The Flop House - Ep. #341 - Godzilla vs. Kong, with Zander Cannon

Episode Date: April 24, 2021

From the dawn of time, humankind has dreamed of watching a giant lizard wrestle a big ape. Well, now humankind has Godzilla vs. Kong. Did it live up to our dreams? We enlisted the creator of Kaijumax, Zander Cannon, to help untangle our thoughts, as we spin along on this hollow Earth.BTW: we know we promised you the Dark Phoenix live episode on our Twitter and IG, but technical issues stood in the way (those technical issues are that Dan somehow lost the file). In the unlikely event anyone has a recording or a bootleg, get in touch!Wikipedia entry for Godzilla vs. Kong.Movies recommended in this episode:The Wolf HouseButcher, Baker, Nightmare MakerShin GodzillaKing Kong EscapesA Colt is My Passport

On this episode we discuss Godzilla vs Kong! No matter who wins, we'll watch it! That's a good tagline, right? Yeah, that's great, yeah, that's great. Cool. Hey everyone, welcome to the Flop House, I'm Dan McCoy. Hey guys, it's me, Stuart Wellington. Hey, my name's Elliot Kalen And I want to introduce we also have a special guest with us So forget our regular hosts Dan Stewart and Elliot forget about the garbage

Yeah, they don't need them don't need them because this episode is gonna be all about that's right your number one favorite Zander in America not Zander Cage The character from the Triple X movies. No, no, no, he's an even better Xander. Joining us is Xander Cannon. He's a great, great comics creator. I'm sure you know him as the man behind books like Replacement God, Heck, and most importantly,

for the discussion of this episode, the amazing Kaiju Max, one of my favorite all-time series. I'm sorry. I'm so fucking good. I'm sorry, Nexus, Kaiju Max is running neck and neck with you right now. You've been my favorite for years, but Kaiju Max is up there now. It is a in case you haven't read it Genuinely heartbreaking story about the inmates and staff at a maximum security prison for Kaiju and

Zander's with us today. Thankfully to discuss a Movie with so many Kaiju in it for an American movie to be honest for a Japanese movie not that many but for an American movie a fair Met thank you much. Thank you very much for joining us. So I'm sipping I'm tripping over every single word that is coming out of my mouth Can I can I jump in there? I want to throw one more credit in there because it's one of my all-time favorites Xander you did the art for smacks and I love that art so much. It's so great the fucking cat dragon. Oh my lord It's the best. Okay now you can talk Thanks for having me you guys. I'm I'm truly honored I I have been a long time long time fan first time caller of yeah we try not to publicize the number all

people we call in all the time being on the show I mean it's just one eight hundred flop-hands that's the thing it's the easiest number to figure out yeah you've been a you've been a long time, and you never thought it happened to you until the other day when a couple of co-eds named Dan Stewart. Yeah. So Dan, you really gave it all. I mean, it's got that introduction. You got that one in the tape. It's got some tight energy over here. No, I mean, like, what? We got to drill to the center of the earth to recharge Dan. Hold on a second. introduction. It's got some tight energy over here. No, I mean, like, look, look, we got

a drill to the center of the earth to recharge Dan. Hold on a second. Elliott and I are in a concert. Look, I'm up to a heave. Elliott and I are in a constant battle about how professional the podcast should be. He thinks the answer is yes, I say not very. I think I think somewhat and you think know what? Yeah. Because like the reason, like I was pondering how much to like let you behind the curtain, I moved this weekend, dear listener, and do some stuff that I will not get into, you know, we shuffled around some stuff

and it was like, oh, now I'm supposed to summarize Godzilla versus Kong, a movie that honestly, I'm supposed to summarize Godzilla versus Kong. A movie that honestly, I'm not quite sure what happened in. So I was just sawing an anticipation of the mess that I'm about to create. Well, we'll help you through it. I think the thing to remember about Godzilla versus Kong is that the plot is only the most

Gossamer whisper, strung between the pillars of monster fights and inhabited by characters who kind of barely exists and yet There's a lot of it. There's so much to know is first. Yeah Yeah, I know what I want to jump in here. We're talking about God's Elevers Kong in Zander In addition to do in addition to doing a book about monsters in prison I'm assuming you're we're we have you on the show because you're also a big Kaiju movie fan. Oh yeah, absolutely. Like I, I mean, sometimes people mistakenly call me

a Kaiju expert and I'm like, oh, oh God, because they're gonna, then I think they're gonna ask me like how many Mecha Goddillas there are or whatever. And I'm like, I don't know, I only know it to tell Joe. I see Elliot computing right now. Okay, well, there's that, we can't make a Gidrin there. Probably not.

He says, simply, I can go to love it. But then, yeah, like, and so, you know, yeah, you end up watching just every stupid, you know, stupid, great, you know, somewhere in between your monster movie that comes down the pike and it's, you know, and the best thing is when you're like, when you start seeing like all these things that, you know, like trends from the mid 60s, like, you're just like, oh my god, they did that in every movie. What a dumb thing, you know, like a one-armatured thing to put in, you know, anyway.

But yeah, I've seen many. And you feel pressure, do you feel pressure when a new like giant monster movie or Kaiju movie comes out that you have to watch it? Because every time a movie comes out where people on Twitter like, hey Stuart, this movie dude gets his ding-dong ripped off I'm like, fuck, I gotta watch that right away.

Trouble them doing. Everybody's always saying like, well did you see it yet? And it's like, I'm getting to it, I'm getting to it. It's the horrible cycle that goes to where you're like, I have a genuine interest in this thing. So I'm gonna talk about it a lot. Uh-oh, now people think I know a lot about it.

Now it's work. Like now it's an assignment that I have to live up to. Now every gift you get is like a ceramic turtle now. That's what I was gonna say. Like letting it out that you collect rubber frogs or something. Oh, that's a good one. I imagine you're like, you're the guy, you're the guy in the Old West town

who's seen a lot of Kaiju movies. And every now and then like the new young, the young buck who wants to be the Kaiju expert comes in to challenge you. And there's like, hmm, I was, I was thinking about these starfish monsters from Oldtoman, and you're like, I gotta come up with something more obscure to hit him with. To prove that I'm still the tops. And you can never sleep, because you never know when someone's gonna walk into town and demand something about Ijo. Oh, Ellen, are you pitching like a Eltingville anthology story or something right there? I wish. Oh my God.

I would love to do that. Now, so this movie, right guys? This is... Oh, so what do we do on this podcast, Dan? This is a podcast where we watch a bad movie and we talk about it. In this case, we're watching Godzilla vs. Kong, one of the many movies that was going to be at Theatrical Release is now- It was at Theatrical Release.

That's true. The hitters are coming open again, but it was day and date also on HBO Max. If you're dating Charlie Day, you have to watch the movie with him. That's what it means day and day. It's the wall. Yeah. And so, you know, we caught up with this one. We watched the previous one for one of our live shows.

I mentioned that because this is, at this point, weirdly, the closest to another current successful like shared universe, I guess. I mean, I guess DCs straighten me up their game a little bit more in that area. But like, are they? Well, I feel like I guess DC's like straight me up their game a little bit more in that area, but like are they? Well, I feel like we did two episodes approved No, well it depends on what your measure of success is right like I'm saying that like this The only shared universe that's currently going that is both

The shared universe that's currently going that is both financially successful and relatively critically successful is the Marvel stuff. Like DC has like super strong partisans but does not have the critical success. And then this like I don't know, I'm just trying to place this in the idea like there's this vogue for shared universes, right? And like this is kind of how the dark universe was on the cover of Vogue. Yeah, we all remember the success of the dark universe. Universe is dark universe took the nation by swarms. Swarm?

It took the best warms. Yeah, it works. It works. They threw copies of Irwin islands, the swarm at America. And America said no thanks. And no, but this is like kind of like where the threads come together. And where Dan says to himself, please no more shared universes.

Because the movie works so hard to set up a fight between Godzilla and King Kong. And you know if you just told me that a giant lizard and a big ape were fighting, I'd be like cool, I'm in. You don't need to lay so much track for this and I think a large part of the track that gets laid is the idea like oh we've done all this stuff in these previous movies, which I have totally forgotten most of it. Totally forgot. And we have to like make like weave this intricate web and all of it is boring. Are you saying that you've forgotten it?

So really, it proves that all the extraneous characters that they brought along from previous movies didn't actually need to show up. I would say that I would say this movie has a case of pirates of the Caribbean itis where everyone walked out of Pirates of the Caribbean. Are you going to TM that shit? I can't. I mean, I don't own the Pirates of the Caribbean. Well, by any chance, don't you get the points? Well, I can.

The points like Jonas. He's like Jonas Salk. He doesn't want to, you know, he doesn't want to like lock it away. He wants to be, I could patent everyone. I could patent the drug to cure Pirates of the Caribbean. It's although we have heard immunity now. They're not making any more of those. But I do, I want it to be,

that's my gift to humanity is to be cured of that. But it's like everyone walked out of Pirates of the Caribbean cursed to the black pearl, the first one saying, boy, that Jack Sparrow was a fun character. And what Disney heard was, people love every single character in this movie, and we need to track all of them over the course of multi-movies, no matter how minor a supporting girl. And it feels like that in this one, it's like, but what's going on with the daughter of Vera Farmiga and what's this face? And you're like, do they have a daughter?

What was that about? Like, who are those characters again? Do I care? Oh, I don't. I mean, I feel like getting more Jeffrey Rush in the second and third movie. I'm like, perfect, more of that. Yes, delicious.

But yeah, everything else, no, no, thank you. Well, but I mean, don't you think that Millie Bobby Brown is essentially the, well, one of the closest thing you have to a star in this movie. Like, she's kind of like of the moment Like I think that people remembered like oh, yeah, the girl from Stranger Things is the you know is in the Godzilla movie Right, and I remember that I'm not I'm not so sure about that Oh, okay, Bobbie Brown is given very little to work with I but I do think that she is a

Very strong actor a very charismatic actor like there a Like, we got a lot of names on the poster. There's a lot of great people. I mean, the fact, like, we're back on high as in the series. Right, Terry Terry is great in this. He's a great actor. And he's an amazing actor and they give him the worst one line. David, David's a bit of a shears in this. I like Damien Bishier.

But like, I said, I started watching this movie with my wife. Well, it's Reddit is in a small role. Yeah. I love Rebecca Hall. They were great. Well, I said to my wife, we were watching this. We had just finished a long drive from Northern California to Southern California. I said, I really want to watch this God's Elever's comedy.

And she said, I'll watch it with you, but I can't promise I'll stay awake. And she fell asleep like 15 minutes in. But I was explained to her, I'm like, these movies kind of are, they're less storytelling machines. And they're more projects for paying very good actors to say things like Kong Bows to no one. Like, and talk about nonsense scientific govaldy-gook, which there is a lot of in this movie, of an unnecessarily large amount of gravity in versions and secret Titan energies at

the center of the Earths and things that, it's like they just wanted to overcomplicate everything. But, I think, so we should make it clear make it clear that there's a lot of great people in this movie, but there are the characters they are given to play or not much of anything. Well, and also I want to say, I mean, Adam Wingard, the director, you know, he made your next, which had past guests, Barbara Crampton in it excellent little Contain horror movie the guest like one of my like favorite little like goofy nasty little Thriller's yeah, the guest is the best to try it in there love it

But then you know he did the Blair Witch I guess reboot. I didn see it. It kind of came in with without making any kind of mark on The popular call it much like the real Blair Witch. Yeah death note for Netflix, which everyone who You know was familiar with the comic, I guess like hate it. It's it's not very good I'm not a very good movie. I watched the first half of it. I never returned to it, because I just like, it's one of a good movie. No, you put down a book and you're like,

that was okay, but I don't, whatever. Like, I didn't hate it like everyone else, and maybe it's because I didn't have any attachment to it, but he took this turn after the guest, right? And Godzilla versus Kong, I'm glad to see that he's getting like a big paycheck job because I liked those first two movies so much. But at the same time, like the best I can say for this movie is he brings like a much like prettier look to the movie. Like the movie is no longer a swirling mass of like gray ash.

Like the last one was. No, no, it's a swirling mass of bright colors and neon signs and things. Like it definitely, there's a big fight at the end, spoiler alert between Godzilla and Kong. And it's in this like, are they in Hong Kong? Is that where it's in Hong Kong? And it's like just neon colors

and like futuristic skyscrapers being destroyed. And it was so pretty that it was almost enough for me to forget that it was like oh They're killing tens of thousands of people with every every blow every time Kong smashes Godzilla's face through a building and the building completely Collapses like that's that's so many lives and stories over Yeah, I realize that we haven't even gotten to the plot yet But can I confess that this is this is my main problem with haven't even gotten to the plot yet, but can I confess that this is this is my main problem with Godzilla in general as a thing like like any long-running sort of series the what was originally the monster gets repositioned as the hero and in one way or another whether it's like

in these Godzilla movies where he's actually a hero or in something like I don't know like the nightmare in Almen Street movies where It's just like we got a lot of steps on those he steps on Freddie and that's how he saves those kids But it's accidental. He doesn't mean to do it It's not like Freddy is like scary and you're supposed to hate Freddy later on you're supposed to be like Oh Freddy's fun to watch. I don't give a shit about these teens. You know, like Freddie becomes the hero of the film in, in effect, even if he's like the antagonist in like a plot sense. Uh, but like, there was the one, there was that movie where it's like,

what's Freddie like when he is not killing kids in their dreams? And it was so sad. It was just like, he has so little going for him in his life and his marriage is falling apart and his kids never call him. Oh, that would've been a great- That's shown on the screen by him eating a hungry man dinner. That's code for him having and in his life.

And masturbating sadly in the shower, yeah. Which he has to be careful with. He's not wearing the gloves. I, what? Why would he wear that in the shower? It's gonna ruin the leather. He does wear his hat-What? Why would he wear that in the shower? It's gonna ruin the leather. My-my partner is- He does wear his hat in the shower and his sweater.

That's the weird thing. He's naked from the waist down, but he's storing the hat in the sweater, but not the glove. I get that part. I just have a problem with these movies where they try and position Godzilla and Kong here, like, as heroes in a like sort of

much more unambiguous sense than Reality would reflect like you're saying Elliot. I watched them fighting him like okay. Well it doesn't matter if maybe like There are reasons is happening. They'll team up against a greater evil later all that stuff like they're destroying a city Well, I think the well, Zander, you talk. You're the expert. You're the self-admitted, self-described, Kaiju expert. Absolutely.

Yeah, number one. So well, one of the things that I liked about Pacific Rim is that it embraced some of that silliness where it was like, well, we need to have things, big things, smash other big things. And we don't want to have people feel ambiguous and sort of like weird about it. So it's like want to have people feel ambiguous and sort of like weird about it. So it's like, oh, we're and it was Hong Kong again. They were like, we are

evacuating Hong Kong to these underground shelters. And they were done evacuating everybody in this, you know, the second largest city in the world in like 10 minutes. But you were like, okay, sure. And then, you know, smash everything. Yeah, like, punch through that building. I mean, and so, and I mean, you might think like, well, that's not very likely. And it's like, nothing's likely. You might do that and have people stop going like, Jesus Christ, those people are, you know,

I don't know why it bothers me less in something like this than say like Superman, where he's just like roasting all these buildings. Well, definitely supposed to be in something like this, then say like Superman, where he's just like roasting all these buildings for a table. Well, definitely supposed to be. And also, he's supposed to be the hero and he's got human intelligence. Exactly.

And he knows what's going on. Like Godzilla, when he works as a somewhat heroic protector of the earth, I feel like it's when he works in the level of a cosmic or a god like being who humans are kind of beneath his notice individually, but he is this force that is protecting the earth from a bigger problem, but he doesn't notice the collateral damage underneath. Whereas, and this one, we'll get to it when we go to the plot, the big thing they team up against is not a threat to people. I guess it

is because it's got a bad guy brain in it, but it's like, but it feels like it doesn't feel like the last one, Godzilla King of the Monsters. It was basically a big pissing match between Godzilla and King of Dora, but you could buy that King of Dora was like an outer space monster. So he's an invader as opposed to these Earthborn, as opposed to these native born monsters that are okay. King of Dora is like an immigrant monster that's trying to take the jobs. It's a Godzilla replacement strategy that I do not, that is not okay. Every time they bring another monster

and it dilutes Godzilla's vote, but in this one it felt much less like you could even spin it as, oh well they're saving people. It was just like monster grudge matches, and that's okay. If you do, I think I'd be as angry as Andrew, like if they have been like, evacuate the city and then five minutes later, monster grudge matches and that's okay. If you do, I think I grew as an analyst, if they have been like, evacuate the city,

and then five minutes later, okay, we've evacuated everybody. And then there's always like one kid that's left on the surface that they've got to save at the last minute, but this, the fight was going on for hours and they'd still cut to people running for safety. And it'd be like, wait, but then I don't wanna think about all the damage, that's terrible.

Right, Godzilla had been in the city for like an hour and there was a shot from inside like a, you know, a restaurant on the 50th floor or something and people are like, huh? Yeah. You guys, you don't look at the news or something. Yeah, okay, well that's, I mean, a lot of trouble. Let's dive into the plot.

Let's be like a Godzilla and dive into the water of the plot. Heck yeah. Well, wait, I got a better one. Let's be like, here's the movie and dive into the center of the plot. Heck yeah. Well, wait, I got a better one. Let's be like, here's the movie, and dive into the center of the plot, and hopefully the gravity inversion membrane won't hurt us too much so that we can fight off those gross bat birds anyway. Yeah, okay, well anyway.

So, it is five years after God's El has defeated King Gidora, the, you know, we're living in a post-Kaiju world here. They call them Titans. Titans, and I think that's because they are avoiding anything that they will have to conceivably pay Toho more money to use. So like, it's something that I should make clear right away is don't listen for Godzilla's trademark scream

or his trademark anthem because you won't see them because they would have cost More money to license them from Toho. Yeah, and there's a credit. Oh, man. Okay, wait. I have to say this at the beginning of the movie it says Godzilla owned and created by Toho studios and I was like a Studio does not create a character like that like people create characters like like put put sure a Honda's name on there somewhere like it was it made me very mad to see it was like a if at the end of every Marvel movie they were like Captain America spider man black panther and Hulk created by Marvel comics and you'd be like no that's not how things work you know what they but they do say that in like Marvel and DC like shows and stuff they're like you know using

characters created by DC comics and it's like, god really? I don't like that. But, well, and one of the things, you know, not to be like a VH1 pop up video, but like the, but Yosumi Tsubano, who's one of the, the main Japanese producers that sort of brought it over to legendary, was blacklisted from Godzilla films forever, because he directed Godzilla versus the smog monster. And he, and the, one of And the one of the producers that said, this is the worst movie I've ever seen, you are blacklisted from ever directing a Godzilla movie again.

And then he basically just outlived them all. Now he's in charge of it again. It's the best revenge. That's how you stun on him, right? You're right. Living long is the best revenge. Godzilla, the taunting.'s still a tauntine Godzilla riding a taunt on oh he crush it, but anyway, they're very similar body types. Yeah, that's true

So Dan it's five years after what's going on with our favorite monsters? Well Kong is we see Kong You know he comes out of the the jungle and there's a small child out of the jungle and there's a small child from like one of the I guess local island tribes who can who has like an affinity with Kong. This is Gia Wikipedia tells me. I never remember any names of anyone in any movie I see. this happen she is she is deaf and she is played by a deaf actress oh that that's interesting and it's never said in the movie but I always assumed that she has some sort of mental like psychic bond with Kong because otherwise it makes no sense how he can like communicate with her because she's the size of an aunt to him but she'll frown at him and he's like what's wrong

that's like I just amazed that they can communicate, you know? But that's like, that's pretty common though. Like, uh, giant monsters always have like a magic kid or kids that they want. But it's always assumed, it's always implied there's some kind of miss, like, gamma always and like, always had like a Kenny that would, that would follow him around and be like, no, no, don't, don't hurt gamma well, gamma is destroying buildings. Like, no, it always is implied implied I think that there's some kind of psychic connection, you know. I just thought it was just sort of like, obviously, these kids are cute. Like, Gamera thinks that too. It's, they're little, they're cute.

They're, they're like very cute ants. Just like in the movie, a bug's life. Now, but not like in the movie, ants weird. And for all the other things, I'm trying to act of ants. The designs are not, a bug's life. Now, this is- But not like in the movie, Ants, where- Those are very other than- I'm not a detective, Ants. The designs are not the best yet. Um, so, uh, Kong is displeased. We see that, uh, it is because Kong is actually trapped.

What looks like, uh, Skull Island is like, uh, some sort of, uh, electro-dome, keeping Kong captive And safe they say captive and safe. Yeah, Godzilla won't sense his tightened signature or whatever bullshit Yeah, cuz they all as we know from the last movie they register each other's bioenergy Yeah, and you should mention Rebecca Hall works at this is a monarch facility monarch the the company that deals with monsters and first encountered Kong back in Kong, Skull Island in the 1970s, right?

And now and Reckhull works there and she's like, famous for it and there's a magazine cover that shows her and says the Kong whisper. And it's like, it's just always one of those things where it's weird to me that it's a little weird. Good thing Godzilla doesn't get that magazine. No, he does, That's the thing. That's why he's looking for it.

Yeah, it's like in real life, yeah, this stuff would be famous, but it always seems funny to me that it's like, yeah, she's a famous scientist, Kong is famous. He's a known quantity. People talk about him all the time. And she talks about him like someone she knows well. And it reminds me so much of the great line

from the movie Venom. I'm sorry about Venom. But it's like, just to say these characters' names as if they're just people you know, is ridiculous, you know. Anyway, we're introduced to Bernie Hayes, who is a podcaster, a heroic podcaster. We all know the true heroes, Yeah, the broadcasters. He's got Andy's paperboy from Atlanta. Yeah, Brian Terry Henry.

And he does a voice in house broken, the upcoming Fox animated show that I worked on. Oh, that's great. So awesome. Yeah, he's great. Well, he has a Titan conspiracy theory podcast. He's a Titan truth. And he's got this scheme to get information, which I guess just sort of involves and irritating someone inside one of these Phil's facilities until they go to the bathroom.

So he can take classic video game strategy and stealth video games. Yeah. And the middle of all this though, Godzilla tax the facility. This is Apex, which is a a company that had we've been introduced to them before. I don't think so because they're comically evil CEO. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was like by Damien Bashir. He's great. He's great. And it's like you're like, is this character supposed to be like a Colombian drug lord from a 1980s action movie? Because he's got, because he's, it's the same type of performance, which works perfectly for this character. But his name is Walter Simmons, which I think is great.

Oh, well, also the fact that he has the same voice as the drug lords that he's played in all of his previous roles. That, that, that, that Brian Tahiria Henry is playing Bernie Hayes. It's just like this is this these characters were written and they just colorblind casted as much as possible. Which is fantastic. But it's it's the exact opposite of the scene in the Martian where there's a scientist who clearly the part was written to be Korean American and they have a blonde white girl playing it and I'm like come on. There's no everything about this character. Like her last name is Park.

Like she works on this project, like just cast a Korean actress. Come on. But, now this facility's in Florida. Pensacola. Pensacola, Florida. Worst of the sodas.

And Godzilla shows up out of the water. I like, I kind of like the reveal. Like it's pretty cool. You watch Godzilla float up, and then some jets trying stop him and he just beats the shit out of him. And you know, we get our first good look at our boy Godzilla. Once again, I've mentioned this on the podcast before, but he is thick as hell. I love it serving up body

out of you with that those big old tree trunk legs. He looks like I'm like if a mountain got up and decided to walk. I love it so much. He's great. And yes, he's got a little old man face. He's been with a little old man face when Bobby so much except there are many shots where he looks right at the camera and he's got like a Mr. Magoo like, oh, type look on his face.

And Zander, how do you feel about this Godzilla design? I have my issues with it. I mean, it's probably one of my less favorite ones. I mean, I really like sort of the Millennium era Godzilla, sort of almost that sort of cat-like face, or even as little ears. But this one, I mean, it's fine. I think it's too bad that they make it so CGI and so movable.

On those closest, there's every little part is moving. And it's like, it wouldn't be moving. He's a big creature. You know, anyway he, you know, that's anyway, but yeah, he's not clay face or something. All right. Right. One of my main concerns, he's not, he's just too clay face like.

Every movie you go, I don't want spoilers, is Godzilla clay face in this one. No, he's not. Okay, good, then I'll go see you. Right. Okay, thank God. Clay face was an actor before he was a supervillain, so we could do it. I mean, he could be playing, and the weird thing about these characters, I'm sure it's all

motion capture, but it's like, they're all CGI, but they still move like guys and suits. Like, they're not really taking advantage of it. I think it was motion capture. It had to been, but there's for some reason it comes off not looking as animalistic as I would like to for Godzilla. Maybe it's because he and Gingang punch each other in the face, which seems like a weird fighting move for a giant dinosaur to like punch and kick. I think I think that was an Express. I think Adam Wimgard said that was like an intention like he wanted to make it look like 80s action movies or like Like wrestling. Oh, I see. Yeah, so I mean, I mean, it's whether or not you agree with it

Yeah, a lot a lot of director. I feel like a lot of director say that we want it to look like guys and suits. It's part of the whole thing. But yeah, and I do think my one complaint about that, this Godzilla design says, head is so small. It's just like, it just seems like it could be a little bit bigger, like a T-Rex, you know, or I mean, not even that big, but like, I don't know, it just seems like it just,

it just tapers down into nothing. So you've got a real snub nose. You're saying you'd rather be have like a long T-rex type face, maybe a longer leaner body, maybe Matthew Broderick is in it, maybe he's got long, long, long legs. Yeah, in the right direction. Yeah, maybe he gets killed by just a couple lucky missile shots on a bridge and you're like, that was it. Why didn't they do that earlier in the movie? But I'm just worried that if his head was much bigger, it'd be a more tempting target for a nuclear ax. But yeah. Oh boy, yeah, as we'll find out,

that is a real concern. The rest of you pay. So Godzilla's attacking, and at the same time, while this is happening, it reveals to Bernie a some kind of giant machine that Apex is building, right? There's some big glowy machine, and we see a big glowy machine, you're like, this company is up to no good that's probably what drew Godzilla

Godzilla had a sense this company is up to no good I got a smash them it's one of these funny things where you see the machine and he's like what and I think you as an audience who's supposed to be like what is that machine but it just looks like a big machine to me I was like honestly I don't know man there's nothing about this this is a good. It's glowing red though. Jet turbine that has the glowing red. But lots of things will be red. But I think that sometimes you have these,

you know, the production designers do such a good job of having like everything look like cool, weird technology. That then when you are like, you're supposed to look at this one cool, weird technology, you're like, I, it blends in to everything. Everything looks cool. Especially since we find out later this company has hidden subterranean tunnels

that can with a rocket train that can get you around the world within minutes. And it's like, it seems like they're way ahead of anything. Like they've already got all this neat stuff like that they shouldn't really have. And I don't know what it is about this thing yet. But yeah, we've talked about this and an episode recently called the Final Program. We talked about how I'm a big fan of science fiction,

where labs and complexors look really slap together, with lots of wires trailing all over the place, and I wish it was more like that. Any time in the Akira Convox series that they go to a laboratory, and it's clear that like, they didn't finish bolting all the panels on the walls, and they're still wires everywhere, like, big fan of that. Then anyway, so Dan, what happens? Godzilla's attacking.

The end of the movie? Where's Kong? I don't know. I don't like, look, this is a series of images in my brain, guys. So cut to, I think right around now, Damien Bashir, an evil CEO, shows up at Alexander Skander scar scar department alexander scar scar is a scientist who has some kind of theory about how the earth is actually hollow and there's

some kind of gravity inversion bullshit and like people that killed his brother i don't know it killed his brother went to explore the hollow earth and there's some kind of inversion gravity when you get closer to the core of the earth that flips you inside out or something upside down all around Spins you around like a record player and so he says he was a he's the laughing stock now and he can't sell his book Even worse. He can't sell any copies of his book. I did relate to him saying that he had 30 unsolved boxes of His book and his heart man. I've I've lived that life. Alexander Skarsgard, it's like, I feel you.

And with the guy from Apex is the new Dr. Cherzawa, the son of the previous Dr. Cherzawa, the Sarazawa from the previous movies. And they seem to be up to no good, but they have a, they want to, his help in exploring the hollow earth because I don't remember the exact order of how they reveal this information in the movie, but it's like this like a power source.

These monsters have special energy and this they come from the center of the earth. So I guess the center of the earth must be full of special energy cubes and gems and we want to go get those get those energy gems. Yeah. It's all made up nonsense that makes no sense. Was it is it the is it a line from mystery men where they're like, this is why nine times out of ten You want to go with a instead of a mad scientist an average one of the mill scientist or something like that Because I feel like in these movies, they're always like, oh, we got to go to this French scientist who's the only one who knows the truth and like

Sure, sometimes Everything we know is wrong wrong you know some brilliant mind comes in or beautiful mind. Yeah and lips, lips are scribbling. Not as good as a beautiful heart but it's still okay. But it's much better than an absent mind. Yeah. Now so here's here's what I'm going to tell you. But no but it's like I sorry I just finished the thought like it is one of these cases where it's like, I will take that normally, but if you're trying to sell me, oh, the earth is hollow and we can travel through it

and there's like weird shit inside. I'm like, I don't know, move me. It's like we probably would have figured that out by now. Well, I think there's a, there's a, this is one of the kind of hidden toxicities of every, of kind of classical filmmaking is that Everyone's got to be an underdog and what that means is if you're going to talk to a scientist I mean sometimes a lot of movie would be like this is the top guy in this field

But you want to have the tension of here's a character who needs to prove something no one believes him So that they there's an arc and they can but what that means means is you have all these movies that are constantly pushing the idea that the science that you're told is wrong. Actually, the fringe theory is the right one. The same way that there are very few movies where the government is competent and knows what they're doing because it's a better story for there to be a conspiracy or some bad thing going on in the lone voice of reason

whoever on treats is crazy. But it means like there's this constant diet of movies and TV shows and stories where the mainstream of the world is lying to you. And only this person on the edge who's been doing their own research has the correct truth. Luckily, that's never had a negative effect in real life. And we're not living through anything now that shows the danger of that. Luckily, that's what I was thinking too. That's what I was thinking too.

That zeitgeist makes that a fun movie to watch and then a not very fun movie to watch. Maybe only a fun movie to watch again. It's funny how when the X-Files was a new show, I was like, yeah, the government's always lying about stuff, yeah, yeah, conspiracies. And then when they did that X-Wiles mini-series a few years ago, and they had a Joel McHale playing like an Alex Jones type character, and I was like, looking forward to the scene where they take him down a notch, and they didn't, because in the world of the X-Wiles, the Alex Jones character is accurate, is correct,

because there are conspiracies with aliens, and I was like, oh no, the X-wiles is undermining the stable ground of society. I never realized this before. Yeah. So speaking of conspiracy theories, though, that's where Brian Tyree Henry's character comes back, because Millie Bobby Brown's character,

who we know from previous movies, is a huge fan of his podcast. T, what is it? TTP, Titan Truth Podcast. With something like that. character who we know from previous movies is a huge fan of his podcast. T-T-T-P-Titent Truth podcast with terrible name. Never gonna get picked up. You need a fucking pun, dude. Yeah, that's the only way to do it. We're probably up on that, like, people aren't sure whether you spell it, like, it's two separate words, like, for the pun or with one word, like, the normal word.

Yeah. And, like, maybe a pun also that people are like oh was that like financially unsuccessful and you have to be like no no it's a kind of a loose sort of uh... inter- and then you want that same pun to be used for an unrelated television show on the short-lived vice channel so that screw up Google searches forever from that point on for history yeah uh... but yeah now he's's looking, she's looking for Brian Tyree, Henry, and she brings her

random. And who's the actor who plays her friend? Oh, he's great. He's the kid from the hunt for the Wilder people. Then? I mean, I got more excited about him showing up than I did about Godzilla Kong or anybody else. It's Ricky Baker.

That's, and he's another one who's like, he's given very little to do in the movie, which is just disappointing. And it's to the point where I was like, why is he in the movie? Because I guess he's supposed to be her comic relief friend, but Brian Tyree Henry is the comic relief in all these scenes. And the, and when his, the fact that later on, and near the end of the movie, he's like, I'm a hacker. I'll fix this problem and doesn't fix it and it's like so why is he there it's but he's

like but I wanted to see him do more because he's a great emotional support and speaking of making a meal out of a small role while they're tracking down this this conspiracy theory guy they get some help from a local what like grocery store clerk played by friend of the podcast Ronny chain. Oh man, he's so fun. I said, I said, I sent him a screenshot like he said something like, it was something about like, you two kids or something, I just sent him a thing that he was creepy, and he sent me a thumbs up. So that's a cool behind the scene. Message received.

Message received. So we watched this movie, guys. Anyway, I did twice. Yeah, wow. So do you want me to lay out the plan that the heroes say, plus bad guys? They want to get Kong to help them go through the hollow Earth he's gonna lead them into the hollow earth because Kong as with all Titans is full of this energy that calls to itself and

it's a It's one of these things where they're like Kong will be drawn naturally to the point where we need him to go Except he isn't they've got to transport him the whole way and once he goes in the tunnel It's just a straight line right into the hall of work. They really need to make them slip a little bit. Yeah. Like crashes into the sides of the tunnel. Yeah.

But they have to, they're going to have, it's, Rebecca Hall is like, hey, this is the secret facility that we keep Kongs that he'll be safe. And you are telling me basically, you want to like borrow Kong so that this evil company that is clearly evil can find some energy cubes in the middle of the earth and based on this theory that you have and he goes yes and she's

like sign me the fuck up let's throw Kong in that hole. To give the movie credit they don't waste a bunch of time like showing us how they get Kong on the boat he's just on the boat like thank God. I found that to be a disappointment. I wanted to see him drug con and drag him on with his boat and then figure out how to put him on a net and get him in it's there with helicopters. I mean, it's so funny if they're like, if she's like, you can't use Kong for this.

And he's like, well, we already have an aircraft carrier with huge chains attached to it. So like, can you the outlay, can we, can you just make this happen? This, that's coming out of my paycheck if we can't get con. You wanted more con logistics is what you're saying. Well, I wanted them to explain why they were doing any of this stuff because it just, everything

was like, and this is what we're doing. And it's like, why are you bringing your daughter along? I don't know. Yeah, as soon as she showed up, I was like, what, what? But similar, in God's will, King of the Monsters, they're at a secret facility where they deal with monsters and Vera Vermiga has brought her daughter along to hang out with her.

It's like every monarch and apex it's all bringing your daughter to work day, every day when you're dealing with Titans, you know? Well, and I just, yeah, and I mean, this movie in particular was like, somebody put a leash on this girl. She is, I mean, she clearly knows what she's doing, but she's gonna get stepped on.

Yeah, now just for the, I wanna say Xander speaks only for himself, and not for the podcast when he advocates putting leashes on girls. That's not something that, not something that I advocate certainly, but it is. Speaking of somebody you had a toddler,

or a seven year old or whatever, it's like, I wanted a leash on that kid, but like, don't wander into traffic, I'm serious. It is true that it's weird that they have, she just has full, it's, I mean, in the movie Megas like this too, there's a top secret facility in a dangerous place and a kid just has free reign to just wander, which I guess is the ultimate, the ultimate fantasy when you're like a nerdy kid is like to have free reign all over a monster facility.

But yeah. Um, so they're on the boat with Kong, a sedated and restrained Kong, and Godzilla is like- Almost as if you're quoting the Wikipedia summary that I have right in front of me. Shush, shush, shush. I mean, look, if one of you wants to, like, I- They'll keep you doing it- It's clear that I'm the most confused one, and yeah. You're doing great, but this part is easy to find out.

I think you're doing amazing. They've got a sedated and restrained Kong and what happens. You've got a Titanic task. You've got a make-up field. And attacks and I was sort of unclear as to why. Do you, is there a reason why Godzilla is attacked? Can't accept it. Can't have two alphas, baby.

Can't have two alphas, exactly. Only one of them can be the apex predator. Everyone else has bent the knee to Godzilla, but as Rebecca Hall mentioned, Kong bows to no one. So Godzilla's got a force Kong to bow to him. And he's just been itching for that. Godzilla's just had a King Kong shaped hole in his heart,

and he's been itching to fill it. And now finally, he can detect that by energy. It's just, I was like, I can see the whole layout of this, like at this moment, I'm like, I can see the whole layout of this, like at this moment, I'm like, because part of the reason why I don't, I don't remember as much to pull the curtain back is I watched this with friends, it was originally not gonna be for the flop house.

I watched it for friends, we were chatting, and like at this point, you know, in like the text chat, I was like, oh, you know, this is, they're going to fight each other like, but then it's going to be revealed, like obviously this company, you know, wants this technology for something bad and they're going to come together and they're going to like attack the worst thing. Like there's good like, it's always in these versus things. Like, okay, well how can we do this? Ever, like these two people have their fans,

so we need to have them ultimately team up against the true villain of the movie. And, you know, I'm not fucking giving myself all that much credit that, to say, yes, that's what happens in the film. But it just seems like such wrote like, okay, I guess now that he's in the water, that's where Godzilla lives, they're gonna fight a little bit now before the big fight later on.

So you're saying you wanted less Godzilla con fighting in your Godzilla, which is more than that? I wanted more Godzilla con fighting, they just don't need to like explain it so much. Like I kept thinking about that, about that Barton Fink thing, it's a wrestling picture. What do I gotta draw you a map? This is a monkey, this is an ape lizard wrestling picture that we're watching.

We do not need all this shit. I think it's logging it up. The microcosm of that is in the opening credits, there's all these images images and diagrams and and scientific findings and they show all these anatomical drawings of like what Kong skeleton would be like and I just wanted to have a piece of paper that said Like a gorilla but bigger Like you don't need yeah, you don't need to fill in all this junk like it's to it's a big gorilla and a and a radioactive dinosaur But so you're gonna point out point out that the in the opening credits, they have like they

keep pairing off Godzilla with different monsters from the past movies and each time they're like they have a big stamp on them and they're like defeated. Yeah. And you see Godzilla going up in the rankings and you're like, holy shit, Godzilla is going to do it. And then it pairs them off with Kong and you're like, oh, that's the movie we're about to watch, which I feel like is what you just want. You want to see the title about.

You don't want to see the undercards. Well, and I think too, you want to see, you want to see, okay, what would it look like if Godzilla fights Kong on seven boats, or whatever it is, and that would be like if Godzilla fights Kong in Hong Kong? And it's like, I actually kind of wanted like four more, you know, like what if he fought him in Hollywood?

What if we fought him in the, you know? And you if he fought him in Hollywood worth what have we fought him in the yeah, you know, yeah Yeah, you got about a dream. What about on a plane? Yeah exactly about on a goat. What about with a boat? Yeah, I mean they did do with a boat I guess you know, have you beat the main game you unlock additional levels to battle it? Well, it's they had to show them fighting each on their home turf Godzilla the ocean and Hong Kong being Kong's home turf It's named after you know because his family settled it all those years ago that's why he's he goes there because he's like i got us i just have a hanker in for my mom's home cooking so there's a fight

the ships disabled their power to pretend that they're like out of commission after that's a lot totally smacked kong around yeah i think it's a fun fight like i think that's fine whatever well should i be sure it's a totally smacks Kong around. Yeah, and then they, I think it's a fun fight. Like I think it's fine. Well, should I have each other? It's all right. I liked that Kong was jumping from boat to boat. I thought that was kind of a cool move.

And the wide shot that they showed in all the trailers of Kong just giving a roundhouse punch to Godzilla's face. So it was like, that was what sold me on the movie, where people were talking about it. I'm like, yeah, you know, I'll probably see it, but when he punched in right in the face in this wide shot, I'm like, okay, yeah,

that tingled my brain stem somewhat. And I'm like, I gotta see this movie. And then he's like John McLean's off the exploding aircraft here while Godzilla's nuclear breath, almost roost him. It's great. Well, I wish they didn't do, this could fall into a wheelchair, I'm like over explaining everything.

They do a lot to make sure we know that Kong is at a disadvantage here. First Godzilla is attacking him before he, and he's all chained up, then they're falling into the water. And it feels like the movie was really going a long way towards making sure, as Dan said, that like the Godzilla and Kong partisans were not offended, you know, at any point.

And it reminded me that like- It reminded me that like- I wonder if we're going to say the same thing, but like that article about the fast and the furious movies- No, no, over the- Like, they were counting how many punches. Yeah. Because Jason Statham and Oozah the Rock could not-

One of them couldn't have more punches than the other. But it made me think of like the original god, King Kong versus Godzilla, like King Kong just wins basically in that movie, right? Like it's implied anyway. Yeah, I don't know. Well, he had electrical powers. That's right, he did get those electrical powers.

That's true. But like, it's funny how there's this, this series kind of takes it for granted that King Kong and Godzilla have to exist in the same universe and have to fight at some point. When it happened once before, like the Godzilla has had so many adventures. It's like if like, like, there's so much more to Godzilla's story, but it's a little bit, but it's a little bit like... Like the fights.

Oh no, no, no, I mean there's love, there's loss. No, but Godzilla's had so many adventures with other monsters And it's there's a little that's something you gotta imagine Godzilla is talking to his agent about this series and he's like Kong like yeah, I worked with him once like I don't understand Why do people think that we have a thing together like I don't get it like that was one time, you know Yeah, yeah, well that's Hollywood for you like if they're like if if they're like We do like whole coke whole coke is coming back for the whole coke universe

We got to have LuL Bano in there. Of course. Why I don't understand what is it? There's some mystical connection between the two of them like I don't But anyway, that's anyway they get they're they, they, they are a lot of the onto the, the entrance to the hollow earth. Oh boy, this movie. Okay. And, uh, so meanwhile, Madison and Josh have located the podcaster, uh, and, uh, they're all, they all sneak into

this apex base and find a secret facility, uh, take a monorail to Hong Kong. And no, it's not just a regular monorail though. It's like they go take an elevator deep into the earth and then they take this futuristic monorail thing with zero rails. It's a zero-reel. It's just a slide to go.

Yeah. It's what Elon Musk has been promising us with the Hyperloop, but it even though it just turns out to be a tunnel you can drive your car through in real life. Yeah, it takes them from what Sarah Soda, where they at? Tyler Hasse Pensacola. Pensacola. And the worst soda. That was the joke I made earlier. Pensacola. And it's it's rockets them along with some eggs of some skull crawlers or something, which I think is.

As you may remember from Kong skull islands, those are the big bad guys and those. The skull crawlers that come from the hollow earth and are loosely based on a lizard we see for 10 seconds in the original King Kong. So it's important, but it's important that we know that they're like, why would they be transporting skull crawlers in this really futuristic train?

Up, I guess we'll find out when they get to Hong Kong Which we will when they get to Hong Kong Well, and why would they have them there as opposed to already being like they were from Skull Island Which has got to be closer to Hong Kong. That's true It really makes you wonder why Apex doesn't have one facility where they've been dealing with all this since they also Apex In Pensacola is where they're building this what turned out to be a giant eye Basically, but the rest of the thing is in Hong Kong. So and it has the eye witness.

I don't know what. It's logistics, dude. I mean, it's complicated. It's like what happens. The only way this makes any sense is if apex is related to Congress and Congress is like, we got to get contracts for all these states. Got to bring jobs to all these different states. That's why that's why the big anti-Godzilla weapon part of it's being built in Oklahoma, part of it's being built in Florida,

part of it's being built in New Jersey, part of it's being built in Oregon, we gotta gotta get those jobs there. It's because it's more efficient, I could be wrong with this. I think it's probably more efficient to build a thing in one place. I'm not a supply chain expert, my dad is.

I'm not, I'll ask him about it. Well anyway, they discover... Basically what they discover in Hong Kong is they're making a mecha Godzilla, of course. What else would they be doing? And I don't even know. It's telepathically controlled by one of the dudes. I'm not really sure. So Dr. Sarah Zara, what he does is he gets into the severed head of Godora.

The skull of Godora that was bought by Charles dance at the end of God's Oluking the Monsters. We can only imagine what what amazing adventure led to eco-terrorist Charles dance giving the skull to corporate Montde-Corport bad guy. What's his name again from that from apex but uh Walter Simon's something Simons. Yeah, Walter Simons The incredibly memorable character name of Walter Simons. And so Dr. Sarazawa gets into this giant skull

and places one of those helmets that doesn't touch your head but creates kind of like a Dyson air ring fan around your head. And he controls, make it a Zilla telepathically that way. But because he's controlling it through a King Gidorah skull, it's pretty clear that this thing has some Gidorah in it, which is not good, because that monster was a bad guy. He's a bad guy again, because he's not from here. He's a foreign monster.

As far as I can remember, you know, make a Godzilla's bad because his laser beams are red instead of blue, which is Godzilla's color, because Godzilla is a good color. So basically, to sum up, they need King Kong to go into the hollow earth to get a power source they can use for a mecha Godzilla that is telepathically controlled through the skull of Gadora. It sounds so much more fun than it is. It sounds so much more fun that just by the way. But seriously, they don't even need the power source.

They just need to do a scan of it. And then they transmit the data through, I guess, the best fucking Wi-Fi connection I've ever heard of. That's a surface of the earth. Yeah, so yeah. And I want to say something too about this. Maya Simmons, who no one you like Isn't even worth mentioning oh right is daughter who's who's overseeing the the she's his man on the ground

You know about right who's the who's the least diplomatic person in this whole movie where she just is like oh There's the tiny sample that we want to take and people are like hey, wait a minute And it's just all of a sudden these soldiers pull guns on, notably, the little girl. And everybody else, and we're taking this away. And it's like, chill out. I'm sure everybody can agree that if you find a little thing of magic energy on the ground, you can have it. Like, it's fine.

It's nobody else is here. It's all over the place in here. Yeah, it's everywhere. So we should mention, before the guns get pulled, they get into that hollow worth. They convinced Kong to go in because Rebecca Hall has convinced a little girl who has revealed that she can speak sign language with Kong. She's taught in sign language that maybe his home is in there, leads him to the hollow worth gravity inversion.

Luckily, they're in the heaves, which are these kind of like super armor, battle toad, little cruisers that they're in the heaves, which are these kind of like super armored battle-toed little cruisers that they're in and there's a lot of as the camera shakes as they're dealing with all the G forces and as someone Made clear on Twitter, it seems very heavily influenced by the back-to-the-future ride that used to be at Universal Studios and they say they come jumps around in this hollow earth world for a long time. Yeah. And there was a grill is there. He's got to be his disappoint.

There's no other gorillas. They're in the middle of the pool. Like a really cool album. Yeah. You got this kind of neutral gravity thing going on. So it's like floating around like floating through some glowing stones. I guess those glowing stones are why this inside area appears to have a sun even though we're inside. Yeah, it has a sun end weather.

Yeah. And even though we're in the center of the earth. And it's got a bunch of fucking quetzacottles that King Kong has to battle and he like rips off one of their heads and he eats the insides. It's great. And that's where we're playing a lot about. This is a foreshadowing that you know now that Kong's big move is to rip off a head and then drink whatever drips out of the bottom of it. Yeah. Which maybe we'll see him do later. And this movie like I'm complaining a lot about this movie.

If this movie had gotten to like something as weird as this hollow earth sequence faster with less exposition, I would love it. Like it is, it is a truly strange sequence to be in the middle. Yeah, this is this blockbuster. They go to, I mean, it only gets weirder when Kong leads them to like a hidden temple where he finds a magic energy axe that he uses. He plants into the ground and it unlocks like a throne room. It's, there's, there's so much it like it gets so. It sense to me. It gets so like 70s pulp like Conan the Barbarian monster nonsense stuff. And it's if this movie,

if they went to the Hollywood real early in this movie and they cut out all the conspiracy podcaster stuff and they cut out a lot of the other above ground stuff and it was just like, like I want to see Godzilla show up in this Hollywood and then have, especially because as we find out later he can burrow into it with his flame within seconds from the surface of the earth.

But it feels like the movie is briefly leaning into the weirdness and strangeness of a world where there's a giant gorilla and a giant radioactive dinosaur. And then the movie is like, that was a fun little tangent. Okay, back to the place where it's a lot of evil corporations, and like, which is not as interesting to me. But anyway. Yeah.

I mean, I think that's a lot of the difference between what's on the screenplay, where you're like, well, and then they go to Hollow Earth, which on a screenplay doesn't look that interesting, but then when you realize, oh, that's gonna be the most visually interesting part of the whole movie, maybe that should take up a larger share of it, or have

more importance. How did you guys feel about the revelation that Kong comes from, I guess, a race of beings that is developed enough to create axes that harness energy from the center of the earth for ultra strength? I mean, that axe looks like it was made out of a bone and a Godzilla scale, so it's not that complicated. I don't know how I feel about King Kong being able to use construct basic tools.

I don't know why, I just bump against it. I mean, don't, but great apes do that, right? They construct basic tools. I mean, really great apes. Yeah, great apes do a lot of it. Yeah, well, great apes wear hats too and stuff like that in jackets, you know. It's funny because it's like at a certain point

I get to this thing where they're like, and this bit of lore is true about Kong, this 90 year old character, and it's like, oh, okay. You know, I give it the biggest of shrugs. I did indicate the receipts, guys. Yeah, I mean like in a vacuum, I think of giant ape with a big axe is great.

I'm all for it. Yeah. In the context of this movie, yeah, I don't know. I'm not sure. I guess it is funny. The idea that Kong, the idea, I shouldn't be, but I shouldn't be beholden to the idea that Kong has any sort of continuity that this is,

contrary, because again, like Godzilla. Kongtonuity. Kongtonuity, thank you. Godzilla has 50 years of adventures, and for a lot of that time there was some loose continuity between the different Toho movies. But Kong is like, he was in one movie in 1933. Then he's in another movie in the late 70s.

Then he's in another movie in 2005. That's until Kong's go island. And there's Kong lives. But that's, let's not talk about that one. And King Kong escapes. And King escapes and Godzilla's gone. So there's the Toho Kong. King Kong, I guess he's all things about that one. And King Kong escapes. And King of escapes and God's love is gone. So there's the Toho Kong. King Kong, I guess he's all things to all people.

It's not like there's this grand tapestry of continuity or continuity, as he said. Well, and even in the original Kong, it's like he was because of the things that he was next to. It's like he was like all different heights during the movie. He's like 100 feet tall and then he's 30 feet tall, depending on what they had, the other props they had for him to the next two

Yeah, so I mean, I've really been in this situation and it feels like they're kind of playing Lucy Goosey with size for this movie as well Right like Kong is much smaller than Godzilla, right? Yeah, but not as much smaller as he was in the old movies, you know Like this is a a little bit in School Island where they're like he's not done growing Yeah, that's true because this is con 40 years 50 years almost after Who saw men's go islands? He's a little grayer. He's a little is a little tired her

So I was talking about how gorillas now don't do it the way they used to you know in his day Back when when things were really cool But okay, so they go to the split. They got the power source info now. The power source info is transmitted. So, mechigodzilla can, you know. It gets a serious upgrade, you know. It'll do his thing.

And so they transfer the power source, which as Stuart said, they don't need to actually bring the energy source with them. They just have to scan it and then send that information to the surface of the Earth by sat phone, even though they're inside the Earth. And then they just download it and inject it into megacodzyl as the computers. And it's like, is that how energy works?

The energy is this information that you can just read it into the thing. Like if you whisper to the megacodzyl as ear. Is power. Yeah. So meanwhile, this is calling Godzilla to Hong Kong to the apex facility. He shows up, but then he finds out that Kong is in the center of the earth using his axe to draw power.

So he rears up and he does one of his big ol' Godzilla blasts and he shoots it right down into the middle of the earth, which is awesome. This is nuts. That he is burling miles and miles into the into the earth with one Godzilla blast and it takes him very little time. And it's like, if this was... That's a powerful blast, Ellie. It is a powerful blast.

It's a denty-nice style blast. Everything would freeze around it if it was denty-nice. And this is the point where I think if this movie had been just goofball, goofball, goofball, all the way through, I would have been like, yes, definitely. But the first hour of the movie, they still feel like they're trying to take things seriously.

And so I told, by this point, it's hard for me to buy that Godzilla can burrow, can bore a hole to the center of the earth that way. But if earlier, if they had shown me like, Godzilla using his power to fly and stuff like that, I would have been like, okay, whatever, just you can do it. That level of whole drilling would obviously

have horrible seismic reactions across the entire planet, possibly greatly affect the tides and shit, but it don't worry about it. And far more than we go to Thornton would then be like, oh, Godzilla is the greatest deep-core driller, not Bruce Willis. Yeah, so we gotta send Godzilla up to that asteroid. The greatest movie underdog story

where you send a bunch of rig hounds up into outer space to take out an asteroid. I wanna mention that up to this point also, after the bad guys have threatened the good guys for stealing the energy source, even though everyone, it's like we know you wanted the energy source. That's why we came here.

So why are you threatening us to take it? That they're all attacked by maybe the most hideous character design, I think, monster design I've ever seen in a movie. These kind of like, hairless, bat bird creatures. Like, vulture dactyls. They're so, and they're supposed to be hideously grotesque looking and they are.

And I was like, movie, you did it. This is a being that I find unpleasant to look at like viscerally like shoot them all down exterminate. Although the people that I follow on social media all loved that though fat lizard that got about five seconds earlier on and just a one of those. He's great. He's great. There's just this there's just this cool like laid-back beach bum lizard that wanders into the frame for a moment and eat something. And it's almost one of those things where you're like,

did they not know he was on camera when they were shooting this? Looks like he just peaked it. It's clear the shot. The same way that in Bridesmaids, that Tim Heidecker just shows up in the backgrounds of shots. And you're like, because he's playing the fiancee, I guess. But he has no dialogues. So you're like, did they know he was in the movie?

That's what this lizard feels like. It's like a long running goof, like a walking Phoenix being crazy type goof. Yeah, and there's something about this lizard that you instantly see him and you're like, this lizard, he's got it all figured out. Like he doesn't get it. He doesn't get it. He's not get it. He's not get it. All these other guys are being upset, fighting over who's the alpha and the apex predator. And this lizard is like, man, there's enough for everybody. Like, let's just cool it. Let's have halfway down the list. I'm like a theta predator.

Yeah, I'm like, I'm happy about it. I'm in the center of the earth. I'm just chillin. I'm just coolin' my heels. What a great lizard. If I would, I mean, that we should all be as laid back as that lizard. You know, the true hero of the film, because he doesn't get involved in the violence.

Right. But yeah, so Godzilla blasts that hole and then King Kong what just jumps up through it I forgot how he gets down through it and then climbs out of it. Oh right. Oh, because the gravity is all So he and Godzilla have this this big ol' battle in Hong Kong I think the lighting is really cool. It's like there's a lot of blues and purples and it's great And it's pretty tight. God's Kong is jumping off all kinds of crap.

He's doing all these moves. He's flipping stuff around. He's using that axe of his to soak up that nuclear breath, which by the way, I gotta say like, I would imagine if I had to shoot things like a shoot a beam out of my mouth, you'd have to practice a lot to get good at aiming that thing, right? Probably, I mean, you see in Son of Godzilla

that Godzilla's teaching Minya had a blast those things. And if he's just always getting out of the smoke rings, it's difficult, you know? That sounds horrible. Now, do you think this, now, does Zack Snyder's just asleep make more sense if the ax that took out dark side with two chops so that he had to abandon his invasion of Earth

was this ax? And it was powered up with Godzilla energy? Yeah, Godzilla is just off screen just breathing into it. Yeah, it's like we're all gonna work together. Again, dark side's not from here, which means he's bad. So we gotta we gotta kick him off the earth. Yeah, so very pleasant with the axe. Very pretty fight scene. Again, if you'd come earlier in the movie maybe a happier camper but like there's a lot of neon there's a scene where like like you know like they hit one of them into a building and it shatters because there's so much neon it just looks like it was a glitter factory that they fell into that's yeah

that's good stuff but meanwhile mecha Godzilla oh boy. He's being activated. Oh, that's a bad plan guys. It's true. Yep. I agree You shouldn't let mechagotzilla loose on the world. No, although this is all part of Walter Simmons plan He says now we will be the apex predator and it's like did you name your company after that like that silly But okay, I'm building up to this speech. That was a cool thing. Well, that's the thing. And he has to see. They even make a joke about it. He has a real deep blue sea type moment, where he's like, I've realized this. I had a dream once.

A dream that, huh? And then Sarah's Iowa loses control of mecha Godzilla and it kills Simmons. And Bluntty, Tyree Henry goes, I wanted to hear the rest of that speech. And that was the one joke in the movie where he's like, okay, that was a funny joke. That was a good joke. Yeah. So in their fight, it looks, Godzilla initially loses to Kong and then he turns it around. He starts using his teeth.

I mean, that's the key. He starts biting a lot and- Well, I think he starts fighting like a lizard instead of like a boxer, you know. That's true. Yeah. He does what Daniel Tiger would say, you take a bad thing, you turn it around, make it something good out of it, you know. He's got those short arms

I mean, he's not going to beat calling in a boxing match. A Kong's reach is great. His arms are longer than his legs. He's a gorilla like reaches his thing. So you want to jump on Kong's back and start biting him with your teeth. Like that's trying to do. Yeah. And that's kind of what happens. They do a lot of biting and fighting and whatnot. And eventually, yeah, you know, they fight. They fight. They fight. They fight and fight. Wait, sorry, you're saying sir. Uh, Godzilla stomping on Kong's chest. I think he's dislocated Kong shoulder at some point and he stomping on his chest and they're yelling each other's faces, but it seems like Godzilla has won this round.

I did like when they were roaring in each other's faces. That felt like they were real characters for a moment. Even though again, it did mean another close-up of Godzilla's mean old man face. Oh It always looks like Godzilla is just taking a sip of brun juice and he's like Get off my lawn Showing off how good the Shelbyville lemons are Like that's those all hurt and then the little kid comes in to talk to Godzilla right or sorry Kong Kong Huh, I mean it would be amazing if she went up to talk to Godzilla and right? Or sorry, Kong, Kong. I mean, it'd be amazing if she went in to talk to Godzilla

and she's like, sorry, Kong, you're a loser. I'm getting on the right track. Hey, Godzilla, wanna learn sign language? Join up with me. Do they like electrify him, right? To revive him? Yes, they take the heave machine, the vehicle that they used before,

they use that, the electricity from it to Jolt Kong's heart back to the real living. And then Kong Bashes into a building to put it to reset his dislocated shoulder. Great Well, I would think that if that if if the jumping off of the ship to avoid the the Godzilla beam was a diehard reference This has got to be a lethal weapon reference. Yeah, for sure He smashes his shoulder back into place or whatever. Yeah, I think so sir He smashes his shoulder back into place or whatever. Yeah, I think sir Thirna is and that this is very I think it isn't it at the end of Godzilla King of the monsters that they have to like set off a bomb to power up

Godzilla so that he has ultrathomic power to so like This movie is even imagine the last movie in the series and that bomb of course is in a toilet So that's another lethal weapon weapon Danny Glover is sitting on it. Yeah, the point it's happening. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So meanwhile, mechagazilla has shown up and you're like, oh man, God's, he's going to stop these giant monsters. First thing it does is start roasting people and blown up the streets because he rules

these streets. And mechagazilla starts fighting Godzilla and Godzilla and Kong are already a little beat up at this point. They beat the shit out of each other. Yeah, and now they're fighting this giant robot that has legs like Godzilla and arms like Kong and missiles The ultimate fantasy And this is sorry, I forgot that you were probably building up to the ultimate fantasy It's okay. Yeah, so so mecha Godzilla is very clearly under the control of King Gidorah's skull Which I guess I some residual digital ghost understanding. It's a Digimon.

It's a literal Digimon now. Unfortunately, not a Pokemon. It's very big. You could not fit it in a pocket. But yeah, he's just like I'm the monster now, dog. And he's blasting and roasting and really giving Godzilla the business. He's just dragging Godzilla around everywhere.

Yeah, it's pretty brutal actually. Yeah, well because it's the it feels like it does feel like an old-school action movie where it's like the two heroes are fighting. That means that one hero is two week to come like it's the villain and so the villain is just taking it on him to the point that the audience is begging the movie to save our hero and to come fighting back. It's like the scene in what is it? The 10th prophecy, the movie with Stacey Keach, where you know that he used to be a psychotic covert ops killer, Green Bray, and he doesn't want to use violence anymore and he goes to the roadhouse and these bikers are really beating him up and they're making a brick beer

off the wooden floor. And the whole time you're like, come on killer cane, like just get up and they're making a like beer off the wooden floor and the whole time you're like come on killer cane like just get up and destroy these guys and the movie takes so long to get to that point that you're really begging for Stacey Keach to just tear these guys apart which he does. I'm not the ninth configuration. The ninth configuration. That's what I say the 10th prophecy. Yeah. Same thing. Ninth configuration. 10th prophecy. Exactly. Either way it's not that great a movie.

It's interesting. It's an interesting movie. It's a weird, weird movie. Okay, so they fight, you know, whatever. They beat Mickey Godzilla v. Well, I don't know what you're about. Well, they learn the power of friendship. Yeah, Godzilla does the alley hoop of blowing his nuclear breath on to Kong's axe, powering that shit up,

and then he just dices him up, man. And just looks like a turkey dinner. Mecha's, Mecha's, there's those head off and then drink the oil out of it. I think he does. Yeah. Yeah. It did seem like he was about to, I don't remember

if he drinks it, but yeah, like, yeah, this is, this is a blood from a robot. It's awesome. This is great, I love it. Yeah, then they have a little moment between them, the two of them where it looks like, oh, just Godzilla again, a fight Kong or what's going on. Like are they going to take, pick it up a bit, it's like they have like this moment of respect, you know?

Yeah, and everyone is, they're like, yeah, they decide they're not going to fight each other if they're going to go off it. They can both be the alphas now. And then it takes two by Rob Basin, TJ Easy Rock, starts playing, and we're like, oh, you two, you two, you crazy guys. Yeah, you'll be back. Everyone's reunited with their families. This is when looking at the Wikipedia summary

that I forgot that the character that Kyle Chandler plays is named Mark Russell. And now I want to see a version of this where he's that Mark Russell who plays the parody songs about politicians. But he does the about guys. I was thinking of a version of this where he's that Mark Russell who plays the parody songs about politicians But he does But yeah, oh yeah, they don't do it. I love the idea in this move I want to see the version of this where there's like weird al does kind of a kaiju parody of a popular song

Like that's how deep it is into the culture, you know, yeah But not yeah, everyone's fine and Godzilla and Kong go their their own ways and just Kong Kong goes back to the hallways the hall of earth where you can like you know scratch his buttons sit around and Carries that he couldn't do that before when he was in the monarch Oh, that's right on a throne though Kong's thrown in the middle of the earth now. He's truly a King Kong They really took the name literally even though he's never been called. That's why. Uh-huh.

But he's a king without a kingdom. There's no other guerrillas there. He just sits on the throne talking to nobody. It's really sad. Yeah, I'm really going to be one by default. You're the king. Yeah, exactly. It's a sad way to become a king where there's just nobody else left. And I think it's it's and there's no credit scene or anything, right? There's no there's no teaser for another adventure in the country. I was a little disappointed by that. Yeah, like we've been we've been primed. I was ready. I was ready for the moment where they were

like that you see some like alien, you know, some alien a silver suit is like, mecha Godzilla failed. What do we do? And then another guy just turns the camera goes, get me Megalon. And then you're like, uh-oh! And I know Megalon came from under the Earth too, I think. So, it's a reboot, you know, it's different. So. All right guys, this is where we do our final judgments. Whether this is a good bad movie, a bad bad movie,

or a movie we kind of liked. I will go because I'm talking. I did not care for this movie. Maybe, look, look, I will go because I'm talking, I did not care for this movie, maybe, look, look, I'm sorry that my understanding of this movie was pretty weak, I feel like I've let the listeners down, but these movies, No, you didn't.

These movies slide off my brain, like they put it, they try to lay so much track for something that so seems like it should be so easy. Like I need both much less justification and more than the movie provides me just in the sense that like so much of the movie seems to be moving chess pieces into place in elaborate ways. And yet, like, I still am not quite sure why the big monsters are fighting other than big monsters always fight. Like, if it had been a thing, it would have been much simpler to me if this guy's plan

was like, hey, look, I need to build mechagodzilla to protect us from these titans. We need to be the Apex. Humans need to be in charge. In the meantime, I am like, I have discovered this frequency that is like, I'm sending out these waves like, we'll get the Titans to fight one another and eliminate them each other until I can swoop in or something like that.

Because like, at least that, like, I understand.op in or something like that because like you know at least that like I Understand like they're like big animals and they need a big animal reason to be fighting, you know But instead it's just sort of like I don't know man They just you know they rubbed each other the wrong way somehow somewhere along the line There's a surprisingly complicated emotional dynamic between the gorilla and the radioactive dinosaur I think it's, there's a, I, I didn't hate this movie, but it failed to live up to my hopes for it aside from a couple of actiony weird and kind of weird visual scenes. But it's like, I see what you're saying that.

So there's a, I think I mentioned on podcast four, there's an essay on Bertot Echo wrote years ago called How to Tell If You're in a porn movie. And it's like, you can't have a movie That's just sex scenes went after another you have to have some filler in between and so if you find yourself Spending a lot of time going from one place to another place and then having sex and then driving from one place to another place Then you might be in a porn movie and it feels like here They know you cannot have two hours of just monsters punching each other in the face rampage the movie They tried it. They proved that you can't do that.

You need to have some kind of plot and some kind of characters. And so they're trying really hard to explain it, but they never tap into what is a really strong reason, which is like in the best of these monster movies, the monsters represent something. You know, like in the original Godzilla, it's not about wouldn't it be scary if a big monster started knocking over buildings, it's about, it's not about wouldn't it be scary if a big monster started knocking over buildings? It's about, what is it like when a atomic bomb is dropped on your city?

You know, and how do you handle that? Or as goofy as Godzilla versus the smog monster is, like it's a movie about how pollution is bad, you know, like it's like, it feels like these movies should be about their natural forces that people feel superior to, but are not, and they try to manipulate them, and they can't, and they are trying to get at this with this movie, and they just don't quite make it there.

And it's like, they need a stronger reason that needs less, what I would call, informally, technological gobbledygook. I love a certain amount of technological gobbledygook. If there was just a scene where a scientist is like, you see here, this neutron energy explodes out from the pores and goes into these radiation finders. If there's one scene of that, I'd be like,

I love it. Now let's move on. But instead, there's scene after scene of it. And by the end of it, you're like, as you're saying, Dan, you're like, why are the monsters fighting again? Like, what is, are they, what is their goal in doing this? So it's, but the, I did like that Hong Kong fight a lot. It's super, it's super gorgeous to look at as long as I'm not,

as long as I'm imagining that they evacuated the city ahead of time, you know. Uh, Stewart. Yeah, so, uh, I, I gotta say, I kind kinda like this movie guys. Even after what Dan and I said? I know, you can't hate on my parade, you know, that's what they say. But no, I think it, I don't, I mean, maybe, maybe it's exactly the same quality of movie

as the last one and I'm just at a different point in my life. Who knows, you know, that's what we're all just on our own individual journeys, kind of like calling's what we're all just on our own individual journeys, kind of like calling Godzilla. But they weren't on their own individual journeys. They were tied together by a mystic energy bomb. That's true. So I like that.

I feel like the movie is fairly light on its feet. Like it doesn't get bogged down too much despite being despite your opinion. I think I think it actually moves pretty quickly. I like the the fights, I think they're all in kind of like different environments, you get a lot of different environments in this movie. It's pretty to look at and you can actually see the monsters. I like the Godzilla design. Yeah, and Jen, I, I think it's certainly a fine movie that I'm sure there's a ton of things wrong with, but for like a big blockbuster.

And I also think like, I kind of wish I'd seen in a movie theater. I bet it was those big, those big fight scenes would've looked fucking great in a movie theater. Yeah, they probably did. Yeah. Yeah, I think, I mean, well, I'll let you in a little secret.

It's virtually not a monster movie that I don't like. So, I mean, so it's probably a movie that I kind of like, but I mean, I agree with Dan and that it did slide right off my brain. Like, I watched it twice because I watched it again when you guys contacted me and I was like, oh, that's what was happening in this movie. I had totally forgotten that there are some things where it had happened and I was like, oh, that's what was happening in this movie. I had totally forgotten that there, some things where it had happened and I was like, oh, I finally sort of pieced the plot together

and it's like, this movie made no impression on me whatsoever in terms of like drama, you know, it was just sort of like, I saw a bunch of stuff. And I had to say, this is the thing that really bugged me throughout the whole movie because I was sure it was gonna happen. I couldn't believe that like, somehow King Kong wasn't knocked into an apex sign, knocking off the X and then rising triumphantly with Ape.

That's why you're the best in the biz. It's not like I think that's the greatest visual of all time, but I couldn't believe that this movie didn't do it. It's not like it would be too dumb. That a movie that had the confidence to do something that over the top on the nose, like that's a better version of this movie. That's a movie that's not ashamed of being like, it's a monster fight movie, let's go all out.

And like it's getting towards that with Godzilla blasting a hole into the center of the earth. But like, yeah, I wanted to go more. I feel like if the movie had more comfort doing zany things like that and also had like One character who's a had a memorable thing about like the characters are just kind of a little too cardboardy and I wanted one of them to be Weird or surprising or something the way that like I used to think about how The Japanese Godzilla movies they have tons of talky scenes that are very boring in between the monster fight scenes, but there would always be like one character where I'd be like, what's this deal?

Wait a minute. So this is just this like bachelor scientist who has a son, but it's not a son. It's just like a little kid who lives with him and works with him in the lab. Like there's always, there was always something that was like, wait, so she's a robot. Like there's, there's always like something that was a little out of the ordinary. And here the characters are just so kind of by the numbers Yeah, and they they never it was never sort of like defined who was in charge of what like you know There was there was like Alexander Skarsgard was giving commands to people who are clearly like military people

They had nothing to do with whatsoever You know he's telling people stuff that he doesn't know about I don't know I thought that that was it was you didn't have a chance to sort of say like well Here's the by then by the book, you military guy, and then here's the wild, you know, theory dude, and like, you know. So when the characters, there was no, there was almost never seen where a character in another character like, are you really? Well, a character would be like, we got to do this thing, and another character would say,

no, and the first character would be like, let's do it, and the second character would be like, I hope you know what you're doing. And that would be the extent of the conversation. Yeah, right. It's like a private company, a private corporation goes to a quasi-governmental organization, Monarch, and says, can we borrow a giant monster? The US military helps the private company transport this monster, who I don't know who owns. You know, I don't know who has jurisdiction over that monster.

Rebecca Hall, I guess. Take massive damages, set losing several ships losing aircraft out anybody losing like real and and like and and people you know sailors and things like that I felt kind of the I felt kind of more bad for all the poor sailors on those boats that were getting exploded because like like oh man they don't have a chance they're just like well you know that didn't work very well.

I mean, it's all, I mean, this is it part, part of the course for these movies. But the fact that by the time they get to the Hollywood tunnel, they're like, yes, let's do it. And it's like, you not affected at all, but the navel battle that you were just a part of like. Right. They're like, no, I was in a big green room

where they were like shaking a bunch of tennis balls at me. So I didn't know what was going on. I don't know. I full figure it out later. They told me I'm seeing a big tunnel, so I guess I'm excited now. But yeah, there's a, and again, if the movie was like confident enough to point out,

it's the difference between a movie like, like I wanted this movie to be less like Godzilla King of the Monsters, which is trying to explain everything all the time, and more like Housu, where it's just like, there's a bunch of stuff happening here. Like, let's get there. A watermelon is laughing for some reason in the background of the scene.

Like, okay, let's go with that. I would have loved your pitch to this studio. I want you to invest a ton of fucking money in a monster movie that's more like how sue. I think they'd be okay with it. When you get that hollow worth, why aren't the guys from Yellow Submarine stomping around in there?

Come on, like go all the way with it, you know? the world's greatest treasure hunt can now begin. Embedded in each episode of my brother, my brother and me, is a micro clue that will lead you to 14 precious gemstones, all around this world. And I'm sure you'll find a way to get to know the world's greatest treasure hunt. And I'm sure you'll find a way to get to know the world's greatest treasure hunt. Embedded in each episode of my brother, my brother and me is a micro clue that will lead you to 14 precious gemstones all around this big beautiful blue world of ours. So start coming through the episodes.

Let's say starting an episode 101 on yeah, the early episodes are pretty problematic. So there's no Clues in those episodes. No, no not at all.. The better ones, the good ones, clues a hoi. Listen to every episode repeatedly in sequence. Laugh if you must, but mainly get all the great clues. My brother, my brother, me. It's an advice show kind of, but a treasure hunt, mainly. Anywhere you find podcasts or treasure maps. My brother, my brother, me.

The hunt is on. Max Fund Drive 2021 is coming. It'll be May 3rd to May 14th. To get in the spirit, we ask folks like you to let us know what maximum fun and our shows mean to them. You know, the maximum fun network is really important to me because it is not just a collection of podcasts, but it is a lifestyle and a value system. The podcast frequently indefinitely float between meaningful and a reverent, in one moment drawing attention to social issues, and in another making dick jokes about playing

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we just jumped into? Come back May 3rd for Max Fun Drive. The flop house is sponsored in part by Squarespace. The service that helps you create a beautiful website where you can blog or publish content, sell products and services of all kinds, and much much more. Squarespace does this by giving you beautiful, customizable templates created by world-class designers, everything optimized for mobile right out of the box, a new way to buy domains

and choose from over 200 extensions, free, and secure hosting. So why not go over to squarespace.com slash flop for a free trial when you're ready to launch, use the offer code flop to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Dan, I had an idea for a website and I was wondering if you thought Squarespace would be able to help me with it. Hey, lay it on me, man. Okay, so I've been watching these movies, these monster movies, and I keep thinking in a world where all these new types of life form exist, these animals that we have never seen before. Godzilla's, King Kong's, that super cool laid-back, beach bro lizard that shows up just for a couple seconds, the Ketsuko models, those kinds of gross vulture bats. It's hard to know. Can I eat them? And that's where

www.kaijuish.com comes in. Your source online for the kosher or non- kosher ratings for all the new monsters. Titans as they're called in the new movies Kaiju as I know them. So Kaijuish.com is your place to find out. Can I eat a Godzilla? Or is it considered not kosher it doesn't determine does that determine which titans are jewish or kosher uh... well it depends on the titan uh... titan like a titan like kong is fairly humanoid

uh... it's possible that he is we can't see if he circumcised in the movie but kaijuish.com would be able to answer that question. But something like, you know, Gadora I doubt that he has, unless he's converted upon reaching Earth, I doubt that is Jewish. Certainly not.

I don't think that is his family's Jewish. But at kaijuish.com, all those answers would be answered for you. kaijuish.com, a guide for the perplexed about monsters. So, Dan, do you think that Squarespace would be able to help me with that? I think Squarespace would be a perfect service to set up this new business that definitely will exist and be used by people. And if you're looking by rabbis, and also laymen who are, again, perplaced. If you're looking also maybe you set up a website and you need some video content, well worry not because we're also

sponsored by Storyblocks. Now more than ever, storytellers and content creators are challenged with producing more video content at a higher quality than ever before. Keep up with the growing demands for modern video content without sacrificing your vision with stock media from Storyblocks. Storyblocks is dedicated to being the world's best royalty-free stock media subscription service with an ever-growing library that has over 1 million high-quality stock assets, including 4K HD footage, after effects and Premiere Pro templates, music, images, sound effects, and more. They have affordable subscription plans and tools, and with story blocks, unlimited all access plan, you can get unlimited downloads of everything in their library and even if your subscription ends everything you've downloaded is yours to keep You know I used a story blocks at the last time we did a live show we've talked about it before I did a song about

Pain and they helped out Tremendously if you want to be like me and they helped out tremendously. If you wanna be like me, not do a song about paying, but you story blocks, you can explore their library. They're so keen. Yeah, sorry, Disney, I didn't realize you owned the copyright

on paying for ever and ever into eternity. Yeah, so you can explore their library. And subscribe today at storyblocks.com slash flop. That storyblocks.com slash flop. I believe you gentlemen have some jumbo trunks. Time for a jujujujujumbo trun! Coming into the ring is LA Kaelin ready to read his jumbo trun! I'm ready, I'm shaking my head the way boxers do when they're going in there. Okay, this is a message for Alex.

This message is from Jeremy. And the message goes like this, Alex, exclamation point. It is your birthday, or maybe it was, depending on when this makes it. Happy birthday, pandemic suck, but I'm glad we're healthy. I miss you. I can't wait for future adventures outside Canada to see these three sophisticated New York perverts live.

Maybe we can even hear a letter's song. I know how much you love those. Oh, that's a very sweet message. I take a little bit of issue with being referred to as a pervert, but sophisticated in my perversions are. So yeah. Which I, which I assume just means I'm into girls with glasses. Yep. I guess I'll write in my fucking Elliott journal. Put it in my dossier. Yep. I guess I'll write in my fucking Elliott journal. Put it in my dossier. Yep.

Uh, I have a jumbo tron, so I enter the ring. I'm shaking my head also like a boxer, but like, I think I'm shaking it even more intense little. I have a message for David Wogan, and the message is from Wogan's in Austin. Hey there, doctor! That's two exclamation points. We wish you the happiest of birthdays, the greatest of years, and continued success and good times in Tokyo. L-W-A-T-C-D-R. We'll see you in the fall. Enjoy! I don't know what that, I don't know what those letters are I hope we

didn't activate a man truly had it somewhere or that was that was a trigger phrase and now now the end has begun uh-huh Bucky Barnes is gonna burst through the wall and punch me with that arm of his mm-hmm not the metal one though the other arm that's what I meant the other one isn't his arm yeah Yeah, that's true. It doesn't belong to him. They can take it from him. Hey, Dan, I had a small plug. I wanted to plug in this plug section of the plug show of the Plug House.

Sure. As people may know, who have listened, I have a comic book out right now. It's called Maniac of New York. It comes from Aftershock Comics. I wrote it. The art is by Andrea Moody. And it's in stores now, unless it has sold out

at your local store, in which case it is available online, but as always, please support your local convict store. They need your business now more than ever, and they are great places to go. So that's maniac of New York. Issue three is on the stands as we record this. Issue four will come out in May.

It's a five issue series, I think. I can't stress enough how cool it is that the writer of probably the best Friday the 13th riff in recent memory is a close friend of mine. So really good job on that comic. Thank you very much. That means a lot to me. Thank you.

That's sweet. Okay. Well, let's take some letters from listeners. Well, wait, are these, we're just ripping them out of their hands because this is private mail. That's a felony. They just take letters from people. Oh, no, no, these are actual letters.

I take the letter E. Oh, OK. The most useful one. I just have a cue. What do I do with that? Well, you try to undermine the government of the United States. Oh, yeah, because the storm is coming is coming anyway I know that because all these movies have told me that the government is lying to me about monsters or aliens

or whatever you know right no this letter is from damn last name with hell McCoy who writes I just want to tell you I discovered your spot at the beginning of the series of unfortunate events that have fallen the globe your catalog has been a ray of sunshine in otherwise dark times. Tell me what horror movie villain would you attack in single combat given the choice? Much love, Dan, last name withheld. I'm gonna I'm drawing a line in the sand. I'm gonna say to this, you know what? Dracula ain't shit. I'm wow. He can come from me anytime. Like, just invite, I mean, you've just invited him into your house.

Oh, yeah. That's true. He will come anytime while you're sleeping or something. That, that, that, that reminds my scheme, which was that, you know, like, vampires like, look, I get the frightening idea behind them. Both the idea that's in the alluring idea. But the idea that someone will feed on you and sort of like the horror and loneliness of immortality.

But it seems like they're also like pretty weak. Like if you come on, like, I mean, they can turn into wolves and mists. I don't know. Some of them can if they're powerful enough. You find them super, super strong. Oh, so by tracking. So, so when you said Dracula, the king of the vampires, what you meant was like, uh, more like a, we're the weaker, like cartoon. Hey, you meant was, yeah, well, you meant was

chalk, you know, you, what you meant to say was count, chocolate, and that's the one you want to come after. Yeah, steak him and I'm going to eat his chocolateing remains. He's a, he's a horror movie villain. Can't talk to him. I mean, vampires like you just find me with their sleep. I mean, serial monsters are movies, right?

You find him when they're asleep, you stake him. They sleep when you're awake. Vice versa. Just do it. Yeah, it's the cycle of life. Yeah, just do it. What do you guys have to say? Monster, what you take in single combat? Okay. Well, I mean, I think this is probably colored by my experience with the movie

But I would have to say the killer dwarf at the end of don't look now. I think I got you And if I don't got you if somehow confronting you makes me Drives me and do like a world of madness and I end up getting stabbed to death Well, then at least I get to be with the spirit of my daughter in heaven. So, all right. Okay. This is how I imagine a story getting into that situation is you use Donald Sutherland as your bait.

And while the killer is stabbing him, you just jump out and push him into the canals of Venice. Gotcha. Yep. You know what another good one to kill would be? It's a werewolf because they're just a regular human most of the time, so. But when you kill them when they're just regular person,

that's murder, Dan. It's not self-defense so much when they're just a person. I mean, you just thought the question is just, who would you attack in single combat given the choice? So if there's like a rogue's character in front of me, and I'm like, okay, I'll take that guy, the guy who will be a wolf later, but not right now. What if he's a wolf when you're ready for monsters in front of me and i'm like okay i'll take that guy the guy who will be a wolf later but he's a book when you're making the choice though dand i you can't get it

i mean he's only a wolf once a month so it's likely he's not gonna be a wolf and then you wonder why he's volunteering to fight you if he's not a wolf at that moment i'm just saying we can each put whatever conditions we want to on this hypothetical question about made up but then what if you challenge him and he goes all right then i choose the weapon, basketball. And you're like, oh no, where will she grade at this? Oh, you sure, I'm terrible. The skate from LA all over again.

Yeah. Ha, ha, ha. Well, I hate it when something turns out to be escape from LA again. Oh, man, I got a sink on. That is, it's one of the funniest things in that movie where it's like, yeah, this is the most LA thing. I guess he could have to do,

but it's not that exciting to just watch Kurt Russell play basketball. I love that scene. And there's no music, right? It's just everyone's silently watching him sink baskets. Like, I love it. I took this in a different way. I guess I wasn't sinking about attacking to the death,

and I was thinking that I would go after the spider-gremlin from Gremlins II, and then when I defeated thinking that I would go after the spider-gremlin from gremlins too and then when I defeated it I could train it to be a pet and I could ride it around all over the place because that would be super fun at night Obviously, I can't ride them around at day because the sun would boil them and melt them but yeah, yeah, then you could finally One up your alter ego the brain gremlin Mm-hmm well, he i think i mean if it was me against him it would just be two evenly matched you guys just end up talking about i don't know like old broadway shows that

you both uh... yeah yeah but you can't only randall doing the voice definitely i mean i saw him on broadway in the odd couple jack logman i know sir what was in the i couple sunshine boys uh... zander i'm sure surely you thought of this uh... what you're gonna know yeah all the time i'm always daydreaming about it I'm sure you've thought of this. What's your answer? Oh, yeah. All the time.

I'm always daydreaming about it. I don't know. I mean, it's like, you know, maybe the strategy would go for like enormous baits when he's just like not looking. You know, he's just going about the business, you know, like, mopping or whatever. And you just get him in a headlock or something. Yeah. Well, first, first you got to miss his doubt fire him.

So I think he or his mom, and then you kill him. Oh, yeah. Then he's all discombobulated. You could do whatever you want. Yeah, kick him out of window or whatever. Yeah, either that or somebody like a mama from the movie Mama, the fricky thing, but she'd take care of you for a while.

And then you'd probably just leave home and never call. Like the evil ghost, mama. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you just never call, and then you'd, you know, she'd kind of, she'd break her hip, and you'd put her in a home, or whatever, you know, I'd just make it ghost-hip. You just break her heart that way.

Yeah, and one point, isn't mama just a wig walking around on the ground like a triple? That seems like a pretty easy time to get rid of. Oh yeah, that'd be your moment. Yeah. But it really made this question really made me think about like what is what do I consider a horror movie villain and what's a horror movie? You know, because I guess grandma's just not really a cereal box.

And what's in movies is the cereal box. So I guess I would say it's kind of chocolate or maybe like maybe I go after boo berry because I'm like come on man you're not even a specific thing. So I guess I would say it's kind of chocolate or maybe like, maybe I'd go after Boo Berry because I'm like, come on man, you're not even a specific thing, you're just a ghost. Come on. There's a lot of discourse last week about that horror movies can't be set in space. Somebody made that, the hot tape.

Where was this discourse? Oh, on Twitter, you know, the hellhole of the universe. Like, yeah, somebody just said that horror can't be set in space for, I mean, for the most dubious reasons and of course everybody had to Pile on this poor person and then say me ripped out his eyes and was like check this out I can see so much now and then and then and the the xenomorphic sitting there being like excuse me excuse me excuse me sir Top liver

Yeah, we should see the more to the spit-take and that's little mouth did a spit-take liver. We should have more to the spit take and that's little mouth to the spit take. Wait, so does he have two glasses, one for the big one for the big mouth and a little one, like a shock glass for the little mouth? What is your favorite of the serial monsters? I am partial to Boo Berry because I think he looks kind of like he's like a cool jazz musician and Yeah, it's just from soul. I like his vibe, but like What do you got you got that you got Frank and Barry? You got there's not chocolate. You got fruit brute who is a werewolf Yeah, I mean the Tarantino universe

Yeah I like that. I'm Barry. It's got a hat That's all it takes me like a monster. I think Frank and Barry's pretty cool. Yeah, I like I'm always I'm always drawn to Frankenstein type monsters See I'm not as monster type monsters. Thank you. Oh, goodness I think I'm gonna have to go with count chocolate because I like chocolate and I do like vampires no matter what Dan says I like them I think they have they embody the scariest thing sex and so that's and unlike Frankenstein's monster who is not Sexy at all although you know what I don't know. He's got a certain kind of kind of affection to him He's got he feels like oh he's at like

Dracula there's no long-term relationship there which is ironic because he's immortal but Frankenstein's monster I feel like you could really make a connection with him. He's looking for love. That's why he's so sad at the end of bright of rang and sign. You know what Mary Frank and Stein Fuck Dracula and kill Boo Berry. He's already dead. So I don't know if you know He's already dead. What is that what does that leave me with who do I who do I get to be you get to be the lucky charm's leprechaun Who's kind of a monster? He's always tricking those kids you know? I guess yeah, I guess the tricks rabbit. He's kind of a monster he's always tricking those kids you know. Yes. I guess the tricks rabbit he's kind of a monster because he loses all the time. So tricking.

Yeah. I guess the kids are the monsters. Captain Crimes he had to do to get those medals. Yeah. And Tony the tiger with his blood red curtchef around his neck. There's one more letter. It's from Jerry. Yeah. There's one more letter is from jerry there's one more serial mascot is the two can from fruit loose right in the same about the

thing stand for bringing it up one more i guess it is that like a more issue of all you type which makes sense is a two-can anyway continue one more letter from jerry less than with how to write actually is more of a david niven type ok forget more that forget i said david niven as as as the two can from fruit loops uh... play count

Chocula probably like Franklin Jella. He did he played Dracula that one like Bob Hoskins can play the cookie crisp burglar for sure that goes that's saying that's a great call that's a great call yeah. Jared last name with held right, Steer Peaches. When maniac of New York inevitably becomes a hit film, would you consider deviating from your format and having a maniac of a New York episode? Could I sit and listen to it while playing with all the Burger King tie-in toys? Would you be able to give it some playful jabs?

Can't wait for the 2027 premiere, PS. Thanks in advance for the surprise Stewart cameo as zoo snake expert. I will have been delighted to see that. Jared last name with that. It's actually, it's actually too bad. I'm going to be playing two roles in that movie. One of them has a mustache. Zoo snake experts won the other, of course, my larger role that has a line is going to be the, the more attendant who is eating a sandwich. Yeah, that is that thing. Revenue.

I'm working on something now that has a more attendant one point and I'm like, should he be eating a sandwich? They always do. LA at my career needs this. You have to. The scariest thing about this letter was not the idea of a Burger King tie-in for Maniac of New York, which this is not for kids. It's not your it's not your grand grandads Friday the 13th type thing,

or Nightmare on Alistair, where you could merchandise it with dolls for children. But the idea that we would still be doing the podcast in 2027, which is effectively what 20 years of us doing the podcast at that point, I mean, I'm game a few guys are, but that seems like a long time to be talking about bad movies.

What do you think? Sandra is the... Pivot. Will they still be making bad movies by then? I think they'll figure it out by then. They'll have the formula right. They'll be making good ones. Yeah, I can just see you guys taking your hat off and just throwing it on the ground. They've stopped making bad movies. It's just so frustrating. There's a big headline in the newspaper. Oh, no,'m walking down the street and I'm like, life is sweet. Gonna celebrate 20 years of the flop house next year

and then a Newsy runs by and goes extra, extra. They figured it out. No more bad movies, only goodies from now on. Hey, me that paper, hand me that paper. Tyre Nation. You're like reading through the paper. I was like, oh my god, it checks out. They did it. That would work. it checks out. They did it.

That would work. It checks out. How am I going to pay my mortgage? So I'll finally bought a house by then. Yeah, that has a mortgage. And I don't think it pays cash. I mean, we're fantasizing why do you have to have a mortgage in this?

But I'm not wearing pants. That's the fantasy part of the fantasy. Because normally, in life, I'm not wearing pants. That's the fantasy. That's the fantasy. Because normally in life, I'm forced to wear pants at all times. Even in the bathtub. Even in the bathtub. Social customs. And even in the bathtub. Yeah. But you do take a bath in a store window.

So that's why I do. Yeah. Yes. Stewart's famous favorite. All the other puppies. If you're ever in New York City, just go to the pet shop that's two works part time in as a display window bath tub being in her, hanging out with puppies in pants. Don't worry, he's running pants.

Yeah. Was Andrew, would you stick with us to the year 2027? Oh, absolutely. I still got comics to draw. Like, what do you think I'm listening to nothing or music? You know, it's maybe something. Like a moron? Like a moron?

Wasted your time on musical notes? You heard me move, Barry, your jazz musician, get out of here. Listening to something that might soothe you or bring you joy or feel emotion rather than just three idiots. Three idiots. Yeah. Yeah. That's nice. Yeah, it's about 38. Yeah. Yeah.

That's nice. Well, that's cool. That's awesome. That's really interesting. Yeah, about something. And then I just start crying. Let's move on to recommendations. I got a quick one.

This is called the Wolfhouse from 2018. You can find it on. Wolf Hall? No, not the... Yeah, I think you mean Wolf Hall. Not Wolf Hall, the Hillary Mantle book. In the cover of the Wolf's adaptation of the same. I think you mean Wolf with Jack Nicholson. No, not the weird Mike Nichol's movie about.

Do you realize, I went back and looked at that. I saw it at the time. I had forgotten everything about this. Because you were such a big big Mike Nichols fan at the time when you were a kid I was a fan of things that involved wolves I mean that's your change you were just telling us what week what week babies where wolves are yeah But well the man part is the weak part. Oh I had forgotten that that's in the high- world of publishing, like the cutthroat publishing world.

It's just so funny now that like publishing has been, you know, it's gone through so many travails. It's not, I mean, like that part's not funny. I wish that we had a healthier publishing world, but that like, that's what he needs to be bitten by a wolf to succeed at the cutthroat world. I assumed it was big business or something, but anyway. The Wolf House, it is available. You can watch it on Shutter.

It is an animated movie. It is a movie that it helps to have the context ahead of time that in Chile under Pinochet, there was this cults. There was a lot of like horrific abuse that took place. Part of this cult, it's, you know, there's a very horrifying real-life history that this movie gestures to. And without some sort of context, I think it would be sort of baffling what's going on because the plot is sort of not there in a traditional way. It's about a young girl who finds this house in the forest, a man in house, and it's sort of like this fairy tale situation where the house kind of morphs around her and you know she adopts these two pigs that turn into children and it's basically

it's all getting at kind of the the wrought the mental wrought of having been subjected to this trauma and how that stays with you and how places can be sort of infected with this and you can pass it along. That's all very like upsetting but the interesting thing about the movie that I have not mentioned yet is this is an animated film and it is done in a very interesting way like it is the house itself is like a physical set that they then paint on the walls to do animation like there are like 2d characters that are painted that will move across the walls. Sometimes they'll leave the walls and sort of come into the 3d space and it's a paper mache like big sort of herky jerky dolls like the character will sort of disassemble itself into its component paper

machete parts and reassemble itself differently. Like the the spaces and constant flux, the characters aren't constant flux. As an animated movie it is one of the most sort of ambitious and interesting to look at things I've ever seen. As a traditional movie movie it plays more like kind of an art installation than a film, but it's, you know, under 80 minutes long. If you can handle, if you can handle the just, And it's animated so it's for fun for the family. No, this is not watches with any children. I'm gonna it's time for Stuart to make a recommendation so you know what I'm doing. I'm pulling up my shutter viewing history. Oh boy. So yeah, I'm gonna recommend a movie that is on shutter. It's a movie from 1981 so I'm staying close to Elliott Territory for an oldie. I'm recommending a movie called Butcher Baker Nightmare Maker,

kind of a weirdo horror movie about a young man who is living with his young orphaned man who is living with his aunt who has this like weird dominant, almost sexual fascination with her nephew. The aunt is played by this woman, Susan Tarell, who is incredible. She is like way out there. This is a great, like kind of, I would say this is a great, like good bad horror movie that is weird and has some strength like a lot of twists and turns and over the top performances. It's definitely if you like like a fun cheapo good bad horror movie.

Totally check this one out. I will say that it does have, it came out in 1981 and it has a gay panic subplot that is, I'm not in no way am I going to say it's progressive, but it is, it didn't quite go in the directions I expected it to for being a movie that came out in 1981. And all in all, I think it's, if you like Weirdo Good Bad Horror movies, check it out. Before I get to my recommendation, I wanna mention,

here's a way to tie that into previous discussion in this episode, so it seems less like I was just talking about random nonsense. Susan Torell was also in the great movie Fat City with Stacey Keach. So that's why I talked about Stacey Keach earlier in the episode. Okay. It all ties together. It all makes sense. Oh, yeah, you're on base.

You're on base. Okay, good, good. Is Anna, do you want to go with your recommendation next? We'll do it first. Okay, good, good. Is it, do you want to go with your recommendation next through which I'll stay in my on brand for the Kaiju guy who comes in. But to, so I have a couple recommendations. One, of course, is these are all a couple of years old. Shin Godzilla, which is the most recent Japanese Kaiju movie. And it's interesting in that one, there's only one monster. And two, it as a Godzilla movie, it doesn't even take into account the original Godzilla movie, which most sort of

like reboot so Godzilla have sort of said, oh, we haven't seen this monster since 1954. But he came that one time, but never again. But this one is like, this is a never before seen thing. And instead of sort of saying, oh, it's metaphor for nuclear weapons, it's a metaphor for like the Fukushima nuclear disaster and the absolute mess that the government made with that. And it has beautiful monster design. It is, it's done by the guy who made a neon genesis Evangelion, so it's like super fast and paste and a beautiful film.

I do not recommend watching the original King Congress's Godzilla because I was rewatching that a little bit ago and it is extremely racist. There's a whole section of Blackface that you will go, wow, I really forgot that that was in that, you know, and that every movie in the 60s had to have that kind of like bewildered natives being given a radio and freaking out about it. And then my final recommendation is if you enjoy the cookiness of Godzilla vs. King Kong escapes, the Rankin Bass Slash Toho production, where King Kong fights his metal doppelganger, the Mecha Kong, which is the first mechanical Kaiju to appear.

And it is horrible. It's a horrible movie and it's delightful. It's the best, this is one of the best King Kong movies I've ever seen. I remember as a kid really loving that movie and loving the design of that robot Kong. And it's just like, that's a movie where it's like, we're making this for kids, right?

Okay, good, let's just do it. Like let's kid it up. Well, and it's the opposite of all the modern sort of, like mechanical design where it's like, there's very few shapes. You know, it's just like, here's the mouth shape, here's the eye shape, and it's like elegant instead of just being a whole bunch of stuff crammed together. Yeah, super busy lights flashing things whirling around.

That was with the mecha Godzilla design in this one, in Godzilla vs Kong. It was like, yeah, there are a lot of moving parts, and it was hard for my eye at sometimes to like make a humanoider Godzilla-Oid shape out of them, you know, because there was so much stuff going on. But yeah, that robot Kong is just like, yeah, there's a lot of curved metal pieces that are just gonna bolt together. Like, he always reminded me like-

Like, is it looks like a King Kong? Well, it's like if King Kong was an antique submarine, kind of, like that's kind of the design to me. Right, yeah, and that there would be like bolts as if you were made in 1962 or whenever this movie came out. Yeah. I don't have a Godzilla movie to recommend, but I do have a Japanese movie to recommend. Oh yeah, because they, you know, I had watched Japanese movie in a while and I said, oh, I'm gonna watch one. So I watched a cult is my passport. It's a Yakuza film from 1967. It's directed by Takashi Nomura and it stars Joe Shishito who you may know as The Japanese actor from the 60s who had his cheeks artificially Biggined so he always looks like a chipmunk that's carrying nuts in his cheeks and it's very off putting into it used to it

I've seen a bunch of crime movies with him and he's always supposed to be the toughest baddest ass guy But he's got these like weird chipmunk cheeks. Anyway, it's an interesting thing that he did to differentiate himself from other Japanese actors at the time. But long time listeners will know I'm not a fan of Hitman movies usually, but this is one where Joe Shishido plays a Hitman. He and his partner hired by one Yakuza family to kill the boss of another Yakuza family and after they do it They get totally sold out and now they're in hiding and on the run and now they're up against these these two families working together basically and it's super kind of 60s new wave cool style. It's very like laid back and And very jazzy

with a lot there's a lot of neat things with like fast cuts and stuff. And there is a gunfight at the end, which takes place in a totally featureless void of a desert kind of space in which Joe Shishito somehow still manages to kill everybody and never get hit by a bullet even though there's nothing to hide behind. And they're all just going to standing there. That sounds like the end of a lot of comics that I've drawn where you're like, you know what, would really speed this along? There's no backgrounds.

Well, the same way God's ill and movies, even if they started in a city, they always ended up on some kind of like grassy plane and we'd like little trees and maybe a small hills. And you're like, weren't they, you know, city, like a second ago? Like, but it's a, it was a fun, tight little kind of, you know, new wavy crime movie where it's all about how basically the life of crime is a really depressing one in an existential fashion. So a cult is my passport. It may be on the Criterion channel right now. I don't know, but it is available through them on DVD. Well, a lot of recommendations.

A lot of them. A lot of recommendations. Someone that's got to be one in there for someone to like. All of you must do your homework over this fixed space until the next episode. But for now, thank you, Zander, for coming and being a guest. At short notice notice as well. Is there a place where people can find you?

Is there a thing that you would like to plug? I mean, within reason. I know you don't want people showing up just from. Yeah, well, I mean, I'm offering him. He says wood live. With like, okay, that's fair. I mean, it's not like Dan challenging a vampire to show up at any moment.

Yeah. No, just one vampire, Ali. Dracula. Dracula, the big big the main one. Dracula, I only have time to fight it for four in the afternoon. Right. Exactly. Well, I mean, people can find me on Twitter, Xander, underscore cannon.

And if you want to find me on Facebook, you could, but I'm not going to answer anything because I don't even look at that thing. And yeah, my comics, my comic is called Kaiju Max and you can find it virtually any online retailer. I actually recommend bookshop.org if you want to not feed Amazon for a moment because it will sort of source it from local bookstores. I don't know how they do it, but they figured out. They just order it off Amazon, they figured out Amazon they tell you

Amazon a deep discounts and I gotta say when I when I bought the first Kaiju Max trade I bought it for Ben Planet in New York and I think it was filed in the like young adult children section and I'm like this fucking crazy Yeah, I can't tell you how many times people tell me that they got it in the children's section. And it's like, oh god. Or I had to explain to a woman at a Paris Comic Con that her child who was looking through it was like, please don't. And she only spoke Italian.

And I was like, so we're trying to find a language that we spoke in common. So she had to hear some sixth grade Spanish from me. But yeah, it's really, I mean, I need to do something that's for all ages next, because people think that it always think that it's, oh they really do. And Kajumaks, I can't say enough what a great series it is and how you take something that seems like it should be kind of like a sketch premise, like a joke premise about, oh, there's a prison

for the big monsters and turn it into, oh, these are real characters. And they have real hates and loves and bad pasts and tragic futures. And they're trauma's linger from one experience to the next. and loves and bad pasts and tragic futures and like they and their their traumas linger from one you know experience to the next and it just every time I read it I'm like they're parts from laughing and then by the end of the series I'm like crying and I'm like why am I crying about this like this make a Godzilla character you know right yeah these dumbest

possible characters yeah no it was it was that when I proposed to do it. It was just like, here's these two mashed up things. Here's the list of gags. It's about 28 items long. And then I get bored with doing that. And so I have to make it really depressing. Or really melancholy, I should say. Yeah. Yeah, there's a run.

I can't remember which season it was, but there's a run where it's like, I'd have to like prepare myself for each issue. I'm like, this is going to fucking crush me for each issue I'm like this is gonna fucking crush me no I'm gonna get ready for this it's great though nobody is in it that you do it I mean to another prison thing but like like in orange is the new black you'll introduce a character as kind of a background character and then give that character their moment later to I'm thinking of there's the the like elder god lovecraft style

a woman character who she's got like a cattle skull with with women's coming out of it and yeah goat is her name yeah goat and how like when she first showed up it's like oh I get this joke that it's like she's like a you know like a poor drug addict but who's an elder god and then when she gets her story, you're like, oh, this is heartbreaking. Like, I feel for this character. I feel for ghosts so badly, you know. And it makes it sound, it makes the book,

we were just trying to make it sound depressing, but it's a book that could be just a joke, but it's a really moving book, you know. Yeah, I have a lot of respect for taking something that seems silly and treating it deathly theory. But I mean, I do want it to always be absurd. And I feel like people have said that, like, oh, I didn't like the artwork when I first

saw it because I didn't think it was substantial enough, but then they realized, oh, if it were, I don't know, more vivid or more realistic, you wouldn't like it. You wouldn't tolerate it. It would be so unpleasant. I need to be Steven Bessette level detail. Right. Well, I mean, there is a Ryan Brown, who you may know, he does a comment called the curse words and God hates astronauts, which is going to be the original artist on it. And I feel like I would have written it very differently

for him because it would have been so, his style is really, you know, it's like, it feels more solid and it feels more realistic and it feels more sort of, I don't know, I don't know, it would be the difference between sort of, like a 60s monster movie and a, and you know, the Godzilla vs Kong, you know, like it's with the how silly the, and how unreal things seem.

You know, if you were doing it, it's like, all these really unpleasant stuff would be like twice as unpleasant. And I don't, yeah. There are some things in there that are very, I mean, we should also say for people that there are certain, there are things that happen to characters that are very unpleasant and very sensitive material in there. Yeah, yeah. I thought, I mean, when I was first doing it, I didn't trigger warnings and content warnings weren't really a thing, but I would definitely say that now, or it's like, yeah, there's some assault, and I kind of regret putting that into a degree. I think it was, I played it off okay, but you know, if I look back and I'm like, oh, it's probably doubling down on sort of like

edge-lordy stuff that I should have maybe thought twice about. Anyway, it's really exciting. It's terrible book, don't pick it up. Not your big name. You image me every time. No, it's a great book and thank you so much for joining us today.

Oh, thanks so much. Have you on, there's no one we trust more with Kaiju. Right, right, good. I'm glad to be the absolute number one expert. You know. Yes, thank you again. Well, thanks you guys. I really, I mean, I love the, I love the flop house.

I list, I mean, I really do. Whenever I have to pencil a whole issue, I listen to probably, I don't know, 18 episodes back to back. And sometimes I'll look in like a way that I've drawn a hand and I'll be like, I remember they were talking about do little or something. I was doing that.

I was like, well. So when I'm reading an issue and I'm like, man, these guys all look fucked up. I can blame it. I'm like, yeah. these guys all look fucked up. I can blame. Yeah, you can. If less fingers right back at yourself, let's just pick up the book now. And just remember while you're reading it, like we were talking about Do Little, there's some shit.

Well, thank you to Jordan Cowling for producing the show. Thank you to Maxbombfun.org. Go over there to find all sorts of other great podcasts. If you like the show, please spread the word either by leaving us review on iTunes or via all your favorite social media or just talk to a human being for once in your goddamn lives. Come on people. Yeah, take out a billboard ad. We're an ad in a local newspaper. They need the business sky writing Probably the least effective, but sure if you want to

Unless you happen to be at that beach At that second I can listen to the floor Okay, it's all Maybe it wasn't it. Maybe it was just clouds to begin with just clouds. But anyway for the floor course I've been to Ann McEvoy. Hey, I've been Stuart Wellington. I'm Ellie Kaelin and we've been joined by Xander Cannon Kai do expert number one Bye On this episode we discuss, wait, hold on. No, no, I'm looking at the name because like, I can't remember.

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