Sardonicast - Sardonicast 163: Kung Fu Panda 4, Civil War, Mars Needs Moms

Episode Date: April 29, 2024

Support the Show for $2 a month and receive all future episodes early at https://sardonicast.com and https://www.patreon.com/Sardonicast. Buy Sardonicast T-Shirts, and other merchandise at https://teespring.com/stores/sardonicast. Merch: https://teespring.com/stores/sardonicast Website: https://sardonicast.com Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Sardonicast Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/sardonicast Twitter: https://twitter.com/sardonicast Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/sardonicast Sardonicast Highlights: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8AhJ0bzQgs5fb9m_ZCRqkw/featured Alex's channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/IHEOfficial Adam's channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/YourMovieSucksDOTorg Alex's Twitter: https://twitter.com/IHE_OFFICIAL Adam's Twitter: https://twitter.com/2gay2lift Adam's Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/YMS Intro music by: https://www.youtube.com/user/anUnkindnessvideo Timestamps: 0:00 Intro 4:53 Kung Fu Panda 4 25:47 Civil War 50:59 Mars Needs Moms 1:38:19 Questions 2:06:04 Recommendation + Outro

Three, two, one. Scablam. It's the, definitely caught on. Everybody's saying it. It's the new Skadoosh. It's from Kentucky Friedland of 4. I'm Adam from your movie sex. This is Sardonicast.

I'm Alex from I.G. What's it? Scablam? Scablam. What's this film today? It's the new one for a new generation. Passing of the torch type thing. Yeah, it really hit that way, you know.

Yeah. It's clear that they intended for it too, so I'm glad it did. It's very effective. I would call it gribble-tastic, that line. Oh, now you're talking my language. Oh, yeah? I'm talking my kind of grible. Okay.

Mm. It's pretty gribblediculous. So we're going to talk about a few movies today. We've seen some things that are in theaters, some things that are on, fucking digital already. Yeah, everything's just come out now. It's just a tidal wave of stuff that's impossible to keep track of. Yeah. Like, I just caught up with Fallout, but I haven't even started hate watching Halo yet. I got Monkey Man to see. I got, oh, I can't do it, man. Yeah, so I have, I have my list here of just things that I need to watch. So I was too busy during December, January,

to watch the curse right away. And I told people, okay, I'll watch it in April. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I haven't even got, yeah, I haven't started that yet. April comes along, they're dumping fucking everything else on me. We've got, you know, like the first episode of season two of smiling friends, and then the rest is coming out like early May. Invincible season two is out. I'm supposed to fucking watch all that. So that part two of season two.

The Fallout show just came out. Everybody's saying it's great. Halo season two, want to hate watch that. You know, there's a little bit of love watching in there too. Park Chan-Wooks. got a show coming out. And then on top of that, just like things in theaters. So it's absolutely ruined my schedule.

Because I was supposed to be continuing to get through more 2016 movies. And I put a little bit of a dent in that. But I don't know. Do I just give up on the idea of being able to watch things that are out currently? Or like, what's happening here? I kind of. I think we just kind of have to be more picky, right? Is this like an unintended consequence of the kind of streaming war landscape now where there's like, there's not like, it doesn't feel like big blockbusters are coming out in the same way, but there are these big projects like, you know, the Fallout show looks like $200 million type show. These are big projects. They're just coming at us from like different angles now. And it's actually starting to pay off. Because yeah, I watched Fuller. I thought I was really surprised by it. I've got no attachment to that franchise or the games. And I've been criticizing this video.

game on slot nonsense for years and it's kind of like it's probably my favorite one out of the bunch it's not like saying much as far as these video game adaptations but like last of us yeah yeah because like i'll probably never revisit that show again because it it's just you know the the game was already kind of a show already so it wasn't like that much of a big achievement to me whereas the fallout show is offering me something i can't get from the games yeah um yeah that's more of a surprise to me. It may get what people like about Fallout where, yeah, the games are never connected. But yeah, it's just, just from every angle, it feels like there's something, not even like, it's not just content. It's actually like quite a lot of good stuff. Like, yeah, even bringing

up the curse, bringing up smiling friends. It's like, yeah, we keep saying about these people that complain about the quality of everything sucks now and there's nothing good. It's like, man, I kind of feel the complete opposite. Like, keeping up with the good stuff is hard enough. I didn't have time to hate watch like that stuff. normally would too. So it's like, wow, what is going on here? I was going to say, I am already being picky. This is me being picky. There's so much shit I don't watch and actively choose not to fucking new planet of the apes is coming out. Like, I'm not going to watch that. I don't care if people are asking for my opinion on it. I'm not going to watch it. I know it's a waste of time.

If it's anything like the other ones. Burangatans on a horse. It's probably going to be like the biggest moneymakering movie of the year. There's just something about apes in movies. People go out to see that, like the new Dingle versus Kong. Exactly. There's some things you can find that are essentially guarantees. Jurassic Park movies. Safe investments. Apes movies.

Godzilla movies. Just giant animals. We like seeing that as humans. Just giant animals. Scary animals. Which one should we go for first? Let's do Kentucky Fried Panda. Yeah.

I think we should talk about that KFPE. Just talking about it. Speaking of big scary animals. Fucking... Who's the person in the... Who's the fox again? Oh, Aquafina. Thank you.

I was going to say, speaking of big scary animals. Aquafina. She keeps getting work and nobody likes her. She's the new James Cornyn. Yeah, why? What's the deal with that? I guess, yeah, James Corden's a good comparison. She was recently in migration.

She's been popping up here and there in a lot of like, yeah, voice work. Little Mermaid remake. Oh, man, she was like the Seagull, right? Got that whole song. Yeah. Yeah. I'd remove that for my brain. Scuttle, but.

That's right. Oof. Yeah, they've made another one of these, I guess. I'm, I love Kung Fu Bander one and two. I'll stand true on that. Started to photo with three, but whatever. It hit the beats. It wrapped it up.

Put a nice little bell on it. Now we're taking the bow off and just, I don't know, we're just in sad territory now it feels like it's tired. They've got no ideas they're playing with. Some of the directors that are responsible for that heart, especially of that first two movies of the first two movies are no longer around. It just feels like there's no energy left. All the major scenes in the movies are just kind of refreshings or retellings of gags or places or characters. even that you've seen from the first three. Just kind of rejigged or inverted pretty much.

It was like crazy, lazy. Sorry for that rhyme that's really distracting. The villain, though, as well. That's a big part of what works about those first two movies. But not in a good way. No, it wasn't. It didn't work. It was funny that the entire conflict was,

we got to stop her before she pushes more people downstairs, basically. Like legit. Yeah, she was not an interesting character. Like her motivation was, she's kind of the same as Shen from the second one, except there's no personal link to the main character. So it's, I want to conquer the world, because I want to conquer the world. And it kind of ends there. And she never, it never shows that she would be good at it.

No. You know, all the other Kung Fu Panda villains, they, like, killed people or something. Yeah, I had some kind of screen presence or like charisma or personality. It started faltering with three for me, with the Omneman guy and the Imagine Dragons score, whatever they gave him. Yeah, it started to falter there for me and he's not as memorable as a character and he shows up too briefly, that Ox character. Yeah, it just feels tired and dead and the whole like Furious Five thing. All the Kung Fu Panda hardcores are, they're pissed about this. Of course.

Anybody who's ever seen a Kung Fu Panda movie, it's like a scam. Yeah. It is like a scam. It's a scam type of film. And I was trying to figure out like what, what's the cynical business reason? Is it simply because actually and Joey and like Jackie Chan, they're just too expensive? Yes. Like four films.

Yes. There's actually like, is it literally as simple as that. There's, um, one of the, the co-director did a Reddit AMA, I think in the Kung Fu Panda subreddit and said probably way too much in the sense that she might be like blacklisted now and like told the whole story about how she was trying to fight for these simple basic things that you know any one of us would just take for granted but because the director director had more experience as in you know had directed more movies and they made money even though it's like what the Lego movie two

some bullshit live action movies he's never made like a really great movie or anything but they just listened to whatever he wanted to say and he had a lot of bad ideas basically and so there was like a fight to even get the Furious Five at the end they were originally not even going to show up there was a fight to even get Shen as a character presence despite not having any voice acting line

in the entire film. Because Gary Elbin would be too expensive. Yeah, yeah, just a huge production kerfuffle. It's pretty, it's, it's, it's a very scam type film, it's very bad, and you can see it in the budget, just how little faith that they had in this project. And I don't even need to say the budget because it looks cheap as fuck. But it's essentially, let's, let's compare the budgets of these films. I'm gonna look them up right now.

Yeah. And I have a theory about this too, where they picked up this style of filmmaking from. This kind of more like budget concerned. Let's, why don't we just cut a few more corners over here, style of a illumination influence? They're under the same banner now. 130 million for the first film, budget. 150 million for Kung Fu Panda 2. And that's like over a decade ago.

Yeah. As well. So not even including inflation. $145 million for Kung Fu Panda 3. And then 85 million for Kung Fu Panda 4. So they basically half then. They basically slice the budget in half. And despite, you know, like, the character models looked less textured and detailed.

The way the animation flowed, the way that characters moved just seemed like 15 years old. Like it's one of few films and this happened with another DreamWorks film actually that I can remember, Shrek the third, where I was watching it and wondering, how did the animation get worse than the previous films? Like it shouldn't be that apparent. It shouldn't be something that you pick out. Yeah.

It's beyond just animation too. It's like the actual like blocking and the way they present things. Like it's so muted compared to, especially one and two. Like some of the action in there is genuinely impressive. Some of the set pieces and some of the, you know, the buildup and payoff of the way that's all like structured and put together. It's like some real like artistry going on in those first two movies. And yeah. I don't know if there's a single scene that even approaches one of the weaker set pieces from one or two.

Not even close. No, they try to recreate some of the same shots here and there with like tie. Thai lung escaping. There's that like slow-mo kind of like on the wall or whatever. I don't remember. But there were certain moments in this film where I definitely remembered like, oh, this is just, you're doing that shot again, but there's no life to it. And there's no motivation to it at all. There were a few random slow-mo parts in this film where it's like, there's nothing motivating that to happen. You're just kind of doing it and you don't understand why. Yeah, Mike Mitchell, all stinky.

Definitely stinky. They use stuff like slow-mo and these different effects or whatnot in one and two, but man, it complements what's going on. It makes it so you can understand the action smoother or it's like a reason for it. There's just not much reason to this movie at all. Because another thing, they're like introducing new problems to this franchise that were never a thing in my mind. Like going back to this Aquafino character, her voice is distracting and annoying, especially when

you're trying to buy into this like, I guess China atmosphere. Like, she just makes me think of like contemporary America. Yeah. Yeah. And see when I hear that voice. But like the character design was kind of bugging me because that's something I've really appreciated about the Concou Banda movies before this one. A lot of the animals they're pulling out, the design of Shen, the way they'll draw a goat or a wolf or something, they have these interesting silhouettes, these interesting profiles. What was interesting about this Aquafina character?

It just looks like, just like a furry bait, like, just the most basic, expect to design you. Like, I'm serious, it's so plain and the character is lame. I'm a thief. There was nothing to her. Okay? What are you going to betray? Oh, you betrayed. Okay.

It's like so obvious. Oh, yeah, that was so predictable, too. Yeah, she's basically telling you from her first line. I'm untrustworthy. Don't trust me. Oh, yeah. Yeah, it was just, oh, it was like, and for a film that's so short as well, I was checking my watch. It's like 90 minutes long. It's like, this has no energy or structure or like buildup to what is happening.

So, oh, I guess the chameleon now is member burying Kung Fu Panda universe. Oh, look, it's the bad guy from the third one briefly. He's not going to say anything. Oh, there's a bad guy from the second one. It's not going to say anything. That's part of what it makes it a scam movie is because in the trailer, they definitely marketed off of that. Like, oh, we've got all the, all three of the villains again.

But they didn't really. They show the whole film in the advertising way. And I try not to see ads too. I saw a couple before a screening of something or whatever. And it shows the whole Po versus Poe part as well. That's like one of the few gimmicks, I guess, they haven't done yet is a Poe v. Poe, evil Poe fight. That's in the trailer.

Every single beat is in the trailer. There are no surprises. There's nothing. There's no like action scene I'd point to. There's nothing or even like moment of music because Hans Zimmer comes back for this. And that's something I love about those first two movies as well. All those themes going on or the emotion that's been thrown around. It's just not it's not here at all.

Even if some of the returning players are really found it in. Yeah. Like the joke writing like trying to have this kind of, you know, self-helpy, philosophical. dialogue um about like the peach and the you know the peach stone and this kind of stuff yeah again this is kind of done you've done this before with the whole peach tree in the first movie and you just didn't understand why it weren't that emotional note yeah yeah and then trying to make jokes out of it and like doing the i don't know just the cliche like it's the it's the baby bunnies that the the sociopathic and violent you know it's like a minion holding an axe like type

humor yeah they love violence they're going to say Violence, violence. Mm-hmm. I'm sure there's a joke like that in the third one where they have the cute baby pandas and they probably pick up a weapon or it. It's the most obvious like, yep, this is what you'd imagine from the original Kung Fu Panda, like when you see, when you first see the poster over here that it's being made, it's like, yeah, this is probably what you'd imagine that film would look like. Yeah. And that first Kung Fu Panda being the surprise that it was with these lovable characters with that music and the action and the motion. It went against how kind of bad it looked and sounded, whereas this is like, yep,

start of a new trilogy, supposedly. Yeah, but yeah, I didn't even get that, like, out of it. It's like, they have the whole passing of the torch implication, but it's really just, are you, is this a reboot? Like, what's going on here? Because it really just feels like a spin-off, like a Netflix, direct to Netflix, could be 30 minutes. It feels TV quality. Yeah.

Yeah. No idea why this was in theaters. One of the directors is from the Dreamworks like TV division who have like, I guess they're the moving up. They're going into the film stuff now as a co-director. But like unfortunately that does kind of show in the film. It doesn't feel like it doesn't have gravitas. It has no urgency. No.

In fact, the only stuff I kind of liked was like, and it still did feel like TV show like just spin off nothing material was the dad character. doing their little stupid team-up thing. And that was only because I think the voice actors kind of brought them home and sold those characters. They have like a funny gimmick to me. Sure. Their dynamic is funny. But again, I would just say to go and watch the first or second one for that kind of humor just done better, those characters having more to do, or at least the dad character, the goose.

I just think that's such a funny, weird characters. to have in these trilogies and like keep him around and like constantly give him B plots and whatnot. It's like hilarious to me. But yeah, outside of that, there was, there was not much. It was not digging that villain. Beholder Davis just wasted. I didn't even know it was her until the very end. Like when they said it in the credits.

Yeah, she's, I mean, I don't blame her. She just had nothing to do. The character is just flat. Yeah. It's crazy how little characterizations. there is even in the characters that are already written for the trilogy. Like, if you popped in on this film and you hadn't seen the original three, it would be difficult to understand what Poe's character even is.

There's so little of what makes him him. They occasionally do the odd reference to like, oh, wow, this is awesome. But you never really see it properly characterized. You never really feel as though he's fleshed out in any way. It's just these tiny moments where it's like, oh, member the urn of souls sort of thing. But like, yeah, yeah. You barely see any of it. It's like maybe once or twice for like 10 seconds.

They were struggling with what to do with the poor character from the third movie. That's when they started kind of getting bad in my opinion. That's kind of the main reason. We got to pick a new dragon warrior now. Him as a character in the first and second. He's kind of got, he conquers his like trauma and backstory in the second movie. And it's kind of like, oh, so now what do we do with him? Uh, I guess he could eat.

something he could have he could have thoughts about eating something again we could do that again you could eat something that would be funny again yeah it's a classic and what I'm kind of really disappointed by is like this is post Puss and Boots last wish which was a surprise as well was like way better than anyone anticipated that had that visual flare they were doing something interesting with that more kind of cell shaded taking frames out extreme style. And I felt like after watching that, oh, the Kung Fu Panda stuff would be perfect for that.

They were kind of dipping their toe in in that original trilogy anyway with these like animated sequences with these like extreme contrasting colors and the color about we go for. They could have done something really cool with that style. Or some variation. It was something creative visually to kind of make this one stand out compared to those first, that first trilogy. They really do nothing.

It seemed like there were moments where they were pretending to do almost something interesting. Like they would do some change in visual style, I think, in some of the flashbacks. But it looked so much worse than previous instances of that happening in the other movies. Yeah, it looked cheaper. Yeah. Whereas like the 2D animation stuff in 1 and 2, it's like, oh, this is like actually beautiful. Like you've put effort into this and it's an awesome contrast and a cool way of dropping its position. Then contrast it with this where there's like, yeah, different kind of stuff.

style going on for an aquafina flashback, but it's like a character you don't care about. It doesn't look that good. It's not that interesting. Yeah, it's just, there's no creative spark here. There's nothing to, there's no hook really anymore to get you in. Puss and Boots, the last wish estimated budget was 90 to 110 million. So not that far off. So they spent more of Kung Fu Panda for, but they both made around the same amount of money.

theatrically. I'm assuming Puss and Boots will make more money in the Blu-ray digital sales, but God. Yeah. It's not like there's a lesson to learn here if your dream works.

Really? Like they scammed people and it was fine. Yeah. 480 some million dollars. When it was devolving into scenes like, oh, Poe's got to pick the new Dragon Warrior again. We've got to do this again.

Let's go back to this location again. Let's, uh, oh, now we can have a little montage of, uh, like, X Factor tryouts, but it's for the Dragon Warrior. So we can have some funny little jokes in there. We can have a pig throwing something around. Isn't that funny? Look, we're back here. Do you remember this moment?

Man, bad. Just all this kind of stuff. It's like, yeah. It's, it's hardcore member. And it's just weird for it to be at such a point where we're doing that for Kung Fu Panda, of all things. Yeah. And even that is not its biggest issue. It's just the lack of universe, the lack of scale, the lack of character, the lack of setting, the lack of writing and jokes.

Like, every single environment, it just felt so stale and so small. Like, if you zoomed back a little, you'd see the edges of the out of bounds in the world. And there was so much repetitive nature to the sets, the settings. and it just so many of the jokes they just kind of over-explained and were obvious like yeah they have the the rickety tavern on a cliff and then of course right after he's like why would you build a tavern on a cliff that's not smart it's like over-explained the joke okay like every every single fucking joke is just over-explained they have the you know the cliched inner thought

what's his name, Shifu or whatever, just popping on Po's shoulder, trying to be his moral guide. The angel devil thing. He says out loud, shouldn't my inner voices have disagreements? It's like, you don't have to explain it. Stop explaining it. There are other kids movies that are better. It doesn't matter. You can't just say like, oh, I'm making it dumb for kids.

Such a bad excuse. Most of these are jokes they've already done within this own franchise as well. Yeah. Like the whole, uh, the hall of heroes thing with all the iconic things being smashed or broken. They've done that like once or twice before. They definitely did it in three with his dad. It's to remind you of the first time it happened. Exactly. Yeah, but like, by the time the film ends, you wind up with mostly those. It's mostly scenes of like, hey, remember, this is kind of a redux of this scene from Comic, from Comic Panda 2. I remember this thing from Comic Panda 1? Look, let's, and it's just like. Like there's no original voice or anything about this one. Nothing. Yeah. I wrote a bunch of notes for this, but, you know, I don't know if there's too much more to say about it.

Scablam. We're going to talk about some other movies. So fuck this shit. Literally a scam movie. Disgusting, cynically made just for money. no no creativity disgusting movie two out of ten ever so slightly high uh three out of ten one and a half star this is dream works i guess like machine just working efficiently it's a product movie they've like figured out they've done all the focus testing they figured

out the scenes from one two and three that people liked smash them all together put this chameleon in there didn't even talk about like it's a big the big ending fight sequence where chameleon turns into this big dragon beast thing that kind of reminded me of the ending of onward or some forgettable garbage like that um it's just like whoa you guys used to be cool man this sucks this is so lazy and bad and i'm upset that you even felt the need to make this because you couldn't even justify couldn't even come come up with any angle to sell me on why you've rebe visits at this world.

Well, I gave it a two, you gave it a three. So, looks like, looks like we have irreconcilable differences. And it looks like Sardonicast is now in a Civil War directed by Alex Garland is another film. Oh, God. We saw. I saw it at South by Southwest. And took a little bit to get into main theaters, not too long. A lot of South by Southwest movies are movies that just come out in like a month anyway.

But. Hmm. Spoiler discussion. There's spoilers in this discussion. What do you think? Yeah, it's doing well. People are seeing it. Yeah.

It's 824's biggest opening weekend, I think. Yeah, which I'm kind of surprised by. It's obviously a politically charged time right now, especially I guess in America, which is where the film is set. And the film is about an American civil war. I got to say I did I really did enjoy this. It wasn't what I was expecting or anticipating based off, especially the advertising. Because when you get into the film and it's kind of more about, I guess to me, the war photographers and taking that more, choosing these photographers as the lens to view the Civil War through because they are kind of inherently more apolitical.

You can get more into that, I guess, but the concept of them is a good lens to view something as charged as a Civil War through. So you can kind of show what's going on and trying to avoid the term both sides in it. Because a lot of the way this film is being talked about has been confusing to me and part of why I was a little bit thrown off when I was actually watching the movie in like half an hour had gone by. And I was like, oh, this feels like quite different to the way people have been talking about this. like and I guess this is just what we had to get used to now with the especially online the way films are talked about because the nature of it being called civil war I'm seeing the usual suspects you're timples your he loves it all these characters talking about this film and making out like that group seems to dislike the movie is the vibe I'm getting

that it's it's take it's not taking a stance hard enough it is both sidesing it and it's taking this kind of mediator, if not kind of glowing up journalist type stance, which I saw some people claiming it to be. But my whole point of bringing that kind of argument and discourse was, it's like, man, I just, and a similar thing happened with his last film, Men, where I feel like the way people are talking about this film is like, I feel like I just can't even relate to any of where we are coming at this conversation from. Like, what are we even talking about?

Because, like, when you break these films down, it's like, I don't know, it's not that complicated. The closest thing I was going to be reminded of while watching this was Garland's writing on 28 days later, as far as like a structure. It's kind of like the spiritual successor to that movie in ways that I was definitely not expecting. It's more of like this road trip structure through the Civil War almost as a backdrop. They don't spend a lot of time. You're not getting like House of Cards, conversation scenes with people in government talking about why things are the way they are, why what policies are. It's mostly built up through conversations and you're picking up details here and that, oh, they're talking about this is the president's third term in office. Oh, what does that imply from that?

and yeah, you're kind of picking up the world building from the characters and what they're talking about, which does bring up some issues, like, quite top level that I feel like hurt the movie when you're trying to buy into it early on, that being, they kind of establish that the, how do they phrase it, I did write it down, that one of the armies, the Western Forces Military Front is a coalition of Texas and California, right? Yeah. If you know these states, in which way they tend to swing, is kind of confusing when they keep saying that and associating these two together. And the more I was thinking about it, the more I was kind of like wondering how intentional that was as far as Garland being like putting his hands up almost like, it's not what my film is about. It's not like how we've gotten to this point.

It's more about look at the state we're in. There are a couple scenes that kind of acknowledge the state they're in. And kind of prodding the audience to not think about the mechanics. That's kind of how I interpret the sniper scene, especially. Oh, of course. Yeah. You don't even know who you're shooting or why? Well, they're shooting to me.

It's like, okay, that makes things pretty clear. And I get the choice behind not explaining pretty much anything. about what any of the factions even believe other than the fact that, like, there are some that are anti-current government fascist man. What left me a little just wanting more out of that conversation or that sort of world building was the fact that, to me, these main characters were just not really compelling. and their conversations and their dynamics were not interesting for me. There's some great scenes in the movie, don't get me wrong. And there's some great, really intense sequences with great sound design and just really intense moments or scenarios that these characters are in.

But to me, those scenes work despite the main characters, not because of them. And it's a movie that I almost wish would go further in one direction. or the other, where you could have more compelling main characters and have, you know, more interesting attributes to them or just interesting dynamics or just, I don't know, better performances even from this main four group of, really group of four people. Yeah, I was, I was not really into the main characters. I felt like the everything around them worked whenever there was an action or, uh, tension, suspense kind of sequence,

with them, but not because of them, just despite them. Right. I thought they were a good kind of breakdown of different ways you can kind of interpret that style of journalism where you do have this character, Joel, who he's more of like a thrill seeker and he's, you're seeing him get the rush from just kind of being there. Is Kristen Dunst character not also basically a thrill seeker? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I'd say that's definitely like something they explore about the movie.

Because I found it difficult to empathize with them. Just all this fucking war going around, like people dying in front of them and them just being fucking media perverts and clicking their cameras. That's part of the interesting question, right? Because like there is like a media pervert angle of it. And I feel like that's what they're exploring through the characters. I've seen some people saying that it's yeah jerking off the idea or kind of encouraging it

but I kind of I interpreted it almost the inverse way where I didn't see it as like aggrandizing this concept No no I didn't think it was encouraging it Yeah I saw it more of as a good kind of mask off Look this is what this concept looks like And this is something I don't know we kind of we kind of have to do We have to document war, but we need to do it for all of our sakes. And there is something important about that concept, but then staring what that looks like in the dehumanization aspect of someone with a camera in this like war zone.

What that looks like from a third person perspective is scary and what it makes other characters do, I think is fascinating. And that's what works about the Kirsten Dunst's character up against the younger journalist who, you know, it's like a reflection of herself and is an excuse for her to think about her past and kind of be confronted with the ugliness of like what she's dedicated her life to. Yeah. And it's like sad, nihilistic kind of takeaways where there's some really good dialogue and lines kind of exploring this idea or these ideas through these characters. Some saying like, yeah, it's not up to us to think about what we are documenting. that's for the people who see it to frame. We are just, we're just eyes.

But then, yeah, there is a humanistic aspect to it. There are, you know, she's like in her hotel room bath, having flashbacks to when she was in Iraq or any number of places she had been implied to have been. And the human toll it takes and these relationships between these different people who are all kind of scumbags and they're like stealing off each other. and getting each other drunk so they can get information and they're tracking each other.

They're an interesting group of people to me. And the more grounding element, I guess, is the older gentleman with the cane, the Sammy character. Who, yeah, he's a bit more level-headed. He's got like a better guttural read on what's going on. But he also has that thrill-seeking. Like, he's past his prime, but he can't let it go. And having this cast of characters to me was like, endless intrigue as far as like exploring this idea of what a war photographer is what it means to be.

It's not something I've seen too many examples of. The only things I can really think of is like full metal jacket has some kind of war documentation scenes in there, but it's not really the main focus or I recently started the HBO show, I think it's HBO Generation Kill where one of the main characters in the squad is a war journalist. But again, it's not the main focus. Um, so having that concept be front and center and really, I really feel like they do a good job exploring it and bringing up like, when the younger photographer asked Kirsten Dunst, like, would you take a picture of me if I was like, killed? Mm-hmm. She doesn't even need to answer.

She like knows. Yeah. And I think stringing that set of characters along with these different set pieces, each one designed to bring up some kind of unsettling imagery. normally associate with somewhere America's like invading to be honest you know somewhere in the middle somewhere in Vietnam this kind of imagery and placing it in American settings there's something scary about there and there's something that should be unsettling and illuminating about seeing that kind of thing and the idea of like yeah you're not necessarily above it just because it's your homeland like

yeah you know I I feel like this movie, maybe not as extreme, but a lot of people when they criticized men, which I loved, they would say things like, okay, well, I get the commentary. It's just not that deep. And I have a similar feeling about this film where it's like I understood what it was going for and the ideas that it was presenting, but I just didn't, I didn't find myself able to really chew on it over the course of the film's runtime. And a lot of the film's runtime is spent with these characters. And there are, you know, the parts that I really love about the film are the action and suspense sequences, which are super well done, but feel kind of mindless to me in the context of these characters. Like there doesn't seem to be this gel between the ideas that it's presenting and the ideas that it's claiming to present alongside with these other sequences that are being presented. because, you know, as much as I love Jesse Plymins and that whole sequence, obviously, that's the most famous one. It was in the trailer. People are meming on it, whether positively or negatively or both.

I just, I didn't really care about her character. Like, I didn't care about the main cast of characters. I cared a lot about those two other guys that showed up. I think they were from China. I really cared about what happened to them. and that helped the scene for me. But the main characters to me are just so, I just found them to be disposable and unrelatable.

In a less interesting way, I was kind of reminded almost of like Nightcrawler, where that's a really interesting character to get a bit more to chew on and, you know, is even more morally dicey. But it's just more fun to follow Jake Gyllenhaal's character, and watch his psyche. And he is unrelatable, sure, in similar ways. But I feel like I got more out of his character

in terms of what there was to explore. And it was a much more character-driven film. Oh, yeah. And constantly throughout this film, you know, I'm either reminded of Nightcrawler or I'm reminded of, you know, things like 28 days later, sure, children of men, even the last of a show,

where people are essentially doing this apocalyptic road trip. And I, in being reminded of those other films, I kind of just wound up wishing that I was watching those instead, especially with the cast of characters that were along with on that journey. And I don't think this is a bad film, and there's parts of it that really work for me. But I just, the overall experience, I don't think it's one that I'm going to be seeing again anytime soon.

I'll watch it again eventually, but this is the interesting thing about Alex Garland movies, as they all seem to be like relatively divisive in some way. There's none that everybody loves. No, it doesn't seem like he's building them to be that way. It seems like it's his voice and it just connects with some and really doesn't with others. It doesn't feel like he's building that controversy into the films, at least in my opinion. It still feels like he's a filmmaker. He has something to say.

And in my opinion, anyway, with each one of his projects, he's showing me something. something different, something fresh. Like, you couldn't really conjure two inverse movies than men and then Civil War. The scale that it goes to, especially towards the end of this film, is huge, I think, especially in his, considering his body of work. But I do, it's funny to say this, because I did note down, I think it's a Garland problem, a recurring issue with some of his. his films where there is a coldness there and it can make, I don't think I consider really many of his films to be character led or that is my biggest takeaway. Like when I think about annihilation or ex machina or even devs, it's not really the

characters that are sitting in my mind. It's more the concepts, some of the shots, some of the music, these kind of ideas. And yeah, I think I can see why that would affect this film for you. I just, I did not find them uninteresting. I was actually kind of surprised. I was thinking about like blow up how cool it was to have this unique character, this kind of middle-aged woman war photographer. So this is a cool, unique perspective.

I feel like I haven't really seen explored to this kind of scale before. And yeah, I did dig these characters with how they were being used with. with the framing of everything. Sure, they weren't particularly deep, but I did like them as a group. And it was the group dynamic that was kind of, yeah, carrying it for me with having one character change by thinking about their past

and then the younger character kind of be in the early stages of becoming the main character and kind of the contrast and the kind of sick moments. that come from that, like the whole way the set piece with the president goes down and person winds up being taken out. Again, not a moment that works for me. Sorry, yeah, big spoilers. Yeah.

Emotionally, it doesn't work in that moment for me as far as I kind of character. No, not at all. It's very silly. The presentation of it, though, and like what is making me think about. Like, conceptually, I can think, like, that's an interesting choice. But fuck, like I just, I really just don't care about those characters. And it was kind of chuckleworthy for me. And the seriousness of which it took itself as well did not help.

I liked the way they would sprinkle in photography with the editing to kind of break up the pace of action and whatnot. I thought that was a cool choice. The editing was great. Love the editing. Oh, yeah. I thought the presentation in general was also. The sound design as well, the commitment to in that bombing scene. towards the beginning, just committing to the silence outside of just the camera clicks and stuff like this.

I love that line of a, because it's like it becomes a mad race to try and get to the president and get a quote from him before he dies. And yeah, the last line just being, that will do after the president says, don't let them kill me. And he's like, yeah, he's pathetically like in a ball on the floor, like with tears coming out of his eyes. And there's a comment earlier on when they're just traveling somewhere in the car about how dictators when you're up, you know, face to face with them, then are often as impressive as they might seem. It's kind of hammering home that kind of idea. I guess I was just kind of impressed how it's clearly like a caricature of like a Trumpish figure if he was actually successful on a January 6th type siege. That seemed like the spark of like, oh, let's take that.

And imagine like, yeah, a president who attempts something like that. And then they stick around for a term longer than they should be able to. And let's like set the story in that mess. Yeah. Once you combine to the premise, I was kind of there for, yeah, everything it was bringing me. And that pace as well, it's like so short to me. It didn't feel like it was lingering. It was difficult to predict.

Like their mission for most of the movie is that they have a planned interview with the president that's been like scheduled with them But towards the end it will just falls through and then becomes the mad rush in kind of an unpredictable way I just thought yeah This was really entertaining and cool and clever and I Yeah, I'd watch this again a heartbeat. I feel like this there's more to Pick up from that detail of of the world and like oh there must have maybe there's a line I missed giving some context as to this and and these implications of like whipping out the Canadian dollars and the essential more value than US dollars.

That was a good joke. I really like that kind of like world building. Yeah. Yeah, it just feels so few and far between for me. And again, that end sequence, the best parts about it are just things that work despite the main characters being there. You know, I would almost rather have had a film that. doesn't have main characters. I would almost rather have had little vignettes or little

short stories within this universe of... Like a mockumentary would be cool. Yeah, maybe a mockumentary or maybe just like an anthology type sort of thing set in this the same scenario or universe. Like that could have worked for me really easily and I think its strongest points are these essential, essentially little short films within the film that I that I gravitate towards and that I do find artistic value in. But yeah, just as a whole, there's just, the characters do not work for me. And yeah, I don't know. Part of me also feels weird about the fact that he must have known making this movie

capitalizing off of the political and civil device. divisiveness taking place in America, that his film maybe would have had different results with a different story, maybe, but probably not. But just the idea of the film existing in the first place even is almost kind of like you're just kind of capitalizing off of it. You're not really helping the situation. especially with the title and the marketing.

It's definitely not helping. And the title, I would say, is the most disingenuous part maybe. Because as I say, yeah, I had no idea. It was about like a war photographer. That was the angle. I thought it was going to be way more. Yeah, about that. How a hypothetical civil war would kick off in contemporary times in the US,

like Tim Pools was saying about what would that look like. It's not really as interested in that side of it. The mechanics of how we got there. It's more like we are here. This is kind of how it looks and feels or might look and feel. Let's explore the intensity of that and the tension of that. Because I definitely felt a lot of tension. I felt like it's a lot of good action even.

A lot of good choreography, a lot of set design, a lot of variety of like what they're going through the, yeah, the different levels of scale that you're showing. You're seeing what's going on in the air. You see, I love the scenes that are shot just outside of like an active war zone where you can see the ricocheting shots in the background and the sound, and they're like, oh, let's go there tomorrow. That looks sick.

It's like there's something so kind of sickening about looking at it through this lens, like a night crawler or something like this. And yeah, it might not be the most original point or the deepest kind of ideas that we're playing with. But I feel like they're communicated in a really good, kind of easy to understand way that doesn't get lost in itself like a, Didn't Southland Tales have a whole like civil war aspect to it, right? It had 8,000 different stories happening. Because I remember that, like, you know, like in the imagery on the posters and whatnot,

they've got these like snipers everywhere and it's been used in the advertising. I remember in Southland Tales, wasn't that like a thing where cities have like sniper, they have like sniper posts like on the beach and stuff with like soldiers. It's like, uh, it always comes about to Southland Tales, man, always. It always does. Yeah, love the cinematography, love the sound design, love the editing and music choices. So, you know, overall, didn't hate it.

I'd watch it again. Six out of ten. Don't know how soon I'm going to watch it again. And it might be one of those things where I change it to a five on a second watch. I don't know. But we'll see. Maybe I'll change it to a second. Maybe it was seven.

Maybe I'll love it more. but yeah i definitely uh enjoyed this a lot more than you for me this is sitting at like a low four star uh three and a half kind of zone um which would yeah be solidified by a second watch i think um yeah yeah just like this perspective i like this filmmaker his films are always interesting they are always they are always interesting and yeah i like i don't it's just what i like seen from a especially a director, writer. It's like this kind of range with the subject matter, with one second, it's a crazy

sci-fi thing, then it's a horror film about like stalkers, and now we're in this big civil war thriller. It's like, this is cool. I want to see this type of thing. I like this scale of movie. It's, I think, the budget to what you're seeing, like it adds up. It makes sense. I don't know.

I just want to encourage this kind of filmmaking. Even if you don't even really like it like a man or a civil war, I just feel like you're always going to get something interesting. And I'm always having good conversations about this guy as a filmmaker, even with people who hate his films. And I feel like there's something valuable about that. And I wouldn't want that to go away. We ready for the mom verse? I'm ready for moms. You're ready for moms.

M&M. Eminem. I guess, yeah It is Eminem. Yeah. It's the first Lairdelliculous, griveltastic film ever made.

I did, you know, I was kind of fascinated by it throughout. I wasn't upset watching it. So. You weren't upset. I don't know. There were a couple things I was upset by it. No, even despite how tired I was when I started.

I was like, I don't want to watch this movie right now. But it was the only time I had. had to before the recording was like, oh, but it won you over. Oh yeah, I was like, you know what, this, I'm engaged actually. I'm engaged. It came for you, yeah. Yeah. It was, it was endlessly fascinating this movie.

It spoke to you at the right time. Yes. It was prescience. Yeah, and I thought you would enjoy it from that kind of level. Because this is an extremely weird film, especially now we're like a decade removed from it. This kind of trend of movies has lived and died. So now we can look at it in retrospect and try and figure out what was in the air that Robert Zemeckis and his company were breathing during this time.

Superweed. That led to just these abominations. Now, they'd be way more entertaining if they were on the superweed for this stuff. This is nightmare. This is like nightmare material. Like we're talking about, and a lot of them are kids films outside of Beowulf. the majority of them wound up being, you know, we're talking Polar Express, Beowulf of Christmas Carol, and Mars needs moms being the kind of cherry on top kicker to ruin this whole thing.

I don't know where this comes from. It seems like there are kind of sects of directors that have a real intrigue, a real focus on technology. And a bunch of them just get obsessed with seeing if they can do things and never stop to consider if they should. be doing things. And I feel like this group of movies, this motion capture gimmick from this time where it was possible, but it was not ready. It was not sure you got like your avatar. And even the original avatar, I would argue, has some like weird looking creepy, uncanny valley shots like now. Avatar 2 is like better, but like that's also that was also made in the 2020s. So kind of caught up a little bit as far as this, this creepy, uncanny valley fact that these films, I would say kind of popularized.

Yeah, you had like your final fantasy movies that we mentioned on the show before, but no one saw those, no one cared about those. They had like Jim Carrey in these things, you know, they're big, big name actors. Robert Zemeckers is a huge name in Hollywood. So he was able to, like, he saw some kind of potential in this, some kind of, some kind of promise. the, I would argue, has never really been reached unless you'd consider like, Avatar, I guess, the zenith of this kind of filmmaking selling to audiences and not scaring people and making people like it as an idea. But yeah, I mentioned this one, because this is kind of the big example of Disney dropping

$150 million for this nightmare. And it's just not connecting with audiences. It's got like 20,000 ratings on IMDB. No one's seen it. It made no money. And as far as I'm aware, has murdered or did murder this style of creepy CG monstrosity films. They shut down the animation studio. Yeah, which is deserved.

And I'm glad. Because I feel like, I don't know, if they have more like big giant ape characters and big monsters, that this could have like started working for them, I feel like, and I'm glad we're not in that timeline because I'm glad movies don't look like this for the most part. So yeah, Mars needs moms, breezy hour and a half long, kind of the title is self-explanatory. Martians, they're out there.

They want to steal Seth Green. I mean, random child actors' mom. And it's the classic thing of they have some kind of argument, the mum gets stolen by the aliens. And then there's an adventure with the little boy going to Mars. And it just gets scarier and scarier once Dan Fogler shows up, you see his, all of his paws, every single individual hair. Yeah.

Just see a hyper realistic, but kind of a dead eyes, Dan Fogler. And it just kind of compounds from there. Cats look scary. Humans look scary. I mean, like... The fucking... Martians are the fucking ugliest things on the in the universe I guess. Why did they do that to the Martians?

Why did they design them that way? Because this is based on a kids book too, it being Disney and whatnot. So I searched up the kids book and was like, yeah, the kids book kind of has charming art, like fun character designs, like color. Then you go to this and it's like, oh, you're like flinch when you're looking at the screen. Why did they design them that way? And they've got these like tight abs and huge asses. Why were they doing that?

And they frame the ass like in every... It's like Miranda and Mass Effect 2 like style. It's like that bad. It's not only a huge ass, but it's like the crack in the suit. It's like up there. There's like a vacuum. Why they give the Martians BBLs? They've all got BPLs. It's bizarre. It's so distracting. And yeah, this is kind of what I mean about these like kids movies that they're just, they're just not appropriate. Like, I don't know if I'm just being puritanical or what, but like the stuff that this film is showing. It's like, I wouldn't want to show this to my child. You kidding? This is, my worst nightmares look like this. And okay, let's reel this back.

We got a real this back, because we have to talk about the main character and like part of where the innate horror factor comes from with them. So originally, this took three years to make, by the way. So I guess in like 2009, Seth Green, which you can see in the credits of the movie and behind the scenes like little montage they show, did all of the mocap and voice work for the main character who's like a little boy. So they got that far in production and filmed all. all this stuff, used all this mocap. And then I guess at some point, a producer or someone decided, oh, Seth Green's voice doesn't match this little boy who he's supposed to be playing. Oh, God, what do we do?

Um, let's cast a real little boy, but let's continue to use the motion capture of the 35 year old Seth Green. So what you wind up with is this little boy character has the voice and kind of body size of a child, but the movements and weird kind of hybrid face of a child mashed with a 35 year old Seth Green. And your brain kind of knows it. Like it looks off no matter what. Even without that context, there's something off about this main kid.

Like where his eyes are on his head, like the size of them. It is bizarre. That is what it is. It's like an adult baby man. It's so, it's wrong. Every character looks like a baby with down syndrome. Every character. Straight up.

And so I actually, like, I don't think it's the technology. The technology is not the issue. It's the character design. It's pretty simple for me. Like, just, just if you want to sell a movie to children, you have to think, would the characters on the poster be something that a child would want to see? Would the characters in the trailer speak to a child in a way where they would go, I want to see that. But it exists in this weird, exact center between having character designs that would look appealing for children versus a film that would look even remotely appealing for adults. So it looks, the entire film looks clearly too childish for adults to be interested.

And yet, two adult and too uncanny valley for any kid to be interested in it. So you have to wonder, what was the target demographic? Like, they're expecting families to see it. Who in the family would want to see this? Who? Yeah. Like, these are the things that you should figure out in the early steps when green lighting your film is, how the fuck are we going to get people to see this? Right?

If you're making a Disney movie where there's an expectation that you're... going to get money back, that's why you're making it. It's not for art. It's clearly not for art. Most of the things that happen in this movie are just rip-offs of other movies. Yeah. I just go, the impetus, that's where my mind just goes is like, why? Like, hundreds of people had to coordinate on this and like, agree.

Let's go. Let's do this. Like, is everyone like just, I guess when, Zemeckis and I guess Simon Wells directed this because like very close with Zemeckis and was a producer and on a bunch of his stuff so that's why he was trusted with this project but like I guess when they come with this idea of like we're going to make Mars needs moms we're doing this innovative new technology that everyone's loving even though if you look at if you look at all these movies none of them really made money even getting Jim Carrey in there like

barely made money with how expensive and stupid and over the top this way of making films is they made they made money just not a lot compared to how much they spent on you know that they they what they saw something in this they they thought like this is a new way of making films like this is we've done it like yeah this is gonna take off this is a great idea there's potential in this we're gonna this is gonna go places and like the examples we get like yeah some of the scariest films ever produced in like Hollywood scale like it's just it's just mad like

watching this imagining oh like the Lion King 2019 that wasn't even close to like the beginning of this kind of mess. Films like this were like warning signs this John Carter but it's not there is no artistry in the making of these like Disney type films anymore it's about yeah what's the technology we can put what's what's a new way we can tell this thing we've already done it's like oh man what what a horrible attitude to like telling stories or wanting to say something. They're looking for gimmicks.

They are looking for gimmicks and what maybe I don't remember 2011 very well but like what's the what's the gimmick what's the what's the actor what's the part of this that's supposed to be the big cell because what ain't Seth Green exactly exactly it's confusing like what where's the cell was Dan Fogler like huge what was he like in a TV show that was popping at the time I think he was like the second choice for Jack Black or something. Like, that would have worked a bit better. Just get Jack Black to do a Jack Black impression instead of somebody else. Yes. But whenever that character like says anything, I, I feel like I need to close my eyes

because it's so scary looking. So it's like, because it not only is it like this mocap kind of style where it's tricking your brain, but they're, yeah, they're putting all these layers of like gizmos and gadgets and like robots. walking around and there's just something is so off about it and your brain knows it. It's just unpleasant to look at, which... Yeah. Not in an intended way, even though they're supposed to be in like a trash underground place. It's not like mad god or whatever, it's like, ugh, something cheap and gross.

And he was the best looking character. Probably, yeah, he was like, yeah, we're flexing with this guy. Look how much detail we put on him. Look at these textures. That's what these films feel like. like they don't feel like films they feel like tech demos you know for like a engine or something yeah when I was younger seeing all the trailers for these weird Robert Zemeckis tech demo films I definitely avoided them like the plague like not a single one looked interesting to me to watch no and I'm I'm very thankful for that because I feel like I was just the right age for these

to not be something I would ever be exposed to something I'm thinking like if you if you If you did like a science experiment on a baby and all they were allowed to watch was like these Robert Zemeca CG movies, you're going to create like a sociopath. You're going to make like a monster. They're going to go insane. Yeah, they're going to have problems, man. And it's because, what? $150 million. Think about that in 2011.

That's, there's no way to make that right. There's no way to justify that. And yet they did and they spent that. Yeah. And we should also mention it grossed like it made $39 million. So they lost over $100 million. It's one of Disney's biggest flops of all time. They literally just fucking threw away $110 million plus however much they spent on advertising.

But it's like it's not like you look at it after the fact and go, well, that's a bloody mystery. No, it's pretty clear. It's really simple. Yeah, exactly. And honestly, I think changing Seth Green's voice, there's just no chance after doing that. Like that's, you're sandbagging an already sandbagged project by doing that, you know? Like at least then maybe you'd have, I think maybe it would communicate more that it is Seth Green and maybe they could have made that part of the character that it is like him. Not like an actual child voice you're hearing.

Are you aware that the Seth Green cut exists? What do you mean? You can watch it with the voice and everything. Yeah, click the link. No. Yeah. So it's basically somebody found out two years ago, a channel called Cinephile Studios. And you'd think that this would have a lot of views.

It only has less than 30,000 views on this video. Because I guess just nobody cares about this movie. But they, as they were ripping the Blu-ray, they found this. extra audio track that was inaccessible if you tried to play the Blu-ray through normal means. Like, you wouldn't be able to access it through the audio tracks on the Blu-ray. But there it was in the Blu-ray file, so maybe just some employee snuck it in there. And you have the full Seth Green recordings with, you know, the rest of the audio is not properly mixed or balanced and there's some sound effects missing or whatever.

but you can hear the voice take. So if you just feel free to like, click play on that internet archive link, which is linked in the YouTube channel video description that I mentioned called, I accidentally found the Seth Greencut, Mars Needs Moms by Sinophile Studios. So if you click in the description,

there's a internet archive link and you can just click play, skim around, and you can see, you can hear the clips, any one of the, the parts with Seth Green saying things. And this is mad.

It's fascinating. Because it also doesn't work. It clearly doesn't work is I guess the point I'm making is that neither option is ideal. And they probably should have thought about this before making the movie. That's what I mean. That's what I can't get past. This is like how many, how many barriers? did this get through, you know?

Like, it's $150 million. Like, that's not, that's not a small amount to be thrown. Like, people have, people are going to be wanting that back, you know. They get, no, that's why it's so stressful to make films on this scale with this many eyes under you because of that, those kind of figures being thrown around. It's like, yep, we, we really truly believe Mars needs moms is going to bring us back. 700 million of the box office. That's, that's a realistic thing in our.

minds. Yeah. And it's not like, it's not like they didn't advertise it. Like people were aware of this movie. Everybody just consciously decided that they were not interested in seeing it. It's not like people didn't know about it. You know what? This time the audience was completely right. They were, they were right on the ball this time, the audience. Yeah. It's, it's, uh, I was, I was not bored. No, I was never bored because it's so crazy. Like, you're, I, I just can't help but think about the making of process where like you see like the the worst shot ever rendered right like just a horrifying mixture of like Dan Fogel and like these monsters and just everything just sucks and it's like they're trying to be earnest and like sell this like oh this

little kid is his mom is dying in his hands that was the shot right we got it and it's like multiple people looking at this and being like you did it man That's the one. This is going to be Mars needs moms. This is, everyone's going to see this. $150 million. I just don't believe it. Like it, it's too crazy for me. But how could you look at that and think, yeah, we can, we can use this to sell a story? Like, I'm not joking. And that scene where the, the helmet swap scene, where the mother sacrifices herself for the sake of the boy. And she is in his arms and he is screaming. He's wailing on the surface of Mars for his mommy.

Screaming. And you're like, oh, like your reaction is like a guttural. Ew. Just because of like how it looks. Gross. Yeah, the whole film is like basically genuinely, is that as a film. And then like an alien comes in and they're doing like, hey, Dan Fogle's definitely going to fuck this alien. Yeah

You know he's gonna fuck that alien That's his plan It's like Yeah It's just like oh Okay I guess you're just doing that What was he eating the whole time

Because he was kidnapped as a kid And then he's on Mars Oh good question I guess Red Rock Maybe he was eating Martians They didn't really flesh out the story very well Because

He has all these gadgets He was able to make And it's not like the movie was like Oh none of this actually happened And it was all a dream the kid the kids back on earth at the end with a fucking vaporizer when he's not like referencing top gun or star wars or whatever um he does like drop a line about being a secronaut which was like a do you say a ronald reagan scheme they made like a red scare communist joke

because of the planet being red and i was like oh that's one of the only kind of funny jokes and the whole thing but then they like undercut it with like a top gun reference or a yeah him just being annoying or screaming or looking scary um and that was part of it was like some of the enjoyment for me comes from Dan Fogler like he's he really is trying his dandist and like you can see you can see uh in the mocap like clips in the end credits like what he was trying to do I guess but man you just got nothing to work you like what do you what do you how are you supposed to to sell this. It's impossible. Yeah. Not with, not with those characters. Like, it's straight up impossible.

They're terrifying. They look disgusting. Just like the Martians themselves are a reason to avoid the film. Like, like imagine, imagine your Dan Fogler in the booth right now, right? And your line is, fact is, Mars needs moms. You know, like, now sell it. Basinga. Yeah, that's grivel-tastic, baby. Yeah. This gribble-diculous.

Getting to see young gribbles quite a moment, huh? Mullet grible. The script, even before you get, like, let's imagine that they didn't have the character designs yet. They were just doing the script. Rewrite it. How does it get past that point? How does it get past, how does this get past anyone? Because there's nothing interesting or compelling happening in the script.

Every single scene is just a rip-off of another. movie. Yeah. And I'm so there's this whole I was trying to figure out like what they're trying to say with this or how much of it was intentional and how much was in, you know, unintended. Um, because like the, the Martian society is matriarchal when like the boss baby, when babies are born, they like, they filter out the males and they drop them to like this, the garbage surface where the men raise the men. Meanwhile, the women are like, yeah, they're the soldiers and they eventually like can be the leaders, I guess, of the Martian society.

But throughout the course of the movie, like, I guess Stan Fogel teams up with the dudes who live on the trash surface and introduces men back into the society and the women realize that they needed men the whole time and that love and family is what was going to bring them together. I guess. Dismantled the, the matriarchal society. This is like, I don't think they really even thought about it that much, to be honest. I think it was someone like came up with the title Marsney's moms and then like they probably thought backwards from there.

Yeah, I wonder what happened in the original. I just don't even know. But yeah, like what are they saying? What, like, what are they actually saying with this movie? Yeah. Was the kids supposed to interpret from this? It was weird for a movie that like almost. seemed at points to be like pro women girl power but then also just very rigidly enforce these

kind of gender norm ideas like no you need a mom you need moms bro and then i don't know i was just thinking about the way that the universe works and it it was it didn't add up at all like they they kidnap a mom every no so often they have a lot feed from insider head basically, like a POV shot, to try and determine whether or not one of the moms that they're spying on is a good mom. And so they have some sort of metric, some sort of measurement by which they can judge whether or not a mom is good at being a mom. But they can't apply it to just themselves. And they have to build these nanny bots that they can't just program the nanny bots to do what is being shown in these very detailed, very thorough

spy videos that they're taking of the moms on earth. They can't just programming them using that. They have to kidnap the mom and vaporize her brain to then upload into multiple nanny bots that can only ever be used once. They can raise a child once and then they break. And we're never given an explanation as to why that needs to be the case. They just kind of insist that that happens and that's necessary. But then they can't just take, like, I don't know, maybe save one extra nanny bot and then use that one and copy the information onto the other ones after instead of continuing to kid

kidnap moms from Earth. And they all seem surprised at the idea that like the kid cared about it. Like their minds were changed at the end when they saw him crying. Like, they love their mom? What? What have we been doing? That was another That's bad? That's bad?

Because like that was just to justify the ticking time bomb sun coming up. Oh yeah, look on your watch, the time's going down and that's when the sun beam is going to shoot your beam into your mom and steal her memory. It's like so elaborate. So over the top and like difficult to follow. And not necessary in the slightest. And they all seem. fine just figuring out how to raise babies at the end anyway. Yeah.

Like how their species has survived this long. They'd seem like pretty technologically savvy. There are just multiple details. It's not appropriate for its target audience. We say it's confusing who it's like being aimed at, but it's like a Disney movie. It must be like families, babies, right? So why do you have scenes with gribble being lined up? with by a fire a firing squad that's where they're gonna shoot him to death yeah they

they do have a firing squad scene um so grible he's his asses on the line and then you have the main the main kids saying like oh mars needs Botox yeah as if he understands what that is yeah when he sees the the leader of the aliens who's like a yeah I guess kind of like a caricature of a wrinkly old lady. I guess that's his response. Teach the kids about Botox nice and young. So they can start saying that to their matriarchal figures in their family. Yeah.

Spread the love. He didn't, I don't know, was the plan to have him a kid, surely, in the script. But then they had set green do everything But he's not a kid Like why yeah why was that the solution That like I guess he did the voice as like a kid as well So they couldn't like age him up or anything

They they trapped themselves with their stupid planning From the word go Maybe they thought they were gonna like pitch shift it Or something And then it didn't work But like how would you shoot the whole film And then figure that out Yeah

You know? Because you can do some tests. Because that's happened before on like filmers. Yeah, exactly. Like they changed like Aragorn's actor or Back to the Future. There's like a famous shift with Marty like that happened when they started shooting. So they figured out early on. Oh, this ain't this isn't right.

This isn't really vibing. But here they're like, they do the whole film. They're like, oops. We didn't check. We went looking over the dailies like literally in the first week of working on this. And we're like, hmm. Something about this isn't really. lining up. No, we gotta do the whole thing. We gotta get to the end of the assembly line

before anyone can twig that this is a dumb, just insane idea. There's so much money on the line, it's not right. Imagine wasting, just throwing away over a hundred million dollars. burning for no good reason and very preventable factors you know like how very preventable that's what bugs me so how do you how do you justify this you know when it's something like you really can tell that like a filmmaker has put love into it put passion and it hasn't worked out it's not connecting with audiences it's not making money that's different but that's not what we're talking about here this is like a big product movie there's like no there's no way to spin it there's no excuse for this being the end product I

don't blame the actors I don't blame the animated calculated business decision yeah it's just like every now and again one of these slips through the cracks and it's like oh yeah yeah when the balance is this far off where you like you can't even see the artistry on like any level so oh we can't we can't we can't forget about these because they want us to forget like Disney wants to hide this They don't want anybody thinking about this, that they're capable of this. But they'll do it again. Well, we, in the same decade, we had this and Lion King remake.

So they definitely weren't learning their lessons. I haven't been learning. Wow. It is the same decade. Yeah. How embarrassing is that? Eight years apart. And what we're already seeing frames of the new old, what do you even call it,

Lion King prequel? sequel? Yes. Prequel to 2019. The Barry Jenkins sequel interpretation that I'm sure we'll see much of his voice in. Oh my. We've seen screenshots of that and it's like, oh God. No.

This company. Well, they learned the lesson as in just, you know, do a recognizable IP. That's the lesson. Yeah. Really? It's that and it's like, oh man, we've got to make this for way cheaper. We got to cut more costs. How's the,

how's the, how's the, the, the, the lion renders, um, you know, yeah,

we need a two-care for the scene. Can we just, yeah, that's in 2019, so, man, I don't know. We're gonna go back there and we're gonna get your mom.

We'll get your mom back, man. Love these lines. Yeah. Oh, who let the dogs out? That was a good moment. That was,

that was an old reference in 2011. Like what? Why was that in the dialogue? A lot of characters showing up, saving other characters at the last second. Oh yeah, they love that. They love that and they love, I think it's another quirk of these kind of movies. And it's like the only really, the real through line I remember from like their style is like, they love action scenes where like someone is falling or something. There's a lot of movement where a camera is doing something in reality. it would not normally be able to do. So impressive. When to me that is like what I'm looking for, I'm looking for the opposite of that, when I see that, it's just reminding your brain,

this is a fake, gooey, bullshit, nothing is real world. Even the best animated movies will have rules to the way they use the camera and whatnot and more. The best ones will avoid doing this dumb bullshittery with the camera just flying around in ways cameras can't move. Yeah, and they do that a bunch in all of the other. that a bunch in all of these kind of movies. You know, Jim Carrey flying around at Christmas time or Bear Wolf and the Dragon and so we're

falling down a pipe and it's like turning into a slide for a few minutes. It's Disney World all of a sudden. It's like, oh my God, so exhausting and it feels like, yeah, we've got to justify this technology. Like this, this, look at what is capable of everybody. You can go down a tube and the camera's just there because nothing's real. But the movements are real, kind of. It's a 35 year old man's body motion with the voice.

of a child but it's real wow dude it's photo real this is amazing Cribble Cribble in HD man they didn't even have 4k yet where's the 4k damn you know they should have did you ever watch uh the what was that new one the wish Disney no I didn't check that one out because that looked lame I'm boring too yeah so the end credits because I guess it was like the hundred year anniversary of Disney they had like every fucking Disney

character in there. Fucking chicken little and like home on the range, just like, just like a little... A little sketch of them in the end credits. I was like, oh, okay, is this the last Disney film? They should have had Marsneeds' moms in there. Maybe they didn't, I forgot. They should have thrown in a gribble. One gribble for the bros.

To like, yeah, to even pretend that this company is like, even remotely about animation. Well like that's something that's important. Which is sad. It's so sad. They've moved away from that. Especially because my childhood was like the Renaissance. So you had yeah, your Lion King, Tazan Beauty and the Beast, all these like, this incredible animation that was like flexing something and like some of the shots that

they're achieving and the levels of detail and the animation, the motion to it is like incredible to this day. Original Little Mermaid and all this kind of stuff. It's yeah, it's sad and shocking to contrast it to like where they are now. Kind of shit they put out. You know, we haven't even mentioned the music, but boy John Powell coming in again. So yeah, that we've accidentally like stumbled across his like projects that I guess he was using to kind of like get into the industry, you know. Yeah, I mean he's done a lot of kids movie scores and it sounded like familiar way.

He I wouldn't say he like phoned it in, I guess, but it's certainly not one of his best scores. Yeah, I don't get that vibe from him ever. My problem is just the fact that it's it's doing so much more than the film is. And so every moment where the score is taking place, there's no, there's no appropriate visuals to motivate why the score is there. Yeah, because nothing can match that nothing can match those visuals, you know? Yeah. Maybe like a devil incantation. Maybe that would like go well with the visuals.

Something intense like that, you know. One of the worst moments in the film for me was when he goes down the elevator and then the female Martian chases after him. And she does this swan dive out of nowhere and like the musical score going with it. Just all of this implied emotion just from nothing. And I'm like, what, what motive? motivated this as a scene. Did you watch another movie and you're like, we got to do that? What's I got to do with like, the only character actually they give her is that she's like obsessed with hippie culture.

So she says like out of day. Well, because she'd saw one hippie thing. Yeah, yeah. That's how she learned English. Yeah, yeah. But like that diving thing doesn't link into that hippie stuff at all, right? Like surely you'd want to do that if that's what you were going for. like if you wanted some kind of moment like loop back into itself or reference something

yeah I remember that moment too and it's just okay we're doing we're doing this now I guess the spider robot is trying to be cute now although zooming right up into that alien's face to try and show off the the reflection in their eyes show off the love in their eyes yeah show off something yeah stared into the void long enough in the void stares back at you It's like there's something there's something kind of almost yeah almost like insecure about these movies but they're like they're so it's a weird way of putting it but like they're almost trying too hard they're like trying to prove themselves to such a degree where it does feel like they're overdoing it. They're over exaggerating the movements in these motion capture suits. They're just everything's just extra. Everything's just too much.

Like you You don't need this This same story like It's not like a good There's just nothing fresh about it Like if you just did this film in 2D animation Like it would probably be better But it still like would suck

You know It's just compounded by that ugly visual Plenty of films have existed with just as Unoriginal and bad and cliched formulated stories But just had character that didn't look terrifying and they were successful. It's really that simple.

Like if they just wanted to make money and have this movie be fucking forgotten over time or whatever, like, who cares? Like, it's really simple. Did you notice the stock sound effects? There were like three that were apparent immediately for me. There was some weird use of sign effects where like they would use the same one immediately after each other like screams or something

they would do that with just like kind of lazy audio editing type stuff but I didn't specifically notice those sound effects you're talking about which what did you notice when one of the like doors closes or one of the spaceship engines goes off a lot of like kind of sci-fi-ish impact yeah environmental

sometimes sound effects I'm like, I've heard this a billion times. It was just so apparent. And I was like, why? It was a big budget movie. But I guess they didn't care. They ran out of money. Oh, yeah.

They spent it all on re-recording Seth Green's lines. The ending was hilarious. I love the ending. That's cheeky fucking. grin he gives at the camera and then the frame just closes in on his face. It's like, oh, right. Fuck you, yeah. It is, it does seem like a fuck you.

And then it's like the baby, the baby pissing on face. Oh, of course, of course. You can't have a movie without baby pissing on the face. It's got to be in the movie. Yep. Again, she deserved it. Just weird imagery. And it's not, yeah, it's not like a, it's not a human baby.

It's like a Martian monster thing. And they're like trying to do, look at the cute close up on the baby Martian. They're not even like real babies in the sense that like they're way bigger than a baby. And in the scene where all of the baby tables were being knocked over, I was like finally some dead babies. But then they all landed on their feet. And they seemed like, it seemed like, I don't know, raising them. taking care of them, like, they were pretty independent. They could...

Didn't seem like the same scenario as raising a human baby. They were too advanced and ugly. Everything is ugly in this film, in this universe. Just in every one of these style of films. Like, I consider the best one probably to be that Tintin film, which was, you know, a solid like action movie. Or was that? No, that was Hugo.

What was the 1010 one? Who did that? Tintin was Peter Jackson and Spielberg. Oh. I think Spielberg directed it and they wrote it together and they were supposed to swap and then do the inverse or something on the sequel that I don't think it made enough money or whatever. But it's one of the few where it's like, oh, you're using this for a reason. They kind of, they had the art direction of the comic books and they kind of looked like that. Um, they had more charm.

It had obviously Spielberg and Peter Jackson, them being there helps, I guess, compared to whatever was going on in the nightmare of MNM. Yeah. But even then, it, I don't think it's, I don't know if there are that many people clamoring for the, where's the Tintin sequel? I mean, they are out there. I know they are, but like, I don't think Disney or any of these big companies are Russian to do it in this style right now.

The characters are still unnerving to me in design, even looking at those. Yeah, I still would have preferred that to be 2D or like a more stylized, you know, Peanuts movie type 3D or something. So is Avatar like the only example of it not looking like weird uncanny Valley shit? Yeah. And like do you even, I feel like there's a distinction as well with having real humans in it as two. like avatar does have that going on where it's like blending something where it's like mugs mell sneeze moms and polar express and all these they're just 100% cg. There's no they're not shooting any real humans at all um so can you can you even compare them in that same

way i guess it's the same motion capture technology but it's like being used in a completely different way so james camera actually knows how to you know integrate special effects and like shoot actors on a stage and combine them with effects and design characters that aren't scary yeah and they put them in settings where like yeah there is rainfall and environments that are designed to show off this type of cg you know with the light sources with like flowers opening everywhere and all this kind of shit um a trash planet and like the surface the empty desolate surface of Mars with Dan Fogler flying around in a mex suit. It's not, I don't know, I probably could have gone to my grave without seeing that.

And yet you watched it a second time. So we all appreciate your service. Well, yeah, because as you say, it's just, it's so interesting. It is. You can't look away, not just because of where it sits in Zemeckis's kind of like, unfortunate filmography at this point, you know, with Pinocchio. with the witches, welcome to Marwin in these weird films that he kind of like makes now.

So this weird tangent that was just existed in this period of time where this stupid technology was like kicking off and they were trying to figure out how to make money with it before they realized that all you had to do was have apes riding around horses and people will be in, you know? That was the ticket. They just, yeah, they got it too complicated.

Yeah, they figured that out now, so we're in safe hands now. You know, we've got CG orangutans, you know, jousting or whatever they're up to now. But this growing pain period is endlessly fascinating and sad for all the, like, resources and the opportunity costs, you know, like, all these animators that, like, were paid to work on this, all of the, like, there would have been objective talent, like, on this team. But it's like... I mean, it usually is. It had to be organized.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. but it had to be organized around this. They get paid the least. Probably every single one of those animators looked at the character designs and we're like, really? But we're ignored by just one of the higher reps who was like, no, it has to be ugly for some reason. It has to be the worst shit you've ever seen. You don't understand.

The only time I felt like I saw the animators kind of sneak something in or like a bit of the personality of the animator getting in there was it was like one of the last shots of Dan. uh, Fogler, like, right before the elevator doors close, where he's, he's like, arm in arm with the Martian woman and he's like blushing red and it's all like overtly sexual. And like right as the doors are closing, the animators like really accentuated like this face he does. And he like moves his eyes and it's really pervy ass way and pulls this pervy fucking face, which I know dad Fogler didn't do. I know the animator snuck back in there. Okay. And that was the only time I was like, okay, at least you got some little like middle finger up because, uh, this sucks.

Just like when the scenes early on where the characters are just talking in what's supposed to be a house and the house looks like so low res, so just doesn't look real. It's like it doesn't feel like an environment they're really in. So synthetic and like creepy. 2011. They were still figuring some things out. but still no excuse really I feel like yeah there's no excuse for this shit man yeah I can't think of any reason to give it anything higher than a one out of

ten for me I know I was like it would be weird if I didn't I might I'll give it a like because it is yeah I'm not bored while watching it that's a wrong way to phrase it it is entertaining but for all the complete wrong reasons it's fascinating with the money that's being thrown around, with the names attached to this, with the actors involved even, it's just fucking weird and horrible. It was a good pick. Thank you for recommending.

One out of ten. You're welcome. You're welcome. More M&M. Bring back Eminem, baby. Eminem's back. And let me know what you think of the Seth Green version. If he's all to sit through the whole thing, but at least skim through it.

because it's pretty interesting. I just love that story of how they got that. Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah. I love when they're so committed financially into doing something that anybody should have realized from the beginning was a bad idea. That's always fun.

Yeah. The whole movie is essentially that. Yeah. How did you get that far? Like, make it make sense to me. Like, it's so insane. It's like, well, it's not, they did it again with John Carter as well though, where they dropped like 200 million for like, oh yeah, this is the new one, this is our Star Wars man,

you know, the John Carter books every one. That was a year later? Every, was it really one year or they were on a, on a bit of a roll then? Yeah, oof. Alright, question time. Let's do some questions then from the Sardonicast community. Head over to the suggestion thread over on the subreddit we can ask. Questions for future episodes, just like Matt Smith read it did.

I recently watched Free Guy with my parents. Yeah. Both of them very much enjoyed it. When I said that I found the references and YouTuber cameos a bit forced and cringy, they said they didn't know there were cameos and didn't get any of the references outside of the Marvel one at the end. And just felt it was an original, silly, lighthearted film. Do you think knowing less about a film can make someone enjoy it more? I mean, sure.

I mean, yes. That's a scenario, I guess, yeah. That's probably why, like, on Netflix, these big red notice tier type films. I feel like that's why it's like, inoffensive enough, it's like delivering just the bare minimum of what someone might expect from a film of that ilk, you know? Like, everything is communicated by the poster and the branding. And the choice of actors. Just provide. Galgado's that. Yeah, yeah. I say, oh, there's Ryan Reynolds. Nice. Oh, Galgado's in this part.

Hooray. And then, like, they turn it off and never think about it ever again. Yeah. It's like one of the biggest movies on Netflix. Um, but it's like, I don't know, if the first film you'd ever seen was Red Notice and then you never watched a film again, you probably think Red Notice is the best film you've ever seen. And it like, I guess you would have do. Yeah, exactly. So yeah, of course, unless you know, it makes things better. Yeah.

I mean, and also, you know, when you cast the films in that way, the rock fucking Ryan, what's his name? Ryan Reynolds. I don't know why I was going to say Ryan Johnson. I know that's not right. Ryan Reynolds. Like, part of the goal when you're doing that at this point is to all. create a movie that is familiar to the other movies that other people have seen them in.

Because people that watch movies based on big actor and that's the reason they see it is they see them on the poster, they're watching it expecting a similar experience as the other films that that actor has been in. The highest star power is with the actors that essentially deliver the same experience every time and are in the same. roles every time as people want that sense of familiarity yeah that's why the rock there's that meme of like the rock he's always in you know the the the beige shorts and beige like jungle jacket because like the last four or five things he's been in he's like in that same get up it's like oh the rock's in the the summer movie where they go to a jungle exploring let's check this out yay yeah money yeah I uh I usually I try not to look up

too much about a movie that I want to see before going into it. People are like, oh, are you going to see the new trailer for the Yorgos Lantamos movie? Kinds of Kindness? I'm like, no, because I'm going to see it anyway. I don't want to go and blind. I went into poor things blind. I loved it. So in that sense, sure, knowing less about a movie.

But I guess knowing less about what it's referencing, like, I'm not sure about that because it seems like a lot of people specifically loved Free Guy for the references. Like that was the draw for a lot of people. That seems like the only point, like the only thing there is to like, really. Mm-hmm. Like, isn't that? Yeah. Yeah, I don't know.

Loads of people that just have low standards, which is like fine, you know, if you're working on 9 to 5, if you just want to chill out and put on red notice. I don't care. Hmm. Well, zealous, ideal mine. 14 says this then. Now that Tarantino's last film, the movie critic, is now being reported as scrapped. Do you think you'll go back to the idea of doing Kill Bill 3? Probably not.

No. Him and Uma stopped working together after part two. At first I thought, oh, is this like, are we doing the hateful 8 thing again? Where he's like upset about something, like to do with production that happened? Or like, with hateful 8, the script leaked, I think. No. There were talks of him canceling it, I don't ever making it. but it seems, yeah, a bit different.

Like the whole thing is not happening. This one, it seems like he is just under a lot of pressure because he's calling it his last film. So if he has a script planned out and he's like not feeling it and just wants to start from scratch, sure. I get that. You want your last film to be a great one. Otherwise, what's the point of cutting it off at the last film? I get that. But he's also like, I just, I just, I don't get why he's created.

this situation for himself. Like, if he didn't constantly talk about this being his last film, I don't know if anyone would have expected it to be his last film, but he spread this idea for ages about this 10 film thing. But it's like, well, you've put this pressure on yourself. Like, I'm sure people would love to see 15 or 20 films from you if you've got it. Yeah. Like, you're the one who's put the 10 on.

It's just a number. Mm-hmm. It's not that significant. But I get it. And, you know, whether or not he's saying these things. people would get that information out of him anyway because people search up Quentin Tarantino

a lot of articles are going to be talking about this the reason why we know about this is because people are constantly talking about him so even if he's not directly shouting it all the time just we're going to get that information anyway and I do yeah I do hope it is maybe it's not lost to time

I hope maybe it is turned into a play or released as a book or something because I don't know the concept's interesting to me I like like when filmmakers talk about the idea of like critique and film criticism and how he was going to package you I'm sure there's a lot of humor he could have got in there just an interesting weird idea for like biging up as your your last project but he can give it to someone else like uh biodun stevens or david Dakota. Robert Zemeckis could do it in a full CG. Yeah, we could get a Bob Zemeckis the critic. It could be fun. Because surely, like, if he doesn't make it, surely someone's going to want to do that. Like, maybe he'll give it to fucking Robert Rodriguez or Eli Roth.

One of his buds. Yep, we need more. We need more of those, like Mars needs moms. I still haven't seen Roth's new one. Borderlands trailer looks disgusting if that's what you're asking about. I forgot. There was that other one though like Thanksgiving, right? Didn't he do that as well? Yeah, some people were saying that was fine. But Lance has been like stuck in the machine for forever.

Yeah. Yeah. It looks, it looks like, it looks like, it looks like a parody of itself. It looks like garbage. This would have, this would have looked like shit in 2012 when this would have been relevant to release. you know but we're like a decade past it I don't I don't think the

the boardlands universe or any of that is a good fit like inherently for cinema it looks like they're just doing like the uncharted movie it's certainly not a good fit for him oh no yeah it's a weird you can take any concept and just have a talented person behind it but this is not it no the house with the clocks in its walls guy

the house with a cocky fucking its balls. Might as well been. Kate Banchette like in there, like sleepwalking. That's a weird one. Like she's awesome, but like just really weird casting. Yeah. Like what are you doing in there?

You do not belong here. Like Kevin Hart kind of belongs. But Banchette's just like what just really stand out. It's not integrating to this crew. We got Kevin Hart and we got. tar in the same film yeah very wrong more jack black yeah i don't think i'm going to see that one either is that getting a theatrical release like that seems like a big waste of time especially with all these other things that right now yeah i don't know i don't know if i're paying

money to see that one that's for sure yeah yeah this is what i more mean about the the video game onslaught stuff does definitely still weigh to most of it being garbage. And most of it probably will be garbage. Fallout and Last of Us kind of stand out right now. Oh well, we'll see what happens when we get our live action Zelda movie. Oh, yeah. That to me is as stupid as like starting Mars needs moms where it is. You know?

It's like from from concept. level is it's broken and like you're just screwing yourself and making a life so much harder than it needed to be if this was like the project you wanted to get done live action Zelda is it live action I thought it was like illuminations doing it or is those two different things I don't think um a lumination are why universal might be I don't know if illumination are animating it I don't know if that's confirmed they're definitely doing Mario 2 that's confirmed recently the illuminations doing that. Okay, those are rumors. Nevermind.

So I don't know. So we'll see. We'll see. Crazy things have happened. Who cares? Who even cares? That's the thing. Like,

people will care. The nerd shit is shifting. The gamers, they're coming into, they're coming into Roos, the Fortnite movie, the Minecraft movie. Did you see the leaked set? pictures of the Minecraft. Oh yeah.

Is that live action? I don't know what's going on with these. They're just probably like a big money laundering thing. I want to do this one from a professional gardener who wrote in and when we break. Hi guys, as a professional gardener who loves your show, I want to ask if you have a favorite plant slash flower or tree. Are there any films that have plants that stand out to you, for example, the plant in Little Shop of Horrors or the Womping Willow in Harry Potter? Oh!

So this was a fun question. It's not a unique kind of thing to think about. I've always had an affinity for peace lilies after their inclusion in Hot Fuzz. It's the gift. Nick Frost character buys for Simon Pegg. He takes it across the country, and it's used in multiple scenes, and it's also a nice plant that's really easy to take care of. The low-maintenance piece of those are hard to kill.

There's the ants in Lord of the Rings. Those are cool. Yeah, the ants is a good one. Plants of character. There's like a potted, there's like a plant, I think, in like a little mini garden outside someone's window. It might have been like a potted plant or something, but in the opening sequence for Itchy the killer,

a plant gets cum done. Oh, funny. That was memorable. I still haven't seen that one. Oh, it's great. Have you seen any Takashi Miki? You saw audition, right? I've seen audition.

I just haven't seen itchy yet. Yeah. Very different, but very fun. Hmm. I like, uh, I recently found out that the biggest trees in the world, redwoods. We have like heaps of them in the UK for some reason, whereas I always thought they were just an American thing. Like the EWox flying around.

I saw one the other day and was like, oh, that's a, that's a standout tree right there. That's crazy that I can just be there. I love that. More redwoods. Yeah, I'm the kind of guy where if somebody gives me a plant, it's going to fucking die. I just don't I don't have the capacity to take care of a plant

I don't know why maybe because I'm traveling around so much Really? Yeah Yeah that does make it way hard I'll just like give it to someone else Whereas I love like I got one of those apps that tells me like

what my plants are the weeds growing are yeah I love that kind of thing I feel like I've been That's kind of cool I've been ignoring my I don't even know if it's true. I've read this article years ago

about like when plants are distressed, they like emit this frequency of sound that might indicate that they are distressed or something like this. And I was like, oh no, what have I been doing to any of these poor plants they've not taken care of? So I've been trying to, you know,

help these guys out. Get some, uh, get my air a bit cleaner. Just a nice little, little, little decoration and propagating some devil's ivy yeah i love this shit there's some green fingers over here yeah i i uh i don't uh i don't have the same green fingers i have fingers of death i have hooves i can't it doesn't work you don't get the movement that's fair enough no they all die i'm sorry Hmm

Let's show a couple more here Like this one From Swistifer 2000 Are you okay with bad movies being lost to time As much as we should preserve movies Because it's an art form There are some movies that I'm not sure anyone would miss Like Nine Lives and Biodome

I'm not saying I want them gone But I was curious about your thoughts on it Wrong Every art should be preserved Yeah, I think I lean more to you. You don't know how it's going to be perceived in the future. It could be more prescient than you realized. Nine lives could have actually predicted everything.

Yeah. Everything could come true from nine lives. Yeah, it would be weird like... Yeah, there's no art that shouldn't be preserved in its highest quality even. Yeah. What would the inverse argument be that what, there's only so much space or time? So we need to prioritize the good stuff people remember, I guess. I don't think we're at that point yet.

How many years worth of video is uploaded to YouTube every second? Like, I think we're fine. I'm a data hoarder. Yeah. I would say to answer the question, I'm not okay with bad movies being lost to time, even partially just for selfish reasons, like that you really notice it when you're trying to find films especially pre like, even sometimes like 2010, like finding good copies or even options for like a DVD to buy.

Yeah. Sometimes you can't find if you're going niche enough like some of this stuff is almost impossible to find unless you have like really specific ways of getting them. Tens of films don't exist anywhere in HD like even just to buy on. iTunes or whatever. It's just DVD quality. Yeah. And that's the best you can hope for.

With, yeah, with how disorganized the licensing and the distribution is. Yeah, it does bother me because it's like, it doesn't need to be this bad. You could be making way more money if this was more organized and was more easy to access. Yeah, I think it sucks that there are a bunch of films that have been lost for this reason, even if it was a case of like, it was only like 10 people that want to. seek this out and see it. I don't know. That still feels like has some kind of value to me,

even if it is just for like a talking cat type thing or whatever. Yeah. That should be preserved. Especially a talking pony. Every, yeah, everything should be preserved. And that's why I'm happy about that fucking Seth Greencutt of Marsney's mom's existing. Yeah, it wasn't lost the time. I'm glad somebody saw that and was like,

we need to protect this. It's fascinating. You can always learn from art even if it's bad art. You can learn something. It just depends on how you engage with it. Yeah, and then the multi layers of story that you can interpret from that. Like, if you get all the,

I can't remember the talking cat director's name. But if you look at the whole story of, obviously. That's it, the French filmmaker. When you see that whole filmography laid out as it is, and I was even seeing it on the Saadonika subreddit, like some of the stuff people were digging up about that guy in his films and whatnot, and like the,

there's more going on than just the films themselves. Like part of it is these characters, these breens that come out of it and, you know, these derricks that come out of it. Yeah. save as much as it because it is all history and it is all like expression at the end of the day

so yeah cling on don't let it fade yeah George Lucas fuck you just let people watch the original same with you Sam Ramey just let people let people

if you're gonna if you're gonna translate your film to HD don't don't fucking destroy all the old copies and just out of print difficult to find you know just leave the original the film the film you made is special

there's something valuable in that it's yeah and it's never bad to give people a choice that's the part I don't get it's like why are you taking the choice away yeah put your new thing out give us the choice and if people prefer it they will choose that one anyway

like what you're so you're not confident enough yeah if let's say if Let's say I completely remix and remaster my album. I'm not just hitting the replace button. I'll just, I'll do a separate release. And then if people like the old version better. Yeah.

I've had that with, um, in like 2019, I was listening to Kanye a lot. And I think he released something, um, where he was basically like patching songs like days after they're coming out. So like,

oh yeah. Memory when listening to songs. So like it got to a section of the song and his voice had changed just for like one bar or something. It was like clearly a different recording session that had been like put in. And it's like, oh, so the one I've been listening to is like, I guess gone now. Like, okay. How would I ever hear that again now? You just changed it.

I don't know if I like that relationship. You know, how it can just be like pulled away. that. I said, what if I preferred it before? Yeah, it's encouraging piracy. Now piracy is no longer just, oh, hey, we don't want to pay for a movie. It's like, oh, we need to preserve this. Because the people in charge of this are going to actively try to remove whatever original version there is. So piracy, piracy is like a moral need now. Like, it's a necessity. And, yeah, piracy is like, as, it's, like, as, probably going to go back up to how it was before Netflix kind of solved this issue.

That's like where we are in this, this annoying entertainment absorption loop where we are just back to cable pretty much where it's like, yeah, 20 different subscriptions. Well, did I do that when I guess just, yeah, cancel them all and just download anything. So now they've, yeah, these companies have put us in a position where there's no incentive to what made them appealing to begin with, really, anymore. So it's like, what are people going to do then? They're just going to download it. Okay.

Trying to find, like, there's so many things on my 2016 watch list because I'm trying to, you know, do like a really comprehensive year review for that in 2015. A lot of these things that show up there, they're like short films or like just really hard to find, like, even like series. And I'm like, where did this air? Where the fuck can I find? Like literally no legal way to watch it. And even on piracy websites, I can't figure out where the fuck I'm supposed to find it.

Yeah. You asked me to find that one on Vimeo that was like, region locked, I think, to just Australia and New Zealand. I got an Australia friend to download it and send it to me. Yeah. So it's like, why is the distribution like that? So it's like they're all hidden away. It's just an incongruency with the way the way the internet. opened up the ability to access, I guess, art with these old institutions of licensing

and copyright and these really rigid old things that can't adapt to what's been unlocked. There should be some sort of fucking law where like you have to, if it's 10 years of something being unavailable to purchase anywhere, you should just have to post it on YouTube or some shit. Yeah. Just like if you're the director, you should be allowed to do that. even if you don't legally own it. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. But these things, they get so wrapped up in legal, you know? Yeah. They just get hidden and just stored away this. And there must be like vaults in all these production companies. They just forgot. Yeah. Just full of shit.

They're just hidden away. There's archives that exist in certain places, right? So. Mm-hmm. After a while, it's just what? I guess they forgot about this thing that they, and they just have no intention on releasing it because the market, there's nothing indicating that people will buy it

and what, you think it's not worth it? I guess. I don't know. It's just, it's fucking annoying. I think, I think that media as a form of speech and expression should be accessible to people. And if you want to make money off of it and you want to charge people for it, do it. But what, I just don't, don't make it impossible for people to do that. That's my big issue. Yeah.

Do you want to end on this one then? Yes. Particular leak 1390. What kind of a leak? L-E-E-K or L-E-A-K? This is, if you had to guess, what would you say? If you had to flip a coin. Like a leak spin, like the plant.

Particular leak. Oh. No, is it the other one? No, you got it right. This is the plant. Okay, great. You got the leak on the brain. Did you gents watch Zach Snyder's appearance on Joe Rogan?

He lays out his creative process in a long-winded but sincere, casual way. It's very revealing in some unintentional ways and answers a lot of your musings from episode 156. I have watched some of it. I think I've watched like an hour of it or so. How was it? It's once you get past the like, Joe Rogan can do it sometimes where he would just jerk off the guests

so the conversation isn't really like talking about anything interesting. It's just like 300 was so fire dude. How did you make 300 so fire? You know, like tier of conversation. But I did enjoy what he what I picked up from Zach Snyder talking about his process and like yeah, the kind of vibe it gives off is

like not surprising, you know, talking about the comic books he loves and the, the attitude he has towards stories and, like, kind of treating characters like superheroes as these, like, gods and not even caring about, like, characterizing them, really. I don't know. I'd recommend listening to what you can of it. I find him interesting because I really dislike his films, but I just find him quite likable as a person. I like listening to his kind of justifications for his style that I just don't connect with.

We're getting this kind of more and more. Because while I didn't finish that conversation, if I recommended was like this weird video of John Waters being interviewed by, I think it was Bill Mayer. Bill Marr? Bill Maher, sorry, yeah. And it's like this really funny, weird conversation with these quite different personalities.

It's like a recent thing too, right? This was very recent, yeah. Yeah, I think I heard about that. I don't think I saw it. John Waters is like hilarious in that conversation. Whenever it tries to go more into like the more tired kind of culture warry type discussions, he kind of just handwaves it in like the funniest John Waters you kind of way.

Okay. That's a conversation I would recommend. It's weird and he's just, he's just fun to watch communicate because he's like live such a life. I've added both of them to my list. Yeah, be curious what you think. I'm like a week behind on my usual YouTube stuff that I just, it's mostly like podcast style or I just like listen in the shower or like, on the way somewhere. But I'm like,

I'm a week behind because I've been so busy. There's so much stuff coming out. I can't keep up. I can't keep up and still do other things. It's so fucking, fucking piss me up. I can't even just, so difficult.

Yes, too much. I'm overwhelmed. All right, I guess it's time for me to recommend a movie. What are you got? You're going to keep the contempt going? Are you going to stop this madness? I'm going to be the bigger man.

Are you doing it? And stop. Oh, thank God. I don't have to be the bigger man. I'm going to stop the cycle of violence. Well, last I was doing it. As much as I enjoyed Mars Needs moms, though. Because, like, I mean, that would have been a great recommendation either way.

I didn't feel like that was. Yeah, that's been on the list for ages. I didn't feel too tortured by that one. I haven't seen this in a while. So long, in fact, that it'll be like a new experience for me. Magnolia, Paul Thomas Anderson. in. Awesome. Same position for me. It's been a while. Nice, nice. A film that, uh, you know, would love to have seen a 4K or any news about it and wait for that, but I don't know if that's

ever going to happen. So I'm, I'm down to revisit it. And, uh, if a 4K comes out at some point eventually, then great. But it seems like I'd be holding my breath for a while. I don't know. Oh, this would be nice to revisit. Um, I feel like I've been referencing a lot lately with these big, like, three-hour epics that were juggling these multiple story loans. It would be nice to see. Yeah. A real good example of that. Yeah.

To remind myself of what that's like. Yeah. So next episode, we'll be talking about Magnolia and maybe a scargiver, Rebel Moon, Part 2. So that'll be a good double feature. I'm sure both films will have, you know, they'll be a nice little companion pieces. I hope so, yeah Yeah, I'm excited to see what the fuck this is Because I just have vague memories of it

Like little little snippets I can remember some scenes really well but others I can't for yeah what what builds up that Three Hour runtime but I remember Especially the opening scene something about that being Yeah memorable but yeah All right if you don't want to be spoiled

For Magnolia 1999 film Good Year Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson Very good year Check it out before the next episode. These episodes come out every two weeks. You can listen to them early by going to sardonicast.com.

Sign up for premium. It's only $2 a month. You get to support the show or go to patreon.com slash sardonicast. Same thing. We got merch. Link in the description. We will be doing some merch overhaul at some point soon. I should show you the stuff that we're doing.

Yeah, I'm working. I've got someone helping with the YMS merch stuff. And I'm really happy with how that's turned out. and that'll be figured out soon. We also got us our Donicast Highlights Channel. Check that out, subscribe, hit the bell. Subscribe on the main channel as well. All right, have a happy, gribble-diculous, gribblestic Shrek.

Yeah, for Skudush in that too. What was the other one? What was the other one? What the fuck? Scub. It was, wait, I wrote down. Scub lamb. Nice.

Scablam, everybody. Scablam. It's so bad at sticking that we've said it several times this episode. I still couldn't fucking remember. I had to go back to my notes. Scablam. Scablam, everybody. Awful.

Oh, all right, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye. Thanks for listening. Bye.