Ep.#413 - Rebel Moon: Part One - A Child of Fire

Elliott Kalan

[0:00] Hi, floppers. Before we start our regular nonsense, we wanted to make sure you knew the Flophouse is going on a four-city West Coast tour this January.

[0:08] It's the Flophouse Errors Tour, the biggest event in pop culture entertainment this year, probably.

[0:14] You can see us in Vancouver on Wednesday, January 24th at the Rio Theater.

[0:18] In Portland on Thursday, January 25th at the Aladdin Theater.

[0:22] In San Francisco on Friday, January 26th at Cobb's Comedy Club as part of San Francisco Sketch Fest.

[0:28] And in Los Angeles on Sunday, January 28th at the Regent Theater.

[0:32] For tickets, go to flophousepodcast.com slash events.

[0:36] Again, that's flophousepodcast.com slash events.

[0:39] The Flophouse Live. It's like the podcast, but you can smell us.

Dan McCoy

[0:43] And now, without further ado, our regular nonsense.

[0:46] On this episode, we discuss Rebel Moon Part 1, A Child of Fire.

Stuart Wellington

[0:53] More like seven Shamu-rai, am I right?

[0:57] Like Shamu, the killer whale? They're all killer whales?

Elliott Kalan

[1:00] Yeah, Shamu-rai.

[1:02] You know what I meant. Come on.

[1:04] Shamu?

Stuart Wellington

[1:05] It was a hot one, guys.

Dan McCoy

[1:08] It was a hot one.

[1:09] And you chilled it out. Come on.

Stuart Wellington

[1:12] Chilled champagne?

[1:13] No. You know. Come on.

[1:17] Hey, everyone, and welcome to the Flophouse.

Dan McCoy

[1:43] I'm Dan McCoy.

Stuart Wellington

[1:44] I'm Stuart Wellington.

[1:46] I'm Elliot Kalin.

[1:48] The original Child of Fire himself, Elliot Kalin.

Dan McCoy

[1:51] You know it.

[1:52] You know it.

[1:53] Now, I mean, I don't want to get into things too far ahead.

[1:56] We have to introduce what this show is.

Elliott Kalan

[1:57] Yes, I was born of flame.

[1:58] I was born in flames, yes, like a phoenix.

Dan McCoy

[2:00] The show is, but the Child of Fire, I guess, is the main lady because of how the war did the thing.

Elliott Kalan

[2:09] Well, Dan, this is a podcast where we watch a bad movie and then we talk about it.

[2:13] Okay, yeah.

[2:13] Yeah, so the Child of Fire, I'm not sure if it's Korra or if it is the princess who has the power to bring dead things back to life that we see in one flashback.

[2:22] Basically nothing about it at this point.

[2:24] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[2:24] We know she's fucking magic, dude.

Elliott Kalan

[2:27] Names of the movie after a character we see in one scene, basically.

[2:30] It is, I mean, Titus Grone, the first volume of Gormenghast, is named after a character who appears as a baby near the end of the story.

[2:38] Well, Titus Grone did it.

[2:41] Ellie gotcha.

[2:42] If Mervyn Peake could get away with it in his Gormenghast trilogy, then Zack Snyder can do it in the Rebel Moon series.

Dan McCoy

[2:47] Okay, well, this isn't a Gormenghast trilogy podcast.

[2:51] This is a podcast where we watch a bad movie.

[2:53] I wish it was.

[2:54] And then we talk about it.

[2:55] In this case, we returned to one of the Flophouse's hit makers.

[3:03] Wait, there was an S to this.

[3:05] It's Zack Snyder.

[3:07] Hit makers?

[3:08] Yeah, that's right.

[3:10] He's done so many of them.

[3:12] And yeah, this is his.

[3:15] So he's been in the DC universe for a long time.

Elliott Kalan

[3:19] When we last saw Zack Snyder, he was treating the Justice League with the same level of somber, serious depression that he would treat, say, a major natural disaster or a genocide.

Dan McCoy

[3:32] And everyone was excited.

[3:33] They're like, what will Zack Snyder do when he's freed from having to do pre-existing IP?

[3:39] And it turns out.

[3:39] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[3:40] He walked into Star Wars Studios and was like, I want to make Seven Samurai in space.

Dan McCoy

[3:46] And they're like, uh, no.

[3:48] That is what happened.

[3:49] That is the backstory to this.

[3:50] That's exactly what happened.

[3:51] He wanted to do a Star Wars version of Seven Samurai for a long time.

[3:56] And they, you know, I don't know how far down that road it went.

[4:00] But they were like, no.

Elliott Kalan

[4:00] It sounds like it went very short down the road.

[4:02] It sounds like it was a pinch.

Dan McCoy

[4:03] Yeah.

[4:04] And so he's like, fine, I'll just make my own Star War.

[4:07] And he changed very little.

Elliott Kalan

[4:09] I mean, which is how things happen sometimes.

[4:12] Like, there's any number of comic book series that start out as one thing, as a pitch for a pre-existing character.

[4:18] And then become their own thing.

[4:20] But they usually do a little bit more of a job.

Stuart Wellington

[4:22] Like, beloved television show, Halt and Catch Fire, started out as a fucking Mad Men spec script or some shit, right?

Dan McCoy

[4:28] Yeah, something like that.

[4:29] And beloved, wank material, Fifty Shades of Grey, started out as Twilight fan fiction.

Elliott Kalan

[4:34] Exactly.

[4:35] But usually they go a little bit farther in changing it.

[4:38] Like, for instance, Fifty Shades of Grey does not have a vampire character in it.

[4:41] No, that's true.

[4:42] And only in that all capitalism is a form of vampirism to a certain extent.

[4:46] But this one, he really doesn't go very far in rubbing the serial numbers off of the parts.

[4:53] And it feels like he's answering a question I think nobody had, which was, why doesn't Star Wars have more cursing and attempted sexual assault?

[5:00] Yeah.

[5:01] Why doesn't Star Wars have more of that?

Dan McCoy

[5:02] So much joy in the Star Wars universe.

[5:05] Can we just strip that out of there?

Elliott Kalan

[5:07] I mean, the Star Wars movies have been doing a pretty good job of stripping that out of there.

[5:10] Well, I mean, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[5:11] But anyway.

[5:13] He's also like, could we make it a little more beige?

Elliott Kalan

[5:16] A little more brown?

[5:18] His color palette is going to get to the point where it's just going to be a brown screen.

[5:22] Now, let's be fair.

[5:23] You can barely see shadows going across.

Dan McCoy

[5:25] I did think this was less brown than his DC stuff has been.

[5:30] There's certainly some ambers.

[5:32] Yeah.

[5:33] But, I mean, every once in a while he would throw up an image that I would like on screen.

[5:38] He wouldn't vomit it up.

[5:39] He would throw it up on the...

[5:39] No, no.

Elliott Kalan

[5:40] I agree with you.

[5:40] Throw up an image.

[5:41] I feel like...

Dan McCoy

[5:42] Although I did think to myself, I was like, what is it about this?

[5:46] Like, let's be honest.

[5:47] Like, if I saw this movie, if Dan, who was 12 years old, with the special effects at the time, saw this movie, I was like, I'd be like, this looks gorgeous.

[5:56] Well, but here's the...

Elliott Kalan

[5:57] I think that gets at something, which is Dan, at 12 years old, had not seen a movie like this.

[6:01] With these special effects.

[6:03] But at this point, you have.

Dan McCoy

[6:04] Well, there's that.

[6:05] But also, I think I was like, trying to kind of figure out my problem visually with a lot of it.

[6:11] And I think that modern blockbuster films, this is not, you know, just Zack Snyder, like, throw so much stuff on the screen.

[6:21] They're like, it'll be better if there's like a bunch of crap up there.

[6:26] Whereas I think, like, so many times, like, a simpler visual with one amazing thing on screen rather than, like, 12 things you can't really see would be so much more effective.

[6:36] And 12 things I hate about you.

Elliott Kalan

[6:37] I mean, again, following the lead of George Lucas, who saw the old Star Wars movies and said, I wish I'd thrown more crap on the screen.

[6:43] Yeah, not cluttered enough.

[6:44] It needs more robots flying around just going, whoa!

[6:48] More Rontos.

[6:51] But I see.

[6:53] I think you're right, Dan, that, well, we'll get into it.

[6:54] But, like, it's a visually muddy and busy movie.

[6:58] And Zack Snyder is really going all out with the slow motion at times when I'm not sure why he's doing it.

[7:03] There's a scene, a fight scene where a guy is falling on his butt after being knocked over.

[7:07] It felt like it was going on forever.

[7:09] Like, I had taken a hit of that drug from Dread.

[7:12] Slow-mo?

[7:12] Yeah, slow-mo.

[7:13] I was experiencing that moment for forever.

[7:15] But it's a, I think, I have a.

[7:18] Fucking Dread kicks ass.

[7:19] That's a good movie, guys.

[7:21] It is.

[7:21] Go ahead and watch Dread and say this one.

[7:22] Remember that.

[7:23] I had a similar thought, because, and Stuart, I apologize.

[7:25] We'll let you get into the summary.

[7:26] But while I was watching, I was like, you know what?

[7:28] I'm going to pull a Dan McCoy on this.

[7:30] I'm going to come at this movie hoping I like it, not prejudging and not being ready to criticize it, but hoping it makes me cry a couple times so that I'll kind of like it.

[7:38] Yeah, like book club.

[7:39] And maybe like the first 10, 15 minutes, I was like, you know what?

[7:43] I like space opera junk.

[7:44] I like dumb space colonies or whatever.

[7:47] I like when big empires are fighting rebels or whatever.

[7:51] But as the movie went on.

[7:51] You like fertility rituals.

[7:53] Yes, exactly.

[7:54] I love fertility rituals.

[7:55] I love sex-positive farming communities on far-off rim worlds.

[8:00] But I was finding it's so predictable.

[8:03] It's so incredibly predictable.

[8:05] And it didn't get at what I think I like from space opera,

[8:08] which is when things are crazy or surprising.

[8:10] At the same time I was watching this movie, I was – not simultaneously, but at the same day as I was watching this,

[8:16] I was reading the book The Wizard of Lynn by A.E.

[8:18] Van Voigt.

[8:19] Or Van Voigt.

[8:20] I've never known how to pronounce his last name.

[8:22] And his books are classic, bonkers, science fiction pulp in a crazy way.

[8:27] And the whole time I was reading it, I was like, why am I enjoying this book when I'm not enjoying this movie?

[8:32] And I think it was because the book kept surprising me and the movie did not.

[8:35] Stuart, tell us about this movie that did not surprise us.

Stuart Wellington

[8:38] I also – real quick, just before we get into this, I do – as I'm handling summary duties,

[8:43] I think it's very important to point out that this is the first in, what, two or three movies?

[8:48] At least two, possibly three or more.

[8:50] And it feels so much like the first episode of a series.

[8:58] Yeah.

[8:59] Barring that it has no exciting thing that happens right at the end.

[9:04] And it certainly – the story suffers from it.

[9:07] And I feel like on some level it feels harsh to critique it because there's like no story to it.

[9:14] It's not telling a full story.

Elliott Kalan

[9:16] That's true.

[9:16] But at the same time it is – oh, sorry.

[9:18] Dan, I'm sorry.

[9:18] I'm going to say what you were going to say.

Dan McCoy

[9:19] I'm going to say no, we can critique it all we want because there's – you know,

[9:24] recently we've seen a lot of this like in movies where no story can stand alone.

[9:29] And so either you've got stuff like Marvel movies where they're constantly setting up the next thing

[9:34] or a different flavor of Marvel movie over at Sony.

[9:39] People were mad at the new Spider-Verse movie.

[9:43] Like, I mean, people liked it, but they were like, I had no idea it was going to – that's half a movie.

[9:47] And like, I'll tell you –

[9:48] It's too bad.

[9:49] That half is amazing.

[9:50] Yeah, half is amazing.

[9:50] You're wrong.

[9:51] But also, first off, like the Marvel movies, yes, they have a lot of like junk that doesn't need to,

[9:58] strictly speaking, be in a standalone movie because they're setting up all this other stuff that you may or may not care about.

[10:03] But they do tell like individual stories.

[10:06] And the Spider-Verse movie, which I think should have still had the like part one on it so people who weren't paying attention to like all the stuff around it like would know, oh, I'm not going to get the ending.

[10:16] Like that has an emotional arc of the character like, you know, finding all these other Spider-Men like, you know, like wanting to be accepted, like going his own way.

[10:25] Like there's a whole at least character story that's being told here.

[10:29] This is literally a film that is like we need to assemble a team to do a thing.

[10:34] And then the moment that team is fully assembled, they're like, well, credits, bye.

[10:38] And I'm like, fuck you.

[10:40] I think what –

[10:40] Nothing happened.

Elliott Kalan

[10:41] The way you've set it to end is super astute that like the –

[10:44] Well, you look at Dune part one and it's like that is –

Stuart Wellington

[10:47] I looked at it for like three hours.

Elliott Kalan

[10:49] Yeah, it was pretty good.

[10:50] Yeah, it's a long movie.

[10:51] There's an emotional arc for that character that ends on a high cliffhanger point.

[10:55] You're like, I can't wait to see what this character is going to do next.

[10:57] With Spider-Verse, I feel like they gain the ability to do that because –

[11:00] I mean I was annoyed that the movie ended and I was like, oh, okay, I got to see another one of these.

[11:04] But the first movie is a full movie.

[11:06] You gotta.

[11:07] I gotta because my son wants to see it really badly.

[11:09] The sequel, I feel like once you've had a full first story, the sequel earns those points to possibly be part of something bigger.

[11:18] Yeah.

[11:18] And you look at the old Marvel movies.

[11:19] That's a good point too.

[11:20] Especially the old – like the first Iron Man, I guess there's that thing.

[11:24] Is that – do they have that teaser about the Avengers initiative at the end?

[11:26] I can't remember.

Stuart Wellington

[11:27] It's in the post-credits scene.

[11:29] It's not like –

[11:30] It's not technically part of the movie, right?

[11:32] I normally would have turned off the movie long before I would have gotten to that point.

Elliott Kalan

[11:36] Like the first Iron Man movie or the first Thor movie, it's like, okay,

[11:39] these are whole stories.

[11:40] Yeah, exactly.

[11:42] But this one, it really does feel like they're really relying on that part one very heavily.

[11:48] And yet somehow they spent two hours assembling this team.

[11:51] And by the time it was over, I felt like I knew none of these characters.

[11:54] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[11:54] Well, let's get into that, huh?

Dan McCoy

[11:56] Yeah, he's been fondling these note cards hard.

Stuart Wellington

[11:59] Yeah, I got my little note cards here.

[12:01] James Lipton over here with his note cards, yeah.

[12:04] So that's James Lipton as what?

[12:07] The Amazing Kreskin?

Elliott Kalan

[12:08] Yeah, that's James Lipton as Karnak, the Johnny Carson character.

[12:12] Now, I'm thinking of three movies.

[12:15] Christopher Walken.

[12:16] And they're like, yeah, Christopher Walken walks out, yeah.

[12:18] I mean, how else would Christopher Walken go out then to walk?

[12:21] I mean, if Christopher Walken swam out, his name would be Christopher Swimmin', right?

[12:25] Mm-hmm.

[12:25] That's how it works, I guess.

[12:26] Do you run a meme account now?

Stuart Wellington

[12:28] What's going on here?

[12:29] So, of course, the movie opens.

[12:33] We get an opening monologue.

[12:34] Hell yeah.

[12:35] It's Sir Anthony Hopkins dropping that shit, playing the role of Jimmy the Robot.

[12:41] We don't know that yet, but we'll see him behind.

[12:43] We'll see him as Jimmy the Robot.

[12:45] And then leave him behind.

[12:46] Let me go.

Elliott Kalan

[12:46] Far and away, far and away, the most lovable character in the whole movie, and he disappears after the first half.

[12:52] Mm-hmm.

[12:53] As soon as he shows up there.

[12:54] After the first half.

[12:54] He's like 15 minutes into the movie.

[12:56] You don't see any more of that robot.

[12:58] That's true.

[12:58] Until the very end when you see him wearing his yellow jackets antlers, but we'll get to that.

Stuart Wellington

[13:02] Yeah, it's a fertility ritual.

[13:05] So, the opening monologue talks about Mother World, an empire that is expanding and is super aggressive.

[13:12] However, the king and queen were assassinated, and now the evil Belisarius has taken over.

[13:18] Uh-oh.

[13:18] And he has sent out a fleet to stop all the rebels.

[13:20] Now, the thing is, you don't need to do a fucking monologue, dude.

[13:25] This is simple shit.

[13:26] Yeah, if you're seeing Star Wars.

[13:28] Yeah, it's like, if the movie had started with no monologue, I'd be like, yeah, I got it.

[13:32] I get it.

[13:33] Spaceship.

[13:33] We're in space.

[13:34] It's fine.

[13:35] The guys that look like Nazis are the bad ones.

Elliott Kalan

[13:37] Yeah, the guys with the cut-class British accents and the Nazi outfits are the bad guys.

[13:43] Like, and the—

[13:44] And that are doing bad stuff.

[13:46] Like, it's not like—

[13:47] The farmers—the guy who is beating people to death with a cane, with an evil-looking cane, we could pick up that he's the bad guy.

[13:53] You mean his bone staff, Elliot?

[13:54] Yeah, that's true.

[13:55] But, Stuart, here's the thing I was wondering.

[13:57] While we were watching Star Wars, I was like, wait a minute.

[13:59] It's like a military-type thing, and they serve a dead king.

[14:04] Is this a Warhammer ripoff?

Stuart Wellington

[14:06] Oh, shit.

[14:07] I mean, the thing is, you've got to give me a second, because my heart is fluttering.

[14:11] Elliot has been paying attention to me when I talk about Warhammer shit.

[14:15] Oh, man.

[14:15] Yeah, I had no idea where it's going.

[14:17] Stuart, I listen, and I—

[14:17] Senpai noticed me.

[14:18] I see you, and I listen to you, and I love you.

[14:22] I mean, yeah.

[14:23] Dan, still, judgment's out.

[14:25] I mean, I think it's interesting.

[14:26] No, I love you, Dan.

[14:27] I don't know if the—I'm hoping—I'm assuming resounding flop of this movie, if it will negatively affect the recently signed Warhammer Amazon deal.

[14:38] But we'll find out.

[14:39] Now, all this monologue is happening.

[14:41] We have a shot of space and kind of a very powerful image where a wormhole opens up in space that looks very vaginal.

[14:49] Yes.

Elliott Kalan

[14:50] And a long cylindrical spaceship comes through.

[14:53] Maybe this movie will be better than I think it will.

[14:55] Maybe it'll be more of a David Lynch dune where everything is weird and—or a David Cronenberg world where everything's vaginal or penile, but—and it won't just be a straightforward Seven Sam Ryan.

Dan McCoy

[15:07] David Lean would also do a pretty good dune.

[15:09] David Lean would have done an amazing dune.

Elliott Kalan

[15:12] It would not have looked like David Lynch's, but it would have—

[15:14] It would have been different.

[15:16] He would have—who would have—like, who would have played—you know Alec Guinness would have played some character in it and been amazing, you know?

[15:22] Yeah.

[15:23] Yeah.

[15:23] Wow, what a—

[15:24] Alec Guinness as Stilgar.

[15:28] I don't think—yeah, I guess he probably would play Stilgar, but I'd rather be playing—

[15:30] You would have been a great Stilgar.

[15:31] Yeah, he'd be okay.

Stuart Wellington

[15:33] Well, I can feel one way and you another.

[15:36] So, we are—we open in a small rural village on Velt, which is kind of like a Rimworld, as Elliot said, an agri-world out on the far reaches of the galaxy.

Elliott Kalan

[15:47] I mean, like agricultural, not agro, like aggressive.

Stuart Wellington

[15:50] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[15:51] We meet Cora, who is a farmer with a mysterious past, played by—what else?

Dan McCoy

[16:00] Sophia Batella.

[16:00] She was in The Mummy as The Mummy, who was not Tom Cruise.

[16:06] No, the lady mummy, the first mummy.

Stuart Wellington

[16:09] Yeah.

[16:10] She was the blade lady, blade-leg-having lady from that Kingsman movie, I think.

[16:15] Yeah, she's an atomic blonde.

Dan McCoy

[16:17] They keep putting her in big blockbusters, and I'll be honest, I have never found her compelling or charismatic, except in—

[16:26] Dan says she don't have the juice.

[16:27] Star Trek from beyond, where she plays a blue lady who has a lot of makeup on, so it's hard to tell that it's her, but she's good in that one.

Stuart Wellington

[16:35] Okay.

[16:35] Well, she has a mysterious past, and she's going to be our main character, so I guess deal with it.

[16:41] I did.

[16:41] We also meet Gunner, who is kind of an ambitious farmer.

[16:45] He's kind of outgrown this simple village, and he's trying to find ways to make—he's kind of smarter than his humble roots.

[16:55] Is he?

[16:55] Yeah, I don't.

[16:56] Well, I think that's the idea.

[16:57] I don't know.

Dan McCoy

[16:59] I'm going to talk about him in a moment when something happens.

[17:02] We'll have a bigger discussion about this guy.

Elliott Kalan

[17:03] Okay, I mean, so many of these characters, they kind of do what the plot needs them to do at the moment, and then the movie kind of makes up why they did it.

[17:10] So, he was—at certain points, he was Gambit, and at certain points, he was Luke Skywalker, and it's kind of hard to tell which he's supposed to be.

Stuart Wellington

[17:18] And he's played by an actor who I know has been in a bunch of stuff, but I mainly remember him as being an indie rock star on the TV show Nashville.

[17:26] Yeah.

[17:26] Okay.

[17:27] In general, I think the character—

[17:29] That's Mikiel Hoistman.

Dan McCoy

[17:30] Oh, yep, that's him.

[17:31] —is an interesting but not really successful attempt to, like, sort of gender swap the normal blockbuster roles where he is the damsel in distress, and, you know, she is the, like, devil may care hero.

[17:46] Not devil may care, the tortured hero, sort of.

[17:48] Mm-hmm.

[17:49] Anyway.

[17:50] Who's the super fighter?

Stuart Wellington

[17:52] So, the village—a village that seems to be made up entirely of people between the age of 20 and, like, 45.

Elliott Kalan

[17:59] They seem to kill their elderly and their young.

[18:01] Yes.

[18:02] Yeah, that's something that would be—

[18:03] Midsommar.

[18:04] We'll find out in part two, I'm assuming.

[18:05] Yeah, yeah.

[18:06] They send their young to boarding school and their elderly to another—

[18:09] Yeah.

[18:09] Like, an old folks village, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[18:11] Yeah, that all—you know, they send them to Providence, the capital of the planet.

[18:15] Okay.

Elliott Kalan

[18:16] The village is Florida's friendliest hometown, Trump country.

Stuart Wellington

[18:18] Yeah, sure.

[18:18] Mm-hmm.

[18:19] So, speaking of villages, the village has a harvest festival, has, like, a harvest feast, and the leader of the village, the father of the village, Sindri, played by Corey Stahl with, that's right, a pretty cool beard, gives a very horny speech about how the important thing they should be doing is fucking—

Elliott Kalan

[18:37] Everybody gets a speech in this movie, and this is his.

Stuart Wellington

[18:40] I guess he gets a couple.

[18:41] Yeah, this is his.

[18:42] Yeah.

[18:42] Yeah, he gets a couple.

[18:43] You know, he's great.

[18:45] Do I wish he had a hairpiece like in The Strain?

[18:48] Yes, of course I wish he had a crazy hairpiece like he did on The Strain.

[18:50] But he has that great crazy beard.

[18:52] He does have a great crazy beard.

[18:53] I'll shut up.

[18:54] I'll take what I'm given.

[18:57] So, Cora's adoptive father, Hagen, or Hagen, tries to convince her to settle down, that that's the one way that she'll really become part of their community.

[19:06] But she's not so sure.

[19:07] She's, you know, she's got a mysterious past.

[19:10] Next day, an Imperial dreadnought arrives into orbit, and Cora runs over and sounds a bell, and it's like, everyone can see it.

[19:17] Like, I don't know if you're hammering that thing.

[19:20] And they—

[19:21] They had plot blindness.

Elliott Kalan

[19:23] It's the same thing that kept Mahershali from seeing that plane crash in the world—leave the world behind until he needed to.

[19:30] Plot blindness keeps you from seeing the thing.

[19:33] You almost called it The World is Not Enough.

[19:35] I did almost call it that, yeah.

[19:36] Because that's the movie I always wish I'm watching.

Stuart Wellington

[19:38] Leave the world behind.

Dan McCoy

[19:42] That would be great if it had, like, James Bond-style opening credits with, like, things being projected on Ethan Hawke and Julia Roberts.

Stuart Wellington

[19:51] I mean, speaking of James Bond openings, this movie needed something, like, why didn't they throw in some kind of juicer action moment right at the beginning?

[20:00] Like—

Dan McCoy

[20:02] I kind of appreciate that—I don't know.

[20:05] Like, I'm tired of every blockbuster having to, like, start with an action sequence and then, like, circling back to, like, you know, like, we're starting off low.

[20:17] I guess I've just seen too many movies, and I'm tired of everything a movie could do.

Elliott Kalan

[20:22] So when you're tired of tricks, straightforward storytelling can be really good.

[20:26] And this—I wish there was more story, because they're telling it fairly straightforwardly.

[20:29] Even though—

[20:30] Yeah.

[20:30] Until the movie becomes a series of action scenes interspersed with flashback monologues.

[20:35] But we'll get to that.

[20:36] We'll get to that.

Stuart Wellington

[20:36] So the town gets together, and they have a quick chat.

[20:39] You know, they have a quick chat before the bad guys show up.

[20:44] Because they—uh-oh.

[20:45] Gunner has sold their surplus of grain and whatnot to—their harvest surplus to the rebels.

[20:53] And they don't want the Imperials to find out.

[20:56] Bad guys arrive.

[20:57] They are super Nazi-looking.

[21:00] Although there are a couple of dudes with wacky headdresses that just kind of hover around the background like those guys.

[21:05] I like that.

Elliott Kalan

[21:06] There was—I was looking up—I was looking up stuff about Rebel Moon, and this image kept coming up of this lady with huge horns.

[21:12] And I'm like, wish that was in the movie.

[21:14] I guess that's in one of the sequels.

[21:15] But anytime a character has a weird headdress or weird mask, I love it.

[21:19] I like that.

Dan McCoy

[21:20] Yeah.

[21:20] These guys are so comically bad.

[21:23] And I'm not saying that there aren't—

[21:25] Comically evil, you mean.

[21:26] Comically—yeah.

[21:27] Well, bad as in, like, bad people.

Elliott Kalan

[21:29] No, no, but you don't mean comically bad like they're like, oh, oh, oh, oh, like not bad acting.

[21:34] I understand you're clarifying.

Dan McCoy

[21:35] I think that the rest of my context would be easy for people to understand.

Elliott Kalan

[21:40] All right.

[21:40] I just don't want people to jump to conclusions too fast.

Dan McCoy

[21:42] These are comically evil characters.

[21:45] And I'm not saying that there aren't comically evil people who exist in life, including, say, the Nazis, who were the obvious inspiration for these people.

[21:55] But, like, they're evil even sort of within their own ranks in a way that I'm like—it frustrates me.

[22:02] Like, I'm just like, what is this bullshit?

[22:03] Like, there's like that one guy who's like, ha-ha, look at me.

[22:06] I'm going to start shooting at our own robots.

[22:10] That's pretty crazy.

[22:11] I'm like, this is a guy that on a military mission, you want this person along?

[22:16] It seems like a problem.

Elliott Kalan

[22:18] I mean, he does seem like the kind of guy you would send to a far-off colony world to get him out of there.

[22:22] But he's working with a major league bad guy.

[22:24] This is like the right-hand man of General Balisarius, right?

Stuart Wellington

[22:27] Balisarius, yep.

[22:28] This is—okay.

[22:30] So, these—the soldiers and bad guys are led by Admiral Atticus Noble.

Dan McCoy

[22:39] Did he—okay.

[22:40] That's pretty cool.

Dan McCoy

[22:41] He sounds like he's got a pretty nice name.

[22:43] Pretty cool?

Stuart Wellington

[22:44] Maybe a second pass on that one then.

Elliott Kalan

[22:47] And he's played by returning Flophouse actor, Scrain, who was also in Alita Battle Angel, the movie that first introduced us to Dan's love of backstory.

[22:57] So, Dan, I hope you like this movie.

[22:59] Get ready for a shovelful.

[23:01] He's also—I believe he took over the—

Stuart Wellington

[23:02] He took over the Transporter franchise from Mr. Jason Statham.

[23:07] Yeah.

[23:08] Okay.

[23:09] So, Atticus Noble is hunting rebels, specifically the Deborah and Darian blood axe, which you say a name like that, I'm like, I gotta meet those fuckers.

[23:21] They are very disappointing when we finally meet them.

[23:23] Yeah.

[23:23] They don't seem like blood axes.

Dan McCoy

[23:25] Also, Deborah and Darian.

[23:28] That sounds like someone you're getting—like, I'm getting a Christmas card from around this time of year.

[23:33] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[23:33] I feel like Deborah Bloodaxe is a fourth or fifth generation blood axe name.

[23:37] Like, first it's like Skinflay Bloodaxe, and then like, you know, Warscreen Bloodaxe, and then Harry Bloodaxe, and then his daughter Deborah Bloodaxe.

[23:45] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[23:45] It is—just to clarify—

[23:47] Yeah, it's Deborah's.

[23:48] Oh, Deborah.

[23:49] Oh, never mind.

[23:50] Angry letters on the blood axe fanboys.

[23:51] It's Deborah, which is a super cool name.

[23:53] Deborah's.

[23:53] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[23:54] You put a V in a name, and it's always cool.

Stuart Wellington

[23:56] So we have a—

[23:57] Yeah, like Steve Vinn.

[23:58] We have an attempt at a tense sequence where Sindri is trying to appease the Admiral.

[24:07] I keep—I guess I should just call him Noble, because I'm going to have to say his name a bunch.

[24:11] He tries to appease him, and then Noble just beats Sindri to death with his, like, walking stick that looks like a leg bone, like a femur.

[24:21] Yeah.

[24:22] So they kill him, and then they say—they demand that in ten weeks they're going to return, and they're going to basically need the village's entire harvest.

[24:29] So this is where—

Elliott Kalan

[24:30] Well, and this is after Gunnar—

[24:30] This is after Gunnar has basically sold out Sindri in a way that he thought was being clever and helping them out, but leads to Sindri being beaten to death.

Dan McCoy

[24:39] And this is what I wanted to talk to you with this farmer character, where, like, I—to me, I think that this movie makes kind of a mistake here in terms of, like, building the sympathies for these characters.

[24:53] Because, like, I—in real life, this is a mistake that I could see being made.

[25:01] Like, you think you're going to get away with something.

[25:03] You think it's going to be okay.

[25:04] Like, it all goes horribly wrong.

[25:08] Like, in life, you know, like, this is the sort of thing that you'd be like, okay, like, I see that you didn't mean that.

[25:17] Like, I'm not going to hold, like, this person's, like, death against you, maybe.

[25:21] But in fiction, I'm like, what, is this guy a fucking idiot?

[25:26] Like, he's been, like, told to do it a certain way.

[25:28] Like, clearly, like, these people are, like, not to be trifled with.

[25:34] Like, he's been told by multiple people that.

[25:36] He's like, ha, ha, ha.

[25:38] And we're still supposed to kind of be like, and this is our second hero that we immediately are, like—

[25:43] This is the innocent who is.

[25:45] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[25:45] I feel like this is something that could, if handled properly, could be cool.

[25:51] Like, the idea of a guy who thinks he's smarter than the situation.

[25:55] He doesn't really understand the stakes that he's in.

[25:58] And then he has, you know, he learns from it.

[26:01] But we don't really—don't worry.

[26:02] We're not going to get any kind of arc or learn.

[26:04] No, I agree.

Dan McCoy

[26:05] But it could work.

[26:07] But the movie doesn't do, like, the legwork.

Elliott Kalan

[26:09] You know where something like that kind of works a little different?

[26:11] Where?

[26:12] It's a movie called Star Wars.

[26:14] Oh.

[26:14] Where Luke Skywalker, in it, by buying the wrong droid, inadvertently leads to the death of his aunt and uncle.

[26:22] And it sets him on a path of justice.

[26:24] That was an accident, Elliot.

[26:26] He didn't intentionally do that.

[26:28] He wanted to get out of there.

[26:29] You're saying it was all part of a plan to get—

[26:31] I know the stormtroopers are probably looking for this droid.

[26:34] We've got to get him out of the house.

[26:35] But I feel there—

[26:36] Even the fact that you're starting this movie on, like, a far-off agricultural planet that's isolated from this empire,

[26:45] like, if I was doing my Star Wars ripoff, I would do the opposite, at least on the surface, of what Star Wars did.

[26:52] So it would seem a little less obvious that I'm trying to do almost the exact same thing.

[26:56] But it feels like they are—they're trying to get off those fumes as much as possible.

[27:01] Yep.

[27:01] You know?

Stuart Wellington

[27:02] So the dreadnought leaves, but they leave a unit of soldiers behind.

[27:06] And as Dan mentioned, they are comically evil.

[27:09] They are shooting each other and beating each other up.

[27:12] Yep.

[27:12] There's one good guy.

[27:13] Eris is the one good one.

[27:15] He's a little sympathetic.

[27:17] And, of course, Jimmy the robot, who we find out will not fight ever since the king was killed.

Dan McCoy

[27:25] And this is the first time that the king and the princess are referred to as, like, these sort of, like, noble people who, like—

[27:32] Like, oh, you know, Honor, like, died with them or something.

[27:36] You know, like, the robot talks of him in these glowing terms.

[27:40] And I think that we as the audience are supposed to, like, sort of believe at least to some degree that there's, like, this fallen past.

[27:47] But then later on we see the backstory for our main character.

[27:51] I won't get into it yet.

[27:52] But, like, we see that when the king was around, they were, like, violent expansionists.

[27:57] It's just as bad.

[27:58] Yeah.

[27:59] Yeah, I'm like, so, wait, are we supposed to feel bad that these kings got killed?

[28:04] Like, how is the world worse now than what we saw before?

Elliott Kalan

[28:08] I could see it.

[28:09] If they were doing something a little more nuanced, that the robot has been programmed to see the royal family as noble.

[28:14] But you're right that the movie seems to be implying that it's kind of hard.

[28:19] The movie is so mushy that it's kind of hard to know what, you know, because it's so clear that the empire has always been bad or whatever it's called.

[28:28] I don't remember what it's called.

[28:29] Mother world or whatever.

[28:30] Yeah.

[28:30] It's always been bad.

[28:30] Let's just call it the empire.

[28:32] Okay.

[28:33] But the, it's hard to know what, even, like, again, in the Star Wars movies, they're hearkening back to the days of the Republic that was before the empire.

[28:41] But in this, there's no thing like that necessarily.

[28:44] Yeah.

[28:44] And so it is hard to know what, what are we, what were we supposed to think is good or not good?

[28:49] Because the king does seem terrible.

[28:51] Maybe Belisarius is just worse.

[28:52] Except he's played by Cary Ellis.

[28:54] Yeah.

[28:54] I mean, he's played by Cary Elwes, who Flophouse listeners will again remember as Bobby Wobbly from the Yugi Loves movie.

[28:59] His most iconic role.

[29:01] But I think.

[29:02] He does have, he does have a pretty cool fake beard at one point.

[29:05] His, that, it was so funny the whole time.

[29:07] I'm like, is that Cary Elwes under that beard?

[29:09] It has to be.

Dan McCoy

[29:09] I do like his late career turn into, like, sort of, like, venal villains.

[29:14] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[29:15] So the, but I think it's, all of this stuff is, is not just off the fumes of Star Wars, but off the fumes of ancient Rome, right?

Stuart Wellington

[29:22] I feel like Cary Elwes and Hugh Grant should have a movie where they're, like, dueling venal villains.

[29:26] I would love that.

[29:27] That'd be amazing.

Elliott Kalan

[29:29] Where, uh, ancient Rome, the Republic fell, there was a first emperor.

[29:33] He's always talking about ancient Rome.

[29:35] Hey guys, how often do I think about ancient Rome?

[29:37] I thought I derailed him.

[29:38] No, but the, the, the first emperor brought some kind of stability, but still was not a good guy.

[29:45] And then when he fell, it was just a series of kind of crappy, more monstrous people for a while.

[29:49] And I would think that's, that's the same kind of historical trope they're going after, but it's not clear.

[29:54] It's not, they don't doing it well.

[29:55] You know, it's all, considering how much time is spent explaining things to us, by the end of the movie, I was like, I don't really understand this world or the people in it.

Stuart Wellington

[30:02] Yeah, so we get a little bit of this backstory from Jimmy the robot because he befriends a Sam, who is a local girl who mainly fetches water.

[30:11] Every time you say it, it's like, Jimmy the robot?

Dan McCoy

[30:13] You gotta, you want some information?

[30:15] You gotta go see Jimmy the robot.

[30:16] Jimmy the robot.

[30:17] Beep boop.

[30:18] You want pie calculated?

Elliott Kalan

[30:20] My memory banks are a little foggy.

[30:23] Perhaps a few microchips would clear them up.

Dan McCoy

[30:26] All right, Jimmy.

[30:27] Fine.

[30:27] Here you go.

Elliott Kalan

[30:28] Yeah, yeah.

[30:29] Beep boop.

[30:29] I seem to remember he was driving a black Lincoln town car.

Dan McCoy

[30:33] Through space?

[30:34] Okay.

Elliott Kalan

[30:36] So.

[30:37] But this is, this scene between Jimmy the robot and Sam, I think is the best scene in the movie by far.

[30:43] Yeah.

[30:43] What do you guys think?

[30:44] It's, it's the only scene that felt like a real emotional connection to me.

[30:47] It does look like someone put in AI art prompts of robot with girl in idyllic setting.

[30:53] And it comes out like that.

Stuart Wellington

[30:54] But like, it helps that you have Anthony Hopkins delivering it.

Dan McCoy

[30:57] Yes, very much so.

[30:58] I see what you're saying.

[30:59] But even at the time, I was like, what am I to make of this monarchist robot?

[31:04] Like, was he programmed like this?

[31:06] I was like, also, like, like droids in Star Wars, he seems to have like sentience.

[31:12] Yes.

[31:12] But he's also like, I don't know, he's collaborating with this evil government.

[31:15] He's also programmed.

[31:16] I mean, he's all, all droids are slaves, essentially.

[31:19] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[31:19] Yeah.

[31:19] Right?

[31:19] Yeah.

[31:20] Except for IG-88, who's just a slave to his need to kill.

[31:24] And be dope.

[31:26] Yeah, and be cool.

[31:27] But I think you're right.

[31:28] This, but also when I was watching the movie, this was still during my, I'm going to give

[31:30] this a fair shot phase.

[31:31] Yeah, sure, sure.

Stuart Wellington

[31:33] So, we also learned that Princess Issa is, Issa is magic.

[31:38] Okay?

[31:39] That's important.

[31:40] It's going to matter.

[31:41] Okay.

[31:41] So, the villagers get together.

[31:43] They decide if they work hard enough, maybe the troops will let them keep some of their

[31:46] harvest.

[31:46] And I'm like, that's not going to work.

[31:48] You fool.

Elliott Kalan

[31:48] Did you see that guy beat the other guy to death with a bone cane?

Stuart Wellington

[31:52] And in fact, it doesn't seem to work because Cora tries to run off, and instead, she's

[31:57] waylaid because she has to rescue Sam, the water-bearing villager, from being assaulted

[32:03] by these soldiers who are horrible, and this scene sucks.

Dan McCoy

[32:07] Yeah.

[32:07] Yes.

[32:07] But also, yeah, I mean, it sucks in the sense that, like, you know, sexual violence in a

[32:12] blockbuster, like, we don't need that necessarily.

Stuart Wellington

[32:15] It's a different vibe than what I was expecting.

[32:17] Yes.

Dan McCoy

[32:18] But also, it sucks in the Zack Snyder way because, of course, like, there's a moment

[32:22] where, like, Cora's old, you know, warrior instincts get activated, and everything goes

[32:28] into slow motion, and she kills everybody.

[32:30] And I am so fucking sick of this in movies.

[32:34] Like, I want some sense—

[32:35] I hate to break it to you, Dan.

[32:36] You're going to have to get a lot more of it from this movie.

[32:38] I know.

[32:38] But yeah.

[32:39] But I want, like, some sense of actual danger.

[32:43] I don't want heroes that are, like, essentially superheroes and everything but name who can

[32:49] do all this awesome shit.

[32:51] Like, I want the idea, like, maybe someone might get hurt at some point, and I now have

[32:56] some rooting interest in what's happening rather than just, like—

Elliott Kalan

[32:59] So, Dan, you don't like—so you're not going to like the scenes later when Cora's literally

[33:02] wading through fields of laser fire where none of the laser bolts hit her because of plot

[33:06] mechanics?

[33:07] Yeah.

[33:07] She has plot armor, as they could say.

[33:10] That's like a flashback, right?

[33:10] That's a flashback.

[33:11] But even here, in this fight, she's surrounded by guys with guns.

[33:15] They never—they almost never try to shoot her.

[33:17] Instead, they keep rushing at her.

[33:19] And it's like—this is like ninja fighting in an 80s movie where if you're up against

[33:22] one ninja, it is a brutal fight.

[33:24] But if you're up against 10 ninjas, they each take their turn.

[33:27] They wait until it's time for them to rush at you, and they become less and less powerful.

[33:31] I agree.

[33:32] This fight is—

Stuart Wellington

[33:33] And if it was in the 80s, that one ninja would be like Bolo Young or something, and you're

[33:37] like, that dude is so jacked.

[33:38] Yeah, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[33:39] Yeah, exactly.

[33:39] There's no way he can have stealth.

[33:41] Like, this is crazy.

[33:42] He's not going to be able to sneak through phrases.

[33:43] If he's stealthy and that jacked, he's dangerous.

[33:46] Unstoppable.

[33:47] But I agree with you, Dan, that the—there's a lack of stakes and a lack of weight and everything

[33:53] to these action scenes.

Stuart Wellington

[33:54] Yeah, this action—specifically, I think this might be the worst one.

[33:59] This one in particular.

[33:59] The bar one's pretty bad, too.

[34:00] They're bad.

[34:02] And especially if you're trying to introduce Korra as your hero who's also a badass, this

[34:08] does not bode well for the rest of the movie.

Dan McCoy

[34:10] I would rather see a hero who's, like, thinking things through and is like, where can I find

[34:14] my advantages?

[34:15] You know, like, what can I do that would plausibly make me able to take on a room full of people

[34:20] rather than just like, hey, now I can go into slow motion.

Elliott Kalan

[34:24] Well, not too long ago, my older son and I, we started watching Raiders of the Lost Ark,

[34:27] which he had never seen, which he's kind of lost interest in, which is too bad.

[34:30] I'd like to finish the movie, but he's—

[34:32] At least get him to the final scene where all the faces melt off.

[34:35] No, that's what he's afraid of.

[34:36] He doesn't want to see that part.

Dan McCoy

[34:37] Tell Sammy, for me, that he's wrong and he's hurting my feelings.

Elliott Kalan

[34:40] It's just that he doesn't want to see their faces melt.

[34:42] Well, he's wrong about that, too.

[34:44] It hurts my feelings.

[34:45] But the thing that's so amazing about that movie, partly, is that Indiana Jones is constantly

[34:49] on the verge of failing, and sometimes does fail.

[34:52] Like, when he succeeds at anything—I think people remember the part where he shoots the

[34:56] swordsman, and they forget every other moment where he is always behind the eight ball.

[35:00] He's always a step back from everybody.

[35:02] He's never a step ahead.

[35:03] And he's constantly—he's just good enough to get himself in over his head and have to

[35:09] figure out how to get out of it.

[35:10] And I'd love to see more of that type of hero.

[35:12] As fortunately, the only types of heroes we have now, Dan, are Korra or Star-Lord.

[35:16] They are either a total badass who's unstoppable or a doof idiot who just kind of stumbles

[35:21] his way through crap.

[35:22] You know?

Dan McCoy

[35:23] That's where you and I differ.

[35:24] Like, I like—I think Star-Lord is closer in spirit to Indiana Jones.

[35:29] It's just like—

[35:29] True.

Elliott Kalan

[35:30] I think that's true.

[35:30] But I think he is a—he's a guy who should not be succeeding.

[35:36] Whereas Indiana Jones is like, oh, I just barely succeeded.

[35:38] Star-Lord is so bad at it.

Stuart Wellington

[35:38] I think you're imprinting how unlikable he can be sometimes.

[35:42] Maybe that's it.

Elliott Kalan

[35:43] Maybe that's what it is.

[35:44] Okay, guys.

Stuart Wellington

[35:45] So this squad of soldiers is butchered by Kara, the defecting soldier heiress, and Jimmy

[35:53] the robot shows up in a clinch to shoot the last guy in the head.

[35:57] No, no.

[35:57] He doesn't shoot the last guy.

[35:58] I thought he did.

[35:59] I thought the gun went off.

Dan McCoy

[36:00] Doesn't the other—I thought the other guy—like, it looked like he has a gun.

[36:05] He's looking at it.

[36:07] Like, should I shoot—I thought the nice, quote-unquote, like, bad guy was the one who

[36:13] shot, and Jimmy just runs away.

Stuart Wellington

[36:15] I read it as Jimmy the robot was holding the gun nonchalantly, and it went off and perfectly

[36:20] killed the guy.

[36:21] It doesn't matter.

Dan McCoy

[36:21] I never know, because I'll never watch this movie ever again.

[36:23] It doesn't matter.

[36:24] It is literally not worth our finding out.

Stuart Wellington

[36:25] Tweet at Dan and tell him exactly how you read the scene.

[36:29] This could be Dan's ding-dong gate.

[36:32] Mm-hmm.

[36:32] Hagen shows up and gives Cora back her guardian gun.

[36:35] What about Daz?

[36:36] Does Daz show up or just Hagen?

[36:37] Mm-hmm.

[36:38] We'll get to Daz, Ellie.

[36:40] So he gives Cora back her guardian gun, which looks like a normal gun, just a little bit

[36:45] fancier.

[36:45] It's like what you would get if you bought the DLC before buying the game.

[36:51] It's like a pre-order bonus.

[36:53] Okay.

[36:53] Thanks for putting it into terms I understand.

[36:55] Mm-hmm.

[36:56] Cora and Gunnar decide to head off and find the rebels.

[37:01] First stop, that's right, it's Providence, I guess the capital of the planet.

[37:06] Rhode Island.

[37:07] Yep, Providence, Rhode Island.

[37:08] Look out for Cthulhu's.

[37:11] Uh-oh, everyone's got the Innsmouth look.

[37:13] Now, on that trip, Cora gives us a big backstory dump.

[37:18] And to summarize, her planet was destroyed.

[37:21] She was adopted by Belisarius when she attempted to kill him because he was just wandering the

[37:26] burning city by himself murdering people.

Elliott Kalan

[37:27] So now they're also ripping off from Gamora and Thanos.

[37:30] Yep.

[37:30] They've got some new stuff they're ripping off.

Stuart Wellington

[37:33] She was forced to become a soldier in a brutal military society.

[37:41] There's a scene of her hoisting the standard of Mother World above a battlefield.

[37:46] And then later on, we find out that she was assigned to protect, be like the bodyguard for Princess Issa.

[37:51] And again, she is magic.

[37:53] Princess Issa is magic.

[37:54] By the way, Issa can bring birds back to life.

Dan McCoy

[37:56] Mm-hmm.

[37:56] Every time Belisarius is mentioned, I think of Donald B. Belisario, the creator of Quantum Leap.

Stuart Wellington

[38:03] Oh, that's cool.

[38:03] So that's just a side.

[38:04] Yeah.

[38:04] I think of Belisarius Call, the Archmagos of the Adeptus Mechanicum.

[38:11] But that's okay.

[38:11] That's just you.

Elliott Kalan

[38:12] I have no preconceived associations with Belisarius.

Stuart Wellington

[38:15] Belisarius calls the guy who practically invented the process of turning space marines into primaris space marines, guys.

[38:23] Where would the Imperial Crusades be without primaris space marines?

[38:28] Also, Games Workshop wouldn't have any models to sell.

Dan McCoy

[38:30] Elliot cares more about a brontosaurus.

[38:33] I do.

[38:34] I mean, that's true.

[38:35] I do care more about a brontosaurus.

[38:36] We're very happy together, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[38:38] Licking his lips.

[38:39] Okay.

[38:39] He doesn't want to eat that brontosaurus so bad.

[38:42] So they get to Providence, and if you were wondering, is Providence a hive of scum and villainy?

Elliott Kalan

[38:49] You'd be right.

[38:50] It totally is.

[38:50] You better believe it.

[38:51] But this is different than Star Wars' hive of scum and villainy because, again, the scum is rapier than in Star Wars.

Stuart Wellington

[38:58] Rapier and fewer aliens.

[39:00] So as soon as they get to the cantina, they're trying to meet with the guy that Gunner was like the information broker that Gunner used to get in touch with the blood axes.

Elliott Kalan

[39:10] It's so funny.

[39:11] They're like, we better lay low.

[39:12] Mother World could find out about us.

[39:13] Hey, anybody here know who gets in touch with the blood axes?

[39:17] Yeah.

[39:17] Their way of asking for information is just to literally ask people, just to go and ask them.

[39:22] There's no set or feud or anything.

[39:23] There's one alien in this bar that I like, which I will say.

Stuart Wellington

[39:26] Oh, we'll get to that.

[39:27] Okay.

[39:27] So as they arrive to the bar, their contact is being taken away by Hawkshaws, which is the term for bounty hunters in this galaxy.

[39:38] And the bounty hunters use a special device, which is like a walking robot thing that also like constricts you.

[39:45] It's like a walking set of manacles, basically.

[39:47] That was pretty cool.

[39:48] Yeah, that's okay.

[39:49] They go inside.

[39:50] The bartender is, I think, a robot or an alien with these giant shoulder pads covered in candles.

[39:55] That is dope.

[39:56] I'm a big fan.

[39:57] Yeah.

[39:57] More of that.

[39:58] More of that, please.

[40:00] They learn an alien puppeteer informs them that through his humanoid puppet.

[40:07] Now, I love the way that you're describing that.

Elliott Kalan

[40:10] Yep.

Stuart Wellington

[40:10] He gives them a lead on.

[40:12] Now, we should make sure.

Elliott Kalan

[40:13] Not a puppeteer from Larry Niven's known space novels like Ringworld.

[40:17] That's a different type of puppeteer.

[40:18] That's mechies.

Dan McCoy

[40:19] Also, not like a Muppeteer like Jim Henson.

[40:23] No, not at all.

[40:23] This alien is not inserting a hand anywhere.

[40:26] What is this alien?

[40:26] No, it's not like.

Elliott Kalan

[40:27] It's like it's tentacles around the neck of a, I thought it was a dead body, but I guess it's just a man in a trance of some kind.

Dan McCoy

[40:33] Yeah, I feel like there might be some sort of benefit this man is getting from it, too.

[40:37] Like, it might be like a two-way relationship.

[40:38] It's possible.

Elliott Kalan

[40:39] I mean, Belisarius is basically having sex with a tentacle alien later in the movie.

Stuart Wellington

[40:44] You're actually talking about Admiral Atticus Noble.

[40:48] Oh, that's right.

[40:48] Atticus Noble.

Elliott Kalan

[40:49] Belisarius is not fucking the squid.

[40:50] Belisarius doesn't show up until the very end when he is.

Stuart Wellington

[40:53] Also has a cool fake beard.

Elliott Kalan

[40:55] So the alien puppeteer gives them a lead on.

[40:57] The beard really throws me off when I first saw him.

[40:59] We'll get to that, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[41:01] The alien puppeteer gives them a lead on General Titus, now disgraced and gladiating on Pollux.

[41:08] And they're like, we got to find this guy.

[41:10] He sounds awesome.

[41:11] They get in a bar fight with this horned up alien asshole.

[41:15] They kill a bunch of bad guys.

Elliott Kalan

[41:17] Basically, Zack Snyder saw Star Wars, and he saw Dr. Evazan bothering Luke Skywalker and was like, Dr. Evazan is hitting on Luke Skywalker, right?

[41:26] Like, he wants to have sex with him because that's what happens here is the guy with a misshapen alien face very aggressively hits.

[41:34] Let's say Weinstein-esque fellow.

[41:37] Yeah, yeah.

[41:38] That's how he treats the farmer.

[41:40] And he assumes that Korra is this farmer's pimp, I guess.

[41:44] That leads to a big bar brawl.

Stuart Wellington

[41:45] Leads to a big bar brawl, and they come out of it with another member of their team.

[41:49] They team up with this scoundrel named Kai, played by, of course, that's right, undeclared's Charlie Hunnam.

[41:56] Charlie Hunnam.

Dan McCoy

[41:58] An actor, I hear Lost City of Z is very good.

[42:01] I haven't seen it.

[42:02] Lost City of Z is very good, and he's very good.

[42:04] He's really good.

[42:04] Like, he's, in general, like, having not seen that, he's an actor that I'm like, oh, he's good, but I have no particular feelings about him.

[42:12] But the amount of excitement I had that anyone with a spark of anything showed up, I'm like, oh, finally, I've been stuck in with these two Dollsville people.

[42:22] Like, at least you're doing something.

Stuart Wellington

[42:24] And on some level, he seems excited to be doing something other than the, like, thankless, boring hero role.

[42:31] Because I think he's got a little bit of charm, and he often doesn't get to do that.

Elliott Kalan

[42:35] Yes, I agree.

[42:35] I wish they gave him a more charming character to play, like this character.

[42:40] Nobody's given much to do.

[42:41] Or just more stuff to do.

[42:42] More stuff to do, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[42:43] So he, you know, he's a little bit of a swindler scoundrel type, and he is like, hey, you guys are looking for fighters.

[42:51] I think I know some guys.

[42:53] I got a ship.

[42:53] Let's go.

[42:54] So they get on a ship and fly away.

[42:56] They head to, oh, yeah.

[42:58] At this point, we cut back to the Admiral fucking a squid.

[43:02] Atticus Noble.

[43:03] It's pretty cool.

[43:04] Admiral Atticus Noble fucks a squid.

[43:06] That was, again, one of the few moments where I'm like.

[43:08] That's graffiti in the bathroom.

Elliott Kalan

[43:09] It's one of the few moments where I was like, okay, movie.

[43:12] Like, this I'd like to see more of.

[43:13] Just like this.

[43:14] This is not something I would see in Star Wars, but in a kind of cool way that this guy is in a relationship with an alien.

[43:19] Yeah.

[43:20] I would like to see.

Stuart Wellington

[43:21] Well, I would like to see another level to this character where he's maybe in like a loving, understanding relationship with this alien.

[43:28] Yes.

Elliott Kalan

[43:28] As opposed to here where it seems like it is.

[43:31] It's the classic coding of evil Nazi is also a sexual deviant of some kind.

[43:36] Yep.

[43:36] And in that way, it applies non-traditional sexual roles to evil.

[43:42] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[43:43] So, I'm going to kind of go a little bit quickly because what we're doing is we're assembling a team.

[43:49] I think that's a great idea.

[43:49] So, we're assembling the team.

[43:50] We start in Ney Wody or New Wody, and we meet Taroq the Slave, who is very muscly.

[43:57] This guy is fucking cut up.

[43:59] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[43:59] And he has to ride a griffin in order to get his freedom.

[44:02] And he's coded like this is supposed to be the Native American style character.

[44:07] He can talk to animals.

Elliott Kalan

[44:08] He's all about the peace of nature.

[44:10] Yeah.

[44:11] He calms a griffin.

Stuart Wellington

[44:12] We got no time for that, though, because next is we're at Dagus, and we meet Nemesis the Swordswoman, and she fights a drider.

Dan McCoy

[44:20] She fights a spider lady, which I kind of like.

[44:23] I'm like, well, this is a nice little break in the movie where I don't have to care about the larger plot.

[44:27] I can just see a lady using swords on a spider.

Elliott Kalan

[44:30] I have three issues with this.

[44:32] One, these are two great actresses who are both being not fully used.

[44:35] This is Duna Bay from The Host and Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, and she's fighting Jenna Malone, who plays the spider lady.

[44:43] I love Jenna Malone.

[44:44] Oh, that's Jenna Malone.

[44:45] Yes.

[44:46] I've always been a huge fan of Jenna Malone.

[44:48] I think she's amazing.

[44:48] I saw her in a production of Morning Becomes Electra once that she was fantastic in.

[44:52] But then there's a – that's my main issue.

[44:57] These actresses are not being used well, too.

Stuart Wellington

[44:59] Well, the fight sequence is kind of boring.

[45:01] The setup arguably more interesting than anything else going on in this movie.

Elliott Kalan

[45:05] I agree.

[45:06] Jenna Malone is a spider woman named Harmada who is – she lives in a mining colony, and she's stealing human children because her own children have been killed basically by the pollution caused by the mining community.

[45:17] And like that should be the plot of your movie.

[45:19] But instead, it's a – it becomes – these people are talking to Nemesis, the swordswoman.

[45:25] She fights this monster.

[45:26] At no point does anyone try to help her fight the monster.

[45:28] They know this is just her –

[45:29] It's pretty funny.

[45:30] Because the movie is just – this is her show-off scene.

[45:33] So they don't – they just stand there while she almost gets killed.

[45:35] And then they cut to her on the spaceship.

[45:37] So we never even find out why she decided to join them.

[45:40] But three, she is the Asian actress, Asian character.

[45:45] So, of course, her thing is all about there was no honor in this kill.

[45:48] And the music is very kind of like stereotypical Asian-y sounding.

[45:52] Like, why – if we're in outer space, why do all these people have to be coded like specific human ethnicities?

[45:58] You know, it feels very limiting.

[46:01] You know, it feels very stereotypical and limiting, you know.

[46:02] Mm-hmm.

Stuart Wellington

[46:04] Okay.

[46:04] So let's keep moving because now we're on Pollux, and we find Titus the General, who is now sleeping off a drunk in the sewer.

[46:13] And they clean him up.

[46:15] And this is, of course, Chaman Honsu.

[46:17] Always great.

[46:18] He's – this guy's been in so many science fiction movies.

[46:21] I mean, they're simply a good cast.

Dan McCoy

[46:23] It's a shame that I don't know anything about any of them or care about them.

Stuart Wellington

[46:27] They quickly convince him to team up.

[46:29] He's like, I can't be a general anymore.

[46:31] They're like, yes, you can.

[46:31] He's like, okay.

Elliott Kalan

[46:33] This part was bonkers.

[46:36] He spent years angry at himself for killing – having his men die.

[46:40] He's been a gladiator.

[46:42] They give him a bath, and she says, what about revenge?

[46:45] And he looks at her, and he joins – has he never thought of the idea of revenge in the decades, I guess, or years at least that he's been a gladiator?

[46:52] It's so dumb.

[46:53] It's so ridiculous.

Dan McCoy

[46:53] Now that we're almost done assembling the team, I really – I'm sorry for taking a moment, but I want to talk a little bit about my biggest, like, narrative problems with this thing.

[47:05] Because this movie – okay, it's no secret.

[47:09] This movie is the seven samurai in space or, you know, pick your poison, Magnificent Seven in space.

[47:16] Magnificent Seven is the seven samurai in the West, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[47:18] What?

Dan McCoy

[47:19] But, like – but as I was texting Elliot, like, that makes perfect sense, right?

[47:24] Because Star Wars itself, very influenced by Akira Kurosawa, very influenced by Westerns.

[47:29] Yes.

[47:29] So all of this stuff in the mix makes sense.

[47:33] The main problem with it is, like, you're taking a bunch of influences that were digested into a third thing, and then you're throwing them back on the digested thing.

[47:41] So it feels, like, very derivative by this point.

Elliott Kalan

[47:44] It feels like instead of – you go to an old house that has had the original moldings and things covered by new features.

[47:51] And you're like, I don't like these new features.

[47:52] I want to go back to the original.

[47:54] Let me put copies of the originals on top of the new stuff that's on top of the old stuff.

[47:58] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[47:59] So – but my – one problem I have with this, though, just, like, on a plot level is the thing about either Seven Samurai, Magnificent Seven, you have –

Elliott Kalan

[48:09] Or Seven with David Fincher movie, which is not – there's not the same way.

[48:12] Seven means something different there, yeah.

[48:13] The villain is, like –

[48:15] We're lucky number, Slevin Samurai.

Dan McCoy

[48:16] The villain is just this local warlord.

[48:19] So by assembling a team to fight them off, you can – the villagers plausibly can, you know, overcome their problem and everything's fine thereafter.

[48:30] Whereas in this case, their problem is, like, one ship from a giant galactic evil empire is threatening them.

[48:38] So even if they fight this ship off, like, they've marked themselves for death.

[48:42] So that's problem number one that I have, and number two that I have is, like, these people are, like, running after, like, chasing – the bad guys are chasing the good guys throughout this, you know, because they want the blood whoever's or whatever.

[48:57] But I'm just, like, why not go back to the goddamn moon, wait for them to all come up, have, like, an overwhelming force and take them there.

[49:07] You know where they live.

[49:09] Like, why is this all happening this way?

[49:11] So both of those things caused a problem for me.

Elliott Kalan

[49:13] I think the plotting is slipshod and messy and doesn't make sense.

[49:17] I think there's two explanations I'll give to that, which –

[49:19] Okay.

[49:20] Just to give the movie the benefit of the doubt.

[49:21] One, they don't really care about that village.

[49:24] That village is not that important.

[49:26] Yeah, but they can use it as bait, I'm saying.

[49:29] But they don't know the blood axes are going to be convinced to go to the village.

[49:31] Because if you were the head of a rebellion that was fighting a giant intergalactic empire and somebody came to you and said, hey, would you just defend my little village?

[49:38] Then you would say, I'm busy.

[49:40] I've got other stuff to do.

[49:42] But the other thing is they want Korra because they think Korra might be – what was her other name?

[49:49] I don't remember.

[49:51] Yeah, something.

[49:51] And she's also known as the Scargiver.

[49:53] And she is – as the adopted daughter of Belisarius, she is very valuable as –

Dan McCoy

[50:01] Sure, but again, they can just wait for her to come back to the place.

[50:07] It seems like a waste of resources.

Elliott Kalan

[50:08] Look, did Luke ever go back to Tatooine?

[50:10] Not for a long time.

[50:11] And they've seen Star Wars.

Dan McCoy

[50:12] So they're like, we've got to chase him for a while.

[50:13] He does nothing but go back to Tatooine.

[50:15] Well, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[50:16] Okay, now that they have most of their team, they show up on Sharnan, I think, or Shanan.

[50:23] Shanana.

[50:23] Is this where King Levitica, the squid man?

[50:26] They meet with King Levitica, the squid man, and he has been kind of protecting the blood axes.

[50:34] And the blood axes show up, and they have a little conversation.

[50:37] We meet Darian and Devereux blood axe.

[50:40] And Darian, after hearing their plea, realizes that they are at some level at fault for the problems of this village.

[50:48] So he is going to join them, and he convinces some of his followers to join as well.

[50:54] And this was kind of a funny moment when he starts to give a speech to his troops, and it cuts to the assembled heroes.

[51:01] And they look like, oh, check this out.

[51:04] Oh, wow, he's good at this.

[51:05] He's giving a speech.

[51:08] Kai, at this point, also agrees.

[51:11] You know, he's been shuttling them around, but he's like, you know what?

[51:13] I'm going to fight, too.

[51:14] And I was like, he didn't already agree to fight.

[51:17] But he says he's going to fight, but he has to do one last job first.

[51:20] He has to go drop off some stuff.

[51:22] And they're like, okay, that's fine.

[51:24] I mean, you're driving us.

[51:25] So, I mean, that's only fair.

Elliott Kalan

[51:27] And it is very funny to see the heroes helping him unload the cargo from his formation.

[51:33] It's like, no, I guess you just didn't want to pay a TaskRabbit to do this.

[51:36] Yeah.

[51:37] Like, you have us doing it.

[51:37] Do we get space pizza afterwards?

[51:39] Help you move these boxes?

Stuart Wellington

[51:41] But before he can finish that job, Admiral Atticus Noble and his dreadnought show up at Shanon,

[51:47] and they blow up the whole planet, which, yeah, they do that.

[51:52] I mean, it's-

Dan McCoy

[51:53] A lot of collateral damage for this farm movie.

Stuart Wellington

[51:56] Yeah, there's just something about the, like, decision to wipe out a planet being that simple,

[52:01] being really kind of, like, it becomes too much and it makes it less impactful.

[52:06] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[52:07] I hate to keep going back to the Star Wars as well.

[52:08] It's a difference between Alderaan being destroyed in the first Star Wars and whatever the head of the lead planet is in Force Awakens that gets blown up.

[52:17] Where in the first Star Wars, like, even though you're only seeing Princess Leia's reaction to it, it's treated as a big thing.

[52:22] Like, this is a big, big thing that they've just done.

[52:25] And it's heartbreaking.

[52:26] And then in Force Awakens, they're like, oof, I guess we blew up a planet.

[52:31] It was the planet with the government on it.

[52:33] Oof, what did I do last night?

[52:35] Was I blowing up planets last night?

Stuart Wellington

[52:38] Ugh.

[52:39] So after our heroes, they're all on this, like, space station, like a giant floating space dock, and they're unloading boxes.

[52:47] And, of course, Kai pulls a fucking—

[52:49] Of course, they're like, do you have the right permits to unload these boxes?

Dan McCoy

[52:53] And then they go down to the—

Stuart Wellington

[52:54] I would find that way more interesting if they turn into the bureaucracy of it.

Elliott Kalan

[52:58] You're parked in Zone 10.

[52:59] Go to Zone 12.

Stuart Wellington

[53:00] So Kai betrays them.

[53:02] The boxes they're carrying burst open, and then they turn into those robot manacle things.

[53:07] He is one of those bounty hunters.

[53:09] He's a hawkshaw.

Elliott Kalan

[53:10] He's awesome.

[53:10] And this is—it's supposed to feel like a big betrayal, but again, we barely know these characters.

[53:15] We don't care that much about them.

[53:16] Mm-hmm.

[53:16] Like, who cares?

Stuart Wellington

[53:17] Atticus Noble shows up with a little space shuttle, and he starts walking around explaining all the heroes' cool qualities.

[53:28] That's very funny.

[53:29] Man, I'm like, that sounds great.

[53:31] I haven't seen them do shit.

[53:32] I don't give a fuck about these people.

[53:34] And the thing is, I've mentioned on a recent podcast how much I love fiction where they, like, hint at how awesome or tough somebody is for a while.

[53:43] And you, like, you learn through their reaction how, like, cool or scary a bad guy or a hero is.

[53:49] But I feel like this movie spends so much time just, like, telling you about people, and then when you get to them, you're like, I don't care.

[53:56] Like, they're not doing anything.

Dan McCoy

[53:58] I just recently how much I love assembling a team, and this movie's nothing but that.

[54:01] And it biffs it.

[54:03] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[54:03] But I'll give them this.

[54:05] I really appreciate it.

[54:05] It feels like they adapted a six-issue old Marvel comic storyline and didn't take any of the exposition out that was in each issue in case that was the first issue that you read.

[54:15] So it's like if halfway through a Daredevil movie, someone just went, ah, Daredevil, whose heightened senses allow him to see things with his radar sense.

[54:25] Like, yeah, that was established, but then in case someone just walked into the movie now.

[54:29] Okay.

[54:29] But this moment was very helpful to me in clarifying who these characters were supposed to be.

[54:33] Not in an interesting way, but, you know.

Stuart Wellington

[54:35] And now at Kai, at this point, we have learned that when you are manacled into one of these things, that you can take, like, basically, what, like a pneumatic pistol type thing?

[54:44] Yeah.

[54:45] And blast him in the back of the head.

Elliott Kalan

[54:47] You're like, it's like a reverse, what's his name?

[54:50] Tarkar from No Country for Old Man?

[54:53] Anton Chigurh.

[54:53] Yeah.

[54:54] Chigurh.

[54:54] Thank you.

[54:54] It's like a reverse one of those because instead of hitting you in the forehead, it's hitting you in the back of the head.

[54:58] And for some reason, it fits perfectly into these manacles in a funny way.

[55:04] That sounds fine.

[55:04] For some reason, it's a very inefficient way to do this.

Dan McCoy

[55:06] It also unlocks all of these manacles, so giving the thing was maybe not the best idea.

[55:12] Yeah, we don't know that part yet.

Elliott Kalan

[55:14] It's a combination key and extermination device.

[55:18] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[55:19] So Kai makes a big show of making sure that Gunner, who is the only one of our heroes who isn't in manacles because he's too much of a wimp and not a threat.

[55:27] He's just a farmer.

[55:28] They give him the bolt pistol and they're like, you're going to have to paralyze your friends and I will step away.

[55:35] Everybody else don't look.

[55:37] And he, of course, pulls a fast switch of Rooney.

[55:39] We'll give you as much time as you need to make this decision.

[55:41] He releases his friends and he kills Kai very quickly.

[55:44] And I'm like, oh, Charlie Hunnam's gone.

[55:46] We have a battle.

[55:47] The battle is, let's say, not particularly interesting.

[55:50] But in the middle of it.

Elliott Kalan

[55:52] I have to say, I checked out hard during this battle.

[55:55] I could not.

[55:56] I didn't keep track of who was doing what.

[55:57] I didn't care.

[55:58] It was so boring and so dark and hard to see what's happening.

[56:02] To me, it was the biggest snooze.

[56:05] The older I get, the less I'm interested in big gunfight laser battle scenes.

[56:10] And this was like the apex of that, of me just being like, let me just get to the point where the bad guys are falling on the ground and the good guys are standing up still.

Stuart Wellington

[56:18] Well, the bad guys have like a little space shuttle that features a single pilot who seems to be piloting, also manning the guns.

[56:25] And it's an exposed canopy, which is perfect.

[56:28] I'm glad that you made it.

[56:29] That is something I noticed that I was like, this is a bad design for this major military weapon.

[56:34] So this, and he's like blasting the crap out of the like little fighter ships that Darian Bloodaxe brought along.

[56:40] And then Darian Bloodaxe, he sacrifices himself to save his troops and everybody else by like jumping on with a giant spear and like killing the pilot.

[56:50] But he himself dies.

[56:52] The shuttle crashes onto the dock, which separates a section, leaving Cora and Noble to fight on this tiny little platform.

[56:59] She has no weapon.

[57:00] He has that cool metal bone staff that he's been beating people up with.

[57:05] But it's not enough.

[57:06] She beats the shit out of him super fast and stabs him with his own staff and kicks his ass off the platform.

[57:11] Like, oh, he's dead.

[57:12] Too bad.

[57:12] I liked him.

[57:13] They return.

[57:14] I hope that squid's going to be okay.

[57:16] They return.

[57:17] The next scene should have been the squid crying over his body.

[57:20] Yeah.

[57:21] Oh, man.

[57:21] Like, it's like the fucking Rancor Keeper bit.

[57:24] Yes.

[57:25] What a moment.

[57:26] What a great movie.

[57:27] Yeah.

[57:27] And then.

[57:28] It's got its flaws, that one.

[57:29] But, you know.

[57:30] Yeah.

[57:30] What are you talking about?

[57:32] So they return.

[57:33] Our heroes return to the village on Velt.

[57:35] They have this moment where they're like, oh, that place looks like a nice place to die.

[57:38] And I'm like, yeah, it would have been, dude.

[57:40] I wish the fight had been here and sit on this shitty, boring, dark dock.

[57:43] It will be.

[57:43] It will be in part two or part three.

[57:46] And speaking of part two or part three, we see Noble is picked up by his buddies.

[57:52] They retrieve his body.

[57:53] They force him into this, like, futuristic Skype call with his boss who threatens him.

[57:57] And then they revive him.

[57:59] And that's the end of the movie.

[58:00] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[58:01] We did it.

[58:02] Child of fire.

[58:03] Where's one of the fighters that goes to the village at the very end?

[58:06] Was it that one member of Blood Axe's Rebellion who has a couple lines?

[58:10] Yep.

[58:10] Okay.

[58:11] So there's this, when Blood Axe is, like, giving his speech, he's like, are we going to help these people?

[58:16] And one person goes, I'll go with you, if only to keep you from dying.

[58:19] And then later when he sacrifices himself, she's like, no, and goes into berserker anger shooting.

[58:25] And I don't know the character's name.

[58:26] I don't know who they are.

[58:27] I think it was, like, Milius.

[58:29] Maybe.

[58:30] Yes.

[58:30] Obviously a reference to John Milius, the director.

[58:33] Who also likes shooting things while screaming.

[58:35] But it was just one of these things where it was like, you can't just throw in this character with this amount of shorthand and then have me treat them as a major hero member of the group.

Stuart Wellington

[58:44] You don't think he can?

[58:45] Because I think Zack Snyder thinks he can.

[58:47] I think he just did.

[58:48] Yeah.

[58:49] What a non-ending.

Dan McCoy

[58:51] So we did it, guys.

Stuart Wellington

[58:52] We made it through that whole movie.

[58:53] I want to commend you, Stuart.

Dan McCoy

[58:55] Thanks.

[58:55] You did a great job, Stuart.

[58:56] And a half-hour film, ably synopsized, without too much of the crap left in.

Stuart Wellington

[59:03] And you came to the lore master himself over here.

[59:06] Yeah.

[59:06] Mm-hmm.

[59:08] Ark Majo, Stuart.

Elliott Kalan

[59:10] Speaking of lore, what's great about Rebel Moon is it's not just a movie.

[59:14] It's not just a series of movies.

[59:16] It's a multimedia experience.

[59:18] It is.

[59:18] They've already announced the huge multimedia world.

[59:21] There's going to be a role-playing game.

[59:23] There's going to be a graphic novel.

[59:24] There's going to be – they're already talking about TV series prequels that go with it.

[59:29] They're talking about other movies that are prequels.

[59:32] And it's like –

[59:32] Who's talking about them?

[59:34] Zack Snyder?

[59:34] It was announced Zack Snyder's company.

[59:36] But it just – it feels like such a – this is one of those times where they're really putting the cart before the horse, I feel like.

[59:42] Yeah.

[59:43] This is this year's Dark Universe.

[59:45] Scrolling down the Letterboxd reviews.

Dan McCoy

[59:47] Like even like – you know, you get the outliers, like the real true Snyder hardcore people.

[59:54] But like I feel like even the people who are inclined to maybe not hate everything Zack Snyder are giving this bad reviews.

[1:00:03] We're just bored by it, et cetera.

[1:00:04] So I don't know.

[1:00:06] I don't know about the future for the –

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:08] I mean part two is definitely coming out because they –

[1:00:10] Mooniverse.

[1:00:10] They already released the teaser, which looks like more of the same.

[1:00:14] Yeah.

[1:00:14] Like there's nothing – it's not – oh, the –

[1:00:16] That's in part two The Scargiver, right?

[1:00:19] The Scargiver.

[1:00:20] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:00:21] Great.

[1:00:22] We can finally learn who gives scars.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:23] It's a comic book series that's going to depict the backstory for the Blood Axe siblings.

[1:00:27] Wow.

[1:00:27] They've already talked about an Atticus Noble prequel of some kind.

Dan McCoy

[1:00:31] Just let a thing be one thing and then maybe if it's successful, it could be a few other things.

[1:00:36] It's a Balasarius TV series.

[1:00:37] That's what it is.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:38] Yeah.

[1:00:38] Well, that's – when Star Wars came out, it's not like people were like, okay, finally.

[1:00:42] We can make 100,000 things off of this.

[1:00:44] Like see if it works once.

[1:00:46] And if it works once, then build on it.

Dan McCoy

[1:00:49] Well, speaking of whether it works, we should get into our –

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:52] On the other hand, Zack Snyder is much more successful than us.

Dan McCoy

[1:00:54] Final –

[1:00:55] It's true.

[1:00:56] Maybe I'm wrong.

[1:00:56] Yeah, that's the one marker of anything.

[1:00:59] Yeah.

[1:00:59] Final judgments.

[1:01:00] Worthington's Law.

[1:01:01] Yeah.

[1:01:02] Is it a good, bad movie, a bad, bad movie, a movie you kind of liked?

[1:01:07] I want to say something here.

[1:01:10] Guys, can I say something?

[1:01:11] Can I get real?

[1:01:12] I want to fuck this movie.

[1:01:14] Dan's turning his chair around.

[1:01:16] He's straddling the chair.

[1:01:18] As Elliot referenced, normally I'm the soft touch on the Flophouse podcast.

[1:01:24] Look back at the last episode about a full movie.

[1:01:28] I was the one who kind of liked it.

[1:01:30] God help me.

[1:01:31] I kind of enjoyed watching the Snyder cut of Justice League, at least in so much as I thought it was more interesting than the other cut.

[1:01:39] And there's certain bits in it that I thought was like, okay, sure, why not?

[1:01:45] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1:01:45] Speed Force.

[1:01:46] This fucking movie, though, like, it's not the most boring thing we've seen.

[1:01:52] It's certainly not the most incompetent thing we've seen.

[1:01:56] But the more we do this podcast, the movies that I, the only movies I outright hate are the ones that feel like utterly bereft of any kind of original imaginative spark.

[1:02:08] And just feel like a thing that was made because there was money over here.

[1:02:15] Because this is the kind of thing they think people might want to see.

[1:02:18] Yeah, and I, like, this movie is garbage.

Elliott Kalan

[1:02:22] Well, I would say, it goes for us.

[1:02:23] That's what I want to say about it.

[1:02:24] I mean, it is a movie that has no reason for existing.

[1:02:28] Nothing about it is interesting or exciting.

[1:02:30] It's not making a point.

[1:02:30] And Zack Snyder, say what you will about him.

[1:02:32] He's a director who, for the most part, makes movies where I feel like he really wants to make that movie.

[1:02:37] And he really cares about what the movie is doing and saying.

[1:02:39] Like, I don't love his movies.

[1:02:40] I think he's supposed to be a nice enough man, from what I understand.

[1:02:44] You can see in his movies a passion for what he's doing and for the storytelling.

[1:02:48] Going all the way back to, like, 300 and Watchmen and, was it Dawn of the Dead he did, right?

[1:02:53] Dawn of the Dead.

[1:02:54] Probably his strongest movie because he's got a good script.

[1:02:56] It's got a script.

[1:02:57] Guys, it's got a CGI zombie, baby.

[1:02:59] Yeah, and I would take – or you look at a previous Flophouse Zack Snyder movie, Sucker Punch, a movie I do not like.

[1:03:05] But the entire time, it feels like it is the vision of a specific artist.

[1:03:10] It was working in a palette I don't like, the composition I don't like, the end product I don't like, the style and the tone I don't like.

[1:03:18] But it feels unique in its own way.

[1:03:20] Whereas this feels like – it wouldn't surprise me if somebody else made this and then Zack Snyder put his name on it afterward.

[1:03:26] Like, it feels like someone who is trying their hardest to make a Zack Snyder-ish thing but without any of that passion or that inspiration.

[1:03:32] You're right, Dan.

[1:03:32] It's like when I was – like I was saying at the beginning, watching this movie, I was like, why don't I like this?

[1:03:37] It's so completely lifeless and predictable.

[1:03:40] Whereas I like cheesy science fiction stuff, and I like it when it's cheesy partly because it feels like it's full of energy.

[1:03:46] And this is so – it's just dead.

[1:03:49] It lies there dead, you know, and there's nothing going on there.

[1:03:52] So Stuart, 12 stars?

[1:03:53] What do you –

Stuart Wellington

[1:03:53] Yeah, here's the thing.

[1:03:54] So if you want Star Wars but –

[1:03:56] If you want Star Wars but funny, you got space balls.

[1:04:00] You want Star Wars that's like a little bit racy?

[1:04:03] There's like a million Star Wars porn parodies.

[1:04:05] If you want Star Wars but it's like, I don't know, more of a Western, there's fucking fire flying shit.

[1:04:10] If you want heavy metal, go watch The Fifth Element.

[1:04:12] If you want –

[1:04:13] Or heavy metal.

[1:04:15] If you want a Star Wars that's specific – like a science fiction movie or a story that's about assembling a team,

[1:04:21] watch a fucking playthrough of Mass Effect 2.

[1:04:23] That shit's awesome.

[1:04:27] I mean, you could – just do that.

[1:04:28] Just Google it.

[1:04:29] Just do it.

[1:04:31] Is that copyrighted?

[1:04:32] Can we use that?

[1:04:33] We can just do it.

[1:04:34] I think it's in the public domain now.

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:36] I think just do it is also – yeah, probably right.

[1:04:38] Everything is now.

Stuart Wellington

[1:04:38] So, yeah, it's – I think this is a bad, bad.

[1:04:41] And the biggest thing is that it is just like – it is just warmed over, warmed over, warmed over stuff.

[1:04:46] And you're not going to see anything that even remotely feels new except for maybe the candles on the shoulders bartender.

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:54] Or maybe like this.

[1:04:55] Maybe when he – even – you know, I was going to say even when Nemesis is fighting the Spider Woman.

[1:04:59] But the Spider Woman is even just warmed over Angelica Houston from Moon – from Captain EO.

[1:05:04] So, like the – there's stuff in here.

[1:05:06] There's so many – but anytime you see like a bartender who's a robot god with candles on his shoulders who's an alien, you're like, oh, somebody in this was like – was trying – was doing something original.

[1:05:18] And I wish there was more of that.

[1:05:19] Yeah, more of it.

S4

[1:05:24] Hello, everyone out there.

[1:05:26] Thank you for coming to our service.

[1:05:28] Yes.

[1:05:29] We are ready to heal you.

[1:05:33] We are Ross and Carrie.

[1:05:35] We are faith healers.

[1:05:36] Yes, you there.

Dan McCoy

[1:05:37] Yes, sir.

[1:05:38] You have a spirit of –

S4

[1:05:39] Not listening to enough podcasts.

Dan McCoy

[1:05:42] We have the solution for that.

S4

[1:05:44] Oh, we can cure you.

Dan McCoy

[1:05:45] You should listen to Oh No, Ross and Carrie.

[1:05:47] Hallelujah.

[1:05:48] It's on Maximum Fun.

S4

[1:05:49] I couldn't have said it better myself.

[1:05:52] Yes, ma'am.

[1:05:52] Yes, you there.

[1:05:53] Gladys.

Dan McCoy

[1:05:54] A spirit of boredom?

S4

[1:05:55] Oh, my goodness.

[1:05:56] We have the solution for you.

[1:05:58] It is to listen to the podcast Oh No, Ross and Carrie.

S5

[1:06:10] The human mind can be tricky.

[1:06:13] Your mental health can be complex.

[1:06:15] Your emotional life can be complicated.

[1:06:17] So it helps to talk about it.

[1:06:19] I'm John Moe.

[1:06:20] Join me each week on my show, Depression Mode with John Moe.

[1:06:23] It's in-depth conversations about mental health with writers, musicians, comedians, doctors,

[1:06:28] and experts.

[1:06:29] Folks like Noah Khan, Sashir Zameda, and Surgeon General Vivek Murthy.

[1:06:33] We talk about depression, anxiety, trauma, imposter syndrome, and perfectionism.

[1:06:38] We have the kind of conversations that a lot of folks are hesitant to have themselves.

[1:06:43] Listen, and you won't feel as alone.

[1:06:45] And you'll have some laughs, too.

[1:06:47] Depression Mode from Maximum Fun at MaximumFun.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

Dan McCoy

[1:06:55] The Flophouse is sponsored in part by Rocket Money.

[1:07:00] Bored by all those rockets and Rebel Moon?

[1:07:03] How about Rocket Money instead?

[1:07:06] You know, there's less space out there, but it'll help you more with your personal finances.

[1:07:12] Here's a question.

[1:07:13] If I asked you how many subscriptions you have, would you be able to list all of them and how much you're paying?

[1:07:19] Exactly, Stuart.

[1:07:20] What are you, a cop?

[1:07:21] The amount you're spending may surprise you.

[1:07:24] Dan, you have to tell him if he asks you.

[1:07:27] That's a canard.

[1:07:28] Rocket Money can help find and cancel unused subscriptions.

[1:07:35] Rocket Money is a personal finance app that finds and cancels your unwanted subscriptions,

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[1:07:50] This sounds good to me.

[1:07:53] All you have to do is take a picture of your bill, and Rocket Money takes care of the rest.

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[1:08:10] Hey, you know it's a new year.

[1:08:11] Why not clean out the cupboard of those unused, unwanted subscriptions?

[1:08:16] You can cancel your unwanted subscriptions by going to rocketmoney.com slash flop.

[1:08:21] That's rocketmoney.com slash flop.

[1:08:25] Rocketmoney.com slash flop.

Stuart Wellington

[1:08:28] Hey, guys.

[1:08:29] You're probably listening to this podcast on the internet, and you know what's on the internet?

[1:08:34] Websites.

[1:08:35] You know how you get your own website?

[1:08:37] The best way to do that shit is with Squarespace.

[1:08:40] Squarespace is the all-in-one platform that gives you the tools you need to make a really cool website.

[1:08:45] Because you know what you need?

[1:08:46] That's right, a website.

[1:08:48] So, some of the things Squarespace offers.

[1:08:50] They're going to give you information on how many people and who is visiting your website and what they're doing with that information.

[1:08:58] They have all the stuff you need to set up a web store so you can take money and you can build your business.

[1:09:05] And with their next-generation website design system, you can take your own creativity and you can add a little bit of juice thanks to what Squarespace is providing.

[1:09:15] So, you need to head to Squarespace.com slash flop for a free trial.

[1:09:22] And when you're ready to launch, which you should be soon, use offer code FLOP to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:32] Very exciting.

[1:09:33] And there's also some very exciting Flophouse promotional news.

[1:09:36] As you may have heard at the very top of this episode, if you didn't skip through it, the Flophouse is going on tour at the end of January.

[1:09:42] That's right.

[1:09:43] It's a four-city West Coast tour.

[1:09:45] All the cities of the West Coast that matter.

[1:09:48] Just kidding.

[1:09:48] Seattle, we still like you, but we're not going to you this time.

[1:09:50] We're going to four cities on January 24th.

[1:09:53] We'll be in Vancouver, Canada to talk about the movie Cobra.

[1:09:56] On January 25th, we'll be in Portland, Oregon to talk about the movie Cool as Ice.

[1:10:00] On January 26th, we'll be in San Francisco as part of the San Francisco Sketch Fest at Cobb's Comedy Club talking about Gigli.

[1:10:07] And on January 28th, we'll be in Los Angeles at the Regent Theater talking about Spawn.

[1:10:13] It is an all-90s except for the 80s and also early 2000s movie.

[1:10:20] That's the theme.

[1:10:21] Thank you.

[1:10:22] That's the theme.

[1:10:23] We can't wait to be in front of you, entertaining you, meeting fans.

[1:10:27] We love these live shows.

[1:10:29] We're so excited to do them again.

[1:10:30] We want you to come out and talk to us.

[1:10:32] We're going to be doing presentations.

[1:10:33] We're going to talk about the movies.

[1:10:35] And I'm sure we'll be shaking hands afterwards, maybe kissing babies.

[1:10:38] We'll see.

[1:10:39] Bring a baby.

[1:10:39] We'll find out.

[1:10:40] And the tickets, they're all in one place, kind of.

[1:10:43] If you go to flophousepodcast.com slash events, it will lead you to all the information about those shows and also where to buy tickets.

[1:10:51] Some tickets are still available.

[1:10:52] They are going at a pretty good clip.

[1:10:54] So we hope that you have a chance to buy them before they go bye-bye themselves.

[1:10:59] Bye before bye-bye.

[1:11:01] Thank you.

[1:11:02] We also want to remind you.

[1:11:03] Thank you, Stuart was applauding for me.

[1:11:05] We also want to remind you that Flop TV may be over in terms of new episodes.

[1:11:10] But those videos are going to be up online through the end of January.

[1:11:13] So you can still buy a season's pass if you go to theflophouse.simpleticks.com.

[1:11:20] You can buy a season pass and watch all six of those recordings of season one of Flop TV, season two, TBD.

Stuart Wellington

[1:11:28] And you can binge them all and watch us get older each episode.

[1:11:33] Yeah.

[1:11:33] One month each episode.

[1:11:36] Each time.

Dan McCoy

[1:11:37] I did look at a photo recently that was like at most two years older.

[1:11:44] And I'm like, why have I aged so much?

[1:11:46] What happened?

Stuart Wellington

[1:11:47] I feel like things have been going on in the world, Dan.

[1:11:49] Yeah, it could be.

[1:11:50] It could be.

[1:11:51] I think so.

[1:11:51] Very much so.

[1:11:52] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:11:52] But yeah, if you're interested, we're nearing the end of the Flop TV window.

[1:11:57] Just check it out before the end of January.

[1:12:00] Buy it before it goes bye-bye.

Elliott Kalan

[1:12:03] Buy before bye-bye.

[1:12:04] That's my new slogan.

[1:12:05] But if you want to see us in person, it's still happening.

[1:12:09] If you're in Vancouver, Portland, San Francisco, or Los Angeles at the end of January,

[1:12:12] flophousepodcast.com slash events.

[1:12:14] And again, to buy a season pass to watch those videos before they're gone, theflophouse.simpleticks.com.

Stuart Wellington

[1:12:19] Dan, did you buy all your outfits for those live shows yet?

[1:12:21] Oh, shit.

Elliott Kalan

[1:12:23] Oh, no.

[1:12:24] Dan told me he was going to buy an outfit themed to each city.

Dan McCoy

[1:12:27] Let's not set expectations that we can't deliver on.

[1:12:33] And we have a jumbotron.

[1:12:35] And here it is.

[1:12:36] It goes like this.

[1:12:37] Hey, peaches lovers.

[1:12:39] I know a lot of you love comics.

[1:12:41] And I hope you will love my upcoming book, How Comics Were Made, a visual history from the drawing board to the printed page.

[1:12:50] The book looks at 130 years of newspaper comics, how artists drew their work for reproduction, and the bizarre and complicated processes that transformed them for print.

[1:13:01] The book heads to crowdfunding in February 2024.

[1:13:05] See a preview at howcomicsweremade.ink.

[1:13:09] In this case, that's I-N-K, like the things that people draw with.

[1:13:13] The things.

[1:13:14] The stuff.

[1:13:15] And sign up for an announcement or free newsletter.

[1:13:18] Once again, that call to action is why don't you visit howcomicsweremade.ink to find out more and sign up for a free newsletter and book announcement.

[1:13:30] That sounds like a book I might be interested in.

[1:13:34] Hey.

[1:13:35] Well, look at this.

[1:13:36] Hey.

[1:13:37] Hey.

[1:13:37] Hey, guys.

[1:13:38] Look at this.

[1:13:39] Get off of my cloud.

[1:13:41] This first letter, you know, pertains to what we were just talking about, these live shows.

[1:13:47] This is from Jemay, last name withheld, who writes,

[1:13:51] See you at your live show at the Aladdin on January 25th.

[1:13:55] My son won't let me come home from the show without his signed dedication and his copy of Sharko and Hippo, so don't let me down.

[1:14:02] I love my family and would miss them terribly.

[1:14:05] Don't know if you guys have excellent advanced PR work or just a fan at the best historic community-owned theater in the world,

[1:14:12] but I just nabbed tickets to the Hollywood Theater's January 20th showing of Cool as Ice.

[1:14:18] I was wondering how I'd be able to sit down and enjoy the movie as opposed to just slogging through it alone on my sofa before your show.

[1:14:24] And this is it.

Stuart Wellington

[1:14:26] That is a blast to watch with a crowd.

[1:14:28] It is.

[1:14:29] Stuart and I, did we introduce it?

[1:14:31] Yeah, we did an introduction at the Nighthawk.

Dan McCoy

[1:14:33] At the Nighthawk, and oh boy, was that fun.

[1:14:38] So, this enterprising listener who may or may not have some attachment to this theater, who knows, but it's good to get out there.

Elliott Kalan

[1:14:46] I don't even know why you would plant that suspicion in the minds of the listeners.

Dan McCoy

[1:14:50] I mean, either way.

[1:14:51] The fix is in.

[1:14:52] I don't care because, you know, if you want to see this movie before the show, the best way to do it is probably with a big audience.

[1:14:59] Yeah.

[1:15:00] And it's a lot of fun.

[1:15:02] It's a bad movie.

[1:15:03] So, this person says,

[1:15:05] if you've got a chance between now and the 20th, let the world know they can join fellow flop fans of the Hollywood five days before your show.

[1:15:12] And they also say if you have any free time in Portland, drop by Movie Madness, the video store owned by the Hollywood Theater,

[1:15:19] and see their memorabilia along with a stunning collection of rentable movies.

[1:15:25] So, that's a tip from out there in the world.

Stuart Wellington

[1:15:28] Wait, you can rent a movie?

[1:15:31] Okay.

[1:15:32] In this economy?

Dan McCoy

[1:15:35] I mean, in this economy, like renting them piecemeal would probably be better than...

Elliott Kalan

[1:15:39] Piecemeal, you mean like a scene at a time, like on the installment plan?

Dan McCoy

[1:15:43] A penny a minute.

[1:15:49] That's a pretty good deal for a regular length movie.

[1:15:52] Yeah.

[1:15:53] Well, let's start it.

[1:15:55] Okay.

[1:15:55] Let's shutter the flop apps and pivot into penny a minute movie rentals.

[1:16:01] Yeah, it's called...

[1:16:01] First, we have to buy up a catalog.

[1:16:05] Yeah.

[1:16:05] Pennyworth movies.

Stuart Wellington

[1:16:07] Yeah, and when your time's up, like a little screen lowers down over your screen so you can't see it anymore.

[1:16:13] Yeah, and you could talk to the movie on a little handset phone.

[1:16:16] Mm-hmm.

[1:16:17] Oh, yeah.

[1:16:18] Elliot knows what I'm talking about.

[1:16:18] Elliot's been there.

[1:16:20] No, I haven't been.

[1:16:21] Elliot knows what I'm talking about.

[1:16:23] I don't.

[1:16:23] He's a nasty boy.

[1:16:24] I'm not.

Dan McCoy

[1:16:27] Elliot's the nicest boy.

Elliott Kalan

[1:16:29] I'm not that either.

[1:16:30] I'm middle.

[1:16:32] I'm in the middle.

[1:16:32] This next ladle.

Dan McCoy

[1:16:33] This is the next lader.

Elliott Kalan

[1:16:36] It has holes in it, so it doesn't hold the soup that well.

[1:16:40] But you could get a potato out of a stew with it.

Dan McCoy

[1:16:42] Right for your needs.

Stuart Wellington

[1:16:44] I guess during our recording break, Dan did a bunch of whippets.

Dan McCoy

[1:16:50] This next ladder.

[1:16:52] This next letter goes like this.

[1:16:55] Why do birds suddenly appear every time you talk about movies?

[1:17:00] Scott, last name withheld, but it's me, Weinberg, the overhated guy from the Artemis Fowl episode.

[1:17:06] Makes a good point.

[1:17:07] Why are all these birds in here, Elliot?

[1:17:09] You're the one who leaves your windows open when you record.

[1:17:11] Oh, that's true.

Stuart Wellington

[1:17:12] That's a lovely poem by Scott Weinberg.

[1:17:17] Original work.

[1:17:21] I just found out that Dan's wife doesn't like poetry, and I'm like, any kind?

[1:17:26] Not even like commercial jingles?

[1:17:31] Not even the Cars for Kids song?

Dan McCoy

[1:17:34] Yeah.

[1:17:35] Yeah.

[1:17:36] No, I get it.

[1:17:39] I mean, there's some poetry I like, but it's of the written arts.

[1:17:45] I'm just like, why don't you just give this to me in some prose?

[1:17:49] Prose works pretty well for most applications.

[1:17:53] No, no thank you.

Elliott Kalan

[1:17:57] Plot only, please.

[1:17:58] Is it that beautiful?

[1:17:59] Robert Frost, just tell me that I should take some chances sometimes.

[1:18:06] Hey, Keats, calm down.

[1:18:07] I'm just not going to sit down.

[1:18:08] I get it, Edgar Allan Poe.

[1:18:09] You're sad your wife died.

[1:18:11] There's a bird in the room.

[1:18:12] You left your windows open, too.

[1:18:13] I get it.

Dan McCoy

[1:18:14] Maybe it's controversial.

[1:18:15] I'm just not going to sit down and read a lot of poetry.

[1:18:19] I'm not trying to say that no one should feel that way, or everyone should feel that way.

[1:18:24] People should enjoy poetry.

Stuart Wellington

[1:18:25] I feel like the New York Times agrees with you, didn't they just end their poetry column?

Elliott Kalan

[1:18:29] Not that into it.

[1:18:30] I think they did.

[1:18:31] Dan, now I'm imagining you sitting next to the ancient mariner going, speed it up, will you?

[1:18:37] Wrap it up.

[1:18:38] I'm even being ancient here.

Dan McCoy

[1:18:39] He does take a long time to tell a pretty simple story.

[1:18:42] And they need to get to a wedding.

[1:18:43] Yeah, that's true.

[1:18:45] Like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1:18:46] Okay, you killed a bird, and then things went south for you.

[1:18:49] I get it, man.

Stuart Wellington

[1:18:51] I mean, guys, if a dude just walked up to you on the street and started telling you this story, right, you'd be like, get out of here.

[1:18:57] Get out of here, man.

[1:18:58] I mean, an old man just – and I have to be somewhere.

Elliott Kalan

[1:19:00] Again, they're on their way to a wedding, and he's like, yeah, yeah, but let me tell you more.

Dan McCoy

[1:19:03] Is that a bird around your neck?

[1:19:05] And he's like, oh.

[1:19:07] Well, it's a long story.

[1:19:08] He's like, no, I'm not interested.

[1:19:09] No, no, let me tell you.

Elliott Kalan

[1:19:11] So, well, not to nitpick, he doesn't have the bird anymore.

[1:19:14] It fell off of his neck when he realized that all God's creatures should be loved.

[1:19:18] So you're saying that maybe he just got used to it, and now he has a different bird around his neck?

[1:19:21] Yeah.

[1:19:21] Well, it's a style thing.

[1:19:23] He's used to that fucking bling.

[1:19:27] You're like, now I've got a peacock around my neck pretty sharp, right?

Stuart Wellington

[1:19:29] I mean, damn, that's a cool bird.

[1:19:33] I wonder what its brains would taste like.

[1:19:36] Got to make a souffle out of him.

[1:19:38] Let's move into a casserole.

[1:19:40] What did the Sun King eat?

[1:19:42] He had like casseroles with peacock brains or some crap.

[1:19:44] Something like that.

Elliott Kalan

[1:19:45] Let's move into.

[1:19:46] That was the letters bag.

[1:19:48] That was the letters segment.

[1:19:50] We sewed it up tight.

[1:19:52] No letters can't get out anymore.

[1:19:54] Keep your eyes on that bag.

[1:19:56] The letters are trying to escape, and if they do, all hell will break loose.

[1:20:00] We got to keep them in there.

[1:20:02] Luckily, we hired a new security guard, Ben Stiller.

[1:20:05] Oh, no.

[1:20:07] All sorts of shenanigans are going to happen overnight.

[1:20:09] It's night at the letter bag.

[1:20:12] Night at the letter bag.

[1:20:13] The letters are closed.

Dan McCoy

[1:20:16] Okay.

[1:20:17] Well, changing it up for 2024.

Elliott Kalan

[1:20:20] Now the letter songs end the segment.

Dan McCoy

[1:20:22] Interesting.

[1:20:22] Until I forget.

[1:20:25] Let's bring this episode to a close with the final segment, which is, pardon me, recommendations

[1:20:34] of movies that you should definitely watch instead of this.

[1:20:38] I mean, you don't have to watch it.

[1:20:40] I'm just like, don't watch.

[1:20:41] No, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:20:41] If our recommendation would be just don't watch Rebel Moon.

[1:20:44] Watch no movies at all.

[1:20:45] Yeah.

[1:20:45] If Rebel Moon's the only option, then yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:20:48] Don't sit around and read poetry.

Stuart Wellington

[1:20:51] You certainly don't do that.

Dan McCoy

[1:20:53] If that's what you enjoy, God bless you.

[1:20:55] I'm just saying it's never been much for me.

[1:20:57] God will bless you with the beauty of poetry.

[1:20:59] There's some poets I like.

[1:21:00] I like Yeats.

Elliott Kalan

[1:21:01] Yeats has got some stuff.

[1:21:03] Name two Yeats poems you like.

[1:21:04] Now I'm challenging Dan.

Dan McCoy

[1:21:05] There's that one about walk softly because I'm walking on my dream.

[1:21:09] You're walking on my dreams.

[1:21:10] And there's that one about, you know, how the falcon can't hear the falconer anymore.

[1:21:15] Because the gyre has widened too much.

[1:21:17] Yeah, yeah.

[1:21:18] Second coming.

[1:21:18] Yeah, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:21:19] What rough beast, et cetera.

[1:21:21] Anyway.

[1:21:22] Okay.

[1:21:22] What's another poet that you like?

[1:21:23] So Yeats.

[1:21:24] Okay.

Dan McCoy

[1:21:26] Billy Butler.

[1:21:27] There's some Dickinson I like.

[1:21:29] You know, she keeps it short.

[1:21:30] I like it.

Elliott Kalan

[1:21:32] So you're a poet.

[1:21:33] You like poetry that doesn't take up your time.

[1:21:36] Mm-hmm.

[1:21:37] You're not one for a thanatopsis.

Dan McCoy

[1:21:40] There's that variations on a theme by William Carlos Williams, which is a very funny poem.

[1:21:45] Okay, sure.

[1:21:46] By Kenneth Kock.

Elliott Kalan

[1:21:47] Look that one up.

[1:21:47] So you're more of an Ogden Nash type poetry reader.

[1:21:50] You know, short, silly poems.

Dan McCoy

[1:21:52] I mean, if I had a choice between a short and silly poem and a long and non-silly poem,

[1:21:58] yes, I'm going to go with short and silly.

[1:21:59] That's my personal preference.

[1:22:02] Again, apologies if I've broken the hearts of any poets out there.

[1:22:07] You know, if you find beauty in it, that's enough.

[1:22:09] You know what?

Elliott Kalan

[1:22:12] Anyway.

[1:22:12] Hold on.

[1:22:13] There's some angry letters coming through the transom right now from a first name withheld Neruda.

[1:22:20] Oh, no.

Dan McCoy

[1:22:22] I'm familiar with his works.

[1:22:24] Okay.

Elliott Kalan

[1:22:24] But here's one from William Carlos, last name withheld.

[1:22:27] Thanks, Dan.

[1:22:28] Sure.

Dan McCoy

[1:22:30] Yeah.

[1:22:30] Well, he shouldn't have eaten my goddamn plums if he wanted me to like his shit.

Elliott Kalan

[1:22:34] He was so busy worrying about that wheelbarrow.

[1:22:36] So much dependent on that wheelbarrow.

[1:22:39] Okay.

[1:22:39] Yeah.

[1:22:39] He did.

[1:22:40] He shouldn't have eaten those plums.

[1:22:41] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:22:43] So, speaking of movies.

[1:22:46] Yeah.

[1:22:46] These are ones we're recommending.

[1:22:49] You know, I caught up with, you know, William Friedkin passed away.

[1:22:54] I caught up with his last film, The Kane Mutiny Court Martial, which in a lot of ways is a return to how he started out shooting plays for television.

[1:23:05] Mm-hmm.

[1:23:35] You know, a lot of vivid style and big incident.

[1:23:41] It's not a film for you.

[1:23:43] But it shows that what a, you know, group of talented actors, a very great, you know, talented cast for that, a talented director can do with, you know, material that is a very traditional courtroom drama and how much drama can be wrung out of that.

[1:24:02] And, you know, it seems like I'm damning it with faint praise.

[1:24:07] I'm just saying that, you know, like, yeah, probably in the span of Friedkin's works.

[1:24:14] It's a more minor one, but it's one that I enjoyed watching and is widely available right now.

[1:24:21] If you have, I think it's on Showtime, which comes bundled with Paramount Plus these days.

[1:24:28] Paramount Plus with Showtime.

[1:24:30] A thing that could have been avoided if they just said Paramount Plus Showtime, but they didn't.

Elliott Kalan

[1:24:36] Anyway.

[1:24:36] Or if everyone decided that merging all things into one big thing.

[1:24:41] That's also a problem.

[1:24:42] A hellish media Katamari Donacy was not the right thing to do, you know.

Dan McCoy

[1:24:47] Who's looking into buying Paramount Plus now?

[1:24:50] Like, I feel like that's being merged into, Jesus.

Elliott Kalan

[1:24:53] Wasn't Warner Brothers Discovery going to buy Paramount?

[1:24:55] Yeah.

[1:24:56] Right.

Dan McCoy

[1:24:57] So, I guess we just gave up on that whole monopoly thing and regulating this sort of stuff.

[1:25:05] We did give up on that.

Elliott Kalan

[1:25:06] Well, we don't need to get into that here, but I think because the entertainment business is considered a not serious business, it is often not given the same regulatory eye.

Dan McCoy

[1:25:16] It's one of our top exports as a nation, anyway.

Elliott Kalan

[1:25:22] Yeah.

[1:25:22] Okay, cool.

[1:25:23] I agree with you, Dan.

[1:25:24] I'm not telling you.

[1:25:25] Yeah, we're on your side.

[1:25:26] Yeah, come on.

[1:25:27] Why are you mad at me?

Dan McCoy

[1:25:27] That was directed at you.

[1:25:29] I was incensed, Elliot, specifically at you.

Stuart Wellington

[1:25:33] Okay, I'll team up with you, Dan.

[1:25:34] Let's look up, Elliot.

[1:25:35] Because I'm the head of the Justice Department's Antitrust Division.

Elliott Kalan

[1:25:38] Yes.

Dan McCoy

[1:25:40] I dislike you like I dislike poetry now.

[1:25:43] Oh, man.

Elliott Kalan

[1:25:45] Okay, so.

[1:25:45] Dan says, Elliot, you're a poem.

[1:25:47] That's not a compliment.

Stuart Wellington

[1:25:51] Since we're recommending movies about courtroom stuff, I'm going to recommend.

[1:25:56] I'm going to recommend Anatomy of a Fall.

[1:25:59] It came out this year.

[1:26:01] It's from France.

[1:26:05] And yeah, it's really great.

[1:26:07] It's, I mean, right away, it's about a family and the husband dies and the resulting court case that is tied with that.

[1:26:18] And how in the process of litigating this murder, death, suicide, who knows?

[1:26:28] They end up kind of litigating the relationship between these people.

[1:26:32] And it's really great.

[1:26:34] And I liked it a lot.

[1:26:36] And there's a very good dog actor who is a very good boy.

[1:26:40] And don't worry, nothing really bad happens to him.

Dan McCoy

[1:26:43] It's a European movie.

[1:26:45] So it's about ambiguity.

Stuart Wellington

[1:26:46] Yay, that's true.

[1:26:48] Dan's right.

[1:26:50] Wait, did you know that or did you just guess?

Elliott Kalan

[1:26:52] I just assume that's one of those movies.

[1:26:56] I'm going to recommend a not new movie because I'm behind on my screeners.

[1:27:00] And by behind on my screeners, I mean each time I'm about to recommend something, it turns out Stuart has recommended it an episode or two before me.

Stuart Wellington

[1:27:07] That's right, Stuart's got his finger on the pulse of good-ass new movies.

Elliott Kalan

[1:27:12] Yeah, so I'm going to recommend an old artsy thing that I assume Stuart has not seen.

[1:27:17] This is a short film.

[1:27:19] It's not super short.

[1:27:19] It's like 50 minutes long or something like that from 1981 called You Are Not I.

[1:27:25] It was made by Sarah Driver.

[1:27:27] And Jim Jarmusch is the cinematographer on it.

[1:27:30] That's the world that it kind of comes out of.

[1:27:33] And it is a story about a woman, a lot of voiceover narration about a woman who is disturbed and manages to escape from the asylum that she's been sent to because there's a car crash outside.

[1:27:46] And it becomes a distraction that she can kind of use to get out.

[1:27:50] And eventually she is taken to the home of her sister who had initially sent her this asylum.

[1:27:55] And a sort of low-key battle of wills comes out.

[1:27:59] Wait a minute, low-key's in it?

[1:28:01] No, okay, I said it wrong.

[1:28:03] Maybe a creepy but not overtly violent battle of wills.

[1:28:08] Okay, cool.

[1:28:08] And now you're like, the Journal of the Wills?

[1:28:10] The original screenplay for Star Wars?

[1:28:12] And I'm like, no.

[1:28:14] And I found it to be one of the better movies I've seen about taking me into a mindset that is not understanding reality in an accurate way, let's say.

[1:28:29] And I found it really eerie and had a really great atmosphere to it.

[1:28:32] So that is You Are Not I.

[1:28:34] And it's a short film that you should be able to find.

Dan McCoy

[1:28:37] So the letter U are not I.

[1:28:41] No, no.

[1:28:42] The word U, Y-O-U, are not I.

[1:28:45] Okay.

Elliott Kalan

[1:28:45] The letter I, as in the word I.

Dan McCoy

[1:28:47] It's not spelled the way that like a hip-hop song from the 90s would be spelled.

Elliott Kalan

[1:28:53] You be 40.

[1:28:55] No.

[1:28:56] Oh, that was the original title of this is 40, I think.

[1:28:58] I be 45, actually.

Dan McCoy

[1:29:01] Oh, man.

[1:29:02] That would have been awesome.

[1:29:02] And sometimes IBS.

[1:29:09] Aging.

Stuart Wellington

[1:29:11] And don't miss, folks.

[1:29:12] So what do we do next now that we've recommended current movies and talked about poetry much?

Dan McCoy

[1:29:17] When Dan's making a poop joke, you best not miss.

[1:29:22] I'm not pass out because I'm coughing and laughing.

Elliott Kalan

[1:29:26] Well, coughing is a portmanteau of coughing and laughing.

[1:29:29] Oh.

[1:29:31] Laughing is also a portmanteau of laughing and coughing.

Dan McCoy

[1:29:33] What do we do at this point in the podcast?

[1:29:34] Oh, this is the part where we.

[1:29:35] Well, we say goodbye, I think.

[1:29:36] We thank our editor, Alex Smith.

[1:29:41] You can find him all over the internet under the name Howl Dottie and sometimes under his actual name.

[1:29:48] We want to thank Maximum Fun, our podcasting network.

[1:29:53] Without them, it would be a lot harder to do this show.

[1:29:58] Significantly hard.

[1:30:00] It would involve a lot of work that we don't want to do.

[1:30:02] So thank you.

[1:30:04] And if you want to check out other great podcasts on the network, go to MaximumFun.org.

[1:30:08] If you want to buy Jumbotron, we didn't mention it before, but over at MaximumFun.org slash Jumbotron, that's where that happens.

[1:30:17] And, you know, if you want to, leave us a kind review on iTunes probably or someplace else if there's a place that takes podcast reviews.

[1:30:27] We'll take that as well.

[1:30:29] But anyway, I like to cover all the bases.

[1:30:34] Yeah, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:30:34] Pick up a copy of the fucking Peddler's Post and scroll it in the margins.

Dan McCoy

[1:30:39] But for this episode of the Flophouse, I have been Dan McCoy.

Elliott Kalan

[1:30:45] Hey, it's me, Stuart Wellington.

[1:30:47] And I'm Elliot Kalin saying Rebel Moon to ya.

[1:30:52] Happy New Year.

[1:30:53] Bye.

[1:30:54] Bye before you bye-bye.

Dan McCoy

[1:31:02] God, is it sweltering in here or is it me?

Elliott Kalan

[1:31:05] It's you're going through the changes, buddy.

[1:31:07] Yeah, Dan, I think you're going through danopause.

Dan McCoy

[1:31:10] Ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-changes.

[1:31:12] All right.

[1:31:22] Maximum Fun.

[1:31:23] A worker-owned network.

[1:31:25] Of artists-owned shows.

[1:31:27] Supported.

[1:31:27] Directly.

[1:31:28] By you.

Ep.#413 - Rebel Moon: Part One - A Child of Fire

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