Page 7 - Pop History: Mars Attacks!

Episode Date: July 14, 2020

Ack! Ack! Ack! We cover Tim Burton's campy sci fi cult classic.Want even more Page 7? Support us on Patreon! Patreon.com/Page7PodcastKevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of Page 7 ad-free.Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

I don't usual to be little by and want. And you're so dead Tom Jones, Natalie Jean. Welcome to Pop History's episode on Mars. No, I wake you back up alive. You're alive now. Thank you. You are very welcome. Wow, she would have committed to that.

She would have pretended to be dead for the entire rest of this report. I know. Much like Thomas Jones, I would have run and left everybody else to fend for themselves when the alien showed up. How amazing. Talk about quintessential summertime viewing Mars attacks and watching it again. I swear man, every time I watch this movie, I can't believe that this movie got made. I can't believe that this isn't a movie that people talk about as much as Independence Day. So we're doing this episode today.

What people? I talk about it as much as Independence Day. This is a thing. In our weird circles. and I'm assuming that y'all's weird circles that are listening to this right now, remembering that Mars Attacks is such an amazing movie is it's really, it's pertinent to having a smile in the summertime.

And having any excuse to rewatch it makes me so happy. So you guys both grew up. Welcome, welcome to the show. I'm Jackie. Hi, guys. Hi, I'm Holden, Natalie. Hi, I'm Natalie.

We're all here. And, yes, I don't, you know, it's funny. do remember it being on. I don't think I have the same love affair, Jackie, that you did. I wasn't, like, humping my VHS copy. I was always humping. You said you did a lot with yours. I think I saw, I talked about smiling.

I talked about happiness, but no, no humping involved. I didn't try to remove skin from my head to look more like the aliens like you did. All this kind of stuff that you did I didn't really have. Are you skin shaming me right now? I do remember enjoying it. Love the films of. Tim Burton. And it was weird, like, only a few years ago, maybe, maybe it was longer than that. I think it was like not very long ago. I sat down with our good friend and filmmaker, Adam Wirtz,

with other couple of people. And we all just randomly, we were like, let's watch a movie. And we just decided to throw on Mars attacks. And I had forgotten how charming that this film is. I had such a fun time rewatching it. Now that I have a little bit more context, now that I have a little bit more appreciation for the genre of film that it was it was attempting to pay homage to and just the cast alone is so unbelievably fantastic so in a way i feel like i didn't admire it as much as i should have back in the day and i think we'll get into we'll definitely get into why this ended up being generally a flop and uh how how it all came to be which had a lot to do with independence day it's a shame it's a shame it was a flop because they put so I appreciate it from a filmmaking standpoint now as an adult they put so

much work into every single one of the rest and the stunt scenes are so fun and I miss everything being live all the time because even though there was a bunch of alien imagery cartoon CG things a lot of it was still obviously in real real spaces and not on green screen which I think is lacking sometimes in movies now nowadays. Nowadays, these movies. But my little friends that I loved Independence Day, we were being little edge lord children and we're like we sided with the aliens.

So we were always like excited when they killed people. We weren't psychopaths, so how dare you? How dare you? I didn't say anything. You're looking at me. Also, I want to go ahead and say, I love Independence Day. So nothing I say on this episode means that I love Independence Day any less. But I think that Mars attacks needs to be properly revered in a way that as a kid,

I was terrified of Mars attacks, which is why I loved it so much. I think that the tone of the movies and the style of it being very patriotic and with aliens makes them cross over in a way that maybe was or wasn't intentional, I guess we'll learn. But I connect those movies in my brain really deeply to the point where when I was rewatching this movie that I've seen 100,000 times, I for a minute thought that Randy Quaid was in it because he is the trailer park person in Independence Day. And I was thinking he was the trailer park person in Mars attacks and it's not. It's a different one.

I was like completely, I got it on my head that at one point it was going to be a music video with Will Smith going, Maas and Tacks, you know it's whack. You guys with a music attack. Poo! Please. Ack, got, got, caggak. Ackck attack. Do the ac attack.

Oh, weo. I thought it was going to be something like that. I would watch that in a heartbeat. Have you rewatched the Wild Wild Wild West music video lately? It's great. I also think, though, where it did terrify you, Jackie, as a kid, and that's why you loved it, I do think that this movie, it's rated R, right? It has to be, right? I believe so. Is it? I don't know. There's like no blood in it or anything. I mean, but it's so violent, though. Yeah, but that's, that's a ratings thing. That's a trick. I bet you it's actually PG-13, because if you don't show actual blood. It is PG-13. It is PG-13 for sci-fi fantasy violence and brief sexuality. Interesting. Yeah, so you can get away with that rating. If you do a bunch of violence but don't show blood and guts, you can actually do quite a bit of it.

But that's why this movie is so smart is because he's doing it as an homage to Ray Harryhausen and also the sci-fi movies of your, and also which we will get into, the trading card series. He wanted to, this is all an homage to exactly what they used to do where it's like you even look at the brutal skeleton bones that people are lasered into. but they're all bright green and bright red as they die.

Nons makes absolutely no sense most of this movie, but it's great. It doesn't need to. It's not trying to make logical scientific sense. But it definitely plays in that space that Tim Burton exists in a lot, existed in a lot before he went just full-on cookie cutter. And I do feel, and I will make the case for the fact that this movie is that turning point. That is so smart.

You're so right. Concur. Yeah. This was the train of before he went full CGI, but also full kind of cornball. I'm not saying he went exactly to Willy Wonka right after this. I think he did some other stuff, but still, this was what pushed him in that direction. I don't know, did he?

What was between those two? Probably, I'm going to guess, what's his name, the barber killer musical. No, Sweeney Todd was in the 2000s, though. But either way, I think that this really shifted it for him. Also, I think that this was a box of his failure, not just because it was ever shattered by Independence Day, but also that it plays in that space that it's like it's not quite for kids but it's not quite for adults

it sort of kind of exists somewhere in between and someone like me can appreciate that but I think when it comes to getting a massive audience to come out to the theater and having it exist in that space he got away with it with like beetle juice but the beetle juice was more fully for adults I feel like at the same time

oh yeah for sure this wasn't quite either and whereas it works for a young Jackie right it works for like a young us A young little weird kid that makes people It's not for everybody. Also, it does make sense You're right, though, Holden, because right after Mars attacks, it was Sleepy Hollow, and then it was

Planet of the Apes. Yikes. So that is what came afterwards. So you can see the difference for sure, which leads into the big fish, the Charlie, the Chocco Factory, corpse bride, all that other stuff. You're right, this completely is the turning point for him. And also what I find so interesting,

and when you're talking about what made this movie a flop, is that I think a lot of people watch and if you watch the trailer, I guess I understand where people are coming from. A lot of reviews I read about it talk about how it's not funny enough. That's crazy. This isn't a fun, it's not a comedy.

But the performances, especially by Jack Nicholson, made me laugh so fucking hard this week when I was watching it. They're so good. I love his performances. I will say, though, that would have been one of my critiques for the film.

I do wish they went a little bit harder in the comedy, in the comedy push, I think it could have been a bit, the script could have been a bit funnier, and yet we get these amazing, hilarious visual. Yes. And I wish some of the script,

I wish the script had a little bit more in line with those visual jokes, I think would have actually made it a bit stronger. That said, I don't really want to criticize it too much because I do fucking love this movie. I really enjoy it still, very much, yeah. I guess we should talk about, well, let's just jump in and start talking about what it's based on.

Because this is also another thing that I had absolutely no idea about. Same. The trading card, I guess. I'm talking about, yes. The trading card series that was produced by Tops in 1962. We're going to put some up with the social media for this episode. But the trading, the Mars attacks trading cards are brutal. They are very gory. They are exactly what you think of. If you think about what is a trading card, like that, like, what kind of trading cards existed that they could make Mars attacks

based on said trading cards? They, it is brutal for 1962. It features the art of sci-fi artist Wally Wood and Norman Saunders. Product developer Lynn Brown was inspired by Wallywood's cover of EC Comics, Weird Science Number 16, and pitched an idea based on it. If you want to know more about the history of EC Comics, check out, which is the Brewser did episode on it. The cover is of a A spaceship dropping aliens, the cover of Weird Science Number 16, that is, a spaceship dropping aliens onto Earth to the horror of three kids. Brown said the cover depicted UFOs landing on the Earth and releasing a group of large brained foreboding aliens onto our world. The invaders were pretty hideous, like nothing I had ever seen before, until in 1955, when I saw a similar-looking creature in the Universal movie This Island Earth. He really liked how it wasn't just little green men.

It was like scary-ish creatures. And I'm sure that you will also learn about if you go listen to the EC episode of Wizard and the Bruiser. But when Len Brown was asked, why did you make, how did you get the idea of Mars attacks to make these cards out? Len Brown said back in those days, there was a lot of science fiction movies being made. It started with Woody Gelman. We talked about maybe doing a horror series of trading cards because horror comics were really big a few years prior. then they all got banned. The EC stuff all got banned.

Comics Code Authority. It's this big thing. We've covered it a lot on that other show. We've already mentioned. But yes, it is kind of this crazy thing. Comics were really cool. EC Comics was awesome. All that old school,

gory, crazy murder plots and revenge and all this, you know, even true crime had like a huge, huge movement in comics. It was like really, really edgy stuff. And then the Comics Code Authority was like, it's got to be Spider-Man. So that was like a government-issued ban? Because people, they were freaking out because these kids were like loving these comics

where people were just like getting opened up and like, you know what I mean? It's all marketed towards children. But it's like, come on, let the kids enjoy it. It's not cigarettes. I mean, even listening to this of what are some of the examples of the cards and why, just like in the EC Comics and all the other things you were just describing, why these cards got banned fairly quickly. There was one card showing a giant insect

decapitating naked women in the shower. Another featured a dog being vaporized right in front of its crying small child owner. It says dog on fire. The name of the card is. But I will say, and I want to talk about this because I look through all 55 cards so that I could see the connections.

That scenes in the movie. Yes, so many of these seeds are in the movie. Shot on fire. I know, a dog gets zapped in the movie. That's in the cards. There's a ton of stuff in the cards of the giant robot. I will say the cards, what the cards do that the movie doesn't. You already mentioned in Jackie, the giant insects.

Also, as the story goes along, they don't do the music thing, exploding the brains that was created by apparently Howard Stern. We'll talk about it. We will talk about that. What? But they end up getting into a spaceship and firing nukes at Mars and going to the home planet Mars and blowing it up is like how the cards in. Yes.

But so many little touches you see in the miniaturization ray, the evaporation stuff where they turn into skeletons, like all of that stuff is is in the cards. The cards have blunt, brutal titles like Crush to Death, Burning Flesh and the Human Torch. And then there's also card number 13 watching from Mars where three Martians and a glass of wine as they observe the destruction of the Capitol on a giant TV. Oh, it's nice. It's fun. They like wine. They love drinking and they love having fun. And of course, all of these get banned. But what of course happens, people like us and the people that knew that it got banned when crazy, it developed a cult following. And then in 1984, the original 55 cards were reissued. Now, you can find the cards online. They are very expensive. They are now collectors items, but just looking at the idea that, man, 1962, can you imagine? That was before, like, you watch, I remember my mom talks about the movie Psycho and how it changed her life of what she thought horror was.

I was like, well, in 1962, they had these cards. Yeah. No, see, that's my, that's my argument for having, not censorship, but having pushback because it makes it more fun. If there's squares around to get upset, it's more exciting to find the stuff. Yeah. If everybody's just chill with it all the time, then you can't ever do any shock value things. Yes. So be square.

I need squares around me. And I wish I had, like, I collected like Marvel cards and like Teen's Meetin' Ninja Turtle cards. I would have loved like an ongoing story card collection. Oh, yeah. That's like such a fun idea that it's a narrative. That would really make me want to collect all of them. Actually, that was the case with Batman the movie trading cards because it very much was in chronological order of the film. And I was like, now I want the whole movie in my hand with the cards.

Well, the ones that do in the reverse, though, aren't always very good. Like the Garbage Bill Kids cards, which were great, but made one of the most horrific unwatchable movies of all time. Oh, yeah. We could do an episode on Garbageville Kids, by the way. I would absolutely love to cover the cards and the film. I just remember I had all the movies. different variations of Gambit on trading cards because I thought Gambit was the sexy between Gambit and Storm, I just had all the, any trading card I could find that had them

on it I had up in my house. Did you pull out the VHS copy of Mars attacks and you just go, oh, what does this feel like? That's not my fault. They put Jim Brown in the movie, okay? And he looks amazing in the entire movie. the the dude that plays the sexy man wearing the pharaoh costume the boxer oh of course um well i just i want to uh tell all the kids out there hopefully there's not actually children listening to this show but you don't try to rub yourself on things with corners and jacky i wish that somebody would have

told you that when you're younger i wish i'm worried about i like the pain but that's a whole other problem So let's get into how this movie got made. We've talked about the trading cards. Let's talk about the pitch. Jonathan Jims wrote the screenplay and had started out, and had started out, rather, as a playwright, the son of famed playwright Pam Jim's. He went on to writing screenplays and got uncredited rewrite work on Batman, Tim Burton's 1989 Batman, and wrote a few scripts for Burton that never came to a fruition, such as a

Beetlejuice sequel called Beetle Juice Goes Hawaiian, which I would have loved. Which I definitely would have watched. Now, this is also, like other movies that we have discussed, like Princess Bride, this movie was also attempted to have been made in the early 80s by Repo Man director Alex Cox. Yes, there was a failed attempt. And he had been a huge fan of the cards, and he had proposed a Mars Atax movie to Orion Pictures and TriStar Pictures, and over four years, he wrote three different drafts of a screenplay. And even though he kept trying to get this through, eventually he gave up because they wouldn't green light the script. And then, but then they had the idea and Jonathan Jems was working with them. And so he was the one that picked up starting to

write the screenplay and then pitched it to Tim Burton. And so that's, can you imagine? I know that Repo made, I know Alex Cox went on to do other things, but I would be so pissed. It's like, man, I wrote many versions of this script, and now you're just going to take it and run with it? Okay, okay, fine, fine. I would write a bunch of mean stuff

about Mr. Jonathan on bathroom walls. I would. Jonathan, gems, is hard as a gem. So, that's what I read. And that's why I like to rub on him because he's got the sharp corners. And you give me something to rub, I rub. That's why now Jackie prefers square dicks.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Fit it in a hole. So he pitches the concept of Mars attacks to Tim Burton, as well as Dinosaurs Attack, which is another trading card-based film idea. We have to discuss real quick Dinosaurs Attack because I looked up, dinosaur's attack is another trading card series. And I apologize that I immediately interrupted you. It is also hilariously violent.

It's another training card series done by the Tops Company in the late 70s. And so Warner Brothers had owned the rights to these cards. And some examples of these dinosaur cards? One card, a grandma blasts the eyeball of a giant reptile clean off with a shotgun, while another depicts an open-mouthed T-Rex devouring the human passengers on a roller coaster. The final card saw the remaining dinosaurs ripped apart as the time-tops. travel effect is reversed after the lead scientist sacrifices himself to the six-eyed supreme monstrosity, a massive devil-like dinosaur that fans often referred to as dinosaur Satan.

I must have to. Wait a second. Is this based on science and reality? Is there a six-eyed devil monster because I will worship him? Yes, and I also, again, would love to see Tim, I would love to have seen Tim Burton in his prime make dinosaur attacks. So did the dinosaurs time travel or did the people? Great question. I think both. Probably both.

They meet in the middle. They meet in the middle? Oh, okay. And then bite, bite, bite, bite, bite. But if you look up the pictures of it, they are another, it is hilariously violent. So Burton, I think, is drawn to this pitch because he wants to pay homage to the films of Edward Wood Jr.

which would also get his own Burton directed biopic in 1994 starring Johnny Depp, fantastic film, love it. Ed Wood directed low-budget B movies such as Plan 9 from outer space and a bunch of other just schlocky B movies. Like he wanted a herky, jerky look and feel and that's going to come into play with their approach to the visual effects.

Burton goes to Warner Brothers and gets the studio to purchase the film rights to the Trading Card Series forum. Jim's writes a script in 1994 and Warner Brothers budgets it at $260 million. Okay, okay, I want to do this right, obviously, studios. So just give me $260 million and I will do this properly. Can you imagine the look on their faces of how quickly they went, no!

They wanted to do it for $60 million. So Jim's is now stuck with this script, just drafting it, drafting and drafting, trying to lower this budget. They had to take out from the original. After them, they came out them with $260 million. Then the studio came back saying, okay, we'll give you $60 million. They cut out of this huge cast already, at this point in time, they had to cut out 37 lead characters. Jesus Christ.

For that they had to pull out. There was a suburban housewife. There was a televangelist. There was survivalists. There were college students and colleagues of Professor Kessler. 37 other lead characters were taken out at this point. They had to delete locations of destruction from the screenplay as well, including China, the Philippines, Japan, Europe, Africa, India, and Russia. They still did huge destruction.

I know. Yes. Yeah, it's crazy. It's insane. It's completely insane. This was supposed to be such an epic movie. And I really feel like... It still is.

It's crazy. Yes. And that he gets at least Tim Burton, for the most part, gets what he wants cast-wise, which I imagine they all worked for a lot less than they usually. They would have had to have. Knowing that it's $60 million and seeing all of the CGI work that has to be put into this movie and all of the action sequences and everything else.

I think that they must have taken a hit that way. But I just, I can't even imagine he must have felt so deflated after all of this. He wrote 12 different drafts in the end. At one point they pulled in Scott Alexander and Larry Krasuski, who were writers on Ed Wood. it was just this monster undertaking. And once they got that screenplay ready to go,

they actually had a very difficult time getting people to be a part of it. It was actually all thanks to Jack Nicholson, really, that they would end up getting this monster, incredible cast. I think the best thing about this movie might be the cast. It is so good. And even Tim Burton says,

I really wanted to try something different. The only time I had ventured into bringing together several high-profile stars was for the Batman movies. And here I wanted to repeat this experience on an even bigger scale. There are more than 20 lead roles in Mars attacks. So it was quite a challenge for me to put together this cast.

The first role I cast was actually the one of Lisa Marie, my girlfriend, who is truly from another planet and who could be the only human being able to play a Martian. She's got such a fluidity and a remarkable sense of her body that she truly was mesmerizing and created a real eerie feeling. Yeah, she's fucking phenomenal in that part.

I really want to do that as a Halloween costume at some point. Yeah, that's a good one. Also refer to you, this is Lisa Marie, who I gave the World's Worst interview to about 10 years ago, maybe. Oh, now I want to see it. Oh, right. Yeah, yeah, it's her. That's funny. I'm also going to throw this out there.

I am, confession time, always assumed Lisa Marie and Lisa Marie Presley were the same. were the same. That makes sense. I always thought there was, even to look at that, I was just like, man, she looked so different. Then looking back,

I was like, oh, well, I'm an idiot, but I can't be the only person that has confused the two before. I'm sure not. Like, she's an really interesting kind of mysterious creature because she's not really prevalent

in, like, pop culture, but she's been in some cool movies. Yeah. But her physical ability, in that scene are really truly awesome. Like she kills being that weird alien creature. When they turned and she started like scuttles along and goes right back into flowing.

So great. It really is otherworldly. So and so besides her though, John James said agents didn't want their star clients to playing loser roles, which is such a funny thing to me. I never thought about that in terms of stars picking roles. Well, and also they all die. They all die such horrific. deaths. So in looking at it, I imagine a lot of their agents were like, no. And it's something that

I kept seeing in all of the reviews as well, talking about how these huge stars would die and there was no remorse around them. It was as if like, oh, okay, well, you just keep going. That's why it's great. Yes. Yeah, that's why it's fun. It's also, it's like predating, right, the scream thing. Does scream come out yet? I don't think it did. No. And that was its big magic trick was setting up the expectation that, oh, this is going to be the star of the movie. they would never kill her off in the very beginning, and then they do, and that's what's so fun about it. Yes. So Jack Nicholson's approach for the role, the president early on, as Burton had such a positive

relationship working with him on Batman. Nicholson joked that he wanted to play all of the roles, and Burton would eventually cast him as both Artland and President. And actually, the first time I saw the movie, I could not tell that was Jack Nicholson for like half the movie. Which is nuts. But also, originally, Warren Beatty was supposed to be the president. president, which is why

Jack Nicholson saved them so hard because Warren Beatty was supposed to be in it and then he dropped out and then Paul Newman was supposed to play the president. So Jack Nicholson had had the other character, which is why he said, I'll play multiple. Because Paul Newman

was too upset about the violence in the movie. So then he dropped out. And then Jack Nicholson is like, I mean, Tim, I could do both. I think maybe Jack Nicholson as the casino owner is my favorite person in this movie. It's so good.

I kind of actually my favorite person I think might be Annette Benning. Oh my God, Inette Benning is so good. And also even, and Jems said about Jack Nicholson, he said, we started getting requests from even more stars than there were parts for. It was like a title wave when Jack came on. So he really did bring with him most of the other cast because of the other cast. because they're like, oh, Jack Nicholson's in it? All right, yeah, including Glenn Close.

Yeah, Glenn Close is funny as fucking. Yes, she's amazing in this movie. I will keep this brief as possible, but I will just say Jack Nicholson started acting at the age of 18. He did a lot of films with indie giant Roger Corman, which is a lot of great talents, big breaks. It wouldn't be his biggest break, though, until a decade later when he was a last-minute replacement for Rip Torn

in Easy Rider as an alcoholic lawyer named George Hansen. Definitely would have loved to have seen Rip Torn in his stagrider, though. Yeah, that would have also been really good, though. But either way, that put him on the map, and after that, he is in a slew. He just crushes it through the 70s and 80s with films like Five Easy Pieces, The Last Detail, Chinatown, one floor over the cuckoo's nest, as well as The Shining in the 80s, terms of endearment, and of course, the Joker in Tim Burton's Batman. And he reflects on that role very favorably saying, I considered it a piece of pop art,

loved that role, loved working with Burton. so that's how he ends up in. And I just love, what I love about our show is that we can be a platform for actors. And I'm just glad we're getting his name out there. People can finally. So everyone can finally learn about Jack Nicholson. Yeah, I kept that one. I mean, honestly, I had to keep all of these brief.

They're also huge stars. And I'm not even going to cover everybody because it's impossible. But I did like that it gave me an excuse to learn a little bit more about Annette Benning, who modeled her character Barbara Land off of Anne Margaret's turn in Viva. Las Vegas. And initially, Susan Sarandon was close to getting the part. But Benning got it. Benning started out in the theater in San Francisco and eventually made it to Broadway.

I did not know this. This is another summer classic I'd love to cover on this show. Her first film was The Great Outdoors, starring John Candy and Dan Ayndtroy. That was her first movie? I loved the Great Outdoors. I love the Great Outdoors. It is one of my favorites. I'm very happy to cover that anytime you want to, ladies.

So either way, this leads to more work in the late 80s. and early 90s. She was so huge around this time in film. I just feel like she was in everything. But Bugsie, regarding Henry, and the American president, which Jackie mentioned earlier, were some of her bigger films. But this film sees her as like not this like mom or this wife.

It's a fun character. And it made me want to see Benning do more. I think that it potentially is the look into my future. I think that could be me. Like it just, love that for her. I always see her as such a normie in movies. You know what I mean? And it was so fun to see her play. This is the thing. And even Tim Burton was talking about this experience. He said it was so much fun to come on a set full of stars, quite bizarre. There were scenes where

I was directing all these bigger-than-life stars, and it was really blessed to have such great actors working against imaginary green men. That was the most surreal thing. All of these stars came in, and they basically reverted to play acting. They all got into the spirit of it, and it was joy to watch them, to watch this firework display of talent, sparkle in front of the camera. Because that is also, that you see these amazing actors that were

allowed to be bigger than life characters and ways that a lot of them don't usually get to play like Glenn Close, who yes, of course later on she gets to do 1001 Dalmatians and things like that. But in the earlier 90s, I feel like in the 80s or the 70s, she was

playing more straight characters. And I think that's why a lot of them ended up wanting to do this movie for probably less than they would be paid because they're just allowed to be these, you know, theatrical circus performer creatures. And it's so fun. I also, I don't, you'll probably mention her a bit. I just wanted to say what one of the people I was excited to learn a little bit about was Sylvia Sidney. Oh, I love. She's so cool. The one who plays the grandmother in the, in Marcia Taxon, she also plays the realtor. in Beetlejuice.

And just looking into her life a little bit, it's like I only know her from those roles. Yes, from these two things. But she was acting her entire life and she was stunningly beautiful. I mean, she still was beautiful, honestly, in Moore's attacks. But this is different.

She's like a classic Hollywood beauty. Yes. In these old black and white photos that you almost feel like how was that woman the same woman? She's got these cartoon eyes. I love that she was like a sort of more demure actress back then, and she, like, leaned into these fun, weird comedic roles in her

older years. Yeah. That just makes me so happy. And she's so fun in this movie, for sure. You also see a Pierce Brosnan that is, like, exploding at this point in his career as he's just becoming a 007. And also, Hugh Grant was originally supposed to be this role, which makes sense. Yep.

He won it over Hugh Grant. I totally get that for both of the day. Sure, but Pierce Brosnan definitely is the guy for that part. He does a great job. And I think especially it worked really well for his persona at the time as 007 to see him in this ridiculous role as like eventually a headless man in love with a dog woman. I understand it too. As an adult, too, that character's more funny to me because I understand the context of them using the parody of like the 60s trope that he's just so, he does it such a straight man version of that and it's so funny. So funny.

His situation is crazy. At just 22 years old, Tennessee Williams chose him to star in the British premiere of his play, The Red Devil Battery Sign, which was so successful, Bronson would get a telegraph from Williams that simply said,

thank God for you, my dear boy, and he has kept that telegraph on him to this day. Of course. But it's also like, Tennessee Williams, like, existed when you existed? Pierce Brasson's crazy. That's insane to me. So he films, he does

films plays in television until in Britain until 1982. Then he moves to Southern California where he gained popularity as the title role in the NBC detective series, Remington Steel. I don't think I ever, I don't even remember that show, but I can, the name sounds familiar, but either way, I think I first

saw him in Mrs. Doubtfire. Yes. Of course. And guess what? There's a girl named Natalie in that movie and a girl named Natalie in this movie, so he says my name a bunch of times. Oh my God. Oh, he's only ever talking to you, Natalie. That's right. And most especially, of course, is James Bond around this time.

And so, yeah, great choice for the role. Glenn Close, we already mentioned her. She wins the role of First Lady Marsha Dale over Merrill Street, Diane Keaton, and Stockard Channing, all of whom I would also love to see. Which all of them would have done amazing. All of them would have been amazing. Yeah, all of them. Would have been fantastic.

She began acting in theater at the age of 27 in the mid-70s and plays and started winning Tony Awards in the 80s for plays like The Real Thing, Death and the Mades. and is Norma Desmond in the Andrew Lloyd-Weber production of Sunset Boulevard. I would love to see that. Her first film role was as Robin Williams' character's mother in The World According to Garp. Oh, I love the world according to Garp. Followed by the part of Sarah Cooper in The Big Chill. I want to do the Big Chill really bad.

Those are two of my favorite movies of all time. I want to do both of them. They're two of my favorite movies at all time. But it was her part in fatal attraction that would shoot her into famedom and become her most iconic role. Burton also, as you already mentioned, Natalie, brought in such favorites as Sylvia Sidney from Beetlejuice, O'Land Jones, from Edward Cisorhands. She is fantastic. She was so good in Edward Cisorhands. Again, all these people took these small parts and blew them out of the water. It's like, what she, like, cocks her gun and just like, they ain't taking the TV. Oh, yeah, that's so

fun. The very unknown at the time, Jack Black in that part. Also, do you guys have any inside info? I was trying to look, Christina Applegate plays the girlfriend. And she is barely even shown. I'm wondering if there's a scene that was cut out or something because later on she's killed and she's having sex with some other random dude.

And I feel like there was some middle story that we didn't hear. There must have been, especially because if you look at the scene where she gets killed while in the middle of fucking, did you see inside of her coolest shit trailer that was There's like something else happening here.

And also at the time Christina Applegate was already pretty famous for married with children. So it would be weird that she would have no lines. Yeah, it is very strange. I totally believe you that a scene was cut out. I think what they're just implying in general is that like these people can go

the parents clearly don't care about the grandmother and just care about themselves and clearly she was just down to move right on from her deceased boyfriend to just immediately banging some other guys. So I think it's just only that moment is in there just to give you justification for like, these people

suck, but it was also so, even, at points of it was like, is that even Stephen Christina Applegate or is, right? It was just showing the back of her head. I was like, yes, when she was kissing on Jack Black. I was like, that is Christina Applegate. In the same way as a kid, I didn't realize that that was Jack Black either

because he looked so different than he did when I was in love with him as in Tenacious D years ago. Yeah, before his like, as before his personality really became part of his known entity. He wasn't Jack Black, then he was just a random kid in the movie. Yes. And again, just reiterate, Christina Applegate looks to eat in that movie. She's got such an incredible body. Her stomach you could bounce quarters off of. Jesus.

Seriously. She's so funny too, man. Christine Applegate's awesome. I just also, I don't know if you mentioned the Sarasca Parker scenes when they start. Oh, okay. I just noticed for the very first time watching it. In that scene, the actor who plays Stamford Blatch in Sex and the City is in the scene with her. Yes, on the phone. Yeah, that is her manager. And it's so, I wonder if that is a connection somehow that they got, they were friends or like how he got that role, because this was right before Sex and the City started filming. And speaking of Sarah Jessica Parker, we would be remiss if we didn't bring up just real quick the costume designer of this movie. Costume designer is Colleen Atwood.

Now, Colleen Atwood, in talking specifically about Lisa Marie's ensemble in this, Colleen Outwood took combined inspiration from the trading cards, Marilyn Monroe, the work of Alberto Vargas and Jane Fonda in Barabrella. That makes complete sense. But what I didn't know about Collin Atwood is that she's 11 Oscar nominations, and she's actually worked with Tim Burton on many of his films, including Edward Cisorhands, Sleepy Hollow, Ed Wood. and most importantly, and this has nothing to do with Mars attacks or Tim Burton, but also

1994's Little Women, which is important to me. And an interviewer asked her, you've worked with Tim Burton, this was a couple years ago, about 10 years ago, you've worked with Tim Burton for over two decades. Do you have a secret language by now? And she responded, it's funny with Tim and I. We've always had a comfortable way of communicating on a work level. It's a challenge to try and keep coming up with new stuff for him that isn't the same thing over and over again.

He really loves color and art and painting and costumes. He lets you do whatever you want to create. He doesn't get in the way and try to control it or anything. He's totally comfortable with my choices. He always has been. He's just a respectful person. Because if you, this movie, and besides just the amazing outfits, honestly, of the Martians, everyone in it has such a unique style to them

that is particularly that character, even no matter how big or small the character, like Christina Applegate, looking at her, you knew exactly who that person was because of her outfit. You knew Sarah Jessica Parker, the minute she steps on screen,

you're like, that's a fucking bitch. And that is, that's really, I think we try to talk about this a lot on, on this show. That is indicative of a director who understands an eye enough to go, I can delegate different portions of making this movie to the right people.

And you see that, with like Tarantino and Tim Burton, who have such a distinct style and look. Same thing with like, and Amy Hackerling, like bringing those costumes in. You can only create an environment with all of the moving parts working correctly.

And costume design is so big in making a world look. Yes. Or look the way you want it. Especially for camp like this is. Camp it needs to, everyone needs to be like almost a stereotype. Like it has to be so big and extra.

But it can, that can, teeter wrong so quickly in different directions and you have to really be able as a director part of what your mythology becomes is all of the people you bring around you and being able to like have a good costume designer is important to Tim Burton's entire legacy. Because you think about especially with this movie, the colors like in the tops trading cards are so saturated. They are such distinct colors for each character that also ties into the rest of the world. There's a reason why Tim Burton is so attracted to Las Vegas. He's attracted to the colors.

He's attracted to the style of it. Same girl. So if you're going to have this whole movie be an homage to 1950s and 60s B movies, you're going to want those saturated colors for each character, but especially against the backdrop of sandy desert, it really gives it such a pop. And does actually really show the American landscape, which were just very loud people who like to take over nature. We're also thinking about the red dress in Beetlejuice and how you, like the second I say the red dress in Beetlejuice, you know exactly what I'm talking about. That pop.

I mean, just Beetlejuice's outfit in general. The black and white stripes and everything in that scene at the end, yeah, it's just, it's very important. So there's too many stars to name or to give the backstory to. I will just say Martin Short, Michael J. Fawkes. Tom Jones, who plays himself. Natalie Portman, Christina Applegate, we already mentioned, Pam Greer and Jack Black, who we also mentioned. Tom Jones, man.

And Danny DeVito. And Danny DeVito, of course, brought him back from Batman Returns. He played The Penguin and that with a small but incredibly fun part. I mean, everybody kind of has a small but incredibly fun part because it's an ensemble comedy. The only people who have big parts, really, are Jack Nicholson. Yes. Yeah. Oh, man.

So good. It's so fun to see Pam Greer, who we definitely have to have an episode on because she's iconic. She's fantastic. And so, yeah, so Burton chose Peter Suchitsky to be the director of cinematography after being heavily impressed by his work with David Cronenberg on such films as Naked Lunch in Butterfly and Dead Ringers. Peter Suchinsky is a British man who started out as a Clapper Boy at the age of 19th. I feel like you shouldn't call anybody that anymore. Hey, come here, a Clapper Boy. Yeah, clap for me, clapable.

It was like some kid It works like a Bordello or something At the age of 19 Like you know he like wipes him down at the end or something Yeah, yeah, yeah no he's the pinch hitter For the ones with the clap Oh yeah, exactly Make sure you know because of the clap

Or yeah, it steps in At the age of 19 He was a clapboard he had initial success Shooting the Colt hit Rocky Horror Picture Show And eventually it was the cinematographer For the Empire Strikes Back So we talk about him on that episode Of Woods in the Bruiser

The Martian Girl we already mentioned was played by Lisa Marie, and the wig used for the character involved two separate blonde wigs made with real human hair stitched together that was so heavy. Marie said, I have a scar from the wig. It was torture. I have a hole in my head from that damn wig. The way that she talks, she's like, I have a hole in my head from that wig. It was torture. It's just the way she talks about it.

I know, I'm sure that it wasn't fun. I'll give it to you. Well, it seems like you didn't necessarily have to fill it all up with hair. Couldn't you have just put like styrofoam in the middle or something? I don't know, but they didn't do that. It was made with like real human hair. And the wig designer lost it in a cab and they had to spend an extra $25,000 to get another one made. She lost it in a cab?

Yeah. Can you imagine that day when you realize you've lost that wig, like how much you should have your pants? The worst nightmare ever. And another little cool factoid about filming. They used footage from an actual controlled implosion of the landmark hotel and casino in Paradise Nevada for the assault on Vegas. So I do want to talk about this real quick because Tim Burton, and if you've ever looked into Tim Burton before, he really is obsessed with Las Vegas to the point that he did a whole

art installation in Vegas in the neon museum, which is also a part of Mars attacks, that shows the visual history of his collection and his studying of iconic signs for. from shuttered and remodeled casinos and hotels and stores and restaurants and businesses in Vegas. So this is what Tim Burton had set up. So he's always been obsessed because he also grew up in North Hollywood. So it's close enough for him to get to Vegas. And so when he found out that the landmark hotel was going to be actually demolished, he immediately knew that he was going to use that as the Galaxy Hotel.

So special effects technically could have accomplished the sequence. but since they were already demolishing it, then you have, and if you watch it, you can see how it comes down that it is actually. And think of also immediately, now that we know that he wanted to spend $200 million more on this movie than he was allowed, it makes sense.

And this is actually very intuitive to think, like, oh, no, then we don't even have to pay to have that made. Okay, great. Let's get over there. Let's record it real fast, and then plop it right into the movie because this is where, like, Tim Burton does, have to think on his feet that even though he's a huge movie maker at this time, it's still like,

how do we save as much money as possible? He even said about it, filming the demolition of the landmark hotel for Mars attacks was one of the most powerful moments of my life. Burton writes in his artist statement, which also recalls his childhood trips to the city. Because for him, Las Vegas is larger than life, colorful, shocking, charming, and strange, a place where everyday rules seem not to apply. Makes sense of why he, like, of all the places that they had to get rid of in making Mars attacks, like Holden had said originally, there were supposed to be attacks all over the world.

He had to include Vegas in this. Of course. Yeah. And honestly, a lot of those attacks to mirror, like a lot of the cut attacks mirror the attacks of Independence Day, which we will get into. I also do want to bring up the fact. And I always wondered if this was true. And yes, it is, that.

The Martians go to the town of Perump in Nevada. Oh, yeah. Perump is the residence of Art Bell, the author and radio show host of Coast to Coast AM. And that was done completely on purpose. It was a little bit of an inside joke to go to Art Bell's hometown and have it destroyed by aliens. Nerd out. Nerd. So let's get into the visual effects because this really is.

such a fundamental element of this film. It is this bizarre bridge between stop motion and computer generated animation and effects. And it was actually done by industrial light and magic. But this is how we get there. In 1996, digital visual effects, they were having a huge year in film. Independence Day, Twister, another big one. It was starting to be like, oh, we can insert computer graphics into live action film, make it look realistic. And it did like,

it did the first thing that we did. Another cow. Jackie, I'm just looking at your face trying to figure out what you're doing to say. I know I'm doing cow to the cow. And it was another cow. There was a lot, man, there's a lot of cow abuse in all these movies because the first scene in this is all the cows are fired.

He's calling a moose. Don't, don't call it. It wasn't the time during the 90s was whenever they were able to sort of get these bigger effects in there. with digital stuff. And the first thing we want to do as human beings is watch the planet burn in a million different ways. So there was just nothing but natural disaster movies for like 10 years straight.

I love them. Or alien disaster movies. Anything that destroys the planet. Yeah. Just seeing the planet be completely destroyed. And they, of course, do more of that in this film. Initially, Burton wanted stop motion like he had done previously for films like Beetlechuse and, quote, wanted to make the special effects look cheap and purposely fake looking

as possible. Of course, again, paying a moment. homage to those old goofy B-movies, sci-fi films. And so he had a man named Barry Purvis pulled together a team of 70 animators to compile test footage, which was halted when the budget was projected at $100 million. So he started all of this before he got the budget. He's like, okay, okay, okay. I'm just going to start it because this is what I wanted to.

I wanted to be stop animation. I'm just going to start it now. But no, no, no, it's in Burton. You really thought you were going to get the $260 million, didn't you? You really thought you were going to get it. So producer Larry J. Franco then had the effects company Industrial Light and Magic

create a series of tests that changed his mind. Franco was just coming off of the success of the film Jumanji, which I loved. I loved it. And one of the annoying issues with the stop motion

was that the Martians wore helmets. So you had to take the helmet off, change the expression, and then put it back on to shoot every single shot. So Visual Effects Supervisor at ILM Jim Mitchell wanted to solve problem using CG and just created a test on his own accord.

They animated this very short scene using an effect shot from Jumanji and just replaced an elephant that was running through the town with these Martians and a spaceship landing and them trying to like get like car parts off of a car. And you can actually watch this footage. It's online. I'm pulling a lot of this from this really great comprehensive breakdown with industrial light magic about how they got the different effects shots and stuff. And also again and again you see with all of these people,

that have worked with him, and even though everything keeps changing for Tim Burton and what he wanted, what I enjoy that I've seen some other directors not do it this way is that every change that happened, Tim Burton flowed with it. He immediately was like, okay, okay, all right, this isn't working. Okay, cool, I trust you and you should do that. I think that sounds great. He even said, it sure was a trip. It really was a challenge to figure out how to bring them to life and give the illusion that they truly exist because they definitely have a real nature. They're like anarchistic kids you can't understand. You don't really know what they want and there is really no clear motivation for their behavior. The Martians are just like bad hyperactive teens. So even through all of this and all

of these changing and he had said this in the middle of them trying to figure out exactly what the Martians were going to look like, he was just still excited about the journey of making them, even though it wasn't what he wanted at first. He's really good at changing. Yeah, which is a mark of a good director, because a lot of directors won't do that. David Andrews said, Tim didn't want it to look animated.

He wanted it to look photo real, so people would feel a war of the world's vibe. And what's interesting is, you'll notice in the credits, I'm given a visual effects supervisor credit as opposed to like an animator credit. Right. Because Tim didn't want it known

that there was animation in this movie. He wanted to pull a sleight of hand with these Martians. So the main trick was to give the CGI a stop motion feel in subtle ways while still having more advanced CGI elements present such as motion blur so that it had this kind of mix between the two. So using the models they already created by the stop motion team including the ambassador, the emperor and several Martians in green space suits as well as a dozen bikini-clad Martians, they scanned them into the computer.

And yeah, right, because before they get their spacesuit put on, they're just wearing speedos. bodies. It's so weird. It kind of looked like Henry actually, a little bit. A little bit. Yeah, what he wears his tinies. I call him as tinies.

Jim Mitchell said one of the biggest issues we had to deal with was that the detail and intricacy of the brains of the Martians was quite tricky. That was all done strictly in view paint, our 3D painting system. And I have a couple other quotes like this, but I'll just say, this is a really interesting time for industrial light and magic. Like, they're just starting to figure things out. There's even another one with a, liquid. They're like, we didn't have like a liquid sim.

Right. Like something that simulated that. We had to just figure out how to do that. And a lot of times they were doing things by hand, like with this visual painting thing that they were doing. They even had 27 technical directors to generate the texture and lighting effects for each frame. 27 people just for each frame to have the proper texture and lighting. They are, like you said, figuring this out of how they're going to make many more movies to come. But I think this is really a good time and something maybe I wish we would go back to a little bit more.

Maybe we are now, but there was a period where when CG became a thing, everything just became this like globby, like all kind of flat shit that doesn't hold up when technology changes. And I think even watching it this week, the aliens hold up pretty well because they had all of these elements combined together. and I think that's the best use of CG. I think people overuse it all the time and it makes shit look bad, especially as like the way screens change, it makes it look even worse on new technology. So it's like you need some of those real elements in there

to make it hold up over the time. I completely agree. I think that that was proven especially true with, because I think they took it too far after this point before the Lord of the Rings trilogy. And then Lord of the Rings trilogy was like, why don't we compile? actual models

actual like actual you know mocap stuff with this layer of CGI and we're gonna put it all together

and then it comes to life but when it's just CG then it becomes just not no good you know

I'd rather see a cartoon than that at that point just full on animated yeah you know so yeah so David Andrews said I think the essence

of the Martian animation was comic timing from my point of view it was about casting Take, for example, the scene of the Martian at Congress. You want somebody in there who can pretend that they're this leader, right? And so my animation lead was Jen Imberley. The aliens are assholes, man.

They were. They were. They were much fucking little shirks. So my animation lead was Jen Imberley, and she's diminutive. And so she could play a little Napoleon. It's not like it was totally casting, but the Martians just a little bit, you know. She can command her status even though she's small. So they got actual people in there to,

To perform, to act. And we're basing off that. Again, such a better move than just animating fully from scratch. David Andrews also said the reference that we used on the eyes and on the head movements was birds. I thought birds are obviously lighter than we are. And boy, can they ever crank their heads around and move their eyes around. So let's make them bird-like or reptile-like because that'll make them freakyer, which I think is a lot of funny fun knowing that, watching them being like, yeah, they're so totally birds.

It makes so much sense. They're huge round eyeballs. Yeah. Yeah. And this was where I was talking about the liquid sim. A much more complex issue for them was the exploding brains. They had to, like, they didn't have a liquid simulation at ILM yet. So they had to use what resources they had to pull it off like a kind of a magic trick

that incorporated hand animations and a particle sim they were working with. And just this bizarre. And this stuff, I'm like saying this stuff out loud and not fully understand what that is, how they took hand animations. and something called a particle sim to create. And I was looking for it because I had done this research before I watched the movie again. And I was really looking for that. And those blowing up brains look great.

Yeah, they do. They look great. And also it's the same with I never really paid attention to the opening sequence before. The opening sequence is amazing. But they took them so much time to do. It's really cool. That was actually done by Warner Digital Studios. They had a small hand in this too.

They essentially did everything that didn't involve Martians. Yes. So the flying saucer shots, the giant robot sequence, a lot of Vegas stuff. Yeah, that was all them. And that was like a newly established studio. And I think they knocked it out of the park. Yeah. Super cool.

Yeah, as well as that, as well as that opening. And yeah, they used, they also borrowed, what's cool is that they had this whole wing, this whole like, or this whole like part of the pre-production process where they did all this stop motion work. and they used like all of it. They used sets built by that stop motion team. They had to. They didn't have much of a choice. They were running out of money.

Yeah, completely. But that was what was so cool. They got this like photo realistic look and the backgrounds of the spaceship. And it just felt, it felt cheesy B movie, but also at the same time, like really future forward. And that I think maybe that there is sort of an example of what happened to Burton later on in what happens to a lot of directors,

which is when you're given an endless budget, you start just like, you start rolling too much into everything that you, like you had that stop motion. Maybe it wasn't what you wanted exactly, but then you make it work instead of going, we'll shoot all this and then maybe we'll just make it all digital, which is stuff that happens.

Like that's what happened with I Am Legend, that movie, that Will Smith movie, where they had shot the entire movie with humans as the creatures. And then they cut everything out and made them all those digital things and it looks really stupid. and it would have looked a lot cooler with just people because they had too much money on their set.

Totally. It's always these struggles, these limitations that make for much more interesting work. Because you've got to figure it out. You've got to think on your feet. Such as the limitation of the head swap scene. Jim Mitchell said trying to put a full-scale human into a miniature spaceship

along with a CG dog body attached to a real-life human head was pretty tricky. It was also tricky to put the bloody neck stump of Sarah Jessica Parker's head onto the chihuahua, which was actually Tim's chihuahua that was used for the show. Yeah, it was actually...

Oh my God. It was actually Tim Burton's little chihuahua that they used and that is a cutie chihuahua too. So yeah, that's all I have on the visual, on the special effects. I just think all that stuff's fascinating. There's so much more to read about. Just check out this article that Industrial Light and Magic did. I think with a quick

Google you'll find it. And it's really cool. They fully break down the process and they show a lot of test footage which really accompanies it. interesting. It's very, very cool. Are you ready to talk about the axe? Jackie? Are you meaning that the actual, what they did was use reverse duck quacks for them? I thought you're going to say they used to Kathy. No, I mean, yeah. Well, yeah, they kept all the chocolate away from the Martians and then, man, they just let them go ham out there.

Hack. Give them their coffee. So Tim Burton said, we did a storyboard reel using a cheap tape recorder and we don't even remember who did it. Somebody just said, yack, yak, yak, yak. When it came time for the Martians to speak. However. However. However.

Apparently, Jems, the screenwriter, had never given the Martians any actual dialogue, obviously. Actual. And just wrote AC in as a replacement for them to figure this out later. So that's what Tim Burton said happened. But also, two of the film's uncredited screenwriters,

Scott Alexander and Larry Kerasuski. Writer of Ed Wood. Yes. Believe that they devised the particular sound effect with Nari a recorder in sight. So they had put, they just started the pair claims that the act, act, act, schick was their idea. And Kerasuski said it was all us. Because supposedly when Jem's script often called for aliens to talk, he didn't have

anything else to put. So that's when Alexander wrote in the axe in the script, which that's where they claim it came from. Karazuski said, we didn't know Tim was just going to take that and use it, which also really does lead into hand in hand. Another part of this script that we must discuss that apparently Tim Burton took from someone else, but claims that he didn't. And yes, we are talking about the entire end of the movie, referring to how the Martians die every time Slim Whitman is played. It's weirdly coincidental.

I will give him that. I don't think Burton necessarily stole from him. I could believe a situation where Burton listened to that episode in his car one day, completely forgot all about it and then just subconsciously, you know, or actually gems. Wait, what are we, what's happening? So we're talking about, so, you know, in the end, Slim Whitman's yodling is what kills the Martians. But Howard Stern claims that in 1982 he had done a sketch with an almost identical premise for the New York station WNBC.

WNBC. The title of Stern's bit, Slim Whitman versus the midget aliens from Mars. Years later, when he got around to watching Mars attacks, Stern couldn't resist pointing out the similarities on the air. And during a subsequent interview with Burton for the Howard Stern show, he raised the subject again. I wouldn't sue you because I love you too much, Stern said,

but I don't think it's a coincidence. Burton, for his part, called the parallels surreal and noted that something about Slim's voice is very sonic. Weird. How weird is that specifically that artist? I mean, that is crazy. Holden, I think you could be accurate in saying that somehow that information was transmitted through Tim Burton, even if somebody mentioned it one time or he heard it.

That seems like too much of a synchronicity to me. I feel like that's how a lot of comedy stuff gets quote unquote stolen. Right, exactly. It's just a part of in the, that sometimes that you may have heard of it or may, or somewhere in your brain it exists. Because apparently this also happens again in Planet of the Apes. When in the end of Planet of the Apes, they have a, a chimpanzee Abraham Lincoln. And apparently that was-

I thought of that when I was five years old in the sandbox. I was like, what if it was a monkey? That also, that image was used in a Kevin Smith comic. book. Now, Tim Burton famously does not read comic books. And so when Kevin Smith called him out for it and playing me the apes, Tim Burton's like,

I don't read comic books. And then Kevin Smith replied, yeah, we noticed we all saw Batman, which is a shitty thing to say. Whatever, Batman's great. Tim Burne Batman's great. I know, by the way. What the fuck you're talking about? Yeah, I know. It's great. There's like, of all the things, Kevin Smith, come on. Guys.

Come on, Kevin Smith. Whatever. Whatever with that. you go to whatever jail. Whatever jail for that. But who's not in whatever jail? The maker of the score of this movie, Danny Elfman. Danny Elfman. It makes so anytime I see Danny Elfman's name on something, I'm like, of course is Danny Elfman.

Why would I think that it wasn't Danny Elfman? Yeah, especially when it comes to Tim Burton. But actually, this was them resolving a feud to make this movie. They were not talking to each other for a while. What was the cause of the feud again? So they were working together on the nightmare before Christmas. The nightmare before Christmas was a two and a half year project. And in between, while working on it, Danny Elfman also did Batman Returns.

So all of that was a lot of weight put on Danny Elfman and it put a huge strain on their relationship. And one time Tim Burton farted on set and said, it was Danny Elfman to everybody. That would make so much sense because Danny Elfman's a stink. He's a stinky oingo, boingo. That's why they say oingo, point go, because that's that's. the sound to his farts make. That's right. But he said, Danny Elthin said, I really felt like I had lost a sibling after the incident.

So Danny Elfman didn't work on Ed Wood with Tim Burton, which is the movie right before this. But then they made up, and a couple of years later, and Danny Elfman said, we just got together and said, let's just never speak of it. And everything's been lovely since. They said, as two very thin, strange. looking white men, we have to stick together. Yes. They also make beautiful magic together. Again,

the opening sequence. They do. The use of the theramen, which to me is just, I'm throwing it out there. The theramen is one of my favorite instruments. Yeah. Oh, you mean the pherom ferriman invented by Russian scientist Leon Therriman, which consists of two metal antennas, that sense the position of the player's

hands, which changes the sound's frequency and volume. Yes, in fact, maybe throughout the 1950s film composers embraced the oral gadget as a perfect mood center for science fiction and horror pictures. Funny that Elfman would later say the goal was to invoke the 50s the sci-fi sound that Tim and I both grew up on. Whoa, due to its usage in such movies as the day the Earth stood still, and the thing

from another world, the public came to a soapy-eight theremins with stories about extraterrestrial visitors. Elthman deliberately capitalized on this by using said instrument as a key component of the ominous alien March theme and the Mars attack scores. Oh my God, that was frightening. Both of you got red-faced. You got, look like you were dictators. So that covers the score.

So Jackie, you wanted to spend a little time talking about the weird relationship that this film has with Independence Day before we talk about how, which relates to that, how it was a giant box office bomb. I need to get this across because I watched Independence Day for Fourth of July and then I watched Mars attacks for this episode. And I have never thought about this before, and it actually blew my mind. It literally blew my mind. My mind is gone. I got slim women. La la la. That Independence Day was supposed to be put out head to head with Mars attacks.

But Independence Day actually owes its title and part of its premise to Mars attacks. So you remember, so 1986, Independence Day comes out on 4th of July. weekend. Mars attacks comes out later on in the year. So while Tim Burton was working on Mars attacks, Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich were writing in an alien invasion movie of their own. But theirs has a much more serious tone, obviously. The duo both knew that both pictures would be released at some point in the summer of 1996. And Emmerlick said, I said to Dean, we can't do our film after a parody comes out. We had to beat Burton to it. So if it came out on 4th of July weekend, we could beat Mars attacks, which was coming out originally at this point in August.

So we wrote the concept of Independence Day around the release date. Dean said, let's just call it Independence Day for now. We can come up with something better later. And so if you, because I'm watching Independence Day again, knowing that it was originally written not as a movie about Independence Day, isn't this such a brilliant marketing tool that they put the name Independence Day on it, they put it out on Fourth of July, and I don't know about y'all,

but I watch it every single year because of the Fourth of July, and it makes so much sense. And part of the reason why Mars attacks flops is because then people are looking at Independence Day and they're looking at Mars Attacks, and they're like, well, Mars Attack's supposed to be the comedy version of Independence Day.

Independence Day is the drama version of Mars Attacks. So they didn't like what they saw when they went in to go watch Mars Atax because they thought it was supposed to be an over-the-top comedy, which it is not. It is an homage to be movie sci-fis. And it just makes so much sense. One movie takes it seriously, the other one doesn't. And people constantly are comparing the two. And even a lot of people say both films are hybrids of vintage genre fare, drive-in-ready alien invasion spectaculars crossed with the star-studded Irwin Allen disaster films of the same. 70s, both include the on-screen destruction of landmarks across the world.

Both center on beleaguered American presidents who find themselves increasingly overwhelmed. There's a lot of Americana propaganda in both of them, sincerely. Yes, both features a crooner in a supporting role. We've got Harry Connick Jr. in Independence Day. We've got Tom Jones and Mars attacks. But they are two separate, complete movies. Both have white trash heroes who die in the movies. Yes. Just kill.

people off. And so no wonder people went into Mars attacks thinking that it was going to be something very different than it actually was because they just were already in the mood for the anti-independence day and that's not what they got. Although I guess it kind of is because everybody dies. Yeah. Yeah. But you know, it found its audience over the years. Definitely became more of a cult hit as the years went on. But with a combined marketing and production budget of $100 million. The film made a worldwide total of 101.3 million. Yikes. That's VVBad. VVB. Yes, that sucks. Yeah. No Oscar nominations, no Golden Globes, no BAFTAs.

It was nominated, though, for some big sci-fi awards. The Saturn Awards. The Saturn Awards. So we've won multiple Saturn Awards. It won multiple Hugo Awards, which, and also honors sci-fi movies. It won some MTV movie awards, which we know. That goes to the top of the list.

Best online kiss and best penis suck. I think that style of that tongue-in-cheek, self-awareness, was a little ahead of its time. Yeah. I think people would have appreciated it more now. And the like black comedy of just incinerating people left and right, I think it's a lot funnier than it was maybe in the 90s. And also it is kind of fun that early,

this year, Warner Brothers might be redoing a sequel of Mars attacks with Tim Burton. And it would be a modern day remake of the original. Is it going to be over Zoom? Our lives, our nightmare. Is there actually still talks about the sequel? There are still talks of the sequel. And I do want to leave it in this fun little quote. from Tim Burton.

Tim Burton was asked about what the aliens meant in the movie. The question was, isn't your intention to say that, in a way, we are the alien? We have our enemy within us. And Tim Burton's response was, in a way, yes. The Martians are symbols for different ideas and mainly the idea that things aren't necessarily what they seem and that some things maybe are. But we can't figure them out. I think it's always overly pretentious and worthless to try to protect.

tend to understand and know everything. And this movie is a little bit of an allegory of that concept. The question is not whether the Martians are good or bad and what are their motivations. The question becomes what kind of human beings are we under such pressure? Are we willing to sell out our friends and family? Are we cowards for trying to avoid the fight? What are we? I believe that it is in such times of high pressure and stress that you get to the heart of

your soul and you face your demons. Sometimes the enemy isn't the aliens or your neighbors or your family. Sometimes we are our own enemy. Very relevant to right now in society. I know. Yeah, for sure. Love it. All right.

That's our episode on Mars attacks. Thank you so much for joining us. If you'd like to support us further, patreon.com forward slash page 7 podcast is just $5 a month for tons of bonus content. At least a bonus episode a week, but it's definitely more than that at this point. Check out me, Twitch.tv.tv. Holdenaders ho.

I do a live stream with Jackie every Friday night called Jackanese. Come in and say hello. Natalie. Uh, the Natty Jean on all the things. And we are also at page 7 LPN. And my name is Jackie Zabrowski. Follow me on Instagram at Jack That Worm. I love you guys so much.

Thank you for joining us today. And go watch Mars attacks and have a smile. Yeah, have a smile. Love you guys. Bye. Take care. Bye, everybody. This show is made possible by listeners like you.

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