Sardonicast - Sardonicast 136: Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, Shazam! Fury of the Gods, The Prince of Egypt

Episode Date: April 18, 2023

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Three, two, one, who is your favorite fearless hero? Obviously, the answer is Adam from your movie sucks. This is Sardincast. Hello, everybody. We've got someone else here. Hello. Yeah, my answer would be Black Adam. Ooh.

Yeah, huh? I'm Alex from R. H.E. And no Ralph today. No Ralph, I'm afraid. It happens. Yeah, it happens to the best of us. Scheduling conflicts and all that. It's cool that the Rock saved the DC universe is what I've been hearing.

Definitely didn't let me cap it. Saved. Well, from what I've seen, he's destroyed it single-handed. Yeah. So we're seeing different. Yeah. It's funny how everyone's throwing him under the bus now. Now, everybody's trying to look at someone to blame for something that, like, did they announce

that they were restructuring after the release of Black, Adam or what? Like, was Black Adam even a part of that? I'm pretty sure it was, I'm pretty sure Black Adam had been around for like a month or two, right? It'd been out. It'd been released. That story was over. Yeah. So if anybody's confused, the Rock refused to have Zachary Levi, I think, in a post-credit scene with him for Black Adam because he's like, no, I'm the star. You can't have like another superhero. Yeah. Yeah. This gets like insanely confusing because it's like, it's already. a big thing of like comic books to have like crossover events and all this stuff so then but then you get into the specific like politics of each movie and like the beefing of the actors and yeah so i guess like the rock because he idolizes Superman above everything would not budge on yeah showing up or having shazam be a part of black adam even though i think we talked about this on a previous episode like Black Adam is Shazam's like main villain so that's there's just something really like egotistical about that

I don't really yeah that I forgot about that yeah that's weird to not yeah in the context of the comics then okay I didn't even consider that recently because I forgot about it because I just don't give a shit about these things yeah well and that's the thing no one actually gives a shit about Shazam and Black Adam you know like it's not like their Superman or Spider-Man there's like a couple fans out there that are so hurt that you said that. No, man.

We've got to be real at a certain point. Like, it's Shazam. It's not a house. It's not a household name. It's like, why are you having such an egotistical ownership over a villain that, like, people don't even really know, you know? It is, it is amusing just what fame can do to a person. And just, you know, like, just how do you become that much?

of a narcissist. Yeah. I think it just changes you into a different being. Yeah. You're just no longer, you can no longer exist in the real world. You're just something else. I think it's a combination of him being the highest paid actor in Hollywood and him only really just raising his eyebrow as acting. You know?

There's a bit of like, it's not from his talent. So you have to create stories in your hands. create stories in your head about how you're the best probably like maybe I'm just over-analyzing but I think if he was a more talented actor then he might not have to put up those weird like psychological no because it seems to it seems like he justifies his like acting prowess with the success of his movies you know he loves flaunting the numbers and that's why especially like when a movie doesn't do how it was projected to do you get so extra sensitive about it yeah Baywatch or bragging about how

that giant ape movie rampage is like the number one video game movie of all time and then make it like coping about Black Adam it's like yeah there is like something quite insecure despite despite this image is putting out there yeah it's so weird because you think that like if you're at the

very top you wouldn't be so insecure but then you just I don't know you look at someone like Elon basket it's like oh yeah maybe that's just part of the course yeah how does this happen Like, it's difficult to empathize with. Yeah, I thought I was in Crazy Town with The Rock. Like, I've always felt that way about him.

Like, he's not, like, good in any of these movies. I didn't really understand why he's, like, a big movie style. Like, you know, with your Tom Cruise's or whatever, I get it a bit more. You know, there's like a catalog of films you can point to. But here with him, it's only recently it started to seem to kind of turn around because he's just what he's just, he's memed as the guy. He's in jungle movies. Yeah.

That's his niche. they just keep doing it it's so weird I wonder like I wonder how much of that sort of thing happening is an intentional type casting

like oh this movie was successful let's also have him in the jungle or if it just naturally happens that way because you know people people's brains just aren't as creative as they think they are yeah I guess he's inherently limited

with that whole like how strict they are with projects Like you don't want to be too villainous of a character. You don't want to do something too risky that might hurt your brand, your image. So yeah, maybe it's just like boxed him into these just carbon copy movies. Yeah. Puss in Boots was a film that we watched. Oh, yeah.

How did you like it? This was a surprise for me. I don't know, Dreamworks has been okay as of late, like the bad guys and whatnot. It was, it was all right. It was cool. But this, like, that's what was notable about that movie. It was like visually like something a little bit different, kind of aping this spider verse kind of, oh, we're allowed to be crazy and way more cartoony and not limited by the gross, horrible DreamWorks curse from the kind of monsters versus aliens era. Yeah.

Where just everything is grotesque and has to be like, photorealistic is what we're going for. And all the texts just have to be real. And it's none of that anymore. Now we're like confident to have these crazy. powerful animated movies again and yeah inspired versus stead and yeah what it what an awesome creative like fun return to this like Shrek universe so this is just an improvement in every way on that that previous Puss movie like found like an angle to explore like yeah what a surprise I just don't even want to acknowledge that other

Puss and Boots movie you know I'm glad they didn't call it Puss and Boots too yeah I'm glad that no one, you know, like, if someone doesn't know that the first one exists, that's probably for the better. Because then otherwise you might feel obligated, like, oh, I won't know what's happening in the story. But it's, it's not really related. It doesn't really matter. You don't need to watch the first one. No. It might actually just make your experience worse because you've seen something so good from The Last Wish and then go back and it'll be like, oh, like, this sucks in comparison. Yeah. Yeah, this adds nothing. Depending on the order you watch it in, I guess. Yeah.

It might make the last wish even better if you watch the other one first. Yeah. I don't know. It wasn't that sold on it from the way it was advertised in the trailers and whatnot because obviously, yeah, it didn't look that great. And they were like playing up like the comic relief character and yeah, I just didn't know what was going for. But then I saw after it was released like on Twitter, someone was sharing that it's like an action scene towards the beginning of the movie, like a rooftop action scene that's like a attack on tie. and more than anything. Yeah.

Like, pus like bounding around it. So, oh, this is, this is different. Like, there's,

there's absolutely nothing even remotely close to that in that, uh, previous Puss and Boots movie. Yeah. But yeah, it seems to have completely reinvented itself and it's like, has this huge fandom now and this, this,

this wolf character everyone's, uh, Oh, yeah. Uh, obsessed weird. All the furies want to fuck the wolf. Yeah,

exactly. Uh, but yeah, there's, there's more than one great character in addition. And even that, let's, That Chihuahua character I was kind of worried about from the advertising and the marketing.

I figured that would be the like, yeah, that's the baby character that like brings the tone down and keeps it. So there's just kind of a constant reminder of the annoying like kiddiness. But like the comedy, the comedy really like holds it all together. It's like it's genuinely like funny and witty kind of in the way those original Shrek movies were. But in a little bit of a different way. And even with that character existing, I think that I was surprised that the, the kind of heart elements of the film, like the, something that would normally be perceived as sappy if it was just not handled

correctly, it managed to fit itself in well with the movie and with the characters. And yeah, it didn't feel inappropriate. And it actually hit those emotional beats pretty well. Yeah, they did some, like,

unexpected stuff with, um, like they gave post like anxiety and then like, really leaned into that and like display it in one of the more like accurate ways I've seen like panic attacks and things like this depicted in a movie before yeah and the way that they like handle that

and it doesn't like overpower anything or feel like forced it like it all makes sense and feeds into like Pusses-Arck in the movie where he's like he's running away yeah from yeah this like inner conflict basically he's exploring and his final life I really like that montage towards the beginning where it's like going through all of his, the times he's died

at that kind of edge to it. Yeah, it was like really likable and charming and like, yeah, bring it back that kind of early 2000's edge that like that Shrek universe was kind of known for. Yeah, yeah. There was some kind of fun edgy moments. Like all those censor bleeps were kind of just a fun thing to add to the movie. Yeah, not expecting stuff like that. Yeah, you don't expect it in the context of a movie.

that's presumably for kids. You know, it does bring a little extra fun humor to it that just doesn't feel infantilizing. Yeah, the animation style and not just the like textures,

just being kind of like, I guess, lower, what's the word? Lower detail than usual. Like there is an element of it where it's like, okay, well, you can save maybe a bit of money based on how you present the film, right?

if you don't do it in like a traditional just like, oh, this is Pixar. We're trying to compete with Pixar sort of movies, right? So there is a financial element to it. But as long as you're conscious of the style and as long as you're utilizing it in the correct way, like the frame rate and how especially it's used in the action scenes and there's like those speed lines or motion lines, I don't know what the actual term is for it, but you know what I'm talking about. and I think the one element of it that I didn't see as many people talking about,

but it's very apparent for me and very important to the film for me, is the use of color. All the scenes are very colorful. There's like entirely different palettes for each setting, and it's always kind of changing and going somewhere new, and it's just all these, it's, I love the way that everything visually looks in terms of like a palette.

Yeah, really great lighting and use. of color especially. It's very, very aesthetically pleasing. Yeah, that's what was so painful about the whole, like, dedication to the photorealism that was kind of, we're only just escaping from the past. Yeah. 10, 15 years where it's like, man, you can do so much more. Yeah, with the color, with, just breaking things down.

Like, I have seen a couple complaints about the kind of frame rate change stuff. But personally, I love that, especially when it does come to action because it just highlights kind of weight and motion in a particular way. I find really kind of... What are the complaints? Just that, like, in action scenes, when the frame rate is changing, you know, just like in spite of Earth or just like in, yeah, the more crazy scenes in this movie where it is fluctuating. I don't see why that's an issue personally, because I think it just stylistically makes sense and flows well.

Here's the thing with the frame rates changing in the action scenes is from what I understand in this movie, it's not the base frame rate of the actual product that you're seeing like the the camera's frame rate doesn't change it's just specific characters within the frame rate that are changing unlike avatar where it seemed like the entire yeah like like no stylistic thing exported a project and then separate scenes were exported at a different frame rate that was fucking distracting that was like okay what's happening like i was way too consciously aware of that where Whereas in Puss and Boots, it was, it was complementing, not only, it was complimenting certain scenes because it was being used consistently in the context of those scenes, like specifically with action. And also, the entire frame rate wasn't changing. It was just certain, it was certain elements of what you're seeing on screen having the frame rate change, right? It just, it wasn't distracting to me, and I wasn't really being fully conscious of it as I was watching it. It's just one of those things that, like, you know, I wind up trying to think more about after the

because it's something that worked well. Not, oops, you're reminding me it's a movie and I can't get into it and why is this happening? Like, I didn't find myself confused by any of it, like, Avatar 2. Yeah, it seems so intentionally stylistic and not in the way that like James Cameron is trying to justify that 60 frame fluctuation thing as a stylistic thing. Like it does just straight up change the way, like, you have to rely on slow motion or other types of tricks if you're waiting the character this way. And it's what, like, animation allows you. to do and again it's probably something they they're aping a little bit from spider verse whatever they did the exact same thing that was like another intentional stylistic choice where they

animated miles i think at half the frame rate as like other characters to kind of highlight you know how he's learning how he's not really put together it makes him a bit more shuddery and yeah so yeah that was one of the things i actually liked about it i think the wackier and crazier There are more, the less things holding them back, especially in these animated movies, the happier I am altogether. Because I think you were saying in one of your recent videos where these, especially these like Disney slash Pixar projects, they're like kind of blurring into this just like one mush of like characters kind of look the same. There's like, yeah, very similar kind of palettes. And yeah, that just gets so like boring and tiring after a while. I'm glad this is opening new doors and even, I don't know, I guess spoilers, but they were like teasing Shrek movies and stuff.

I don't know. I don't know what that was trying to say. They were just reminding us that they're in the same universe, I guess. I don't know. But like at the end, right, isn't there like a direct tease for like, it seems like they were going back to Shrek now. We're doing it everyone. It could happen. I have no idea what's going on.

Isn't there going to be like a Shrek remake? Like, what was the last news that? A Shrek remake. I thought they were doing like a Shrek sequel. I thought they were like rebooting it or some shit. They're doing a Shrek reboot. I don't know. I thought I heard some stupid shit like illuminations making Shrek now.

Like, it could have just been a dream. I don't know. That's probably just because I think Universal owns both of them, right? They own illumination and Dreamworks now. Mm-hmm. Really? great use of characters and just how they interact with each other and their dynamics. It doesn't feel, again, you were mentioning the, you know, comic relief character,

if that's what we want to call them. It doesn't feel unnecessary. It doesn't feel like thrown in. It feels like, oh, okay, you're a piece of the puzzle. You're a part of the product here, which is really nice. And I also want to mention the, there seems to be a difference in kind of how face. faces express themselves in this animation style compared to the other Shrek movies. It seems a bit like teetering on the edge of like exaggerated to the point where it might get like too goofy.

But I think it's just hitting that perfect sweet spot where you look at you look at the characters faces as they're being animated. And there's there is something a bit more. It's it's a bit. The dial is turned up in terms of the exaggerated names. nature of the facial expressions in like a specific look or a specific emotion but it works really well yeah it just kind of pops more but that might be yeah just a use of those colors as well like like with the just like how stark like the characters eyes are everyone has like yeah eyes that pop and just with the motion the way they frame everything like it yeah it does just pop way more especially

contrasting with those older dreamworks projects for sure yeah now here's the question would the next Shrek movie be in this style? I was just thinking that, because I can't really imagine it. I can't imagine them doing it as much as maybe I'd like to see it. The style really lends itself well to the main character being kind of like an action, fucking, you know, Zorro character, right? Yeah. That's a part of, like, the style lends itself to that.

But that's not what Shrek is. So, I don't know what you would do there. Yeah, but at the same time, yeah, would it be odd to just go back to the kind of photorealistic goo sludge? Like, maybe that would be like a fun way because they were, you know, the Shrek content farm was getting tired by the end there. Like they need something to mix up that franchise. Maybe something visual is what they need. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

So have you seen the trailer for the new teenage movie? Ninja Turtles thing? I have, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it kind of seems like Spider-Verse has changed the playing field a bit, and it seems like there's a lot of things now trying to kind of emulate that style, but being like, I guess, still distinct enough that it's not so the same, but...

Do you know what I'm saying? Yeah. Yeah. It's now becoming almost a trend. and when that happens, not everything that comes out is going to be pure. You're going to get some things that kind of missed the point. The Ninja Turtles movie might be one of them. We'll see.

I didn't really find the trailer to be that great. Yeah, I can feel it already becoming like a question of, oh, man, God, that didn't take long for that trend to start becoming just like, oh, it's just like a diamond dozen thing now. It's just, I know it's not really unique anymore. one bit. Yeah. We're getting superhero fatigue already, you know? Yeah. Finally, I guess. Cell-shaded CG fatigue. Yeah. So is Spider-Verse still your favorite if we're going to compare that in Puss and Boots? Out of these, yeah, I think so. I think, yeah, I think coming

after that, because it is so, it is definitely inspired by how kind of Frank that Spider-verse movie was and people just weren't expecting it at that time from that movie. I wasn't personally expecting really anything from that film. So it was kind of more surprising. But yeah, I just think the writing is better in that movie. In Spider-verse? It works. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, I think overall it's just better. Yeah, I like Puss and Bates a lot more. Yeah. I respect Spider-Verst a lot for its style. But yeah, just the whole thing didn't work as well for me. It's a weird. Yeah, it really is. I do have to shout out that comedy. though, like the timing of everything.

There's some really funny characters. Like, going back to the, what made Shrek so funny, where it was, like, parodying Disney slash these fairy tales and just bringing out these random characters, like that Jack Horner, who John Mullaney plays. Like, I wasn't sure, like, where they were going to take that, but that he winds up being one of the funnier characters.

Just what they do with him is, yeah, it's got, like, a good ensemble. Yeah. Yeah, it's just really surprised by how good and put together it was and just yeah nice and brief and yeah just wouldn't want anything more or less I'm glad that he wasn't the only real villain sort of thing I'm you know in concept you would almost expect like oh this would get too bloated like spider man three ramey sort of thing um but each villain kind of serves its purpose in this movie and I like that we got one that was you know for comedic

effect and even though they were like kind of a threat you don't really take them too seriously, they're kind of pathetic. But then like, death wolf is just like, okay, that's actually kind of scary. Like, there's, there's some real consequences here. There's implied danger and fear. Like, the lighting and color and the sound design going into those scenes is like, okay, it's actually trying to evoke some real emotion here. It's actually trying to make you feel like kind of scared, which is cool. I like movies that do that that aren't afraid to make people feel emotions. It's like, what's the fucking goal of art, right? Yeah, yeah. So many movies out there. are just fucking

pussies so they don't want to show them emotion oh we don't want the kids to get scared oh we don't we don't want you to feel bad if a character dies in like a fucking horror movie you gotta make you know I've talked about this shit all the time like what is the point of art

feel something I want to feel something and I'm glad that this movie wasn't afraid to do that so yeah that was yeah that was such a great character for that and for how little he's in the movie like the presence that character leaves is like man it's that great thing of like

Yeah, you're given just enough where it's like not too little, but you're left, like, wanting much more of it. But you don't necessarily like need it. Yeah. Yeah, who knows? It's one of those movies that's just like so good that I'm like, fuck, the sequel's going to suck, isn't it? What are they going to do from here? It's good enough to be successful that they're going to want to replicate that success. But I, you know, like the second Lego movie was kind of shit.

Right? Like, it's just not going to happen the same way. Yeah, true. Yeah, I remember nothing about it. Yeah. I can't remember anything about, yeah, $90 million budget grossing 475 worldwide. That's pretty good. The fact it's under 100 million now because, yeah, that was just kind of the standard budget

like in the 2010s for these. So it's weird to see it start finally going down, but then actually look better. Yeah, yeah. It's crazy how much money people spend making things look worse. Like, it happens all the time. It happens all the time where it's like, okay, that didn't need to be CG. That costs more money. It looks worse.

Fucking like M. Knight shooting his handheld home video shot by children found footage movie with like fucking red cameras and like huge rigs. Like you're making it look worse. It's less authentic, you asshole. Why are you spending more money making it look worse? I hate it. It just happens all the time. It's just a thing people do.

Yeah, it's like a real common pitfall in cinema for some reason, like getting lost down technology. Yeah. And just like, yeah, losing the plot down that. Yeah, losing the plot, exactly. Yeah, I really loved this movie that's best animated movie. Well, animated kids movie I've seen in a long, long time. I think, really.

Eight out of ten, great surprise. I'd watch it again in a heartbeat. It's got the 4K Bluroy, so maybe I will. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I'm right there with you. This is a high eight out of ten four star. Yeah, really surprised by this. Glad to see DreamWorks whip this one out.

Hopefully they can continue this momentum into their other projects. Although the trailer for their like, it's like a Little Mermaid parody or something. I don't know. It doesn't look as good as this, but yeah, check out. Oh, yeah. I forgot about that. Yeah.

That looks like shit. Oh, my God. Yeah, just like Disney, I guess they release a lot of projects like yearly, but not everyone was going to hit in the same way. Okay, sweet. we also saw Shazim. We were talking about The Rock. Maybe we should have talked about that one first.

It would have been a better segue, but whatever. Oh, yeah. Not bringing back. Yeah. Fury of the gods. Shism Fury of the Gods. Directed by our best friend, David F. Sandberg. Yeah.

Who's been on the podcast. Yeah. And you know, like, it's so weird. People are shitting on this movie really hard. And I don't think it's a bad movie. They are. I don't think it's a bad movie. I had a pretty positive experience of it.

I don't think it's bad, but I don't think it's really, like, good either, personally. Yeah, it just felt, I just kind of felt sorry for this movie. That was, like, my biggest takeaway. Like, it's been delayed, like, two or three times. All of DC has been announced to be being restructured, as we mentioned earlier. So, like, it doesn't even have that going for it, like, you know, at least these new MCU movies, they get the boost of, like, oh, it's the new one in that universe I care about.

This doesn't even really have that going for it. it. Yeah, it just, there was nothing about it that left me thinking, yeah, that was like, that was a good Shazam scene. That was making the most of this, like, dynamic they've been building on. It was basically, for me, elaborating on all of my least favorite parts of that original Shazam movie, which I quite liked. I had like a heart. It was cute. It kept the scale, like just right. I had like a menacing villain. But yeah, I just wasn't really feeling it with this one. I feel, I feel like it was getting bogged down with a lot of the, lot of the typical kind of sequelitis problems you'd expect from these big kind of bloated superhero

movies. Where do you feel like it is in terms of its place in DC films? You know? Yeah, that's a good question. This is a lot better than most DC films, for sure. And I enjoyed this more than a lot of Marvel films that I've watched, honestly. And I get that like in the grand scheme of things, like everybody's seen every superhero movie. Everybody's seen at least 20 superhero movies. And so we're at this weird part where like this weird point in time where people are finally getting superhero fatigue. And I think it is, you know, partially due to a combination of just how many people have

seen. And also, as you mentioned, they're restructuring the universe. And then this is also like kind of a sequel. It's not as strong as the first one. It's just, it's not a character. People will go and rush out to see anyway. Yeah. And it's, yeah, it's not a strong.

like property before the movies came out. And so it's trying to exist in this weird space where I do also feel bad for the movie. It's like, okay, this is, it's kind of got a handicap just trying to exist here. And also you can tell by watching it, you know, like there was a vision of what it wanted to be and other people came in and kind of were tweaking it

and being like, no, you know. So there's there's things. about it that worked, but definitely there's some micromanaging that came in from other. Oh, definitely, yeah. No, it is weird the way they placed it because, like, what Shazam was 2019. So, what, four years later, we're bringing out this sequel. And that original Shazam, $100 million budget, worldwide gross of $367 million. So it wasn't like it was the biggest movie.

So I don't really know what they were even anticipating by releasing this, especially so late. and then the way they did. Yeah. Yeah, this just really didn't move the needle. It just, and just from the beginning, it looked like it was just kind of being released to die. I think it's going on HBO Max in like a month or something. I think it's going to be on there in April already. Yeah, like, what did you like about this?

Because for me, like, the heart of it was, and the best part of that first movie, was the dynamic between Shazan, the main character and the kid with the crux. Like that was the heart to me. That was the best dynamic. Like when they're like working together, making their fun little like YouTube videos and that kind of candid thing, keeping it small scale like fun and really playing up that kid angle. But then yeah, here it's more,

it just seems more like a generic superhero affair. You know, it's like there's the bridge action scene at the beginning with the entourage of like six supermen flying around. And like I didn't really like the supporting. cast in that first movie is so like cartoony and just nothing to me. They weren't like enough of a foundation. They don't really get fleshed out or properly utilized in this film, despite them still existing as an ensemble.

That would be like one of my biggest criticisms is like you don't really feel like all the characters are necessary and there's a lot of them. You feel like most of them are kind of just hanging out. And it's like a movie that's over two hours. But so you say, you say like, okay, yeah, there's like the generic bridge. scene, you know, of like, okay, there are things for sure in this movie that are on the checklist of like, okay, we're creating a superhero film. But what I'd like to point out is all these other superhero movies that I've seen that I would

be able to like pluck out like, okay, another bridge scene from another movie, they take themselves a lot more seriously than this. And there's something about the tone and the way that the characters kind of handle themselves around these action scenes that I do connect with in the same way that I connected with the first Shazam movie. So, you know, even the, even the, you know, even the characters. though the first Shazam film exemplified a lot of these things a lot better, these things that I like, it was still there in this movie. It wasn't like completely absent where like the entire thing was

this serious like, oh, this is about the politics between Iron Man and Captain America and it's so important that they have the, like a lot of other superhero movies take themselves so seriously. And I felt like, I felt like this had a good tone where I wasn't feeling either infantilized or insulted, you know? And I, if, if we're talking about purely the plot and I guess my investment in what was happening in the universe, like the what happens in this film, it's not great. I don't care. Like, I don't care in any of the superhero movies that I watch, right? So I was, I was judging it more just, I guess the, uh, scene by scene experience I was having of whether or not I was entertained, whether or not I jelled with the humor. And I, I did.

for the most part, you know, like, I think that the movie was well shot. There's something about how the scenes are shot in this movie, especially compared to other superhero films, where there's something about, like, just the way that the camera kind of flows and moves. And it's not present in every scene. There are definitely scenes, especially some of the dialogue scenes where I'm like, okay, that was cut really short for no reason. But as I'm watching, I never got the impression, like, oh, yeah, that was like due to there not being enough footage in that scene. It really felt like just there's so many different people working on it. There's so many different pieces. There's so many different cogs.

And you can't really have a singular voice controlling all of these things just because of the nature of this huge budget superhero studio machine. And so I'm watching the film being like, oh, man, like the intent of that part was a bit better than how it came out, you know, like for certain parts. And I'm like, ah. And so it's, it's, it's all. almost difficult to judge at certain points, but I do feel like, I do really feel like a voice is still present in the film. And that's what I love about watching films is being able to

pick out a voice from the director and be able to see what they're offering in terms of their own style and personality. And I saw that. And even though there was bullshit in this movie, it shined through the bullshit. It shone? What's the fucking word? It shines through the bullshit in many scenes. You know, I was still able to feel it. I was still able to get it, and that's what I enjoyed about it. Okay. Yeah, because what you're describing and what you're saying right now just makes me think of that original movie.

That's how I felt about the first Shazam. It was like a bit of a surprise in this landscape of all these. Sorry, I didn't mean to do that. Yeah, yeah, exactly. But that's kind of my issue with this movie is that it doesn't really, to me, it doesn't excel in any space that would make it stand out in the just plethora of super-hero movies we've got, you know, like, yeah, does the jokes. It's got the kind of bit of self-aware reference humor, but like, it's not as funny as

Deadpool or the Guardians of the Galaxy movies to me. I would say it's funnier than Deadpool, but I kind of hate the humor in Deadpool. Yeah, I don't like Deadpool either, but I'm just thinking in terms of that, you know, you're kind of parodying the silliness of superheroes and prodding at it and the self-aware kind of dialogue. It wasn't obnoxious to me. It was notious to me. It was, there were like a couple attempts at humor in this movie that didn't gel with me,

but for the most part, there were some genuine laughs. There were some fun scenarios. Yeah, I'm just like, yeah, I'm so indifferent on that note specifically. Like I didn't find it like laugh at loud funny particularly, but I wasn't really annoyed. I was only really annoyed as far as that stuff's concerned with the, it's the thing just WB loves doing with their property. They just love referencing other WB properties,

referencing Lord of the Rings, referencing Game of Thrones, referencing just all this stuff they have characters in their own universe one it just gets really that's just like a pet peeve I have with this kind of content at this point but yeah but then that's another thing like just going beat by beat compared with that original Shazam movie I thought the villain was like just it was everything it needed to be in that versus Zahm movie like it wasn't deep but it did have like the peril aspect I had those what was it the they were like the seven deadly sins kind of like monsters or whatever that would like smoke that would go around and they yeah they're kind of creepy and horrifying yeah it was all it needed

to be but here we've got this kind of they're like these Greek goddess type characters who are like they're not like comic book characters apparently I know nothing about Shazam so I had to read about this after their original made up for this movie okay because I guess the the Shazam like character roster is not that's funny the biggest slash greatest so that they already jumped to this take it from a different superhero yeah I've got I've got a side know that this in here because I needed to ask if you knew this about this fucking character but Shazam like in the comics apparently his like best friend is a is a talking like tiger who walks around in a suit called Mr. Talky-Torny okay I have to look up miss how do you spell it Mr. Taki-Torny

look at look I put in the discord chat a link to like the search and you'll see I just thought I saw that like in the trivia Oh god that's spelled so weird T-A-W-K-Y T-A-W-N-Y Okay yeah Damn I've seen that image of the tiger drinking the cocktail

Damn I didn't know that's what it was from So it's like Yeah kind of puts in perspective The type of like character we're talking about Yeah wasted opportunity Yeah that's kind of the thing though It's like it's not leaning into that kind of That's his best friend in the comics

Is like in the comic all the time? Because there's a reference in Fury of the Gods to remember when the little girl saves like a kitten or nicks a kitten action scene. And she says it's called talky, tawny or something. Like as a reference to that character. That's the only recent game up on my mind. That sucks. That feels like a huge wasted opportunity. Damn what the fuck.

Like the tone of this movie? Like the CG talking tiger man? That makes me upset. That could be fucking sick. Yeah. But that's, yeah, that's kind of the thing that was like, it's not crazy enough. The villains, yeah, they got a bit of perilous intentions going on. They got the three sisters thing that kind of goes back and forward.

And again, though, it just kind of turns into the thing. All of these Super Bowl movies do, like the Black Adams or whatever, where it's, yeah, the villain uses some kind of device or Mcuffin to make the army of blank appear. And then it, like, scares people. and there's like a big fight this time the big fight is restrained to a a simpson's movie bubble over a certain area yeah i said i thought of that too it was like like a like a shrinking battle real circle i didn't love that as like a setting strangely pays too like the way the story kind of builds and flows by the time it kind of turns into and

settles into the the kind of climax being this big action set piece with the dragon it just I don't know it doesn't feel like there's enough going on there no the dragon isn't visually interesting enough the action scenes just are not they're not there they're not good enough all of all of the fun action I remember from shazam is when it's like utilizing the fact it is like a little kid in this body and the kind of fun hijinks and comedy that comes from that like him punching a dragon, like, there's, there's not that much, like, humor from that to me, you know? They even took out some of the awful dialogue they had, like, planned from the trailers relating to this kind of stuff where they clearly had to reel it back a bit with how

some of it was coming across. Yeah, I completely agree the ending scene. It's just, like, there's nothing to soak in there. the whole last like 15 minutes of the movie like that whole actions sequence is just like CG nonsense and I just didn't care about it but by that point it was like okay the movie's ending anyway it was just it was pretty close to the end at least it wasn't so gratuitous and stretched out to the point where I was like oh you know like I never found myself saying like get me out of here you know it does get gratuitous shortly after that though with

the, there's like a cameo scene, which I thought was like so bad and like such a insult to the movie. Oh, yeah? Oh, yeah? Yeah, I just, I don't, was that, I guess that was supposed to be the stand up and cheer. So that was in the trailer, like one of the trailers or something, but I didn't see that. So it was kind of a surprise to me. But yeah, I didn't, I've never seen the Wonder Woman movies. And so I just don't really have an opinion of the character.

I'm just kind of like, oh, okay, they're there. Uh, I just, I don't know, it, it seemed, it seemed like another thing that was just like, well, yeah, this is a superhero movie, you know? Yeah, I'd do that. There was like, there was like a, there was like a nice quaintness to that for Shazam movie. Like, there is like a cameo ending at the end where they show like Superman comes to the school, but they don't show his face. And it's like, like, that's the end joke, whereas this is way more. she's here everybody yeah we're gonna do a whole thing and it's gonna be a big yeah and she's gonna be the one who revives him and everything and it's like ah this is just too far good we're rebooting this this is

just too much this just does not work this doesn't make sense the way the way this is crossing over so you'll have wonder woman show up but you can't have shazam in other whatever who cares yeah yeah That is kind of funny. But again, like, this is more or less, you know, just kind of like the what happens in the film, which I don't weigh as much as the how it happens, I guess. By all metrics, what we're describing in terms of like, you know, Wonder Woman showing up and like all this like production troubles and just a lot of things that really bogged down the movie.

By all metrics, like any other movie we would see like this, the directing would be a lot worse. There would be somebody that would have showed up on set and gotten, frustrated by their lack of control in it, and they would have phoned the whole fucking thing in. But I love that I can watch this movie and still see that somebody actually kind of gave a shit. Despite all efforts to try and turn this into like a really shitty movie, somebody actually gave a shit, you know? I still see the voice there and I still see that somebody actually tried, which is refreshing when you see a movie like this that somebody didn't just like kind of give up halfway through filming. like you see a lot of the time

you know it wasn't it the directing was not phoned in I like that I can watch the movie and see that no it definitely seemed like the director was really into this and passionate about this but it seems like yeah the the strings and the studio clearly uh has something else in mind

yeah it like honestly this could have been so much worse just given all of the all of the issues that it has it seemed like something that you know, the way that we're describing parts of it, it seems like something that would just be an absolute disaster and maybe some people are treating it like that, but I just don't see it that way. I see it as something that is kind of, you know, falling apart at the seams in ways, but it's still

held together to some degree, even if there's, you know, the whole ending kind of sucks, but yeah, because what you asked earlier, like, where does this lie in the DCU? Because when I was looking at the trivia, it says it's the 20s. 12th film in the in the DCU. It's like, man, really? I don't know if I could even name those, but that's the thing that we have so many examples of these fucking films that it's like, yeah, this one, yeah, it's nowhere near the bottom as far as the worst that we've seen, but it's also just nowhere near the

top as far as the good ones in my mind. In the DC films, I think it's kind of close to the top. If we're talking about purely DC films, if we're just talking DC films, if we're just talking DC. It's pretty fucking close to the top. So it's weird to me that the conversations surrounding all of these other DC films, like, people were not shitting on Suicide Squad as hard when that was like day one release. Like people were fucking hyped over that shit, you know? Like, it took a while for people to admit that they didn't actually like suicide squad. And so when I'm looking at this in like the greater context of all these other DC films, it kind of feels weird that this one's

being particularly shit on when you look at what all of the, you look at what all of the, you know, the other movies are like, you know? Like, holy shit, we got Aquaman sequel coming out this year, don't we? Like, how the fuck is that going to have? It is weird, though, because, like, when you see people discussing, like, DC online, it's like the splintered, these splintered groups of, like, different DC fans or, like, arguing with each other, because there are people that, like, want that old suicide squad back and, like, hate the new James Gun one, and they want the Snyderverse back,

and they can't stand what the direction they're going. It's like just, I don't even know like what these DC fans want at a certain point, you know, like it's all this is screaming nonsense. Uh-huh. Yeah. No,

I looked up like, it might finally be hitting like the, you kind of said it earlier with the fatigue. Yeah, fatigue. It's what, there's like a growing list now of what, Black Adam, Ant Man Quantumania,

Shazam, Fury of the Gods now, super pets. All these, like, movies that are, like, superhero theme just not hitting the numbers they're expecting. And I think this is, like, the biggest victim yet. Like, people have been mocking it for how it's comparing to, I think it's Morbius. Like, Morbius is outtracking Shazam, Fury of the Gods. That sucks. It is sad because, like, you see, like, I saw the director, like, tweeting.

I think I'm, like, done with super-eer movies now, and it's like, ugh. Understandable. It's sad had to go this way. Yeah. But yeah, definitely understandable given I'm sure it's just hair pulling, a hair pulling nightmare trying to work within this system. Yeah, trying to be an artist within a machine, right? You're trying to have a voice despite them trying to chip away at everything that you're trying to express and turn it into something else. And even that, yeah, and the greater industry decisions like just sandbagging your project.

Like, what can you even do about that, you know? Like, the whole James Gunn thing, like... Yeah. It's just over. Yeah. Something that can't even really be controlled. Yeah. It's, uh...

If this movie came out, like, maybe two years ago and just didn't have as many issues surrounding, like, it in terms of where it is in the fucking universe, right? Like, there wouldn't be as much creative meddling if it's, didn't come out right now, I feel. I feel like this movie could have existed as its own thing if it was just like two years ago. But unfortunately, it's coming out at a weird time and there's just so many different, this whole, the politics surrounding it, like the internal politics of this superhero fucking machine.

It's just, it's hurting the film. And so, yeah, despite that, I connected with it, am I going to fucking, you know, am I going to have the whole thing in my memory in like two years, you know, probably just certain scenes, not much of it. But I went to the theater. It was late at night.

I was expecting to be like fucking tired watching the movie. I was pretty engaged. No scene dragged on for way too long. It wasn't like, oh, get me out of here. I'm trapped in this fucking thing. You know,

it had a decent flow and pacing up until the very end where it didn't. Yeah. I had fun with it. I was entertained. It was a positive. experience and that's more than I could say about fucking most superhero films. Also, I will, I will mention this. Some people are like, oh, Adam, you're only giving it a positive rating because David of Sandberg was on the podcast. I was like, worst case scenario, I'm not going to,

I'm not going to fabricate my opinions and be like, oh, I'm going to pretend something to like something that I don't actually. Otherwise, if I was the type of person to do that, I would be doing that with a lot of other movies because I get a lot more shit for a lot of other opinions that I have that I didn't, you know, but I will say this, this is a really kind of funny thing to consider. I would say that there's more of a chance of my rating and experience of this film being influenced by the fact that I had watched the film 65 directly before it. I would say that that's more likely. I would say that the best way to watch any fucking movie is to watch the movie 65 before

it. It'll make everything else seem like a fucking masterpiece, I swear. So it's great in contrast. 65 is a movie where you watch it and you're like every single basic piece of filmmaking I have taken for granted. Like you watch 65 and you're like, holy, like you can't even figure out what lens to use. Like you're not doing any of this. How do you make a movie so expensive seem so cheap?

Why does everything look like shit? And then everything you watch after when you're like, wow, this is. competent and you start appreciating all the little elements even more. Yeah, I heard of the dinosaurs don't even show up for like 50 minutes or something. They all look stupid. All the dinosaurs look fucking goofy as shit. Except for the ones that they showed in the trailer, obviously. But yeah, that's a horrible movie.

Like goofy and like a good way or a bad way. I mean, like it's just a, it's a, it's a, 65 is like a straight two out of ten movie. Like that's, it's, it's horrendous. is. So, yeah, sure. I'm sure you would find some humor in parts of that movie, I'm sure, but... Yeah, I do let down this. 65 was 40 minutes shorter than this film, but it felt twice as long.

It's so... Yeah. It's absolutely horrendous. And anything you watch after, you'll be like, whoa. Like, they really cared. Yeah. Yeah. So that...

There might be bias in terms of how I feel about Shazam Fury of the Gods, but if there is, it's because I watched the movie 65 right beforehand. Well, it's probably more like, I think I've seen the majority of these superhero movies, whereas you kind of dance around a bit more, just jump into the ones that interest you. So maybe. I don't know, it's like, yeah, just a different perspective going on. Yeah, maybe. Yeah, I don't go out of my way to see all of them.

I will be seeing Aquaman too, and I will be seeing. Oh, hell yeah. The Flash. The Flash, yeah. So. Oh, man. Like, I thought when we saw Ready Player 1 around that time, it was like the worst it could get with this, like, crossover, just like, we see a trailer for something. It doesn't even look like it's a real movie.

But when I went to see Shazam the other day and it played that Flash trailer and it looks like a fan-made YouTube video. Yeah, I'm pretty hype for that one now. now I think it's unethical for that to even be released and so I'm just kind of like

this is like a moment in history that I have to be there for you know I kind of have to just be there like rain for us 2015 you know like it's just it's a part of our history

when the trailer began and it showed Ezra like sitting there like people started like laughing in the audience like it's like yeah it's all this woman is done

things are getting so funny. All right. So yeah, I had a positive experience with this movie. Didn't blow my mind. I'm giving it a low six out of ten. It's closer to a five than a seven. But yeah, could have been so much fucking worse.

And I do appreciate a lot about the efforts of trying to hold this film together in ways that, you know, for a lot of the film did succeed. And, yeah, despite everyone else trying to fucking ruin the film. Also, yeah, the acting was good. Yeah. You know? Like parts about the filmmaking process, you can point out and just be like, oh, that's, that's well done, right? Even if the whole narrative didn't, wasn't great, you know?

Yeah. Yeah, it's just one of those films I find hard to get passionate about either way, which is almost the most frustrating type of film in a way. I'm just a smidge below you, like a low two and a half star kind of five, like right down the middle. It's yeah, it's perfectly watchable. It's fine. I wasn't really frustrated beyond the kind of lack of potential that had been thrown to the side or just kind of the muddled way they decided to take it. Yeah, I just kind of wish it was a bit more quaint and small.

And every time it went out of that bracket into the big typical superhero, there's a dragon flying around and there's lightning everywhere in the bubble and there's just crazy Superman flying around. Like I just check out of that kind of stuff. I like the quirky, just character interactions. and the more vulnerable side of the main character. Like, he does, like, very little in the movie. He's, like, quite a static presence.

I think just because it's so stuffed full of characters, like the whole, the villains don't feel that fleshed out to me. No. Yeah, there's all this, like, potential flowing around. I really like that wizard character, but, again, like, there's more they could have done with that. Yeah, it was just, like, I'm probably never going to really think about

or watch this ever again, probably. Whereas I'd happily watch that first movie again. Yeah. Yeah. The first movie was a lot better. And yeah, again, I just, yeah, I think it was fine. You know, it wasn't bad. And it's weird.

It's funny being in this position because I'm, it sounds like I'm like preaching the gospel of this movie when actually all I'm doing is just trying to say, it's not as bad as all you guys are saying. Like, I'm kind of just trying to respond to like this weirdly like unanimously negative. Like, like, is this really the. movie that like everyone should be shitting on it would compared to like all the other fucking dc movies that exist really like that's kind of weird to be so yeah if everybody loved this movie a lot more than myself then i would be being like oh it's actually not that great but here we are

everybody's kind of shitting on it you know i felt myself doing that kind of with uh remember when Alex Garland's men came out. Yes. I like that movie a lot more. Yeah, that was a controversial. Like, yeah, everybody's kind of like, I really like that movie. Shitting on it for no reason. Anyway. Yeah, it's just, when you're dealing with fandom, stuff, just gets messy fast, you know,

especially comic book fandoms. I don't know what they want. All right, we have a film recommendation from Alex. I guess it's time. It's time, guys. I recommended the Prince of Egypt from 1998, directed by Brenda Chapman, Steve Hickner, and Simon Wells. This is normally where you describe the plot,

but it's a pretty one-to-one adaptation of the Exodus story from the Bible. So we're going into the religious movies. It's part of the BCU. The BC. Yeah, but this isn't like... It's the Bible Cinematic Universe. This isn't like no Passion of the Christ or anything like this or Last Temptation of Christ that we did an episode on.

where there are Italian Americans pretending to be out there in the desert. This time it's Sandra Bullock pretending to be out there in the desert. Fucking, what's his face? Life finds a way. Jeff Goldblum. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, we got Jeff Goldblum. We got Patrick Stewart.

Yeah. Michelle Pfeiffer, Val Kilmer, Ralph Fines. Yeah. It's, it. The casting is, weird. Yeah, it's the DreamWorks effect that they can pluck anyone. It's kind of like distracting at point. Yeah, I was thinking about that because like there was this, no, it's distracting. There's a certain line that broke me and had me like just in a ball laughing. It was what it was the Sandra

Bullock character who has a line, something along the lines of I've been a slave my entire life. And just hearing Sandra Bullock say that and that come out of her mouth was this weird like disconnect that kind of just like it didn't make sense to me and like really brought. I am like, I wish in this casting is, and it's like, out of everyone you could have given that line, you gave it, it's just Sandra Bullock, okay. Because of course, yeah, like we're dealing with, uh, I had to double check this too, because here, it's listed as a U for Universal, which is like the lowest rating. So like kids and babies can watch this, but this is like a dark, fucked up story. It has like the most horrifying details, much like the story in the Bible does. I'm just surprised it gets to be labeled a universal over here.

Is that the same for you? Like whatever the equivalent rate is. Yeah, it looks like it was PG Canada and US PG. I think, I mean, I don't know, PG seems to make sense. I think it's probably pushing it, but yeah, what else are you going to give it? PG-13? It wasn't like that. No, no.

But I will agree that like they're probably, is like a, you know, a bit of leniency given to religious movies, you know? Like, oh. Yeah. You know, the people try to ban books in, like, Texas aren't thinking the Bible, even though that's kind of a perverted graphic and, like, morally reprehensible piece of literature. Yeah. That is kind of the interesting thing about this movie for me, because I do have a bias at least that I can admit this being one of my I was like obsessed with this movie when I was a child for some reason. Oh yeah? It's not like I was raised religious or anything. I was just drawn to this movie as a kid because I found it yeah to be like kind of wondrous and have a spectacle and

it's the stakes did feel real and important and yeah there are like kids dying and frogs coming and people starving to death and violence and horror and yeah that felt like very real to me as a kid but I haven't seen it in like a very long. time probably since I was like a kid. So revisiting it was fun. But also you see some of the some of the holes a bit more. Yeah, it's interesting because like I, we get asked a question a lot something along the lines of what's the movie that you like a lot and appreciate a lot, but don't really connect or care about or straight up like disagree with the overall message or what it's saying? And this is one of those movies for me because I think, I think visually the, the animation

here. It's like incredible. It's from the era where DreamWorks was trying to compete with the Disney 2D stuff a bit more with your Prince of Egypt to your Eldorado. And yeah, they were, they were being a bit more, they were flexing the 2D minds and the, and the detail they get out of some of these models and just the design they went for. It's so, so fluid and clearly extremely expensive and you can see why they didn't, yeah, didn't really pursue it much more after this. But yeah, that always drew, I was always drawn to that detail of it because this, this is a level of kind of detail that is rare. I remember when I was a kid, like, was being drawn to, uh, uh, Moses. He has like a staff and just, just the detail on that staff as he moves it around.

Like, even though they're 2D drawings, it makes it feel like he's traversing a 3D space, just with the angles of everything and the perspective is always perfect. And yeah, the character design and everything. It's, it's pretty stunning to always look at. And that's when the film is at its best is when it is just visuals, communicating with that Hans Zimmer score kind of telling the story. I will say, so I appreciated a lot about the animation, and I think that the animation looked great overall.

But there's something that kind of, I guess, bothers me about it in terms of what you were saying, it does feel like a big spectacle. And that's, there's a lot of scenes in this movie where that's kind of just what I get out of it is like, oh, they're trying to show off. And depending on the movie, trying to show off could work out great, you know, if you're trying to show off and it looks like absolutely flawless, then yeah. But a lot of the scenes in this movie, they're trying to show off, like the whole chariot sort of chase at the beginning. Like, there's a lot of different layers in that animation, and they're combining 2D with 3D as well. And,

throughout that sequence there's so many parts of it where the layers just don't really work with each other where like okay the proportion of the horse is like really weird and turning at a weird angle and you can clearly tell that it is CG with

2D and you know four years beforehand B team at Disney made the Lion King the stampede scene you can't tell that it was CG you have to look at the special features after the fact to find out that it was CG and go like holy shit what? And then it like opens your eyes about like how how masterful the animation was and how

everything flowed together and worked together as a whole piece. But I'm watching this film and there's so many different sequences where where I'm like, okay, you clearly spent a lot of money and there's individual animators with a lot of talent on here. But it kind of just, a lot of it just clashes with itself. And it doesn't like if I'm supposed to believe that, you know, we're, this camera going through this perspective or like that this is going happening in a, in a, a universe in this 2D universe. Like, there's so many different things clashing against each other that I just, I found myself being reminded that it was a movie, you know, and just kind of thinking about how

much money they were spending on a given scene. So it's weird, four years after the Lion King, which is just like such, you know, basically flawless animation. Yeah, that's the thing that I feel like the Lion King, the Lion King is more of an exception to the rule as far as like the seamless blend of CG and 2D. because I remember even as a kid being bothered by like treasure planet when it's like that line between the 2D and the 3D being so obvious and it they don't really they don't tend to mesh together too well like they seem to clash and yeah there are a few scenes that

that fall this way like especially early on there's a bit of a crazy kind of action scene almost with the the cg basket with the moses in like being swept away through the through the ocean and the river and there's like a big crocodile and boats nearly crash into him and everything yeah but it's like very obviously a CG basket and it does just pop in a way that doesn't look too great but I hadn't seen this movie in this kind of clarity

well I guess ever because I would have watched it on VHS so I was enjoying seeing like the linework and everything how it was supposed to be seen so I wasn't really noticing too many janky, jerky kind of motions like you were saying with the chariot and whatnot. I'm more a member where it does work or it does come together, be it the, uh, the parting of the ocean, the parting of the Red Sea at the end. I think that looks incredible. There's some great looking stuff in this movie for sure. Yeah, that and, you know, like showing the

whole whale, like just being illuminated, its shadow being illuminated. That's really cool. The whole like burning beech, uh, Beech, uh, burning bush, uh, burning bush, uh, burning bush, uh, sequence. Burning bush that turns you old. Yeah. Yeah, that was cool. And there's a good choice of lighting and colors. And yeah, the environment therein just looked really good.

Yeah, I'm a bit more like mixed on that because I do see what you're saying. But yeah. I think for the most part, it is visually pretty, pretty consistently impressive to me. There's normally something going on, whether it be, yeah, just the design of the camel in the background or. the way a certain expression was animated. Like I had to Google if some things were rotoscope because some of the motion is like so so seamless and fluid. I was like, are they like mapping some of this?

Because it looks like so good to some of the expression of it. I don't think it even used it. Yeah, late 90s was like the best time to have talented 2D animators working in the industry, right? Yeah, it was the Disney Renaissance, wasn't it? Yeah. Yeah, I agree. There's things that I can see in the animation that I can pick out being like, damn, that's a lot of talent.

It's a lot of talent. It looks really cool. Looks great. But yeah, just, I don't know, unlike my favorite animated movies. There's also things that I just, I look at that, I look at the movie and I'm like, wow, that's just clashing or like, that's not that great. Any time an animal was drinking water in this movie, I was like, wow, you didn't use a reference. You kind of just guessed how that was.

would look like. Yeah. It looks like kind of awkward. That was one of the worst shots actually. Yeah. And now you mention it. There's like there's a sheep right next to Moses as it's like drinking out the trough and it's just like a looped. Yeah, a few second loop which is weird because like other sheep in the background of other shots that are much smaller, less consequential did have like all custom animation that wasn't looping. So it's like what? That's quite weird how that fell through the yeah. There's some weird shit. That's not the only moment of the film where there's like obvious loops. There's a few in this film. It's just kind of weird.

Yeah. And, yeah, not to devalue the obviously talented, talented animators working on the film, but just not everything came together in a way that it should. And it feels weird, especially because this is like, this very much speaks as a competition to Disney sort of movie. This very much breathes the energy of, we're trying to. to be Disney. We're trying to be better than, we can be Disney too. And I always kind of like, I don't know, there's some DreamWorks animation stuff that I love, but I always kind of feel weird when a movie

feels like it's trying to do that. You know, where it's just like be your own thing. Like Puss and Boots was its own thing. My aunt's the bug's life. It's kind of defined them for a while, to be Yeah. Especially early when they're trying to find their voice, their angle. And then they found it through parodying the other side. Yeah, that always seems like that would be much smarter of an approach, to be honest, is to like maybe do the opposite of what they're doing, because then you're not competing in the same space,

and you could do something a bit different and stand out that way, but whatever. Yeah, because it didn't wind up really working out for them that well. Like, the movie made money, this one, but I think just over time, if you're talking about Simbad, Eldorado, So there was just, yeah, it all just kind of crumbled with, what was the Toad Disney movie, the really kind of forgettable one. Over the hedge, was that Disney?

No, no, the 2D one, the Princess and the Frog. Princess of the Frog. Princess of the Frog. That was like, yeah, that was where the steak was put in the ground. It was like, yeah, we're just kind of not going to really do this 2D thing anymore, I think. We just stick to the successful Shrecks and the big Frosons and stuff like this. Did you happen to see, because when I went to buy this on iTunes, I saw it was like bundled with another movie, which I didn't recognize one called Joseph King of Dreams. Yeah, I didn't see that, but I knew, you know, you look at the poster and it's like, from some of the creators of the Prince of the Egypt or whatever that word phrasing me.

Yeah, yeah. From a some of the friends. Ben Affleck-led a kind of loose sort of sequel or something like it's like a kind of similar art style. It's like the Lion King 2

like direct to D type thing. But for Prince of Egypt, yeah. So shout out to that. We'll watch it someday maybe. Maybe you'll put that on my watch list. There we go. It's on my watch list. It's only like an hour long. Oh shit. That's not a really good sign.

Very nice. We haven't mentioned the musical side of it then, because, yeah, it is going for the Disney, you know, the musical angle. So there is a, yeah, the Hans Zimmer score that you already mentioned. How do you feel it comes together as a soundtrack to what you're watching? I loved the opening song, and I'm glad that they brought it back at the end. I thought that, uh, deliver us is a very powerful track and sets the stage really well for what you're supposed to expect. And yeah, it's just very, that's one that actually sticks with me

musically. Like I was able to just pull it and just be like, oh, that's what the song was like. And then everything in between kind of just very forgettable, in my opinion. Yeah, there are a couple here and there I like. But for the most part, they're either kind of too short or, yeah, it feels like it's almost like a first pass at something. Like it needed, this movie just needed like something else going on. Because just being like an adaptation of the Exodus story, it's like not quite enough to like wrap it up as a nice package. Because it's not really what the characters you're really like invested in. Most of what happens in the story is just thanks to God basically being like a superhero who can like do anything.

Like, yeah, we'll move most conflict forward. Who can do anything but decides to do particular things for no reason. Yeah. So when you start applying that kind of logic to. It's like, well, it's not really, me personally, I'm not really watching this for the story that much. It's more, yeah, music hits when it lines up with the visuals. It's, yeah, a production side to it that I appreciate more than, yeah, it's kind of what I was saying earlier. Like, I don't really, like, what is the film saying outside of what the story in the Bible is saying, you know, where it's like, yeah, you've got to channel God. You've got to live through God and live for this thing greater than yourself and find peace in that. But it's like, that's not really. how I personally view things. So, yeah, for me, it's, yeah, more about the music. Yeah.

I do think the scale does work for it. I do think it does feel big. It feels like the material matters and that it's in awe of it and that it does, yeah, exist in this kind of important feeling space. Is there a DreamWorks movie that takes itself more seriously than this one? That's a good question. I don't think so. No.

I think this might be V1. with yeah I guess the excuse being that is biblical so yeah yeah you know they wouldn't want to seem like they're mocking someone's faith so they have to like they have to make it like a lot more serious and take itself a lot more serious like I just I think part of the reason why I don't love this movie and sure I love aspects of it and I can very much appreciate the artistry that went into it in a lot of different elements but part of the reason why I just don't connect with it on a personal level is just like, it has this obnoxious feeling of just taking itself so seriously and then also just not living up to how seriously it takes itself.

You know? Right. Yeah. That's what it feels. It's the best and worst thing about it. Yeah. They're like, yeah, they're trying to balance these things that kind of don't make sense. Like, they have Steve Martin and Martin Short as these.

Yeah. In any other, like, traditional Disney kind of movie would, they'd probably be like quite a big part, you know, as the little comics. side characters. Yeah, they're just, they're there, and they cast them for some reason. They've got their one kind of musical number, but neither of their strengths as, like, comic actors that really use. Not at all.

I don't really know why they're there. It's way more about just Ralph Fines and the L'Kilma. That's kind of like the heart of it to me. The classic tall, skinny villain and short, fat villain duo. But they're not really used in the movie that much. You're right. Like, they kind of, they exist there. And then you kind of just forget about them because they're not really important.

And they don't really change the course of anything in the movie. Yeah, they're not really characterized. It's all kept very simple. You know, yeah, you got to free the slaves. And that's kind of, you got to free the slaves because eventually you learn that slavery was bad because you find out that it was your own people. And you were like, before you were like, well, slavery was like kind of based. And then you're like, no. slavery is bad that's those are my people

yeah and you look at like that giant mural that's ostensibly been there your whole life and you're like they're killing babies bro what those tons of baby death it's so weird this movie it's so it's difficult for me to take seriously and it makes it more difficult for me to take it seriously

because it's trying to be so serious if it was more shit post Which it can't be. It can't be because of the subject matter. It's just weighing itself down by being like this, like, the source material that will offend, like, fucking all of America if you don't handle it with the utmost respect. And then it's just like, okay, well, you're kind of kneecapping your own project in that way then, you know. Like, I loved how we talked about another, you know, those other religious movies.

Last Temptation of Christ, I loved that it offered its own perspective. and I love that it tried to say its own thing. And even within the context of like the biblical story, it was telling, it still fit into the biblical story. It was just a different take on it. And so, you know, that's evidence alone that you can still take biblical stories and make something really special out of them, you know. And you can still have concepts like God in a film and have it function in the narrative. and I can watch that and be like, okay, yeah, there's a god in the universe of this film,

and it's fine and it makes sense. And I understand what it means to the characters narratively and what it means thematically and how it helps me get things out of the film. And then I watch a film like Prince of Egypt, and I'm kind of just like, you know, it's kind of a bad story. I like the animation.

It's some good animation for the most part, but it's kind of a bad story. It's kind of a shit story. You didn't really utilize the story in the Bible to tell a good story. You kind of just like made a summary of it and you played the greatest hits. And you were like, whoa, dude, burning bush. Whoa, the plagues. This is the original like soy boy marvel shit is just seeing all this stuff from the Bible, right?

Yeah, basically. They parted the Red Sea. But like none of it flows properly together. You're kind of just like going on the checklist. And by the time before you know it, like, Like the movie's just over and you're like, okay. It's because, yeah, you don't really care about it from a character perspective because it is, yeah, it just moves so quick. It's more interested in just, yeah, exactly, just the nature of what they're adapting.

It is more just like, yeah, the songs are kind of a shorthand to montage past a bunch of the stuff that happens in the story. And yeah, it's funny what you say about the tone because one of the three directors is actually one of the directors of B movie. So it's like Nice Kind of a A switch there Imagining that Yeah it is a little bit

All over the place In terms of that kind of Kind of stuff It is just yeah Excessively dark Which I guess is just what drew me to it As a kid so much Because yeah

You don't It doesn't feel like You're being infanticised With how Yeah Yeah it felt like It felt important Yeah

If I was younger And I mean I did watch this when I was younger Once I wasn't obsessed with it in the way that you say you were. But there were scenes that I watched and I was like, I remember having a genuine emotional experience to like the part where the, you know,

firstborn son, their souls get sucked out or whatever. That was handled in a pretty, pretty uniquely dark way for a kid's film because, A, you know, death. B, there was like no music during that scene and it was kind of like hunt. It was kind of like a horror scene. Yeah. But then, you know, like, that's great artistically. But then I always kind of have like a little bit of, like, I can admit I do have like a little bit of resentment towards creating propaganda for children.

Yeah, that's where I was kind of told. Where like fear literally is used as like a tactic. Yeah. You know? Because that is, that scene in particular is horrifying. It even ends with like the landscape shot of the city with the screams of the parents like echoing. Yeah. In the background.

It's like that that is. horrifying. And I watched this shit. When I did watch it when I was younger, I think it was, it was 100% at church. And I think it was like a part of like a youth confirmation thing. And the fact that they were like showing it to us and like, you know, the text alone of the Bible or the church experience alone isn't enough. You have to like manipulate children with art forms, you know? Yeah, yeah. It is kind of annoying. And this film is, you know, propaganda. in a way. Yeah. Yeah, that's the thing. You're like,

you currently get around that, you know? Like, yeah, that just is what it is from like, the first word put down on the page. That's always what it was going to be. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. You can still appreciate the art within it, you know? You could, you could call a lot of films probably in the films too. And I guess because of it being aimed at children, it isn't like a,

uh, last temptation of Christ type situation where it's, actually explores the more complicated themes in a way that as an adult you can find a lot of value in. Yeah, it is more of like a kind of like a montage of one of the more well-known stories from the Bible. Yeah. Is what this movie is. I think it's a little fucked up to use like that kind of imagery in the context of like, oh, if you don't do what God says, he's going to fucking kill you like that.

Like that's really what you get out of it as a child if you're religious, especially watching it in. religious setting. Yeah, it's really just kind of using fear tactics to, you know, manipulate and groom children into a lifestyle. Yeah, that's what I say about like the core of the story being like, man, yeah, I guess what I've learned is that I need to fear God because he's willing to, he's willing to take out firstborns. If you don't know. Yeah, he's kind of an asshole. Yeah, so it's a bit. That's probably another thing I liked as a kid. Well, yeah, it just felt like. this is this is frightening this is truly scary uh what is being shown to me right now so yeah

it's effectively on children i find it i found it kind of interesting you know they go through like all those plague things and that was like treated as like a like a montage too you know it's kind of just like wham bam bam bam like all this like horrific imagery for children of just like you want this to happen yeah like Like, if this was fiction purely, like, that's a, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's a really different context. But, like, presenting this as reality to children is kind of fucked up. Presenting that as, as, like, a reality and showing them, like, families being torn apart and, like, plagues and, like, just death and, like, oh, well, you know, they just didn't pray hard enough or something. Like, like, that, presenting that is, like, a real thing to a child is really fucked up. It's, it's really fucked up. It's difficult to get past that.

Yeah. Yeah, it definitely is. It makes it a weird movie. And I know, like, people say this all the time. And it's like a meme that people say this too much. But, like, would they make this now? Like, all the slavery imagery, like, just how brutal it is. Like, I don't know if they would really go for something like this now.

Like, could you imagine DreamWorks like next week? You know, they just drop, like, a full CG, like, it's another hard. hardcore story from the Bible retell it like Yeah It seems like a very much Nineties Talking about the story of Job

This time Yeah like I just can't see it I guess we just go to leave it To Darren Aronofsky Pretty much now With his His mother's Noah's

And he can channel the Bible Through his fucked up lens But Dreamworks ain't gonna be doing it Any time soon Let's see if I got this right I just want to Remember if I

if Job is the right character I was thinking of. There's a Bible story where like, I think Satan challenges God and he's like, yo, I bet your most loyal follower would not think you're cool. Oh, he just tortures him. If you tortured him enough, I bet that he would not believe in you anymore. And then God's like, well, game on, bro. And then like, like, just like ruins his life, right?

Just like kills his family and like, ah, like just absolute eternal. eternal torment and suffering like forever and he's like, I still love you God. And then God's like, Cibro, he's like a real sim. Like point proven. Yeah. And then God's like, yeah. Nice. Nice try Satan. Something like that. I might be, I might be, uh, paraphrasing a little bit. I might not have gotten the exact quotes. But yeah, that would be a cool thing to show to kids, you know? why not at this point yeah so judging it on it

so let's just imagine that this is like a fictional story and we're just like judging it on its own then yeah that's how I was trying to kind of watch it the story kind of sucks the story kind of sucks yeah that's the thing but that's the inherent issue right whereas like that it is adapting a thing that we know and it's just like part of culture and we will know this story

so it is like weird like yeah what should they have done what would have improved this like from this angle i mean yeah like you wouldn't you wouldn't write a story like this unless you were trying to replicate some ancient text before stories were good you know like yeah maybe that's what they needed to do people like how many fucking adaptations of pinocchio you know like pinocchio kind of fucking you have to go against the source material like germo did to make a good story at a Pinocchio. Yeah, or flesh out the right

things, because, like, yeah, it's not really the characters you're left thinking about. It is purely just the scale and the visuals combined with that music. Like, there really is not much more to chew on. So maybe that was it. They needed a bit of characters or something. Mm-hmm.

It does sit strangely, because I just, like, searched just Dreamworks movies just to see a big list of them. It is very odd compared to the rest of their, like, film, Yeah, there's like some like whimsical clearly childlike entertainment, you know, for a lot of this. But then you look at this and it's more, oh, you got, yeah, you got the slaves, you got the, yeah, pushing women off, drowning women, drowning babies. Yeah, it's an experiment for sure.

Yeah. Yeah. I still kind of like it there. That's the thing. I just can't detach that kind of childhood connection I have. have with it there. So I wouldn't not blame someone for not really connecting beyond that. Yeah, I'm glad you enjoy it. And yeah, there's parts that I do enjoy. I'm just like, as a narrative, like as a film. Like, I don't know. It's difficult to take the whole thing

seriously, like independent of the religious text. Yeah, yeah. Like, if I'm just trying to, you know, watch the movie, I'm like, fucking. what's his name? Ramesses. What an idiot. So like, in the context of the universe, there's a god and he's sending like fire tornadoes at your ass.

And you're just still like, I'm gonna go get Moses. And you're still like chasing at her. I'm like, you, surely you're convinced that God can do some things to you like right now. Right? Like,

he killed your son. Like, what, stop being a fucking idiot. Yeah. Was that supposed to be like the point of that, uh, where he turns his staff into a snake and he like doesn't really believe he thinks it's like parlor tricks or something.

Well, no, because they think that there's like multiple gods in the universe when there's only one and that's part of the whole thing. Like there's only one god, which is like a very drilled in Christian sort of thing that they try to drill into your head as an early age. There's only one god. Every other god is fake and this one's real. And so that's a part of the message. And they show the two, you know, little sidekick villains. and characters doing the whole like, oh, you can just put some red powder in the water and that will make it pled.

And so I guess Ramesses is being tricked by these other guys into thinking that like, oh, no, his gods are real too. And they're also just as powerful and more powerful than Moses's buddy god. Okay, yeah. See, that would have been more of a dynamic already if you like, if you use those comedic characters to, yeah, be like tricking Ramesses. So, yeah, there's more of a dynamic. Well, they did.

They just kind of showed it, but like briefly. And then it kind of just brings up more weird kind of like fucked up morality in the sense that like, okay, well then in the context of like Ramesses, like he doesn't yet. He believes that he, that there's other gods. But then these other two dudes, why are they, they're just like tricking him for no reason? Because I guess they think like they'll be killed if they don't produce results that he wants. So it's like, okay, these other two sidekick characters, they don't. believe in the other gods. So, like, they should be, like, pretty convinced then at the other miracles that they're

seeing, right? Like, the fucking, the firstborn sons in all the village. Also, the fact that, like, you have to do the sheep's blood sacrifice and do that on the door for, like, everybody that doesn't want their first born son to die. It's like, who is responsible for getting the memo out to everybody? What if everybody, what if you knocked on the doors all day and you're like, Like, yo, you got to like put some sheep's blood or else your firstborn son's going to die. What if the person in that home wasn't home that day?

Surely just by statistics, somebody didn't get the memo and they didn't put sheep's blood on their door and they got goofed. You know? Yeah, definitely. It's just God's divine wisdom, man. You just got to trust in him. I feel like God should know what's in someone's heart and not have to, you know, check the door. I feel like there's some weird shit about this character. The way they like visualize when he comes for the children,

like he's like this kind of ghostly dust that ascends or descends from the sky, from this like portal. It like goes around checking each door for the lamb's blood. Yeah, sniffing around. Yeah, it's like when you verbalize that, it's like crazy. It sounds insane. But, you know, that's the story. Yeah, you, you, you,

wouldn't write it if it wasn't just a part of an ancient text. You wouldn't put it in a video. It would seem stupid. So yeah. I just, what else is there to say about it? The only other part I can think of is the, were you attached to any of these like 2D DreamWorks movies from this era,

whether it be El Dorado or Spirit? I do have positive memories of Road to Eldorado. I watched that a bunch of times when I was younger. I, you know, if I'm trying to remember the film, I can pick out more scenes from my memory of when I was a child watching that film that actually stick with me. I can pick out more scenes from Road to El Dorado than Prince of Egypt. Yeah, I definitely watched El Dorado a lot more. Prince of Egypt, all I remembered was just like two parts. Yeah, it's way more fun and what you'd expect.

from like a 2D anime kids movie. I don't remember Spirit though. I was big and Simbad too. And also that was an example of DreamWorks kind of being their own thing and not trying to be Disney. Like the brand of the style of humor and like it not taking itself too seriously.

Like that was a bit more tongue and cheek and how the characters interacted with each other. It was like a little bit closer to Shrek than to fucking the Lion King, you know? Yeah, yeah. So I maybe that's part of why I, I feel like it works better but you know

I could watch it again as an adult I don't know spirit not great but whatever yeah yeah I guess the last thing

I have to say is I know like animators they're like horny they're a horny group of people right uh huh the way

the way it would come out as our human beings 2D dream yeah yeah but like man some of these some of the way they choose to animate some of these scenes.

Yeah, bringing up El Dorado or some of the characters in this movie. They're like, you can tell they had fun with those ones, you know? Like, they spent a bit of extra time. Just polishing that walk or that pose or whatever, like, that some of the other characters do not get. It's not quite as bad in this movie, but like there's just straight up like a blowjob joke in El Dorado. Oh, yeah.

El Dorado has some parts that are a bit weird, I will say it. Like, there's some weird such shit in El Dorado, don't get me wrong. Some things that didn't age too well. No farting and shit like that, though, at least. I will say, I forget the character name in Prince of Egypt. There was like a female lead who, like, her, the animation on her hair was really, really great. Like, you know, like, the way that it flowed and like the physics of it. Was it Michelle Fifeo or Sandra Bullock's character?

I want to say it was the Michelle Fifee or. I forget. The one who gets married to Moses. I think so? Yeah, yeah. She has some insane animation. Yeah. There was some great animation with that. And also, I don't know,

the female characters in this movie were kind of just like they didn't do much. Yeah, they did nothing. They were kind of just there to fill the quota and not really do anything. Yeah. Yeah. Kind of just show up and disappear. Just kind of forget that they're a character. Yeah, say something insightful and leave.

Yeah, bye-bye. Yeah, I, uh, if this is your favorite movie ever made, power to you, but I'm giving this one a five at a ten. Yeah, I like this a bit more than you. I see your issues, though, with it too. I'd give this more like a low seven, low three and a half star. I can get enough enjoyment from just throwing it on. It flies by for me.

I don't know if that's just a. a mix of like nostalgia and getting those childhood memories flood back with each frame. But I also, yeah, I was appreciating a lot about the production of it as an adult. It is just the inherent nature of what you're adapting where things get a bit more complicated and confusing. And I don't really care about like what it stands for, what it's particularly trying to say. But there's a lot of good moments in it, a lot of good visuals I remember. And it makes me pine for the, uh, the 2D era that to be back.

in that renaissance, didn't realize how good it was until it was gone. Yeah, I would love more 2D films. I would love more 2D films at this point. Yeah, they just can't figure out a way to make money on them. One thing that I forgot to mention is I guess just like we talked about like the weird casting. I mean, none of the performances were like anything special either. If we're talking about like voice acting as like an art form, I could just pick a random Disney movie and be able to pick out voice performances that were more like.

like, oh, you're doing a character and, like, you know, you're transforming into the character. You know, like, I don't even need to reference the Lion King for that one. Like, you can kind of just pick up it like, toy story, finding Nemo. Like, any one of these things, it's like, oh, okay, like you're really transforming into the character and you're creating something out of it. Whereas this just kind of felt like people talking, you know? I think that's what was so funny to me about Sandra Bullock just voicing this character. And it's like it didn't need to be, you know, didn't need to be Bullock or Fife. like it didn't need to be.

It just, yeah, there's a disconnect with the material and the acting there. Yep. All right. Sorry to disappoint everybody. I know this movie has a lot of stands, but, uh... Yeah. You can still stand it. It's fine.

Enjoy your Egypt movie. Yeah, I also do appreciate it just, yeah, where it sits and that filmography is odd for Dreamworks, so it's fun to talk about. Yeah, it's a very unique part of their filmography. Yeah. All right, question time. Okay, let's do some questions then from the Sondon of cast community. Head over to the suggestion thread on this subreddit where you can ask us, whatever you feel like, just like Kooky Art 8862 did, a bit of a quandary.

I was wondering if you guys have ever experienced losing your love for film. If so, what do you do to fix it? Because recently, I've begun losing mine. Ever since I was a kid, I was always known as the movie guy. I'd never stopped talking about them and saw older films that no one in my class had seen except my teachers. I'd see at least two movies a week, but now it's a miracle that I see one a month. I tried joining a film group where we'd talk about a movie, but felt like a fraud due to them talking about movies I'd never seen or heard of when everyone else in the group had seen them. I especially felt this way during my Oscars watch where I watch ever, because some of the way this is written is throwing me right.

Oscar watch where I watch every best picture before the ceremony, but besides everything everywhere all at once, Avatar 2 and all quiet in the Western front, every other movie had left no real impact on me. Like a wave crashing at the shore, eventually leaving no trace. It was even there. This has been really bugging me since I feel like I'm losing a part of my identity, and I'd like to know if you have any advice, as I always admired you guys' knowledge on film.

Thanks and sorry for the long message. Yeah, I feel for you, kooky art. It's never much fun I've never had this happen with movies But I've had it with like other Mediums with like games Or sometimes music I'll go through like phases of like really really be

Just listen to music like crazy crazy crazy And then have to reel back a little bit But yeah that's quite a quandary when it You feel like it is wrapped up in your identity Like have you ever struggled with that Like it would be kind of a huge issue If you were work up and didn't like movies The same way

Yeah I have haven't had an issue with that, but I mean, like, I can understand, like, if other things in your life are things that you spend time doing, then that, I mean, you've just made different priorities or maybe you need to not work as much or something, you know? If it's, like, I don't know, it's, it kind of seems like the problem solves itself. If you want to fit more time to do it, you can do it more. You just have to take away time from other things. And if you don't want to take away time from other things, then, you know, so be it. So, yeah, that's the decision you did.

Who are you doing this for? Because it's like, what, you're just trying to do it because you're known as the movie guy. Like, if that's the only reason you do it, that's, yeah, that's not going to be sustainable, is it? And you are going to crash. But so don't feel bad. If, like, it's, if you're not connecting with stuff at the moment, like, maybe take a break. And in a year and a half, you will suddenly get some kind of crazy itch and then jump back in. Like, there's no, you know, time is a kind of.

You know, like, you get to choose what you do with it. But yeah, don't feel bad about it. Here's my advice. Stop being a movie guy and just become a Sardana cast guy. And then you can shame other people for not having watched the recent episode of Sardana cast and be like, what the fuck? You're not the Sardondondack guy. Yeah. Yeah, you can just like pretend that you've seen movies and just ape, uh, YouTube's opinions.

Yeah. Yeah. That's always a choice. you can go down. I've always wondered like what it would be like to try and bullshit and try and talk about a movie pretending you've seen it

like talking about specific like I wonder how vague you could get. You know? Yeah, no. This is a great mind's think alike moment because I've always wanted this exact same thing. I was like, I reckon it wouldn't be that hard to like make a fake

channel and just not see any new movie that's coming out, but just kind of steal like the odd sentence here and there from certain reviews. So it would not be difficult. Like, not even seeing a single one of these movies, but just like collate, like a bunch of like loosely linked stuff and then just present it as if it's yours. Like, I reckon that would be easy. Yeah. You know what?

You could get an AI to be a movie reviewer. And I think that they would actually do really well. I think that they would do really well because a lot of people really. just want to hear their own opinions expressed back at them. And so a lot of really popular channels are like, oh yeah, this movie that everyone loves, it's great. And so, and then it's like, well, I don't know. In my opinion, like, I don't, I don't know what kind of like service you're even providing anymore if like there's nothing, if you just have the opinion of just the box office, right? Yeah. Or on tomatoes or yeah, any of it. Yeah. You know, not saying that person shouldn't

exist on the platform. I'm just, I just don't get anything out of it personally. Yeah, it's, it's interesting to think about that. I feel, I am convinced that you could do like AI movie review channel and it would do very well. Yeah. I wouldn't be surprised. That's basically like what watch mojo already is, you know, so one step away from it. Yeah, yeah. You know, so like, yeah, that's the other thing too, like, just in the space of us doing this podcast, this, or this AI stuff is now just here. Like that's just the conversation. Love it.

Like, AI is just intrude. Like, that's how little amount of time it took for that to start intruding until like artistic spaces and conversations. I think that's just going to get crazier and crazier. It's like, it was already before this stuff. Like, when you see questionable posts on social media, it was like, yeah, that's probably not real. I'm not even going to.

Oh, yeah. Think about that ever again. But now it's like just every image you see, every video you see. It's like, I, what even is reality anymore? Hell yeah. I can't even get a good read. I'm up for the challenge. Love a good challenge.

Challenge my reality. We're going to up the difficulty on life. Yeah, it's hard mode. Well, uh, elf chigringo says one day I asked a Facebook group about what's failing about Hollywood films. And I shit you not. The most common answer is forced inclusiveness. I know.

You guys think about this dumb answer as a legitimate reason. A legitimate reason? No. I think that that's the answer people give if they're only watching the most popular movies that exist. It's like it's, you know, you need to expand your media diet is what I would say. Yeah, definitely. Because if like if every time you hear about a movie is like the little new little mermaid and that you just don't watch other movies, then it might just seem like, oh yeah, every movie's bad because it's woke now.

Right? There's a lot of other movies out there. A lot of great movies that are also woke and still good. You know, whatever you want to call it. I guess it just, yeah, depends on the space. So I guess it was stranger for like Super Bowl movies to have like a diverse cast or whatever you want to, what these people complain about most. So, yeah, I guess that does stand out more to them.

Whereas, like, who's complaining about the forced inclusiveness of everything everywhere, you know? Like, I guess there are some people probably now that I say that. Yeah, but, yeah, really, it's just. To me, that's how you do it, you know? Like, it's not, it's not an issue. It's not like, that's never really been an issue. That's never, I've never left a movie thinking that, like, oh, there's been, it's the forced inclusiveness.

really held this back. That was the one problem with the movie. Everything else would just great. Everything about the new Little Mermaid looks perfect except the black person. That's how the complaining makes it sound. It's like, yeah, this new Little Mermaid, yeah, it would be great if it was just someone with a different skin tone as the lead. It's the one thing.

The one thing and everything else looks perfect. That's how the complaining makes it sound. The lighting. Yeah. The design of. Sebastian like that looks so fucking amazing bro. Like yeah, it's a really weird excuse to give when you say like that, yeah. Yeah.

And speaking of that, did you see that how creepy like the Sebastian? Yes. The talking seagull. They're making, they're unintentionally making these awesome horror movies. It's amazing how I'm still able to get like a reaction out of it because I'm expecting it. I'm expecting it to look like a fucking monstrosity. And yet they still manage to like make it so bad that I'm like, what? Oh, man.

The fact is coming for, just the pure irony of it being Disney, though, like the whole, the visual side of it being like the foundation of their company. Yeah. What the fuck is of Disney anymore? What are they? Yeah. I don't know what they stand for aside from just making loads of money and owning things, you know? Like, at least in the 90s, it was like cool, heartwarming stories that. like looked really good and pushed, push the limits of like what you could do with 2D animation and they were always like

pushing for something. But what? This hyper realistic crab and talking seagulls like this is, they've gone too far. Please, please guys, just stop. Mm-hmm. But going back to the force inclusiveness complaint, the one positive it does have is the, if I hear that brought up in a review or a clip or whatever, I just know that I don't really to engage in whatever I'm listening to that much more.

It tends to be quite a vapid complaint. If that's like one of the biggest things is bugging you about a movie. It's reached a certain point where it's like the complaint just seems like kind of incomprehensible. Yeah. So what are you actually saying? Like is the problem with Velma actually the fact that they change the races of a few of the characters or is there something else going on, you know? Like it's like such a surface way to engage.

Yeah. I think that there's a lot more to the property. It's like, I think even especially considering how dog shit these movies are, to focus on that makes it even weirder. Because they're so bad in every other aspect, it's like, okay, well, then how is that the one particular thing that stands out? Yeah. There was like a point in time, you know, where like these things were starting to

happen where you could almost kind of like give the argument a little bit of credibility where it's like okay you know like they're just remaking this and like oh why can't you know make make an original story with these characters isn't that kind of infantilizing to women to just have girl ghostbusters like I could understand where the argument was coming from at a certain point but now it just seems like so lost in in in the conversation it seems yeah where the conversation settles is always like the least productive, this is just screaming match, like, just culture will BS, you know, like, it's never, never anything productive. As soon as correspondence from the Daily Wire are using it to get clicks, you know that

there's nothing, there's nothing substantive in there anymore. Like, every time a trailer comes out, it's like, oh, Matt Walsh is going to talk about a little more, I'm sure, you know, my favorite media influencers, Ben Shapiro, my favorite film reviewers. Talking about last of us, talking about, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that does show that something's been crossed over now that they feel to jump in. It's like when politicians start doing the Rickroll.

You know, like it's done. Yeah, yeah. When they start whipping out Pokemon Go. Yeah. Yeah. We've taken it too far. We need to go back. Yeah, reel it back a little bit, guys.

Yeah. Okay. Let's do this from Space Ghost Killer 22. Hey there, Sards. What are your thoughts on parasycial relationships on the internet? As someone who's watched YouTubers such as yourselves and many others for years, as well as many podcasts, it's always a bit odd of a thought to me that I've been listening and watching so many personalities to the point where it feels like I've known them for many years. Even though I'd like to think I'm well-adjusted enough to understand that I clearly don't. I know the internet can be a great place to find any kind of niche communities.

to be a part of, but I also sometimes wonder how much of these YouTubers, streamers, and podcasters just become friend simulators to some viewers. Not blaming the creators themselves, of course, but just would like to hear your perspective, or the perspective of someone on the other side of it. Do you find yourselves having a parisocial relationship with any creators you watch slash listen to? Thanks and keep up the great work. I mean, usually if I get to the point where I'm feeling parisocial about another content creator, I'll just like DM them because I have that privilege of of just being another notable person on the internet. Yeah, that's a bit of the advantage you get. So I feel like maybe to a degree I do have a bit more of like a window into someone's

life about who they are as a person than you would just from consuming their content without talking to them. But I would argue you don't truly know anyone even if you've met them in person to some degree, if we want to get really philosophical, right? You only have a window into someone's life no matter how close you get to them. It's never going to be a real reflection of a person to an accurate degree. The only way to get a true understanding of a person is to be the person, right? You only understand yourself. And even then, do you understand yourself? Do you have an inaccurate version of yourself, right? But I guess if we're going to talk about, like, I don't know, the ethics of creating content that is like inherently parisocial, I feel like I am one of the

more parisocial streamers out there because I just share everything and I do like you know I know that there are people watching my film watchalongs that are just looking for like a social experience they want to watch a movie with somebody

and I've seen the comments of just like hey thanks I wanted to watch a movie with someone and this kind of feels like it I think that it would be maybe crossing a line if I was exploiting that in the way that like I don't know DMs on only fans do where like someone pays for a service

and you pretend to be like the friend experience, the girlfriend experience or something like that. I feel like that's a little weird and that kind of exploits a vulnerability. It's a bit black mirrory, doesn't it? In people, but in terms of myself personally, like, I just feel like, you know, I'm a person that doesn't want to feel

as though there's anything that I shouldn't be sharing. I feel like, you know, just my experience as a human being, no matter what part of it, I should be able to just share. And if people connect with that, they can connect with that. If people don't, they don't. And, you know, hopefully the version of myself that I put out to the world is the most accurate

that it can be. And I guess to a degree, the people that consume the most of my content will understand me better than the people that don't consume any of my content or consume very little of it or only watch one channel. you know, I don't, yeah, like the person is there, but you still don't technically know me, you don't truly know me. And I would hope that people that understand me well enough would know better than to be like, oh, therefore I'm his friend by watching my content.

Like, you know, set barriers, set parameters. Like, that's not, I don't make content for children. So that doesn't really happen. I haven't found myself being like, like, I've never had an issue with like weird, creepy stalkers or people. Like I've maybe had something like almost kind of like someone were trying to meet up thinking that they know me and I'm like, okay, no. Well, if you truly knew me, then you knew that I wouldn't want that.

There you go, right? Bazinga. Yeah. It does get complicated with stuff like that because I have had bad experiences with that kind of thing. People being like creepy who I think from their perspective, they perhaps don't realize they're crossing some kind of boundary. but then sometimes I wonder if these people are drawn to doing it simply because I am I'm kind of the inverse of what you're saying where I lean much more kind of private

I like having like this this harsh divide I'd like being able to that's something I kind of find important for me but yeah it does create that weird gray area where yeah if you're withholding certain things like especially when I never showed my face or anything. thing that that creates like a fun little game for yeah then it becomes like a challenge especially if you ever address it or talk about it in any way then yeah then it does become a challenge and people do get creepy and they find like phone numbers and call people it just get really weird but then yeah it does go back to this inherent parissocial dilemma where it's it doesn't mean nothing you you do learn and can learn a lot about someone by listening to them for tens if not hundreds of

hours, you're going to pick up certain things. You're going to learn things about them. You're going to hear these anecdotes about their lives, build even just like their cadence, their vocabulary that, yeah, they will stand for something in your head if they've just been that much of a part of your life for that long. Doesn't mean you know them personally, but you know something about them. And that's something I found interesting, like interacting with people who, like, know your content and you obviously know nothing about them.

So in these instances, I'm always way more interested in trying to like play catch up and like know something about them because it's like an uneven dynamic where it's like I feel like you've had it into something that I don't have of you. Yeah. And it's it's so funny because like all my content is spread out throughout so many different channels and different things I've said or different, you know, variate. I don't talk about like super personal things on my fucking film review channel, right? But there's other avenues where I do. And so if somebody knows me or somebody, somebody recognizes me or somebody like reaches out to me or if I'm like a guest on someone's podcast or something, I always have this weird thought in my head. I'm like, how much do you know?

Like which ones of my things do you know? Like are you up on the lore or are you just like kind of you'd see someone who's like relevant to conversations on the internet and you just want to have me on your podcast because I have a million subscribers? Or are you in on the fucking lore? Do you like, how much shit do you really know about me? So that's always fun. Something that I've actually realized in the last like couple months.

Or I guess I've always kind of known it, but I've more come to terms with it. And it's relevant to other things that I guess are part of conversations that I'm having is I've always kind of felt throughout my life. I've had this issue with just feeling like so alone and misunderstood and disconnected from the experience of everybody else. And I think that a part of expressing myself through art, through music, what I put out on the internet, and then also just the amount of myself that I put out there and the unflinching, like, you know, I want to put out the real version of myself. I don't want to be a fucking character. I don't want to be a product.

I want to be me. And I want to put that out to the world. And I want other people to connect with it. Part of the reason why I do that is just because of, you know, having grown up and just feeling so alone that I wish that I could have seen someone else with an experience similar to mine or with thoughts similar to mine or, you know, like goals or ideas or just feeling similar to mine and that I was starving for that. And I feel like, you know, offering that to the world, not only am I helping other people that might feel alone, but I'm also feeling less alone

by doing that because I'm finding connections with other people just by putting myself out there in a true and real and honest way that isn't just like some fake persona. You know, the more you that's in the art that you put out there, the more people are going to connect with you by connecting with your art, if they're connecting with it on a true, genuine way that feels personal to them. Yeah, it's really fascinating to think about. It is something that people in this space have to kind of consider at a certain point. like these parasocial relationships and the inherent question mark of responsibility that comes with.

That was something I never anticipated being like a thing when I first came into this space. It makes sense. It was like how much that would affect. Yeah, yeah, it's just a natural consequence. But when you're like a teenager and you're getting into it, it's not really what you're thinking about. It's like, oh, what responsibility your impact are the things I say are going to actually have? It's more, yeah, you're not looking inwards as much. I've heard people talk about

parisocial dynamics from content creators in a way where like the morality of it like people can use it to exploit other people you know people can use it to manipulate and like gain others' trust and like take advantage of people and so yeah there is that element of like

okay someone who is less moral than me could be using this in like a really really bad negative way and we've seen it happen many times with other content creators. There's like people that would like use that to like basically just like steal money from people and be like, oh, I need like five thousand. Like they would like DM someone like part of their mod team or something and like asked to borrow money or like,

yeah, there's a lot of like weird shit going on there. And so I try to be consciously aware of it, you know, like I try not to like overstep any boundaries and still be like moral and ethical about, you know, despite me putting out so much of myself that, you know, inevitably someone's going to connect with me in a way where they feel like they truly know me, but they don't, but maybe, you know, maybe they know me better than my fucking parents do at this point. You know, my parents don't watch all my fucking content, you know? Like, maybe they know me better than a lot of people in my personal life that think they know me. Like, no one really knows me, right? I don't know. But so if, if I go on,

like, a Twitch stream, a lot of, a lot of the times me putting myself to the world and just talking to people that are listening to people that like me enough or my content enough that they're there and just watching me live. I feel a sense of catharsis and just being able to vent like I find it very therapeutic to be able to like talk about my problems and talk about things, uh, that are personal to me and have, you know, maybe not everybody in my fucking Twitch chat gets it. You know, maybe they don't get me. But there's a people there that have heard me talk enough that I can kind of feel like comforted by doing that, which is also difficult because, you know, then there's people that aren't leaving comments.

There's a, you know, a fraction of people that are hate watching me and getting ready to make a clip or, you know, if I expose a vulnerability about myself, they're getting ready to use that. So that's always difficult. But, you know, it's, to me, I've always kind of seen it as like a two-way street or kind of like a mutually beneficial kind of symbiotic thing, right? like I'm not I'm not a person that's just trying to be like yeah I'll get more loyal viewers by

by being more parisocial but I'm just somebody that's like you know I I find a connection like I feel more comfortable with these people that you know may just be pieces of text but maybe I've seen their username enough like you know they're not my friends to some extent but you know

maybe some of them are like it's weird it's weird and it's like the line is just as blurred for me as it is for them. It's like I'm as much of like a victim if we want to call it that to like this weird social phenomenon as someone who might be watching me, right? Yeah. Does that make sense? It's, it's complicated.

Yeah. It's complicated. And I feel like we're still learning so much. Yeah. The ramifications of what we've made. All we can really do is kind of just navigate this uncharted territory and try our best. try our best to like not hurt people

and not you know do something unethical and yeah just still navigate it still be unique you know I kind of like to

just be my own person so I'm not going to do exactly what everybody else does but yeah and yeah I mean like I'm sure you've had this too but just like over the years sometimes

sometimes people just use your DMs or your email as like just a place to event Some people just like, they just like tell their whole life story sometimes. And it's just like, it's not even necessarily about the details of what they're saying, but it's more just they found some solace in venting somewhere. And I've had people like four, five years later after they've sent some crazy email, be like, hey, look, I'm sorry about how intense these crazy messages were from back then,

but I was going through something. And I just needed to put it somewhere. Yeah. So, yeah, this is inherently complicated and really, really crazy but it's also part of what I think was alluring about it and what it's fun about it. Yeah. Like there's, you know, to the extent that people watching me don't really know me, like, I don't really know them either.

But I can, you know, if I'm, my, my community is not like so big that it's like XQC that I, you know, where the chat doesn't mean anything and I can't even read it. You know, like, I could still, I could still, you know, in these live stream scenarios, I've got a good, I think the size of the audience is good enough that I can still feel like I'm interacting with people on like a more personal way that, you know, even though it's like the dynamic between the person streaming and the audience is obviously like the power dynamic there is like just massively shifted, you know, someone pisses me off. I ban them or what, you know, like it's not, it's not like an even thing. But it is interesting because, yeah, I find

myself sometimes wondering like what's that person like you know like like a username in chat i'm like i don't know what they're like wonder what they're you know and but and then just from from like interacting with these people enough sometimes i'll learn things about them like oh okay like i know their gender i know the country that they live in or you know like just some some shit like that it's like yeah the the parissocial nature of especially live interaction is just kind of an inevitable thing, you know? I prefer, I do my editing with people fucking watching my live streams because I feel like it's a more social interaction for myself.

I feel more comfortable doing it because I feel like I'm doing something social. Like that's just me on my end, right? So if that fills the same niche for them, then good. Yeah. Yeah, I think that was a good. Yeah, that was a huge one. Good answer to that. All right?

I guess that should be the last one, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, went in. Nice. Okay, sweet. We've got a recommendation for the next episode, but I was thinking we could do something really crazy and just take what we recorded as the recommendation from the last episode and use that in this episode.

So Ralph was here last episode, and we're going to have past Ralph talk about his recommendation that we're actually going to use for the next episode. And then I guess we'll cut back to this, and then I'll do the, just say bye. Okay, yeah, I'll say bye. Yeah, okay, so...

Go. Oh, shit. That means I need to recommend a movie. What's your recommendation now? What have you got for us, man? Let me pull out the list here. Do to do. So, I will recommend...

What's that? No, that's not the movie. Let's do... Let's do Alien. Oh, boy. Okay. Original alien. Yeah, from 1979.

Okay. Cool. Yeah, it's been a while since I've seen this. Yeah, nice. Sweet. Let's do it. All right, we're back. Thanks for the recommendation, Ralph.

That's a great one. Yeah, I mean, whoa, Alien. If you don't want to be spoiled for Alan by Ridley Scott. See it before the next episode comes out. These episodes come out every two weeks, but you can listen to them early. If you go to Patreon.com slash Sardonicast, or go to sardonicast.com and sign up for premium. It's only $2 a month either way.

You get to support the show and feel good about yourself. So there is something we should add. We have a bit more time now between episodes. Yes. So we're going to watch Alien 1 and 2. I think that that makes sense to do. Because people are always comparing those. You can't talk about the first.

Like a lot of people will want to know, like, you know, which one do you like more? So it's like, I kind of feel obligated to watch the second one anyway. So, yeah, I think it would be good to do. all right have a happy pussy just have a happy poose

poose just have a happy guys yeah have a happy true thank you for listening bye bye bye