence Day.

It's kind of crazy how in that movie, the first lady dies, like, right? Like she died. She was returned to Area 51 and she's like, goodbye, wife and, I'm sorry, husband and daughter. And they're like, oh, five minutes later, never mentioned again. Everyone's like, high-fiving. Yeah, like, Hillary.

Like, she says happy Independence Day, Daddy's like, happy Independence Day to you. Like, they're just like, I mean, it's already a movie where, like, no one sits down and it's like, I think a billion. people are dead. Sure. Like, they are just booming cities one by one. The question is, like, should Diane Warren have hitched her wagon to Figey and gone

like every Marvel movie needs a love song sung by like a grobin? Grobin sounds like a robot in wallet. The Infinity Stone was love. Original piece of music. I am the Grobin. The MCU other than just the theme song itself. There are the Mencken songs in Captain America, the first event. that are fun, that I actually think should have been nominated but get cut down a little bit in the film.

Did they not nominate one of them, the Star-Spangled Man? I think they didn't. Yeah, they should have. That's the one time where they wrote, and then I guess the Hawkeye TV show has the fake. Don't know what that is? Captain America. Okay. Wally.

Wally. Wally. Okay. So the plant get taken. The plant get taken. Eve is deemed defective. Well, you have, she's brought up. He's like, oh my God, plant life, chest opens up, nothing in there.

What the fuck? We, the audience, also go, what the fuck? It's another good Stanton move where he originally had the audience C, auto, clock that Eve had the plant and organized hiding it. It's another deleted scene that you can see in storyboard form. And he was like, A, I think we need to stay

with Wally's perspective until basically he starts to get crushed. And B, the audience is going to follow you and be, they're going to lean in on the intrigue of genuinely where did the plant go. It helps us that we can't figure out what happened. It's classic Pixar, you know, Toy Story 2, them looking for the bag. Yeah. Monsters Inc. obviously, like, the door chase, right?

It's a good way to end to Pixar movie. I know it became schematic for them, but like, it's good. It feels like a magic trick, too, where it's like, we've been watching Eve this whole time. Her chest has been closed. Where the fuck did the fucking plant go? And that's, of course, what Captain McCray says, verbatim. Where the fuck did the fucking plant?

Every magic trick has three parts, and the second one is Wally. Correct. They throw the play. It's a great shot of Wally poking his head out of the tube. Eve's defective. They put the red kind of like cable fucking lock thing on her. They put, yeah, it's like the boot. And send her down, and Wally's chasing after we meet the other reject bots.

And, you know, what do they call it, rogue robots? Also fun, you know. Island of Misfit. Boy boys. Cuckoo's Nest kind of mental hospital vibes. Yeah, exactly. Right, the weirdos. Blaster behind him in slow motion.

And they all run rampant through the hallways of the axioms. And then eventually, at some point, they wind up. Oh, he winds up in the escape pod. Well, they're wanted and all of those, those aren't the gophers, but those sort of like big screen guard bots have taken the photo that now everyone's waking up a little bit by the danger of our robots turning on us, which is another example of Wally starting to create the ripples that affect everyone. Right. The whole system runs on everyone behaving. Like, it does not run if the robots have

their own idea. And something's, that's just alarming enough to break everyone out of the trance. But I guess basically in running away and hiding out from the guards, they see the gopher trying to eject the plant. The gopher's got the plant in his tummy and he puts it in the escape pod. and Wally wants to go after it. What were you going to say to it? I just, that's the idea that I love of like this, he's been infected with consciousness, right? And like, he brings consciousness back to all these people who've lost it.

Like, it's not just the robots coming to life, it's everyone coming to life. That's why I love this movie. Yes, I agree with you. That's good. And that's why, yes, everything on the axioms important. I think when I was 22 and I saw this movie in theaters and was so hard to fight for it and was then, like, probably mad that it was not like a Philip K. Dick-style gonzo depressing fable of, you know, like, I was like, oh, I don't like all the kind of farcey kid shit at the end.

Like, boring. And now I just watch that. I'm like, that's the point of the movie as much as anything else. And it's so funny. Like, and it's so fun to watch with a kid who loves all the antics, of course. Sorry, I was just pulling up on my iPad, but that's the other part of it is she's leading him to the escape pod because she wants Wally to leave. Right. That she's actually fully angry at him.

Right. Is like, the fuck are you doing here? The plant's gone. It made, it made Eve. look bad. This is your fault. Yeah. I got this stupid fucking thing plugged into my head now. I'm on like all the wanted screens. And in trying to get him to go into the escape pod, they then see the gopher show up, hiding the shadows, put the plant in there. And Wally gets stuck in the escape pod trying to save the plant, which she then thinks explodes. You see a moment. Great, great little bit of Wally

being all manic in the porthole. Yeah, but he's like about to explode. He's like, oh, and the fucking parachute coming out, like all the crazy gags. shit and then the no no no no no no no of eve actually she does care she doesn't want him to die and then like one of ten checkoff gun moves this movie has is like oh right we saw him learn how to use the fire extinguisher on earth he knows how to use this he can propel himself they start dancing define dancing um right because captain mccray has also already now watched eve's camera and he's like the fuck is this place? Earth.

It's not the cute paradise of my storybook. Trees, water. It's basically the same plot as under the skin. I guess. Of like a creature becoming increasingly humanized. You know, in this case, not to their detriment. And Captain McCrae getting obsessively falling down a Wikipedia or a habit hole, basically. Right.

I guess it's important to remember read them restoring the planet. They do have the robots. and the robots will be helpful. Now, where are they going to put all the cube garbage and stuff? I don't know. It does feel like that's got to go somewhere. Well, my thing is, send it into space. Put it on the axiom. That was probably the way they could have

resolved the problem in the first place. Instead of building a ship to get humans to leave the planet, fill the fucking ship with garbage and send it out to space. Like, the low orbit anyway, is so cluttered with satellites, thanks to Elon Musk. Thanks to Elon. You know, that it's like they can't even

already their backyard is full of junk. But I wonder if the robots, like the character robots are not going to want to do their functions because they have now discovered love and the joys of life and whatnot. And they're going to have to rely on the wall A's and etc. You see in the end credits the way that like the robots are helping with the efforts, the way their programming can be reapplied to making a farming and such. Yeah. Yeah. They're going to make a pizza plan. But like I would feel bad asking Wally to like go make, take out my trash for me or something. Like he's got stuff to do. He's got a life of his own.

He's got to put the work in on this relationship if it's ever going to survive. You have the divine dancing thing, which I just think is so beautiful. Beautiful. Them creating their own, like, color trails and swirling between each other. That is Newman fucking unleashed. Yeah. That is a really... This is what it's the argument that, like, it's the other one I think you could say is his best score,

only because it forces him to do a lot of stuff outside of his usual house. Yeah, you found it quite challenging, I think. And then you have moments where it's like, and Tommy, I'm going to let you do your shit on this one. He actually, the whole score was written by AI. It's ironic. The guy should have the movie, but he just said, like, write me a pretty score. Well, it was written on David.

Written by David when he was sad about missing his mommy. Which David are we talking about? The one from AI. Yeah, his love is real, but he is not. There's just too many Davids in the room right now. I'm sorry. Too many Davids. You see, it lost score, obviously, to Slumdog, I guess.

Which does have, you know, pretty iconic music. Yeah. Thomas Noonan, another way. Thomas Noonan's in this film. Thomas Newman is another one who I think is at 20 nominations in zero wins. Yeah. He might only be behind Diane Warren. Tom Munin also had 29.

It really fits Newman's like he's 15 numbs. His thing of like, he's workmanlike. You know, like he's pretty reliable. I think he's distinctive, but I do think he's also taken for granted. Of late he's been, but he's not taken for granted in that they like will nominate him for passenger. That's the crazy. Where you're like, they clearly know him.

and recognize him. You're noticing the passenger score and you also refuse to give him a trophy. I mean, the connection between passengers and Wally is pronounced. I mean, I think they should... That is the live action remake of Wally. His 1917 score, which was his last nom,

I listened to all the time. The film that was playing that I was supposed to go see the night that you carried the snoo up the stairs to my apartment. Remember that snow? I didn't get to see. I was spared having to see 1917 in theaters.

Then I ended up fucking... had twins and I was like, well, I'm not going to get two snooes. And then like SpongeBob meme one months later. Like the second snoo is being brought into my house. He should have won that year because he lost a fucking Joker. Yeah. Jesus. But that was, I mean, it's like the Slumdog win.

Like even giving Jai Ho best song wasn't enough. Slumdog was such a fucking juggernaut. He should have won for this. Yeah. Yeah. He should have won for this. Over. But this slumdog moment.

Yeah. Obviously, that is not my favorite film of 20. No, it was. And it was rewarding a Bollywood luminary and like his music. It does make sense. It does. It makes sense in the moment. Part of the kind of energy of that movie is the music and all that.

Yeah. And then we had the Nemo conversation, which was like he would have won if Howard Shore had been disqualified, which is kind of aberrant that they didn't do that when they're usually so difficult. But the score, that's why the scorebranch is so hated. No, but I mean, I made the case of. I made the case of course the return of the king's score bangs hard, but also it is just, yeah, sometimes they're like, well, you can't have, we're not nominating Dune 2

because it's too similar to Dune 1. And I'm like, the Dune 2 score is completely different. And you have allowed other sequel scores. Fucking Rise of Skywalker got a knob. That same year they shortlisted Beetlejuice Beatles. And I'm like, guys, what's the line? Elthman, let me show you what instrument he used for that one. A phone.

Okay? He phoned it in. Excuse me. He used a keyboard and he copied pasted. Control V, control V. Or it's control. Control C, control V. See, this is why you could never write an Oscar nominated score.

Because control P is print. That's the problem. That's why I had to be V. Wally and Eve come back from being out. I know. It's another three hour app. What are we going on? Yeah, I know, I know, I know.

It's Wally. I know. Eve has the plant now. There's a point at which it can't. She gets the plant back to the captain. She's going to tell Wally to disdainter. They're starting to. They've also seen Gofer, so they're just like something weird's going on here.

We should be suspicious and cagey beyond the fact that everyone's looking for us now. But she gets through, she brings the plant to Captain McCray and also sees the video footage he's been watching of her on Earth, which now has gone into her hibernation period as it's like continues auto playing. So she gets to watch Wally taking care of her when she wasn't conscious. They don't really milk that moment as much as they could. And I'm not saying that as a negative. But there is a real opportunity there to sort of squeeze you by the heart.

They use some restraint. Yeah, it is restrained. But within that footage is Wally showing her Hello Dolly, her like standby mode body directed at the screen when she wasn't paying attention before. So now she sees it for the first time and you see her have the same hand realization. Activate fingers. does the interlocking. Activate fingers. Right.

So now Eve kind of gets it, but she's already shunned him off. And Otto is going turbo, trying to block Captain McCrae's efforts. Let's keep your wreck at Ralph terminology out of this conversation. I'm sorry. Well, he's a good guy, though.

Let's not be saying me. And then Otto reveals the second video from Fred Willard. Right. Looking like they just busted him at the Tiki theater. Very dishevelled. Was he wearing a life?

jacket. Yeah. We didn't want to drown. Jesus. A lot of fluids in that place. This is our episode on a children's film. But the idea that it's like

five years later and things have gotten so bad. And he's just like, never mind, abandoned. Right. And the secret protocol. You're actually just going to stay out here forever.

And there's an argument that Otto is showcasing the same thing we're talking about with our other like hero robots, which is like, Otto has clearly made a decision to hide this information from the humans. Otto has been serving all of these captains. Well, Otto's following protocol. I mean, that's Otto's design.

But, like, was protocol not giving the captain the complete information? I think it was by any means necessary making sure that humans do not get back to... He was following his prime director. Yeah, you just could argue that Otto is starting to make, like, creative decisions of how to execute that. Maybe in the way that like a learning language model, a large language model, whatever the fuck they are, would make what appear to be creative decisions to gas somebody up when they're asking chat GPT for advice.

I mean, I don't think it is actually thinking for itself in that its irrational feeling is defeating its programming in the way as all the other robots in the film. I think that's what distinguishes Otto from all of them is that it is bound to, it's bound to its order and can't really think novelistically. They both get knocked down the garbage. Zapped by Auto.

Wally gets crushed and smushed. But Eve sees that he has saved the plant and all is not lost. Yeah. Yeah. It's also a fun moment with Mo. Right. Wally makes the introduction to Mo who just uses as an opportunity to clean his hand off. But like that Mo blocks the doors when the garbage is being in.

Mo takes a big risk. Yes. Yeah. Mo says life can be messy. I love the moment of Wally's sort of back hinge flipping out his hook that he had previously been using for the igloo. And you're like, that's a pretty perfect place to put Mo. We got our fucking core three now. You know, like the three of them, like Eve can carry Wally. Mo can be on Wally's back.

And we're just fucking all business now. What I'm taking from this is that maybe my marriage needs a third. Just to achieve harmon. We need an Eve. You need an Eve. Maybe the Eve is your couples therapist. I'll bring that up there this afternoon. I think the last time I was here, I also had couples therapy in the afternoon, which is not a daily occurrence, but more of a coincidence.

But I can bring up a cancel it once because a blank check episode went too long. I think I did actually have to cancel because of Schindler's list, which is. I'm so glad that's an end your marriage. I remember being quite abashed about that. It is a point of pride. It is a point of pride that you should deserve. It is a point of pride that Blank Check has not yet knowingly ruined a marriage. I'm sure it's happened.

Because you don't know about it. Right. Like, maybe someone just listened to us so much that the other person was like, you know what, I'm out of here. Like, enough already with these fucking guys. I apologize. People come up to me like, hey, I'm sorry, I don't actually listen to the show, but like my partner's obsessed with it.

So it's on all the time in the home. And I just go like, I'm so sorry if this is not a thing you're opting into. Could be worse. They could be really into Ice Age the Meltdown. This is true. Wally. Yeah, they're, it's. they're just in fucking mission mode now because Eve is just like,

A, it's like her protective instinct is kicking in. Wally is close to death. His circuit board is fried. There's no time to waste. He has, you know, in a slightly Christ-like way, potentially sacrificed himself for the sins of humanity to try to save them. But that always, I was watching the movie and I was like, he'll be okay. Like, that would be too, too.

I had half a moment of, is Pixar going to do it? I think future generations of people, once they repopulate the earth, should worship Wally. They should. Yeah. Just for fun. Or at least the child. Just as a good movie.

But they've locked Captain McCray up. Wally, even Moe, are trying to find a way to get to the Lido deck because if they can put the plant in the whatever it is. The hollow deck. The ship will autopilot itself. It will override autopilot himself even and just go straight to it. And I just, again, McCray just need to give a shit. He's still trying to stay in the hover. chair and do everything he can, but then you finally get to the breaking point.

As you said, this excellent piece of animation of, I got a fucking walk. None of this is going to happen if I don't make the effort to take the first step. Yeah. And it's such beautiful walking. Little blobby boy. I mean, this is really when Wally sacrifices himself, though. He gets not gets, gets gross in the trash compactor. It's that Auto is trying to drop down the chamber where they're supposed to put the plant into.

Yes. Well, right. The first thing that happens is that auto. like shocks him, which fries the circuit board. And then now he's additionally physically crushed. I like that they fool Otto with a drawing of a plant. Yes. The projection.

Yeah. And yeah. And it's just like the ripple effects of everyone that Wally has affected in some way or woken up. Now everyone is suddenly joined in the effort. Very Paddington-esque in his way. The sort of I know that guy thing where people are like, Oh, yeah, he said that.

He's like, hey, that's Wally. Go, Wally. He's got the window. Right. In a civilization where people have no social interactions, Wally is like their favorite thing they've ever met because it's the last time they had a feeling about anything. It's a smart choice that it's just hyper speed

and it's like once you get the boot in there, we're just going to go straight. Yep, that's how it's all designed. But then you have what I find so emotionally affecting is Eve in that panic mode of like, I don't have a second to waste. How do I keep him alive? How do I save him?

And going, trying to like reconconserving, reconstitute with all the spare parts inside his little trash home, blowing the hole in the ceiling to like light him up. And then that moment where you're like, are they going fucking cuckoo's nest? Like, is he gone? And the long recalibration of the eyes readjusting. And then the satisfaction of the Drew. So satisfying. Yeah.

I just, you can't end a Pixar movie that way. I'm just picturing like Mo breaking out of the window and running away into space. This movie felt so audacious that I was like, are all rolls out the window. can they get away with doing that? I didn't want it to happen. She's got to give him a big sloppy electric kiss. I felt a genuine tension from it. Yeah, there's tension for sure.

Right. And then obviously Toy Story 3 is like actively towing the line of that tension even more of like, are we going to do it? Guys? That's what I don't like about that moment. I know that's what you don't find it credible at all. It's not credible. I just, I'm like, right.

I'm like, you know, just don't piss on my leg and tell me it's raining. I think it's a credible moment. I think what's credible about is it's more about the acceptance of death and the fact that the threat is actually real. Just what I want for a fucking toy story movie. That is exactly what I want for my toy story movies. They're immortal. They can't die.

That's their curse, which is what I like about the toy story movies. The way it explores the only good thing about Toy Story 3 is that Totoro is in it. That's, you're like totally just Toy Story 3 in the trash. I like the potato head turns into the tors. You don't like all the incinerator where it belongs. You don't like Lhzo?

No, I do not. Why would he like Lato? Lotso. He creates a good workplace. All he wants to do is just hug his employees. Lotto looks like he says. smells bad. I'm not into it. Smelt extra berries.

Anyway, we see a bunch of greenery, and it's nice to think that Wally played a big part in clearing all of the debris that enabled the plants to grow. Right. You're like, even if they still have these giant trash towers to deal with, he did at least create open enough spaces that they can plant things. And that thing's grew. Yes. Yes.

Yes. And society rebuilds itself as depicted in the evolution of artistic styles and movements. And it's a great movie. Wally's my boy, man. When you get to, like, fucking pointillist Wally and Eva under the tree, it's a great movie.

I love this fucking movie. It is, it hits the ending quickly. It's, it's, it's not abrupt, but it's like, it's very efficient.

Yeah, and the greatest tension at this point is just, can she save him? And if it takes too long to get home, then you don't believe there's any way to save him. Yes, it is,

my only reservation is that I, I think that the, the bit with the, tip tipping over and all the babies sliding is thematically on point, but I always wished it were a little bit more viscerally satisfying. After the 30 minutes of this great taty like scramble through the ship, which feels so balletic and fun, this feels a little clumsy. But

maybe it's supposed, I don't know, just I always wanted something that like pulled me in a little bit more at the end. Yeah. This is one of the movies that broke the Academy Awards. It is. Let's just briefly touch on, right, on the research here. there was some concern. Like, you know, up, I feel like is the bigger anxiety point. But they'd already had Rattatooie, where they had some of the kind of like, fuck, is there like, there's no merch.

It's this movie pretentious. And Rattatooie did well, but it was down. Right. It was a hit, but it was legier. It was less front-loaded, and it still ended up way below. Wally doesn't even have legs. This is true. He's got treads.

Wally was an uptick, but they definitely were worried about it. And the marketing, I mean, we mentioned the fucking Hidden City Cafe teaser, but I remember the Super Bowl ad for this movie was Buzz Lightyear and Woody watching the game. And Woody turns to Buzz and go, you hear about this Wally guy?

And they were so freaked out by this movie that they were like, can we just remind you of our legacy and our track record? And use that to buffer. Please trust us. Movie also very excited. It's $180 million budget.

Yes, very high. It opened to 63 domestic. It grossed $2.23 million. 521. So it was below Rattahoo. Yes. Which had been below Rattahooie Worldwide. It was below Rattucketooie worldwide.

Yeah, how did it play? Because Rattitoui was 200 domestic. It went above Rattatooie. Wally feels like a universal. Rattahooe made 623 worldwide. Yeah. Cars also obviously had been a disappointed. to some extent on release, although it had a long tail, you know, merch-wise.

It won best film at Lafka, which is a big deal. Big deal. There was a real feeling of like, is it time to let this into the bigger conversation? And instead, it does get six Oscar nominations. Screenplay animated, you want to guess? Screenplay animated, it gets both sound categories. Correct. And then score and song.

Right. So it's like six is a lot. But at the same time, it is, you know, they're kind of in their categories. I mean, arguably the only two other nominations it could have realistically gotten were picture and directors. And it felt like they were on the bubble and it was a real conversation. And it felt like you were reading a lot of think pieces of like... Had there been 10 nominees, obviously, it's a best picture nominee. And that's what breaks the Oscars.

You know, becomes as Toy Story 3 becomes. Right. It's that this doesn't make it. Dark Knight doesn't make it. And I've always contended that Grand Torino not making it is the third one. although, you know, Dark Knight and Wally are a much bigger deal, but it's like, if we're getting like more elevated serious blockbusters, do we need a space to recognize these? If these animated movies are becoming this artistic, do we need a space to recognize these? Yeah, it drives them

insane. Despite, as we said in our Slumdog Millionaire episode, Slomdog Millionaire was the highest grossing best picture nominee until Oppenheimer. They had a movie that was a genuine blockbuster crossover success, and they were so freaked out by the fact that they didn't show enough respect to Wally and Dark Knight that they go to 10 the next year and up becomes only the second animated film to ever be nominated for Best Picture in a 10. Toy Story 3 is the third. Has not been another one in 16 years. I have it. Where do I have it on my 2008 list? It's my number two.

What's your number one? Synecicic. Mine two. Yeah. I have a 12. Maybe I should get it higher. Get the fuck. I'm going to throw my wallet at you.

What do you have above it? A lot of good movies. I think I'll get a little higher, though. What's above it? Name one. Happy go lucky. Happy go lucky. I think I'm going to get it up to seven here.

You have it the reader six times? What is it leapfrogging? Above it, I definitely have movies that like Synecichie, Happy Go Lucky Speed Racer, Milk, Wendy and Lucy. Milk. These are big movies for me. Milk is the best. of these movies. They are lower down at my 10.

And then like, it's sort of in more like the Rachel getting married in Bruges, Hunger, stepbrothers. See, Rachel's, really good. Rachel's may be my three. Not a bad year for American film. Good year. No, Rachel getting married, incredible.

But it's a terrible Oscar year. I'll take the life and times in Harvey Milk any day of the week. You're like, we had good fucking options and like three of the best picture nominees are kind of wet blankets. Uh, yeah, of course. I mean, I think, like, Frost, Nixon is obviously

that is that Frost Nixon contributes to the 10 best picture nominees as much as Dark Knight and Walling. Reader's the one that's egregious but Frost Nixon is a little bit of like are we just like auto nominating anything that feels like an Oscar movie? Reader you were like I could find a few people

who thought that was good right there was not one person on Earth who was like one of the best five movies of the year is Ron Howard it was also like that play was really good yeah it didn't really translate it well It translated poorly. Right. I saw the play. Let's give it eight Oscar nominations.

And it was like, you know, it felt like that, you know, those moments where the, like Green Book, where the old Oscar voters like, I know we're changing. I can't help it. Like, you know, like one more time, please. You know, like, Frost. So wait, it's Slumdog, Frost Nixon, Reader, Milk. The milk's so, so much better than those. And, uh, what's the, the fifth one? What's the fifth one I'm forgetting?

Benjamin Button. And I like that movie a lot. even that one is at the time everyone's like a little underwhelmed, it's a little treakly, you know, like, just... And like we're nominating that over Dark Night and Wally, which actually kind of really hit the zeit guys. My son, who's never seen a minute of Benjamin Button is fascinated by the premise. He's always like, what's that movie about the guy who's born

to being 100 years old and age is backwards? You maybe should show Asa Benjamin Button supercuts like Best of Blobby? Like, I don't think he'd like the whole movie. Did someone make a Benjamin Button supercut that isn't just thirsts? He would like like... Ben Afflick. Seven blah, la, blah. You would like Benjamin Button and the revival tent.

Yeah. So, box office game, right? Yeah. Sorry, I'm just coordinating a little photo shoot maybe. Okay. Coordinating a little photo shoot? I interviewed somebody and they're... They're going to take pictures of you?

I should do that for any time interview someone. Just like me going, like, And who interviewed him? But David Sims, here's seen. Can I paint you? I interviewed, what's his name, Kane Parsons? How's that movie?

We'll all know by the time this comes out. I'm quite fond of it, especially all the parts where they are in the back rooms. Oh, cool. That's probably a good percentage of the movie? But there was a, yeah, sure. But there was a moment during our interview when he said, yeah, no, I started to get into this stuff,

liminal horror and all that stuff. My first year of high school, which was the first year of COVID 2020. And I, each of, you can hear it on. the audio of our interview, right? The loud shotgun bus that I did to my hand. You ate a bowl of bullet soup.

Well, I was just like, oh, pardon me. Drink poison. Okay, so it's number one of the box office, Griffin. What's it opening against opening to a very surprising $50 million wanted? I feel like wanted massively over index because

it was sort of the Angelina Jolie moment of like, this is serious. She is a magnet. The only thing I wanted was to never see that movie again. Am I right? That movie is a little abrasive. I will say terrible. She is really good in it, though.

Because this is the Changeling year, which is a movie, you know, I don't like. And I always contended her for best supporting actress would have been a more deserving nomination and wanted over Changeling for lead actress. I think that's a bad take. I don't like that movie. And I think Jolie is really good. I think she definitely like gives Wanted some pass. And she's doing her assignment. A little curve in its bullet, if you will.

I'm a changeling defender. It's a strange specific performance, but maybe I need to rewatch Changelang. Terrible movie never needs to be thought of again. Wants it, I mean. That guy, I mean, remember. More Beckman Bentoff. He's a product of Harry Knowles.

It's just them gasping up the, what was that, the night shift? Yeah. And whatever the fuck it was. That was those are good movies in front. Or Night watch. Night watch. Yeah, yeah.

I wanted, I remember. I haven't seen it since 2008. But yeah, every time it made a choice, it made the loudest, most of the wrong ones. Well, they have loomers who weave tapestries that tell them where to bend bullets. When McAvoy creams Chris Pratt in the face with a, right, with a keyboard, and then the words, fuck you, but the teeth are filling in like the O's or like in the, you know, like, come at your screen. The most inspired visual choice in that film. Right. Chris Pratt was in that movie?

Chris Pratt plays his coworker who cuffs him. It's Chris Bratton, like, sweaty, chubby mode. Right, back when he was in playing office workers. Yeah. But that movie, yes, you're right. Massively overperformed. It massively overperformed. Number three at the box office, right?

These are all films I, like, saw alone in cinema as in my first year living in New York. Comedy, TV adaptation. It's the first sex in the city movie, is it not? You are correct. That movie is at number nine, though. Oh, okay. It's a different.

Older TV. It's an older, it's not the Honeymooners movie. It's an older... What's it opening to? Well, it opened last week to... 38 million. It's going to end up at 130 domestic.

Oh, it's get smart. Get smart. It was a hit. Forgotten. Forgotten. They kept threatening to make a sequel, and they were like, didn't you guys like this?

And people were like, what? There is not... There is not an inch of pop culture that is not somewhat connected to Ann Hathaway over the last 30 years. She rocks. She's going to have a very... defining year this year, and we all recognize

by defining, you mean every single movie features her. Exactly. Or in Zendaya or having an arm wrestling match. It could work against her. Yeah, I mean, in some senses, maybe, but I think it's four or three. Zendaya's got Dune, Drama, Spider-Man, Odyssey, Euphoria Season 3. Luckily, it seems like

Euphoria Season 3 is going to pass without anyone talking about it. But I do think that this year will sort of cement in the public consciousness to an even greater degree than it had before that Anne Hathaway is an institution. Hathaway fucking rules. I mean, Hathaway's... We're very pro Hathaway in this house.

Yeah. In this house, we respect Ann Hathaway. I worry this year will be too much Hathaway. So it's Mother Mary, Devil Wares Prada, Odyssey, Verity, house at the end of Oak Street? Is there a sixth one I'm forgetting? But with the exception of Verity and Devil Wors Prada, I think those movies have such different core audiences that I don't think it's going to feel like...

It is a widespread. Sure. Is it just five or is there six? I'm just seeing five, although I could have sworn there's a movie called Alone at Dawn, the Ron Howard movie. Right, that's coming in the exterior, I think. That, right, doesn't have a date yet. Yeah.

But that's the other one on her. I mean, my main concern is that Prada 2 might, like, suck really bad. I've heard that it is basically the same as the first one, but obviously diluted. The first one's a masterpiece. That's fine. I'm fine with it. Right. If it's like a kind of, like, base hit, like, that's okay.

I was worried it was going to be like. Me too. Super Mario Galaxy of Devil Wars Prada, where just shit happens. It just starts how many point at the screen. And then she goes out of color. And you're like, yay. I really have been worried of like jangling keys shit with that movie.

I'm troubled by the implication of the trailer that she does not remember and halfway. And it's like, how advanced is her dementia? No, but that's the problem. No, she did it. She worked for her for six months. It was a memorable six months. Come on. The joke for her is this was not remotely memorable.

I do think that trailer did make it seem like it was like a Men in Black Tuesday. Like a memory store. That might be too difficult a bit to sell in the trailer. Exactly. I get the idea that she's aloof and they're doing that joke, but it's at the point where you're like, hey, Joe Biden, anyone else? Yes. Is Kung Fu Panda still in the top five?

Kung Fu Panda, you have guessed correctly, is number four at the box office. That's another one that overperformed and there was a real arms race of they ended up very close in terms of the final totals. Sure, sure. Kung Fu Panda's fun. It's got a Kung Fu Panda in it. Yes. There you go.

But I think there was a little bit of like, did he's there? Pixar go to esoteric. Sure. Versus Kung Fu Panda is. Right, right. Pixar's like, oh, yes, the existential crisis and Kung Fu Panda's like, the panda's large, yet does Kung Fu. The title explains the plot.

And I hear it so many times, but the urban legend I have heard that when Jeffrey Katzenberg was pitched Kung Fu Panda, his first response was, I like all three of these words. And that movie is the best executed version of Kung Fu Panda. I think when it came out, everyone was like, oh, it's actually like good. But, you know, Wally was trying something very ambitious, and they ended up at the exact same number. And Wally Cosper. You don't hear a lot of podcasts about Kung Fu Panda these days. No, and they're four of them.

They're four. But, right, Kung Fu Panda did injure, I guess, as, right, sequel fodder and all that as well. Number five of the box office is a film in a cinematic universe. that's getting its start here in 2008. Is this Hulk? The Incredible Hulk. Yeah. Yeah.

Bad movie. Really bad. But did introduce me to my favorite MCU character, Liv Tyler's Betty Ross. And I finally got to see her one more time recently. I love when we're at, yes. Erla, can we quickly if you want to salute our president?

There is. Bright and red. I thought you were going to say Tim Roth's abomination, which is most Americans' favorite MCU character. Also, Actors was clearly the most delighted to be in those films. Having a great time, charming to everyone around. You know what my favorite Betty Ross scene is?

Tell me. It's tough to pick because she's got so many good moments in the MCU. I can't guess because there's too many. My personal favorite Betty Ross scene is when her human body walks into the raft to visit her incarcerated Red Hulk former president father, and her head is definitely the same as her human body. both things were shot at the same time. All in union.

In front of a camera on a real set next to Harrison Ford. God, what if it turned out Joe Biden wasn't insane? Yeah, it wasn't, sorry, you know, losing his mental faculties when said it was just suffering from Red Hawk's disease and that would have been the thing.

It would answer some questions and raise others. Number six was, though, oh, a good film here, the love guru. Wow, we covered a lot of these. Number seven, we've covered this one with this very person, Indiana Jones of the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Number eight, another film we've covered.

M. Night Shyamalan's The Happening. Number nine, a film we've yet to cover Sex and the City. Number 10, a film we've yet to cover. I wonder if we will. The opportunity is kind of past us by. You don't mess with the Zohan. Yeah.

That's maybe top of the list of movies I used to argue are masterpieces that I am terrified to ever reward. In my memory, it is a movie that, you know, has a good heart like it wants everyone to be friends. Maybe it doesn't have the most textured view of the geopolitical situation. In 2008, it felt like the politics were surprisingly good for the time for a movie that was that movie. I was going to say that movie is the moment when the Democratic leadership stopped aging.

It's been frozen in time. Right. Are people still filming Zoham? Today, that movie might feel like a weapon of mass destruction. Zoran, maybe. Well, truly don't mess with the Zorro. That's all the box office game. Not me. That's happened like three times.

Yeah, it happens. I'll never learn. We're done. We've been talking for so long. Wally is a very good movie, and I think it's nice. And he's my good friend. He's really the best of us. Yes. Now, next week on the show, we're going to meet another good friend, John Carter.

A slightly less successful movie. You have a Pulitzer Prize winning writer, Tony Kushner. The guest on that one. But Michael Shabon is the co-writer of. Well, he was the co-writer of some shit. I mean, God bless it. Yeah, but that was, this was a passion product. I mean, we'll get into all of it.

It is, it is a fascinating movie. It arguably has become the shorthand. I think we were saying this. We were talking about this in Madison, Ben, that we were like, John Carter kind of took over the, like, you know, Waterworld replaced Ishtar. Ishtar replaced Heaven's Gate. John Carter just is the thing

that people have voted. Yeah, Jonah Hex made a bid for it but couldn't compete. No. And I think some of it just boils down to this movie costs this much and it's just called John Carter and I'm supposed to know what that is.

We will talk about it next week. I'm very excited. It's a fascinating movie to look at now and pull apart 10 years later. I'm excited to rewatch. I've only seen the one time. Erlich, thank you for being here. Do you have anything you want to plug?

Ben's like done. We are done. Do I have anything I want to plug? I'm writing a book that's going to come out in like three years. So start getting knifed. But you do have a minute on that. For this recording, not written a single word. Yeah.

But working on it. I was going to joke your finish, but you just want to leave the manuscript out in the sun for three years. Yes. We bury it. You could bury it. Bury it. I want to say, I got an idea from Wally. There's a Twinkie that Wally feeds.

Cowlouch. Hell hangs out. I think I might start bearing Twinkies with the jeans. Yeah. Continue. No, I mean, how can you say anything after that? I'm worried about that. I'm also going to force you to plug fighting in the war room

because your co-hosts always get mad when you don't do that. Yeah. I mean, I guess if you want to listen to it, you can. I think its entire audience that listens to your show is already well aware. 100 best podcasts ever. Yeah, sure. Yeah, you can find me on the Internet and my name. and the Indy Wire reviewing movies.

By the time this comes out, I'll already have been to Cannon back, and life will go on. Except for Can? Am I excited for Can? Yeah, I mean, if you're not excited for Cam, what are you doing in this line of work, I suppose? Yeah, I'm excited to hear

if the Scorsese episode I nominated myself for, if I was ghosted by abject silence from David Sims was rejection or just omission. We'll find out. I just want to remind you that the episode of you threw your hat in the ring for is basically a calendar year away, because Scorsesea is so long.

That's what I figured. I didn't feel like it was going to be stepping under these toes. We're just not making decisions about those. We're trying to keep things. We're not giving you the silent treatment as much as it. Here, we'll say it on Mike.

Your interest is noted. I don't even remember. I'll say it off Mike. Fine, great. Okay, let's be done. As always, our friend Wally. Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate review and subscribe.

Tune in next week for John Carter. Over on our Patreon, we're finishing up Robo Cup. Who you guys got for John Carter? The great Matt Singer. I'm looking now. Yeah, we're still in Robocop mode. I think it's Robocop 3 is next.

Yeah. So we got plenty of Robocop to go. If you enjoyed the Rubet Talk and you want more Rubit Talk, then go over and listen to us talk about Rubba Ninjas fighting Robocop. And as always, Eve's a babe. Say your name. Asa. Good name. Asa.

Who is your favorite character on Big City Greens? Cricket. What do you like about Cricket? Well, he's a reckless boy like me. And he's about the same year as old as me. And I'm the big brother, but he's a little brother. It's kind of weird. He's kind of six.

What would you say if somebody asked you what big city greens is about? Well, it's about... It's about 22 minutes long. Yeah, it's about 22 minutes long. What's the show about? What happens? The family moves from the country? The family moves from the country to a big city, and they get all crying.

I'll cry when they don't want to go. But before, they think that they don't want to, they think that's going to be like a creepy mansion, like, across the door. But then Bill said, like, that were leaving the country and moving to big city. And they cry and they, like, cry out of a while. And why is Chip Whistler so mean to them? Well, when they first once a big city, cricket, like, um, the chip told. called Cricket something, and then Cricket kicked him in the lens.

And then it all began. And last question. What do you think of the movie Wally? What does that have to do? It's unrelated. What do you think about Wally? You used to love Wally. We watch it every day for like six months.

Nope. Morning. Okay, say goodbye. No. Blank Check with Griffin and David is hosted by Griffin Newman and David Sims. Our executive producer is me, Ben Hossley. Our creative producer is Marie Barty Salinas, and our associate producer is AJ McKeon. This show is mixed and edited by AJ McKeon and Alan Smithy.

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

Follow us on social at Blank CheckPod. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter, Checkbook on Substack. This podcast is created and produced by Blank Check Productions. And Wally is kind of a vehicle. Yeah. What do you think about that? Wolley's kind of got some main character syndrome with regards to this movie. He does.

He does. He's also kind of a great friend. Yeah. Well, save this for the mic. That's the kind of observation must be recorded at all times. Okay, David, I'm going to send you a thing in a second. Did you guys record Finding Nemo already? We did.

We did that one. Good movie. Very good. Um, fish. Okay, David. Yeah. Oh. I assume you don't mean me.

Yeah, sorry. Ben, we ready? We are.