Sonic the Hedgehog 3, with Jamelle Bouie

Elliott Kalan

[0:00] On this episode, we discuss Sonic 3.

[0:02] A further delve into the lore of the Sonic the Hedgehog mythology, which exists.

Dan McCoy

[0:30] Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Flophouse. I'm Dan McCoy.

Elliott Kalan

[0:33] I'm Stuart Wellington.

[0:35] I'm Elliot Kalin.

[0:36] And before we get started telling you what this podcast is about and what we do on it,

[0:40] I just want to mention, you may have seen that this is a hedgehog podcast.

[0:44] This is a podcast about Sonic the Hedgehog 3.

[0:46] You may ask yourself, is the Flophouse able to bring back their politics and hedgehog correspondent?

[0:50] Yes, we did, and he's here with us now.

[0:52] We are very happy to be joined by the great Jamal Bowie, writer for The New York Times,

[0:57] co-host of Unclear and Present Danger with John Gans,

[1:00] someone who has more serious, interesting things to do with his time

[1:03] than watch Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and then talk to us about it.

[1:06] But we're always so glad when he comes to join us.

[1:08] Jamal, thank you so much for joining us again for this hedgehog film.

[1:10] The full end of the trilogy, unless there's more, I don't know.

Jamelle Bouie

[1:14] First, it's a real pleasure.

[1:15] Second of all, I think this movie did well, so there will be a fourth one.

[1:19] And third of all, honestly, I was disappointed that yet another hedgehog movie,

[1:25] a Sonic movie, and neither Sonic nor Knuckles is pregnant.

Elliott Kalan

[1:30] Honestly, I was thinking the same thing during it.

[1:32] I'm like, when does this series go off the rails and they just start making these characters pregnant?

Stuart Wellington

[1:36] And you know I'm pausing the screen every time they're on there,

[1:40] and I'm measuring their bellies to see if they're a little bigger.

[1:43] They're showing a bump.

Elliott Kalan

[1:44] Any scene where they're hanging out, you're like, what are they drinking?

[1:46] Is it water, or do they have actual liquor in their hands?

Dan McCoy

[1:50] It's always liquor.

[1:51] First off, I'm glad that we got Jamal back.

[1:53] I wanted to clarify, unclear and present danger is another podcast.

[1:57] The word podcast was not said in case people wanted to go looking for that.

[2:00] Oh, I thought I did say it.

[2:01] I guess I did, yeah.

[2:02] But also, I have to admit, we put off doing Sonic 3 for a while because I kept being scared.

[2:08] I was like, Jamal's too busy being one of the few people with balls enough to say true things in the media right now.

[2:14] He can't come back for a hedgehog show.

[2:17] And then he expressed interest himself, and I'm like, oh, thank God, okay.

[2:21] That's great, we'll get him back.

Jamelle Bouie

[2:24] I was like, honestly, I was like, why haven't they reached out to me about this yet?

[2:28] The movie's been out for a minute.

Stuart Wellington

[2:31] I thought you were too busy.

[2:32] Every time you're like scrolling through whatever app, and you see it, and you're like, oh, Sonic 3, huh?

[2:37] You wistfully look out the window.

Elliott Kalan

[2:40] You look at the window and hope that the Jamal symbol is flashing in the clouds.

[2:46] Do I watch it?

[2:47] No, I should wait.

[2:48] So, unclear and present danger, it's a podcast where you and John Gantz, you talk about like,

[2:51] kind of John Clancy style movie thrillers, right, from the 90s.

[2:54] Yeah, yeah.

[2:54] John Clancy?

[2:55] Tom Clancy, goddammit.

[2:57] And his brother.

[2:58] His woke brother, John Clancy.

[3:01] Yeah, which the peaceful look for Red October is a big John Clancy one.

[3:08] Yeah, yeah.

Jamelle Bouie

[3:09] Yeah, we watched like the political and military thrillers of the 90s.

[3:14] The podcast named after the film Clear and Present Danger, and there's obviously, you know,

[3:18] that and Hunt for Red October and Patriot Games.

[3:21] Air Force One, which isn't technically a Tom Clancy movie, but it basically is.

[3:25] It's so close to it.

[3:26] Yeah, it's.

[3:27] That's a John Clancy movie if ever there was one, yeah.

[3:30] But I mean, the funny thing about doing the podcast is that you, this was just like a healthy

[3:37] genre of film in the 90s.

[3:39] Like, reliably, like every other weekend, there'd be a new one of these kind of movies at the

[3:44] multiplex.

[3:45] And so, which is to say that like, we've been doing this like four or five years now, and

[3:50] we're still, we're in 1997.

[3:52] We're going chronologically.

[3:53] So, we have like a couple more years left in the 90s.

[3:57] And if you actually date like the end of this kind of the heyday of this film to 2002, which is, I think, about right, because it's sort of the last pre-9-11 film through like hitting the theaters.

[4:10] Then we have like a solid four or five years left to go.

[4:13] And there are, there are a lot of these goddamn movies, I'll tell you.

Elliott Kalan

[4:17] They were so, they were so popular because it was such a, I feel like there was a, and you, I'm sure you guys have talked about this, like in the, I haven't listened to every episode.

[4:24] I apologize, but, and I don't remember all of my apologize.

[4:27] God, Jamel, why are you making me feel so bad on this?

[4:29] But the, the, that like, people were so curious about like, what's it going to be?

[4:33] Like, what's our new threat?

[4:34] What's the thing that's going to be scary?

[4:35] And then 9-11 hit and it's like, oh, this is less fun than I thought it was going to be to have a new threat.

[4:39] This is way less fun.

Stuart Wellington

[4:40] I feel like that was an era where we were able to gainfully employ older male actors to play presidents.

[4:48] It's true.

[4:48] They play presidents.

Jamelle Bouie

[4:50] They play national security advisors.

[4:51] A lot of national security advisors.

[4:53] Right, yeah.

[4:53] Now they all have to be the action star, which is crazy.

Dan McCoy

[4:57] The guy who wants to bomb things.

[4:59] Then there has to be the analyst who doesn't want to bomb things.

[5:01] There's a lot of roles that you got to fill up.

Elliott Kalan

[5:03] Yeah, there's the guy who, who first wrote the phrase, but sir.

[5:06] He got so many royalties, so many royalties.

Dan McCoy

[5:10] I didn't know you could patent that, but it's amazing.

[5:12] Oh, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[5:13] Well, it's like when Seal Team 6 killed Osama bin Laden and Disney announced they were going

[5:18] to do something called Seal Team 6 about SEALs.

[5:20] And they tried to copyright the phrase Seal Team 6.

[5:22] And everyone's like, wait a minute.

[5:23] Hold on a second.

[5:24] You can't do it.

[5:25] Well, when they did, when they came out with, what was that Day of the Dead movie that they

[5:29] did, the one where the kid goes to the Land of the Dead, the Disney movie?

[5:36] Oh, Coco.

[5:36] Coco, yeah.

[5:37] Where they briefly tried to copyright the phrase Day of the Dead.

[5:40] And it was like, Disney, come on.

[5:41] You can't, you can't take a phrase everyone has been using for years and years.

[5:43] Can't blame a guy for trying.

[5:45] Yeah, that's true.

Jamelle Bouie

[5:46] I thought you were referencing like a George Romero film.

[5:49] I was like, what George Romero movie where a kid goes to the Land of the Dead?

Elliott Kalan

[5:53] Yeah, George Romero's 28 years later.

[5:58] It should have been called School of the Dead.

[6:00] And it would have been a kid going to some kind of, yeah, he should have made that.

[6:03] Guys, let's go back in time.

[6:05] This is the one use of a time machine.

[6:06] That feels a little too school shooter adjacent though.

Dan McCoy

[6:10] There are all these, like, not to sound too much like an old man, but that's where the

[6:15] show is drifting.

[6:16] There are all these, like, venerable genres you just don't see anymore.

[6:19] Like, that was one of them, of course, because it was more tied to a specific, like, political

[6:23] zombie kid moment.

[6:25] But, uh.

[6:25] Yeah, the zombie kid genre, yeah.

[6:27] I just went out with an old Daily Show friend of Elliot's and mine to see Crime 101.

[6:32] And it's like a perfectly solid, you know, middle crime thriller.

[6:38] But it really was like, oh, these used to be around all the time.

Jamelle Bouie

[6:42] Oh, yeah.

[6:42] It feels weird to get one.

[6:44] Because they were like, when you watch these political thrillers, when you watch those

[6:48] movies, they're just cheap to make.

[6:50] Like, it doesn't really take a lot.

[6:52] You don't need a ton of sets.

[6:53] You get a lot of, like, veteran character actors who just, like, need the work.

[6:57] You get, like, some workman-like director who knows how to, like, you know, run a set and,

[7:01] like, put together a couple action sequences.

[7:04] Let's get Peter Hyams in here.

[7:05] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[7:06] Get some drone shots of the Pentagon.

[7:08] It's like what, um.

[7:10] Was it Godard who said that all you need to make a movie is a girl and a gun?

[7:13] And it's like, for those movies, it's like you need, like, a gun or two, suits, a conference

[7:17] room, you know, like, maybe someplace that looks like an airfield.

[7:21] Yeah.

[7:22] Like, ugh.

Jamelle Bouie

[7:22] Let it go.

[7:23] Maybe if you're, like, spending a little bit of money, you might film, like, on location

[7:26] in Washington, D.C.

Elliott Kalan

[7:29] But a stock shot of the White House does just as well.

[7:32] Right, right.

[7:32] You just cut to it and then cut to a room.

[7:34] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[7:35] I was going to segue about, like, how this is, like, so different.

[7:37] The actual movie we're talking about, Sonic the Hedgehog 3.

[7:39] Yeah, so different from Sonic 3.

[7:41] But then I'm like, it's not really, because this movie is filled with so much unnecessary

[7:46] plot, and so much of it is, like, action-y plot.

[7:49] And I was like, Elliot, I think you're in charge of the summary today, right?

[7:52] No, Stuart.

[7:53] Oh, Stuart.

Elliott Kalan

[7:54] Stuart the Hedgehog 3 is on the summary.

Dan McCoy

[7:56] I look forward to you explaining this movie to me.

[7:58] Oh!

[7:58] I didn't understand what was going on.

Elliott Kalan

[8:00] Ironically, this is something I should have thought about beforehand, but I didn't, is

[8:02] that of all the Sonic movies, this is the closest to one of those 90s thrillers.

[8:07] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[8:07] There's so much in it about, like, a secret government weapon.

[8:10] It's a variable geostorm of a movie.

[8:13] It is.

[8:14] I mean, in that it's almost the exact same thread as geostorm, yes.

[8:17] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[8:17] And for a movie-based or titled after a main character whose catchphrase is, gotta go fast,

[8:23] this thing sure takes its time.

Elliott Kalan

[8:26] Well, I'm sure we'll talk about this.

[8:27] This was the first Flophouse movie in a while where I stopped it multiple times to see how

[8:32] much time was left in the movie and was shocked at how much, how little I had watched and how

[8:37] much was still to come.

[8:38] I was like, oh, this is, they look like they're wrapping things up.

[8:41] I'm not even halfway through.

Stuart Wellington

[8:42] There was a moment where I paused it and I saw 57 minutes and I shouted, what the fuck?

Elliott Kalan

[8:49] I had that near the end when it seemed like they had saved the day and then there were

[8:52] 20 minutes left in the movie.

[8:53] I'm like, what's left to do, Sonic the Hedgehog 3?

[8:57] This movie should be 85 minutes long.

[8:59] It's for dropping off the kids at the theater and then you go run some errands.

[9:02] Then you pick them up again.

[9:03] But no.

Stuart Wellington

[9:04] Okay.

[9:05] So the movie opens, obviously with the-

[9:07] Good way for a movie to start.

[9:09] It opens on a mysterious island prison off the coast of Japan.

[9:14] We see a mysterious hedgehog suspended in a tank with some fluid and that hedgehog suddenly

[9:23] starts hearing something.

[9:25] He has, he hears some acoustic music.

[9:27] He gets flashes of traumatic memories and then a hacker shuts down the facility, letting that

[9:34] hedgehog escape after beating the shit out of a bunch of like guards.

[9:39] Yeah.

[9:40] They're just armed guards, yeah.

[9:41] Teleporting around a lot and then he bursts his way out and runs across Tokyo Bay.

[9:46] This is Shadow the Hedgehog.

[9:48] Guys, describe Shadow the Hedgehog for me.

Dan McCoy

[9:52] He's the most Keanu Reeves-y of hedgehogs.

[9:55] That's true, yep.

[9:56] Because that's the voice.

Stuart Wellington

[9:58] He's got cool sneakers.

[9:59] He's got rings around his wrists and ankles.

Elliott Kalan

[10:03] And he's got like a, where Sonic the Hedgehog is blue with white highlights, he is like black

[10:08] with red highlights, right?

[10:09] Like it's the same character design essentially, but with different jewelry and shoes and just

[10:14] different coloring, right?

[10:15] Yeah.

[10:16] Because they're all, they all come from video games where it was like, take the same character

[10:20] and just take the same sprite and just change it slightly, you know, to save CPU power,

Dan McCoy

[10:24] right?

[10:24] He's haunted by trauma, which of course is what you want in your cartoon family hedgehog.

Elliott Kalan

[10:30] Spoiler, I was shocked to find that his traumatic memory of his friend, a child being killed,

[10:36] was not going to be revealed that it was a trick or a ploy and that girl survived.

[10:40] No, that girl died and Shadow lives with it forever.

[10:43] I'm like, this is not what I expected.

Jamelle Bouie

[10:44] I was, I, I, I save Elliot for like most of the movie.

[10:48] I was like, yeah, so she's going to show up and like help save the day, right?

[10:51] Like, no, they're like movies like, no, this girl's dead as hell.

[10:53] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[10:55] It's, it's so, so it feels like.

Stuart Wellington

[10:57] Granddaughter of a different character is dead as hell.

[10:59] This character.

[11:01] Sorry.

Elliott Kalan

[11:02] No, no, just like the, I kept waiting for that moment where they're like, oh, Robotnik's

[11:06] grandfather lied to you.

[11:07] She actually survived and he's been using you.

[11:09] No.

[11:09] Yeah.

[11:10] Like you said, dead as hell.

[11:11] Like they just killed this kid and Shadow is, is traumatized.

[11:13] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[11:13] I thought it was a little extreme though when they had that scene where they exhumed the body

[11:17] just to confirm that she was dead.

[11:19] Yeah.

[11:21] More than necessary.

Elliott Kalan

[11:22] Well, when Sonic was, Sonic was like, we better taste some of it to make sure it's really her.

[11:26] And they were like, Sonic, you and your lust for human flesh, your, your hunger that can

[11:32] never be assuaged.

[11:33] And he's like, that's me, Sonic the Hedgehog.

[11:33] And then we all flip back to the first two movies.

[11:35] Like, when was that established?

[11:36] That happened.

[11:37] But the scenes are all in there.

[11:38] He just needs a lot of protein.

[11:39] He goes, I'm Sonic the Hedge, the Hedgehog.

[11:41] I have to eat.

Stuart Wellington

[11:42] So I don't know about you guys, but Shadow the Hedgehog was introduced to the lore in the

[11:46] games kind of after my time.

[11:47] So everything I've learned about Shadow, I've learned from the internet.

[11:51] So I know that he's cool.

[11:53] I know that he has kind of like a Tetsuo style haircut.

[11:56] And I know that he apparently loves Latinas.

[11:58] Is apparently part of the-

[11:59] Oh, really?

[12:00] Is that a physical canon?

Jamelle Bouie

[12:01] That is part of the online lore, yes.

[12:03] Shadow the Hedgehog loves Latinas.

Stuart Wellington

[12:05] But they tie it into the movie where A, the little girl is named Maria, not an uncommon

[12:10] Latina name.

[12:11] But also, he's very interested in this telenovela that he's watching later on.

Jamelle Bouie

[12:18] No, I didn't even catch that.

[12:19] And I sincerely hope that's intentional.

[12:21] I hope that the writers are like, some of the freaks who watch this movie are really

[12:25] going to want to see Shadow.

[12:26] Yeah, me.

Elliott Kalan

[12:28] But then there's no excuse for no one to be pregnant by the end of the movie.

[12:31] That's true.

[12:31] Yes, no excuse.

[12:32] Well, the viewers are pregnant.

[12:34] Yeah, well, with excitement.

[12:36] Jamel, as our Hedgehog correspondent, tell us, what's your experience with Shadow?

[12:40] How familiar were you with him before this movie?

[12:42] That kind of thing.

[12:42] What do you know about him?

Jamelle Bouie

[12:43] So, you know, Shadow's introduced in Sonic Adventure 2, which was the last Sonic game released

[12:48] for Dreamcast and the last Sonic game to release for a Sega console.

[12:52] And so I did play Sonic Adventure 2 way back when.

[12:55] And so I am familiar with Shadow from that.

[12:57] But otherwise, my Shadow kind of knowledge just comes from memes at this point.

[13:04] Memes about Shadow liking big booty Latinas.

[13:11] Memes about Shadow maybe, you know, saying racial slurs.

[13:17] Oh, no.

[13:18] I'm glad they didn't do that in the movie.

[13:19] Because Shadow, he's not evil, but he's an anti-hero, right?

[13:24] Oh, I see.

[13:25] So he'll go right up to the line.

Stuart Wellington

[13:30] He's always testing boundaries.

[13:32] That's our Shadow.

[13:32] Yeah.

[13:33] I'm really glad that Jamel's here to back me up on the memeification of Shadow.

[13:38] Oh, yeah.

[13:38] Because I feel like I would bring that up and Dan Nelly would look at me like I'm crazy.

Elliott Kalan

[13:42] Well, literally, Dan.

[13:42] So Dan texted us yesterday.

[13:44] He texted me and Stuart a picture that he had made of the Master of Disguise from the movie

[13:48] Master of Disguise.

[13:49] And he was supposed to be Riddick from the Riddick movies.

[13:53] And I was so baffled, I was like, is this a reference to something I don't understand?

[13:57] Like, is Dan playing off a meme that exists already?

[14:00] No.

[14:01] And I had to call Dan and leave a message being like, what is this?

Stuart Wellington

[14:03] What am I missing?

[14:05] Do I have a stroke and forget something in my pen?

Dan McCoy

[14:08] You know, I was thinking about Riddick.

[14:09] I was blue-skying about Riddick.

[14:12] And Master of Disguise, you know, came into my head because we just did that show in San

[14:17] Francisco.

[14:17] And I'm like, you know what?

[14:19] You just darken in those glasses.

[14:21] It looks like he's doing a Riddick cosplay.

[14:23] He's a real Furion.

[14:24] That was the whole inspiration behind it.

Elliott Kalan

[14:26] I think it shows you how the internet has distorted our brains that I was like, what is the 10

[14:32] levels of memes in that this is referring to?

[14:34] Like, the way that if I see an image of the green M&M holding hands with a green M&M who

[14:38] is Dr. Phil, I'm like, I get it.

[14:40] Yeah, I know what that's all about.

[14:41] And like, Shrek is giving them their marriage vows.

[14:43] I'm like, I understand what this is saying.

[14:45] But with this one, I was like, I don't know what it is.

[14:47] I got to dig back.

[14:48] So I was very happy when Dan was just like, no, it's just random.

[14:50] I was like, oh, thank goodness.

[14:52] This is not my whole day now.

Stuart Wellington

[14:53] Do you guys ever find yourselves, we all have partners in our lives.

[14:57] Do you ever find yourself trying to explain something like this to your partner and realizing pretty

[15:04] quickly that you can't, but you can't back out and you're like, okay, so this started from

[15:10] when this meme happened.

[15:12] And that's why it's a green M&M in this case.

Elliott Kalan

[15:15] Stuart, you are describing my life since childhood.

[15:19] And I have a very strong memory of being at The Daily Show when I was a PA and for some

[15:22] reason starting to explain to two people there the history of the different stop motion animators

[15:27] from Willis O'Brien through Ray Harryhausen up to Phil Tippett.

[15:30] And as I was telling them about it in my head being like, you can see from their faces, they

[15:33] don't care about this.

[15:34] Why are you telling them about this?

[15:36] Why are you explaining this thing to them?

[15:37] You know?

Dan McCoy

[15:38] I feel like a lot of this has been trained out of me because yeah, I've said so many things

[15:42] to Audrey that like partway through, like I realized, you know, mostly based on her

[15:48] reaction that there's no conceivable way that she could be interested in this.

[15:51] And she's not afraid of being like, I'm not paying attention.

[15:54] And so I'm like, okay, I've learned not to do this particular thing.

Stuart Wellington

[15:58] It's probably really helpful.

[16:00] So now that we've established, we have hit the opening title credit of Sonic 3.

[16:06] Shadow is loose.

[16:07] We know this.

[16:09] So we now cut to Green Hills.

[16:11] What is it?

[16:11] Green Hills, Montana, where the Sonic family, that's right.

[16:16] We have Sonic, Knuckles, Tails, Tom, and Matty Wachowski.

[16:21] They all live in Green Hills.

[16:23] And the three, what, aliens, I guess we'll call them, are going to have a race, even though

[16:29] it seems silly because Sonic is obviously the fastest.

[16:31] They have a race.

[16:31] But it's all just a smokescreen because the whole family is throwing Sonic a be-Earth day

[16:37] or a birthday to represent the anniversary of him coming to Earth.

Dan McCoy

[16:41] Now, Sonic's the fastest.

[16:43] So I don't, you know, all these new characters got introduced in the games past when I was

[16:48] playing the games.

[16:49] You know, I'm basically just a Sonic one person.

Elliott Kalan

[16:53] Like-

[16:53] One man, one Sonic.

[16:54] That's what you believe.

[16:55] Anything else is unholy, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[16:56] Mm-hmm.

[16:57] So fast here, like the other characters like have power, like Knuckles is strong and that's

[17:03] his thing.

[17:03] And then Tails-

[17:04] He sure talks about it a lot, yeah.

[17:05] Can fly because of the tails.

[17:07] Are those the-

[17:08] Yeah, like Propeller.

[17:08] Yeah, pretty much, yeah.

Jamelle Bouie

[17:10] Knuckles can also climb walls with his Knuckles.

Elliott Kalan

[17:14] Oh, right.

[17:14] He has like those spiky knuckles he can climb with.

[17:16] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[17:17] Mm-hmm.

[17:18] So this, you know, during this party, Sonic and his adoptive father, Tom, sneak away to

[17:24] Sonic's weird little cave, which remind me a lot of the little cave from Together, our-

[17:30] Oh, yeah.

[17:30] Friend of the podcast, Michael Shanks movie.

[17:32] And they talk about Sonic's, what, adopt- former adoptive mother figure, Longclaw, which

[17:39] again is not a Valyrian steel blade, but it is an owl character who-

[17:43] Yes.

[17:44] Sacrificed herself to save Sonic.

[17:47] Way back in a flashback in Sonic 1.

[17:49] Yeah.

[17:49] This trauma is going to inform a lot of the bond that Sonic will eventually develop with

[17:54] Shadow.

Elliott Kalan

[17:55] Well, Sonic the Hedgehog 3 is about loss and about overcoming loss and making life choices.

[18:01] And it's telling that story through very cartoonish talking hedgehogs that never quite look like

[18:06] they actually exist in the real world of the movie.

[18:09] And I had a constant- there would be a scene where it was mostly live action humans.

[18:14] And then suddenly one of our characters, Sonic characters would show up.

[18:17] And it was- I don't know if you guys had this.

[18:18] It was always a little jolt to me because they never quite mesh.

[18:22] And I hate to say it, that original Sonic design where he had human teeth and looked real

[18:25] creepy.

[18:26] I don't think I would have had that same problem.

[18:29] Because of the human teeth?

[18:31] I mean, partly the human teeth.

[18:32] But also he had smaller like eyes, more human-like eyes.

[18:35] I mean, that original Sonic design, he did look grotesque.

Stuart Wellington

[18:37] But it looked more real.

[18:39] It's like, this is what Sonic would look like.

[18:41] His little fleshy eye sockets have bloodshot orbs in them from straining against the wind.

[18:48] Exactly.

Dan McCoy

[18:49] Forgive me for continuing to play the part, which is also real, of guy who doesn't know

[18:55] the games, really.

[18:56] Like, as they progress, do they get into more like actual storylines?

[19:01] Like, to what degree do these movies like really pull from games?

[19:07] Because, you know, as someone who only played Go Fast, Get Rings version, I'm like, why does

[19:14] this movie have to have so much plot?

[19:17] It's got so much plot.

Stuart Wellington

[19:20] Well, I feel like some of the later games were probably directed by Hideo Kojima of the

[19:24] Metal Gear Solid Rage.

[19:26] Yeah.

[19:28] Which are, let's say, plot heavy, I would describe them.

[19:31] But I actually don't know.

[19:33] I also wonder, are they filled with like quick time event battle sequences?

[19:36] I don't remember.

Elliott Kalan

[19:37] I don't think so.

[19:38] And also, I wonder if they're pulling it all, because I never read these, if they're pulling

[19:41] it all from the Sonic comics, which did get very, there was one writer who stayed on the

[19:45] Sonic Hedgehog comics from Archie, I think, for a long time.

[19:48] That's awesome.

[19:48] And when that happens, the characters start to become headier.

[19:50] And I know at some point, either Sonic or Knuckles, one of them kind of becomes a universe,

[19:54] like kind of sacrifices himself to become a living universe or something.

[19:57] And it's all, those get very, those get very heady.

[20:00] So anyway, Jamal, again, as our hedgehog correspondent, can you tell us where's this story coming from?

[20:07] Or is it just Hollywood screenwriters being like, how do we make another movie out of this?

[20:11] I guess we'll make it like a techno thriller, you know?

Jamelle Bouie

[20:14] Well, I think some of this is coming from Sonic Adventure 2, where Shadow is introduced.

[20:20] I believe that in that game, let's see, I'm going to look it up real quick.

[20:26] This game has a plot.

[20:28] And in the plot of this game, Dr. Eggman learns of a secret weapon from the diary of his deceased

[20:36] grandfather, Professor Gerald Marnick, and infiltrates a high security guardian units of the nation

[20:42] facility to revive the Chaos Emerald.

[20:44] The weapon, Shadow, a black hedgehog who proclaims himself the ultimate life form, offers to help

[20:50] Eggman conquer the world, telling him to rendezvous in an abandoned space colony with more Chaos

[20:54] Emeralds.

[20:55] Shadow has vowed to fulfill a promise he made to his friend, Eggman's cousin Maria, before she died.

[21:02] So yeah, actually quite a bit of this just comes from Sonic Adventure 2, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[21:07] This is actually, I mean, I kind of don't even have to do the rest of the summary.

Elliott Kalan

[21:12] Now I wish the movie was called Sonic the Hedgehog 3 colon Sonic Adventures 2.

[21:16] Yeah.

[21:17] It draws so much from that game.

Stuart Wellington

[21:19] Okay, so as, what is it, Guardian United Network?

[21:22] What's the acronym for GUN?

[21:25] What does that GUN stand for?

[21:26] Guardians of the United Nations?

[21:28] Yeah, something like that.

[21:29] So this is the high-tech organization that kind of, that is common throughout this movie

[21:34] and the previous ones.

[21:35] It's their version of S.H.I.E.L.D.

[21:37] So they show up led by Captain Rockwell, Commander Rockwell, played by Kristen Ritter.

[21:43] And they need Team Sonic to help them with an alien life form that they need help with.

[21:50] And of course, Sonic, Knuckles and Tails eagerly agree, and they all take a jet to Tokyo.

Elliott Kalan

[21:56] And this was something where I was like, I don't know if I love this turn of events,

[22:00] them being kind of like heroes that the multinational force can turn to in times of crisis.

[22:06] It feels like it has given them an authority and also like a-

[22:10] And they're also children.

[22:12] They are children.

[22:13] They are animal children.

[22:14] So it seems very strange for them to be like, yeah, there's nothing we can do.

[22:17] We need to send the animal children in to take care of this.

[22:19] And I always thought they were going to be betrayed because I thought they were making the mistake of trusting the bee in apartment 23,

[22:24] whatever it was, but don't do that.

Dan McCoy

[22:26] R.I.P., man.

[22:27] They should swing hard the other way and always call in Sonic, no matter what the problem is.

[22:34] This is inspired by, I was watching the old Batman series and re-watching all of it.

[22:40] Batman the animated series?

[22:41] The 60s one.

[22:43] Oh, I see.

[22:44] And the funniest thing to me in those, like, I mean, it's clearly a joke, but like every episode,

[22:50] the degree in which Commissioner Gordon's like, well, we can't do anything as the police.

[22:53] Where's Batman?

[22:56] They're like, oh, man, if Batman ever left town, we'd be screwed.

[23:00] Like it really gets to that level of like-

Elliott Kalan

[23:01] The idea that an incompetent leader would call in a masked answer list to the public force to take care of,

[23:09] to enforce laws that maybe shouldn't be enforced in that way.

[23:13] It seems laughable, Dan.

[23:15] Is that what you're saying?

[23:16] Wake up.

[23:17] Wake up.

[23:19] Anyway, it is true.

[23:20] They're like, Batman, a pencil rolled behind that table.

[23:22] Can you get that for us?

[23:23] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[23:24] Is there an episode where Batman, like Alfred makes Batman go on a vacation and he puts like a bathing costume over his Batman suit.

[23:34] And then meanwhile, crime just goes crazy in Gotham.

[23:37] There should have been.

Dan McCoy

[23:38] I mean, there's definitely one where he was out of town and like the police chief was like, I don't know what to do.

Jamelle Bouie

[23:43] Yeah, you have Batman being out of town.

[23:45] It's very funny to me.

[23:46] Yeah, Batman has to take a business trip.

[23:48] Batman's on the flight.

[23:49] He's, again, bad suit on, but he has like, I don't know, some comfortable slacks on as well.

[23:55] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[23:56] I mean, these days it would just be sweatpants.

[23:59] Well, he's, but they'd be real fancy sweatpants.

[24:02] Wait a minute.

[24:02] You wear a sweat suit whenever we fly anywhere.

[24:04] I do wear a track suit when I fly.

[24:06] But it's a fancy one in case I hopefully will get an upgrade.

Elliott Kalan

[24:09] Now I imagine Bruce Wayne is going to Davos and he's got the cowl and the cape on,

[24:13] but then he's got like a half zip fleece with a blue button up shirt underneath and, you know, khaki pants.

[24:19] And he's walking around with a headset mic on and he's like, synergy, global reach.

[24:24] How do we accomplish these things at Wayne Enterprises?

[24:26] And they're like, are you Batman?

[24:28] No, I'm not, but thank you for asking.

Stuart Wellington

[24:31] This guy's a little wheelie bag.

[24:33] Okay, so we got, we are in Tokyo.

[24:37] The Team Sonic jump out of the jet and they land.

Elliott Kalan

[24:41] How many, how many, how many Japanese characters are in this movie?

Stuart Wellington

[24:45] Ooh, that's a good point.

Jamelle Bouie

[24:47] Why would there be Japanese people?

[24:49] What?

Elliott Kalan

[24:50] Tokyo.

[24:50] Just because they're in Tokyo, I guess.

[24:52] I just, you're right.

[24:53] That's silly of me.

Stuart Wellington

[24:53] So while they land in Tokyo, it's a scene of destruction.

[24:56] And then they are greeted by Shadow the Hedgehog.

[25:00] They threaten each other.

[25:01] They get in a fight.

[25:02] Knuckles is not as strong as Shadow.

[25:04] Sonic is not as fast as Shadow.

[25:06] Shadow also has guns.

[25:08] He has fucking guns.

[25:11] Yeah.

[25:13] He's also voiced by Keanu Reeves.

[25:15] And he rides around.

Elliott Kalan

[25:16] Did you guys, did you guys have to do what I do?

[25:18] Which was keep checking, like Keanu Reeves does this voice, right?

[25:21] And then checking because it did not sound like him to me.

Dan McCoy

[25:23] Oh, no, I had the opposite.

[25:25] I'm like, I did, I so know this voice.

[25:27] Who is it?

[25:28] And I looked up and I'm like, oh, of course, of course it's him.

Elliott Kalan

[25:30] I knew going in that Keanu Reeves did Shadow.

[25:32] And I kept thinking, this doesn't really sound like him.

[25:33] And it made me realize, I think Keanu Reeves' major skills as an actor are his face and body.

[25:38] And not as much his voice.

[25:40] And so maybe that was, I found Shadow, they're not giving him much of a character to play.

[25:43] He looks kind of like Keanu Reeves.

[25:45] I guess that's true, too.

[25:46] I found Shadow to be a sort of flat character, if you will.

Dan McCoy

[25:49] No, that's true.

[25:49] I mean, I like Keanu's sort of spacey cadences and everything.

[25:54] But he is like an amazing physical actor.

[25:57] Yeah.

Jamelle Bouie

[25:58] Keanu has like a distinctive villain voice.

[26:02] And it's like much flatter.

[26:04] Like, have you ever seen The Man of Tai Chi, where he plays?

[26:07] I haven't seen it, no.

[26:08] It's his only, I think the only movie he directed.

[26:10] It's like a actually totally solid martial arts film.

[26:13] But he is the villain.

[26:14] And he sounds exactly like that in the movie as well.

[26:17] Kind of like very, very flat and monotone.

Elliott Kalan

[26:21] Because it sounds like, especially in all the scenes where he's up against Jim Carrey,

[26:24] where Jim Carrey is like, well, we're going to do this, Shadow.

[26:27] I mean, he does a more Jim Carrey at some point.

Stuart Wellington

[26:31] But I will say, that man did not phone it in.

[26:33] No.

Elliott Kalan

[26:35] The greatest reason for me, for them to keep making these movies,

[26:39] is that it gives me, I think we talked about this the last time we did a song movie.

[26:42] It gives me the opportunity to see circa 1994 level Jim Carrey in a movie.

[26:46] Where I'm like, he's going for broke being silly.

[26:49] Like, I do really enjoy that.

Dan McCoy

[26:52] I was going to say, like, Keanu does a voice in Toy Story 4, right?

[26:57] Does he?

[26:58] Yeah, Duke Caboom.

[27:00] That's him.

[27:00] But there I feel like he has a little bit more.

[27:02] Well, that's what I'm saying.

[27:03] He has more energy in that.

[27:04] So I think he is capable of giving a bigger voice performance and just didn't this time.

Elliott Kalan

[27:09] I thought playing a character who's literally a shadow,

[27:13] I should fall back into the background.

[27:15] Almost hidden the way a shadow is.

[27:16] Well, he's not literally a shadow, Keanu.

[27:18] He's just called Shadow.

[27:19] He's a living shadow.

[27:20] He doesn't exist unless the light is shining on another.

[27:23] You don't even notice him sometimes.

[27:25] No, he's front and center.

[27:26] He's not actually a shadow.

Stuart Wellington

[27:27] He's just called that.

[27:28] Without the light of Sonic, he wouldn't exist.

[27:32] He needs, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[27:33] Yeah, he's the dark reflection, you know, in the mirror of life of Sonic.

[27:39] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[27:40] So we have a chase through the streets of Tokyo, shadow on his motorcycle, which he doesn't even need because he's just as fast as Sonic.

Elliott Kalan

[27:46] No, but it means he can do a kind of not quite.

[27:48] He does an Akira bike slide.

[27:49] He does an Akira bike slide, yeah, which is not as good as the one in Nope.

[27:52] I'll just say that right off the bat.

[27:53] Yeah.

[27:54] That was the – I think I would call that one in Nope the second best Akira bike slide after the original Akira bike slide, which is the best, of course.

[28:01] Yeah.

[28:01] And don't call and correct me.

[28:03] I know it's not Akira who does the bike slide.

[28:05] It's just in the movie Akira.

[28:06] It's Kaneda who does the bike slide.

[28:07] We all know that.

[28:07] It would be crazy if Akira –

Dan McCoy

[28:09] He's a little kid in jars.

[28:09] It would be crazy if someone called and corrected you.

[28:11] How did they get your phone number?

Elliott Kalan

[28:13] Oh, you have – my phone number is public knowledge, you know.

[28:16] I put – in New York and L.A., I have billboards up that just go, don't like something I said on the podcast?

[28:21] Call me.

Dan McCoy

[28:22] People are driving by.

[28:23] Is that like an entertainment thing?

[28:24] I don't understand what that's advertising.

Elliott Kalan

[28:26] Yeah.

[28:27] They don't know.

[28:27] It costs a lot of money on my part.

[28:29] It's a huge drain, yeah.

[28:30] My children will not go to college.

[28:32] I want to make sure people know how to get in touch with me, you know?

Stuart Wellington

[28:34] Team Sonic needs to regroup.

[28:37] So they head to a mascot cafe and they hang out and then they meet with Commander Walters, who was in the previous movies, I think, which is just kind of funny to be in this mascot cafe.

[28:49] And then this like old man in a general's costume shows up and is talking to them.

[28:54] He explains a little bit about Shadow, that he was part of this top secret – he was part of this top secret experience.

[29:00] And there was an accident and some people died and the scientist in charge of the experiment was put in jail for life and Shadow was put on ice for 50 years.

[29:11] Then a bunch of egg bots show up and blast the commander and then they are deactivated by a mysterious person also on a motorcycle.

[29:20] This comes as a shock to Sonic who says,

[29:22] Kanichiwa?

[29:24] And I'm like, that's kind of fucked up.

Elliott Kalan

[29:26] I was referring to telling somebody else recently that we were doing this movie this weekend.

[29:30] He was like, I don't think I saw that one.

[29:32] Wait, is that the one where he says, Kanichiwa?

[29:34] And I go, it is.

[29:35] He goes, oh, then I did see it.

[29:37] So that was the defining memory of this movie for this other person that I know.

[29:40] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[29:41] I want to take that moment to say something about like – or say that we should –

[29:46] Go for it.

Dan McCoy

[29:46] It's your podcast, man.

[29:47] Thank you.

[29:49] Well, I'm also stalling to look up –

[29:50] But like –

Elliott Kalan

[29:51] Okay, now Jamel, interrupt him.

[29:53] This is what he lives for.

[29:54] He likes being edged this way.

[29:55] He can never say what he wants to say.

Dan McCoy

[29:57] Yeah, that's what listeners don't understand.

[29:59] This is for my benefit.

Jamelle Bouie

[30:02] No, he's like –

[30:03] I want to note that right when he said my benefit, he stroked his goatee.

Elliott Kalan

[30:09] Dan's practically leaking over here when you interrupt him.

[30:12] That's what you call a conversation cuck.

[30:14] He really loves to be cut off in a conversation.

[30:16] Oh, no.

[30:17] Oh, God.

[30:18] The best thing you can do is he sits in a corner and tries to get a word in with his wife and you keep interrupting him and he's like, oh, I love it.

[30:24] This is exactly what I need.

[30:26] This gets me going.

[30:27] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[30:28] That was kind of my sketch fest experience.

[30:31] Like Audrey and Elliot were talking to each other and they're much more talkative types than me.

[30:35] So whenever I want to say something, I'm like, okay, when – can I get in there?

[30:41] No, the comedy in this movie.

[30:43] Oh, sure.

[30:44] It's bad.

[30:46] I would say these are – I would say with the exception of Jim Carrey again because there are times when Jim Carrey will just do a movement that I find funny.

Elliott Kalan

[30:55] The written jokes in this are fairly – and again, this is like a – if it was just a kid's movie, I'd be like, whatever.

[31:01] Like they can be dumb wordplay and stuff.

[31:03] But there's so much exploding in this movie and there is a dead child in a flashback.

[31:08] So I'm like it's not really like a full-on kid's movie.

[31:10] So there's a lot of bad one-liners and things like that, bad jokes and I don't know.

[31:15] I agree with you.

[31:16] I think it's not successful as a comedy.

Dan McCoy

[31:19] And I think – I've thought that Ben Schwartz is funny and plenty of other stuff and I don't – he's giving an energetic –

Elliott Kalan

[31:27] I think he gives a good voice performance.

Dan McCoy

[31:29] But the material just isn't there.

Elliott Kalan

[31:32] I don't know that anyone in the movie really is phony.

[31:34] I feel that the comedy all-stars in this one for me are Jim Carrey and Idris Elba.

[31:38] And Idris Elba's character basically has the same one-note joke of talking about how strong he is and like phrasing things in a way that is not quite right.

[31:48] A barbarian voice.

[31:49] Like a barbarian guy.

[31:50] Those are such easy – I mean he's one step away from like I demand more of these fingers of chicken.

[31:56] It's that kind of stuff and he does it fine.

[31:59] I will say there were –

Stuart Wellington

[32:00] That's Elliot like soft-pitching himself to be on the writing team for Sonic 4.

Elliott Kalan

[32:06] Give me that job.

[32:07] I'll take it.

[32:07] I didn't like these movies.

[32:08] I'll take it.

[32:08] Sure.

[32:09] There were definitely times where the movie forgot about the main plot and just did goofy things.

[32:15] And I was like, oh, well, I like this.

[32:16] I like this one.

[32:17] It's just silly.

[32:18] But anytime there's like a one-liner that's like in the middle of an action scene, it's like, okay, well, this is not – you're not playing to your strengths right now.

Jamelle Bouie

[32:25] I mean I think this is maybe just inherent with – I understand.

[32:30] They got to bring in Shadow the Hedgehog.

[32:32] I mean he is kind of like one of the most popular characters in the franchise.

[32:36] It would be – it's the same deal with Spider-Man 3 and you have to have Venom.

[32:41] Like there's not really –

[32:42] As much as Sam Raimi fought tooth and nail to not have Venom in the movie.

[32:45] It's true.

[32:46] It's true.

Jamelle Bouie

[32:46] It's true that you kind of can't avoid it.

[32:48] But for a ostensible kids movie, Shadow, who has a – by design, tragic backstory and whose whole vibe is like this is a darker and gritty Sonic, it just like tonally doesn't work for the kind of movies that these are.

[33:07] Like if you have Shadow, you have to find some way to make him gritty without the dead kid.

[33:12] Like if you have Shadow and the dead kid, then like silly one-liners just don't fit anymore.

[33:20] Yeah.

[33:21] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[33:22] No, it feels like in a more reasonable time, some studio had to be like, okay, the note is can you take the dead kid out of here?

Elliott Kalan

[33:30] What if it was just that Shadow got blamed for something he didn't do but it didn't involve the killing of a child?

[33:36] Could that be part of it?

Stuart Wellington

[33:37] Because the thing is they learn – Sonic learns that Shadow is driven by this, the loss of this dead child.

[33:45] He learns this I feel like pretty early on and he's still like cracking jokes and I feel like there would be a moment where he would be like making a joke and realize, oh, wait a minute.

[33:53] I'm sorry.

[33:53] That's crossed the line.

Elliott Kalan

[33:54] Dr. Robotnik's grandfather, who we'll see later, is also driven by the death of this child.

[33:59] Yes.

[33:59] You think that it's just ego.

[34:00] Oh, he's just one of these standard villains.

[34:02] But then he's like they took my granddaughter away from me and now I'm going to take everything away from them.

[34:07] And like he's just wisecracking all through the movie and maybe that's his grieving.

[34:11] I mean if he was – at one point he was like this is how I grieve.

[34:13] I have to find a way to get through the day.

[34:15] I mean it's –

Jamelle Bouie

[34:16] It's okay, Robotnik.

[34:16] That's okay.

[34:17] I understand that.

[34:17] Kind of an Erica Kirk approach to it but that's –

[34:19] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[34:22] Erica Kirk's approach is like this is how I grieve is by trying to wring as much money out of my husband's dead as possible.

Jamelle Bouie

[34:29] I put on a show.

[34:31] It is actually funny to think about how this – how like a studio would have approached this material in the 90s because they would have just been like, okay, we can have Shadow.

[34:39] The kids want Shadow but like the Shadow we put on screen doesn't have to have any relationship whatsoever to the Shadow in the game.

[34:47] And it's sort of like it's the triumph of nerds and nerd IP that that's just not a viable thing anymore.

[34:55] People would lose their minds if you had Shadow but Shadow was like functionally a different character than he is in the games.

[35:02] If they did that, there would be another January 6th.

Elliott Kalan

[35:06] Probably, probably, yeah.

[35:08] But it's something that when I was young and I was – and I would see a superhero movie when they rarely made them.

[35:14] Like you're saying, they would just take the name and maybe the costume and throw everything else out, like those Captain America movies they made years ago, like in the 80s.

[35:21] I was – I'd be like, ugh, ugh.

[35:23] But now I kind of miss that.

[35:24] I kind of miss the era when Golan Globus could buy the Spider-Man license and not know what the character was and assume he's a man who turns into a spider like a wolf man and be like, this is our movie.

[35:34] He's a man turning into a spider.

[35:36] Like I wish that we – in a way that we still lived in a world where – or at least a world where it was understood what things are worth fidelity and what things are not worth fidelity.

[35:45] That like if you're – this is me being a snob I guess.

[35:47] But like if you are making an adaptation of Wuthering Heights, you know, just to pull a random thing out.

Stuart Wellington

[35:54] Completely unrelated to current pop culture conversations.

[35:56] Unrelated in every way.

Elliott Kalan

[35:57] Yeah, that you kind of understand what things need to be in there for it to be an actual adaptation of this story and what things you can mess with.

[36:05] And to know that Wuthering Heights is on a different level, the novel Wuthering Heights, than Sonic Adventure 2, which no offense to the people who made that game.

[36:13] I'm sure they put a lot of great work into it and a lot of imagination.

[36:15] But like you don't need to give Shadow the same fidelity that you would give to like a character making –

[36:20] Are you doing more?

[36:22] Actually, you know what?

[36:23] It is kind of morbidity.

[36:24] On the other hand, you know what?

[36:25] But that's – you know what?

[36:26] On the other hand, maybe I'm wrong because like the same way that like anytime there's something – I remember when the Romeo and Juliet with Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes came out and people were like, look what he's done to Romeo and Juliet.

[36:35] And it's like –

[36:36] Romeo plus Juliet.

[36:37] Sorry, Romeo plus Juliet equals this movie.

[36:41] But it's like – maybe it's the opposite.

[36:44] It's that there will be so many more adaptations of Romeo and Juliet.

[36:47] That is an eternal, immortal story.

[36:48] So why not mess around with it?

[36:50] Whereas I don't know how many more Sonic the Hedgehog franchises there will be like 30 years, 40 years from now.

[36:55] Are they going to be making a new Sonic the Hedgehog movie?

[36:57] Maybe not.

[36:57] So maybe I'm wrong.

[36:58] Maybe they do have to do a fidelity because this is one shot and it's not thrown away that shot just like in Dan's favorite musical.

Dan McCoy

[37:04] I'm not sure whether this is part of your point or not.

[37:10] I think my toy turned around.

[37:12] I think I'm not arguing the opposite point.

[37:13] Because I couldn't follow all of it, I'll be honest.

[37:15] But it's my understanding that the new Wuthering Heights movie, which I know that you're pulling out as an example, is very not faithful to the book.

Elliott Kalan

[37:22] No, that's what I'm saying.

[37:23] There was a time when it was considered like, well, this is literature.

[37:26] We want to be at least a certain amount faithful to it.

[37:28] And this is crap.

[37:29] This is junk culture.

[37:29] You've got to have Tom Bombadil in it.

[37:32] Exactly.

[37:32] I mean if Tom Bombadil is in Wuthering Heights, their problems would be solved.

Stuart Wellington

[37:35] I feel like it would complicate things because that's just another hottie in the mix.

Elliott Kalan

[37:41] That's right.

[37:42] Sorry, Heathcliff.

[37:43] I'm going with the bomb.

[37:43] And you know you've got to show his dong.

[37:46] You have to.

[37:47] Is that Lord of the Rings canon that Tom Bombadil has an amazing dong?

[37:51] Always hanging dong, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[37:52] There's a way Heathcliff did terrorize the neighborhood.

Elliott Kalan

[37:56] He did very much terrorize the neighborhood.

[37:58] I mean that's the other thing is as a kid I always thought that I'd hear Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights and I assumed it was the cat.

[38:03] Is there – when they're arguing, now I wish it was canon that Tom Bombadil had a huge penis.

[38:08] They could be like, why don't we just give the ring to Tom Bombadil?

[38:10] Oh, he'd just lose it.

[38:11] Not if he puts it around his enormous penis.

[38:13] It wouldn't even fit.

[38:14] It wouldn't even fit.

Stuart Wellington

[38:16] Wouldn't even fit.

[38:17] So, yeah, we're still about ten minutes into the movie.

[38:21] Wow.

[38:21] Okay, sorry.

[38:21] I'm just joking.

[38:23] So the mysterious biker who shows up who deactivates all the egg bots.

[38:28] It's everyone's favorite character, Agent Stone, Dr. Robotnik's right-hand man.

[38:33] His Smithers.

[38:34] Yep.

[38:35] They uncover the dying body of Commander Walters who hands them this key card.

[38:42] And he says that it's very important for them to hold onto it so they take it.

[38:45] I was distracted the whole time because that key card does look exactly like the back of a card for the game Android Netrunner.

[38:51] And I was like, man, I want to play more Netrunner.

[38:54] Okay.

[38:55] So Stone takes—

Elliott Kalan

[38:56] Stuart, you are not allowed to complain about us stopping you from getting further into the summary.

Stuart Wellington

[39:01] If that's the kind of important points that you're going to make.

[39:07] Oh, I didn't realize I was being edited by Elliot today.

[39:10] But that's fine.

[39:11] That's fair.

[39:12] Okay, I'll take it.

[39:13] I'll take your note.

[39:14] I'll move forward and only talk more about the different factions of the game Netrunner.

Elliott Kalan

[39:19] I'm not saying I don't want you to talk about Netrunner.

[39:21] I'm just saying don't say, oh, we're only ten minutes in.

[39:24] I want it all.

[39:25] I want it all.

[39:25] Yeah.

[39:25] Okay.

[39:26] I'm a maximalist on this show.

Stuart Wellington

[39:27] Yeah, when we talk about high-tech hackers, you know, you can't get more high-tech than the various hackers and runners in the game Netrunner.

[39:34] So Agent Stone takes the Team Sonic to see Dr. Robotnik who is living in a giant robot crab and he has let himself go using the movie shorthand of a fat suit.

[39:47] Not a fan.

Elliott Kalan

[39:48] His hair is crazy.

[39:48] He's just sitting around watching TV and he is wearing a fat suit.

[39:51] Yeah, that's shorthand for lost interest in life.

Dan McCoy

[39:54] He does seem to be extremely jolly about having put on the weight, though.

[39:58] Like, he doesn't seem to have a problem with it.

Stuart Wellington

[40:00] No, I mean, he just plays it like a drum.

[40:02] Yeah.

[40:03] You know, he's upset with society judging him.

[40:06] But in the moment, he's just, you know.

[40:09] Living his life.

[40:10] And they decide, they realize that somebody else is controlling these egg bots and they decide to team up.

[40:16] I guess Stone thinks that this might shake Robotnik out of his funk.

[40:20] So he shaves his head, they put him in a new suit, and they team up and start tracking those egg bots.

[40:26] Meanwhile.

[40:27] Guys, I just remembered there was a Knuckles TV show.

[40:30] Yeah.

[40:31] Yeah.

[40:31] You guys didn't watch it?

[40:32] Like Paramount Plus or something?

[40:34] I did not watch it and I forgot it existed.

[40:36] I believe I even suggested we do an episode where we watch it and get Jamel back.

[40:41] I guess maybe we might have to do that.

Elliott Kalan

[40:43] The problem is Knuckles is not a hedgehog, of course, but an echidna, right?

[40:47] He's an echidna.

[40:48] So I don't know if that would fall under Jamel's purview, but we'd be happy to have him, you know, in a non-official capacity.

[40:53] Paramount Plus.

Stuart Wellington

[40:53] I mean, I feel like a lot of it would be watching it hoping Sonic would show up, just like most kids.

[40:59] For sure, yeah.

[41:00] Because it is just like, it's Knuckles and Adam Pally hanging out the whole time, right?

[41:04] Yes, I think so.

Elliott Kalan

[41:05] It would be like when that S.H.I.E.L.D. TV show started and they're like, there might be a special guest from the MCU who stops by and it turned out to be Colby Smulders.

[41:13] And it's like, oh, okay.

[41:14] Well, we thought it was going to be like a superhero, but sure.

[41:19] Colby Smulders is great.

Jamelle Bouie

[41:20] Don't get me wrong.

[41:21] No, it's just great.

Elliott Kalan

[41:21] It was just like, I felt like it was not inconceivable to see her on the episode of a television show as opposed to if like Samuel L. Jackson stopped by and be like, whoa, that's a big get.

Dan McCoy

[41:30] I just want to share from Wikipedia.

[41:32] Over its premiere weekend, Knuckles became the most watched original series on Paramount+.

[41:37] So, there you go.

Jamelle Bouie

[41:39] That doesn't feel like a very high bar to me.

[41:42] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[41:44] I think they got those Star Trek shows.

[41:45] I feel like that's the main reason anyone has Paramount+, is they're a Trekkie and they're like, it's the only way.

Elliott Kalan

[41:51] Ink Master Legends or whatever.

[41:53] Isn't Paramount Plus also where dads watch modern day westerns?

[41:57] Could be.

[41:58] Oh, yeah.

[41:58] That's a big deal.

[41:59] Isn't that like Yellowstone and Landsman?

[42:00] I don't know.

Dan McCoy

[42:01] We got rid of it circa Colbert.

Elliott Kalan

[42:04] Oh, yeah.

[42:04] I never had it.

[42:05] That was Paramount Plus was one step too far.

[42:07] I was like, no, not even going to.

[42:08] I had it.

[42:09] Well, we would rotate, but yeah.

Jamelle Bouie

[42:11] I had it so my kids could watch Paw Patrol.

[42:13] Yeah.

[42:14] And then I realized you could buy Paw Patrol DVDs for $5 on Amazon.

[42:18] So then I.

[42:20] I'll give my money to a different evil corporation.

[42:23] Thank you very much.

Stuart Wellington

[42:24] You guys are both dads.

[42:25] I figured you guys would want to watch Yellowstone to be able to talk to the other dads when you're hanging out with dads.

[42:30] We're not yet old enough for that.

Elliott Kalan

[42:32] I feel like I'm not.

[42:33] I'm approaching.

Dan McCoy

[42:34] You're in Reacher territory.

Elliott Kalan

[42:35] Yes.

[42:35] I'm in Reacher territory, approaching Bosch territory.

[42:38] And then in about 15 years, I think I'll be in Yellowstone territory.

Dan McCoy

[42:42] Guys, I was excited to see there was a second season of Owl's Cross.

[42:46] Whoa.

[42:47] I might actually watch that.

Jamelle Bouie

[42:49] That actually seems much more out of my alley.

[42:50] As an African-American dad, I think I might watch Owl's Cross.

Elliott Kalan

[42:57] Okay.

[42:58] What is it about Yellowstone that you wouldn't feel represented by?

Stuart Wellington

[43:01] I don't understand.

[43:03] Okay.

[43:04] So meanwhile, Shadow returns to the ruins of the abandoned base that he had been held at.

[43:10] He goes down a trip through memory lane where we get to see all of his origin story of him and Maria

[43:18] and how this little girl bonded with him even though he came to Earth in a meteor

[43:23] and the government was basically using him to test to try and use his chaos energy as a form of either a weapon or some form of energy.

[43:33] But they couldn't harness it.

[43:34] And she bonded with him.

[43:36] He felt more than just a test subject.

[43:38] They had a great time.

[43:38] But then this horrible accident thing happened that I don't quite remember.

[43:42] And in an explosion, Maria is killed.

[43:47] And he is knocked out and stuffed in a tube to be held in stasis.

[43:53] And her grandfather, who we then meet, Gerald Robotnik, Grandpa Robotnik, is imprisoned.

[44:03] And modern day, Shadow is in the ruins of this base and he is greeted with a mysterious villain.

[44:08] Of course, that's going to be Grandpa Robotnik.

[44:11] And they decide to team up and get vengeance.

[44:14] Meanwhile, the other team shows up at this base.

[44:17] They explore it for a little bit.

[44:18] We get some comedy.

[44:20] Shadow goes around and beats them all up.

[44:22] And Grandpa Robotnik meets up with regular Robotnik.

[44:26] Yeah.

[44:27] They bond.

[44:28] We get a lot of double Jim Carries.

[44:29] And I got to say, I think what looks like primarily makeup effects on Jim Carrey are pretty great.

Elliott Kalan

[44:36] Yeah.

[44:37] There are a couple dodgy frames here and there with the doubles.

[44:41] But I thought the effects for the two Jim Carries were pretty stellar.

[44:45] And it's such a different level than the effects for our main characters.

[44:48] There were whole periods where I was like, yeah, I'm just seeing two Jim Carries.

[44:51] Like, I did not question it at all.

Dan McCoy

[44:53] And for me, this is the closest the movie ever comes to coming alive is when Jim Carrey is acting against Jim Carrey.

Elliott Kalan

[45:00] When one of the greatest comedy stars in cinema history is up against himself.

Dan McCoy

[45:06] Well, it's a mark of how much I found the rest of the movie drudgery.

[45:11] It's not like I was surprised that Jim Carrey was the good part of it.

[45:15] But this just barely lit a fire.

Stuart Wellington

[45:17] But it's also fun to see him play two similar roles that also feel different.

[45:23] Yeah.

[45:23] Not just two of the same thing.

[45:25] No, they definitely.

[45:25] And when he's old, he kind of looks a little bit like Matt Smith.

Elliott Kalan

[45:29] Yes, he does.

[45:31] Why am I not imagining Matt Smith?

[45:34] He was a Doctor Who?

[45:37] Maybe a little bit.

[45:38] Yeah, from Morbius, I think is what you're saying.

[45:40] From Morbius.

[45:40] Matt Smith and Morbius, yeah.

[45:41] Okay.

[45:41] From the famous vamping out dancing in a mirror scene from Morbius.

Stuart Wellington

[45:46] So young Robotnik decides to team up with Grandpa, and he thinks they are going to team up together and they are going to conquer the world.

[45:54] Grandpa had developed a weapon for Gunn to use, a giant space station death ray that requires two key cards to activate.

[46:03] And he's going to use it to defeat Gunn and then they're going to rule the world or so Robotnik thinks.

Elliott Kalan

[46:09] And there's a montage here that I found funny except for an unsettling music choice, which is the Robotnik's kind of Grandpa Robotnik taking Dr. Robotnik through the kind of childhood milestone memories that he didn't get to experience.

[46:23] And there's some funny gags in it.

[46:25] But it's set to the song Wouldn't It Be Nice, which is about two teenagers who want to have sex.

[46:29] Talking about how much it would be better if they were older and they could live together and be a married couple who has sex.

[46:34] So it was a very weird song for them to have.

[46:36] It feels like they're going for the vibe of the song but not really paying attention to the meaning of the song.

[46:40] And it really threw me off.

[46:42] I was like, I don't like what you're implying about this relationship, you know?

[46:45] Mm-hmm.

Stuart Wellington

[46:47] Shadow has beaten up our team and chained them together around a chunk of, I don't know, whatever.

[46:53] And our villains, that's both Robotnik's Agent Stone and Shadow, all take the key card that Sonic had.

[47:03] They board the flying crab device and they leave a black hole generator and escape.

[47:09] The black hole almost consumes the entire mountain but then Sonic and their team manage to escape the last moment.

[47:15] I feel like so many of these words that you're saying are words that should not be in a Sonic movie.

Jamelle Bouie

[47:18] The other thing is I watched this movie last night.

[47:21] The particular part you're describing, I have no recollection of it.

Stuart Wellington

[47:27] Okay, so they manage to escape and that teleports them just outside of the blast range of the rapidly collapsing mountain.

Elliott Kalan

[47:35] No worry about what it might do to the rest of the world to have unleashed a black hole on the Earth.

Stuart Wellington

[47:39] We're going to talk about that later when they have another Akira reference when they Zorch half the moon off.

[47:45] Okay.

[47:47] Sonic and team head home to meet up with their parents.

[47:51] They explain the situation.

[47:52] Their parents are currently in this moment where they are empty nesters.

[47:58] They are so excited to not have the chaos of these three alien creatures running around and ruling their lives.

[48:03] They have devoted all their energy to hobbies, knitting.

[48:07] Tom has started doing ventriloquism with a cool little James Marsden puppet.

[48:12] Which, I mean, I'm sure people are going to buy that thing off eBay.

[48:16] So, and they seem happy with their current situation.

[48:19] But as soon as their kids show up with this, they are like, they need help.

[48:25] Of course, their parents are ready to jump in and help them.

Elliott Kalan

[48:28] But this was where I couldn't understand.

[48:30] There's a gag here where they have, they're like, this is so great.

[48:32] And then they go, we need your help.

[48:33] And they go, yes, we're so bored.

[48:35] We're so bored.

[48:36] And I'm like, movie, what joke are you doing?

[48:38] Like, is it the joke of their life, you'd think their lives would be so much easier without them, but they miss it?

[48:42] Or is it the joke of now that they have the time to do it, they have all these hobbies, but now they're getting wrenched away from it?

[48:48] I felt like the movie wanted it both ways, and I did not like that.

[48:49] I think it's the first one.

[48:50] That's what I read.

[48:51] But then why, are they pretending that, like?

Dan McCoy

[48:54] I think that for each other's benefit in the relationship, they're pretending that they don't need that.

Elliott Kalan

[49:00] I didn't like it.

[49:01] It felt like the movie was trying to do one joke and then do another joke.

Stuart Wellington

[49:03] I'm surprised they didn't go for the more adult joke of now that we don't have these crazy aliens running around,

[49:07] we finally have time to get busy.

Elliott Kalan

[49:10] And then while they're in bed together and he's in mid-thrust, a ring opens up over them.

[49:15] Sonic and Tails and Knuckles all fall on them.

Stuart Wellington

[49:17] Yeah, exactly.

[49:18] Again, we see Tom Bobbett's wife.

Elliott Kalan

[49:21] And then there's a mix-up in the sheets.

Stuart Wellington

[49:23] Next thing you know, pregnant tails, and that's the next movie, Sonic the Hedgehog 4.

[49:29] Okay, so they know that the bad guys are heading to London because that's where Gunn Headquarters is,

[49:34] and that's where the second key will be located.

Elliott Kalan

[49:37] This is a sign of how – what an East Coast elite sophisticate I am that they're like, we're going to London.

[49:47] And I'm like, yeah, London.

[49:48] Cool.

[49:49] All right.

[49:49] Yeah.

[49:50] It's good.

[49:50] I've been there.

[49:51] It wasn't like they were going to – like when they're going to Tokyo very casually, I was like, Tokyo, wow, amazing.

[49:57] I've never been there.

[49:58] Yeah, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[49:58] Yeah.

[49:59] Yeah, but you, you're London.

[50:00] You're like, ho-hum.

[50:01] Who cares?

[50:02] I have family there.

[50:03] I have family there.

Dan McCoy

[50:03] I mean, like, I think it's a little different.

[50:06] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[50:07] Okay, so Sonic and team –

[50:09] Yeah, I get it.

[50:11] Okay, Big Ben, sure.

[50:12] Yeah.

[50:12] They head to London.

[50:13] They have an infiltration plan that involves Tom and Maddie putting on these hologram devices that we had been kind of introduced to earlier in the movie that allows them to assume the appearance of anyone.

[50:24] So, of course, they assume the appearance of characters from previous movies so these actors get a little bit of extra time.

[50:30] Yes.

[50:30] Which I'm not mad about.

[50:31] I love Natasha Rothwell.

[50:33] Right?

[50:34] Natasha Rothwell.

[50:35] Yeah.

[50:35] And they – so they are going to sneak into Gunn disguised as their, what, sister and her husband?

[50:45] Yes.

[50:46] Yes.

[50:47] This is Wachowski's sister and husband.

[50:49] While they –

Elliott Kalan

[50:50] Was it in the last movie or the one before where they wrecked their wedding with their Sonic adventure?

Jamelle Bouie

[50:54] It was the second movie.

Elliott Kalan

[50:56] The second movie?

[50:56] Yeah.

[50:57] I guess that would have been pretty – it would have been pretty insane for the first movie where we're being introduced to the Sonic character to then have a subplot about Sonic's adopted mom's sister's wedding getting wrecked.

[51:07] It would be a lot of supporting characters to introduce.

[51:09] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[51:10] So they – Tom and Maddie sneak in.

[51:13] Maddie gets into the control room.

[51:16] She inserts the drive.

[51:18] There's a little joke about how the thumb drive doesn't work initially.

[51:22] You have to pull it out and blow on it.

[51:23] That's for all us 90s kids.

[51:25] Yeah.

[51:25] And there's even a moment where they're like –

[51:26] Cartridge kids.

[51:27] I did remember.

[51:27] There's even a moment where they're like the 90s were the best decade.

[51:30] And I'm like, who are – what's going on here?

Dan McCoy

[51:32] What's going on is those people are now a movie ticket buying.

[51:36] Yeah.

[51:37] Yeah.

[51:37] Disposable money age and they want to see –

Elliott Kalan

[51:39] Those people, Dan says, as if it is not his generation.

Dan McCoy

[51:43] I mean, I don't think of the – I mean, I think of like late 80s, early 90s more than like the time that they're talking about.

[51:49] But I guess that's true.

Elliott Kalan

[51:50] Oh, boy.

[51:51] You're right.

[51:52] Never mind.

[51:52] Forget what I just said.

[51:53] Strike it from the record.

[51:54] Dan is slightly too old to be nostalgic about the 90s proper.

Stuart Wellington

[51:58] Inside the server room, she inserts Tails thumb drive only to realize there's a Dr. Robotnik thumb drive also plugged in.

[52:06] Uh-oh.

[52:06] That's because the Robotniks are also infiltrating with these weird camouflage suits.

[52:10] And that allows them to walk right through the laser grid.

[52:14] But why walk when they can dance?

[52:16] We have a great dance sequence.

Elliott Kalan

[52:18] This is one of two moments in this sequence where the heroes and the villains waste a bunch of time when time is of the essence.

[52:26] The Robotniks dance their way through these lasers, which again, it's Jim Carrey and Jim Carrey.

[52:30] They're going to do funny physical stuff.

[52:31] I don't love silly – this kind of silly dancing particularly, but it's fine.

[52:34] And then they're like, Sonic, you've got to get in before the shields close.

[52:37] He's like, got it.

[52:38] But first, I'm going to run through London real fast doing a bunch of London jokes.

Stuart Wellington

[52:41] And it was like, why now?

Elliott Kalan

[52:44] This is a Marx Brothers level of let me screw up my own plan for no reason.

Jamelle Bouie

[52:49] Yeah, because you can do sightseeing after he finished all of this.

[52:52] You can have all the beans on toast that you want, Sonic.

[52:55] Exactly.

Stuart Wellington

[52:56] Exactly.

[52:56] And you guys have children, and children usually when you're like, hey, we've got to go fast, they don't try and fart around or dick around.

[53:02] That's a good point.

[53:03] That's a very good point.

[53:04] Or when your podcast co-host is like, hey, we've got to hurry up.

[53:07] You don't like fuck around.

Elliott Kalan

[53:11] Equal stakes, equal characters.

[53:12] Yeah, yeah.

[53:12] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[53:14] Okay.

[53:14] So they all meet up, basically.

[53:19] Sonic decides, oh, wait, we need Sonic's help.

[53:22] So he goes running in there.

[53:24] And there's a brief-

Elliott Kalan

[53:24] Finally, like the best of all Robert Altman movies, these disparate strands have finally come together.

Stuart Wellington

[53:29] Inside this control room where the key is located.

[53:32] But the whole thing was a setup.

[53:33] We have Tom, Matty, Sonic, both Robotniks.

[53:37] But this was all set up by Commander, what, Commander Rockwell?

[53:42] This is Commander Rockwell is Kristen Ritter's character, Director Rockwell.

Elliott Kalan

[53:47] Do you think she's related to Thelma Ritter?

[53:49] Probably not, right?

Dan McCoy

[53:50] Well, I thought for a second, I was like, is it spelled the same?

[53:55] The Y is in the first name, though.

[53:56] I think it is spelled the same.

Elliott Kalan

[53:59] There's nothing in a Wikipedia entry that mentions amazing legendary actress Thelma Ritter.

[54:03] So never mind.

Stuart Wellington

[54:03] She knew that they had the other key and she was trying to lead them all here so she could get the key and capture them.

[54:10] And she does so with this series of hexagonal plates on the floor that either use gravity powers to either pull them to the floor or push them up in the air.

Dan McCoy

[54:22] And, you know, this sort of thing that I sometimes say kind of, you know, doesn't make any sense because, of course, it's true.

[54:31] But in a better movie, I think this could be cool.

[54:34] Like, I liked the idea of, you know, both things happening at the same time.

[54:39] People being, like, totally locked down to the ground and then some people floating.

[54:42] And if it was a different film, I might enjoy a comedic set piece with that.

Stuart Wellington

[54:49] Well, we still get some kind of a set piece.

Elliott Kalan

[54:51] They don't do – I feel like they don't – it's a really neat idea that they don't do a lot.

[54:55] Yeah.

[54:56] You know, which is too bad.

Stuart Wellington

[54:57] Because Sonic calls in their ace in the hole in the form of Knuckles who bursts through the building and smashes into the ground.

[55:04] And then he smashes the key card instead of turning it off, which makes everything go haywire.

[55:09] People are floating or being smashed to the ground randomly.

[55:13] We get people, like, swimming through the air.

[55:16] We get people inching along the ground like inchworms.

[55:20] Eventually, Sonic manages to get the device turned off.

[55:23] And Director Rockwell gets the key card and storms off.

[55:29] Tom has a plan, though.

[55:30] He uses his hologram device to disguise himself as Commander Walters.

[55:35] And he gets the key card back from her.

[55:38] And then he walks away.

[55:40] Unfortunately for him, Shadow the Hedgehog sees him disguised as Commander Walters.

[55:46] Manages to extrapolate what Walters would look like as an adult, even though he only knew him as a young man.

Elliott Kalan

[55:52] I mean, he was an adult before.

[55:53] But as an old man now.

[55:54] Okay.

[55:54] Sorry.

[55:54] Thank you.

Stuart Wellington

[55:55] No, thank you.

[55:56] Yep.

[55:56] He was a child soldier.

[55:57] I'm sorry.

[55:57] I take it back.

[55:58] It makes perfect sense that Shadow would know exactly what Commander Walters would look like.

Elliott Kalan

[56:02] No, the point you're making is clear.

[56:04] I was just taking issue with the idea that when he was young, he was not an adult.

Stuart Wellington

[56:08] When he was already, I think, a captain in the military.

[56:11] He runs over and punches him almost to death.

[56:14] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[56:14] Yeah.

[56:14] Tom collapsed.

Jamelle Bouie

[56:16] Tom collapsed.

[56:16] I did think for a second.

[56:18] I was like, did they just kill off James Marsden?

[56:20] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[56:21] Again, they killed a child in the flashback.

[56:23] You know, go for it.

[56:24] Go for broke.

Dan McCoy

[56:24] The scene ends without you knowing his fate.

Stuart Wellington

[56:26] James Marsden doesn't do well in third parts of franchise movies.

Elliott Kalan

[56:31] No, that's true.

[56:32] He's either being punched to shit or vaporized by his love.

[56:37] And you remember in 27 Dresses Part 3, I think that was the one where the killer skinned him and made a wedding dress out of his skin.

[56:44] He became 28th dressed in that film.

Stuart Wellington

[56:46] He became 28th dress.

[56:48] So he's down for the count.

[56:50] Shadow takes the key card.

[56:52] Sonic shows up.

[56:53] He's obviously distraught by his adoptive father basically being killed.

[56:57] Shadow talks a little bit of shit and then he leaves.

Elliott Kalan

[57:00] I had a question for you guys.

[57:01] Hmm?

[57:01] Once – so this weapon belongs to Gunn, right?

[57:05] Yep.

[57:05] Once Kristen Ritter gets the card, why is James Marsden trying to get it from her?

[57:12] It's actually a really good question.

[57:14] Well –

[57:15] I can understand why they wouldn't want anyone to use this weapon I guess to have access.

[57:19] But Dr. Robotnik is the bad guy that they're trying to keep it from.

[57:22] Once – if Kristen Ritter gets the card, nothing has changed.

[57:25] We're back to the status quo of the beginning of the movie.

[57:27] So when James Marsden was like, let me go get that key card.

[57:29] I'll go on disguise and get the shit kicked out of me.

[57:32] I don't know why he's doing it.

[57:33] I don't know.

Elliott Kalan

[57:33] I wasn't quite sure what the point was.

[57:35] You know.

[57:35] They already have one of the keys, right?

[57:36] You're in the moment.

[57:37] You know, sometimes you can't turn it off.

[57:39] I guess that's true.

[57:39] Because the best thing to do would be to keep those keys separate.

[57:42] It's like in the last Indiana Jones movie where they're like, we have half of the time travel device.

[57:48] You know what we have to do, right?

[57:49] Get the other half.

[57:50] No, you don't.

[57:51] Take it as far away as possible.

[57:53] Throw it in the ocean.

[57:54] Like whatever.

[57:54] Get rid of it.

[57:55] You know, just make sure they never – it doesn't matter if the Nazis have half of it.

[57:57] Just let them have half and you just don't put them together.

[58:00] So why do they want both keys?

[58:01] Dan, I see you have an answer.

[58:02] Tell me.

Dan McCoy

[58:05] Plot device.

[58:06] It's a plot device.

[58:06] What happens in Sonic Adventure 2?

Stuart Wellington

[58:08] Do they explain it?

[58:11] So Shadow frees the Robotniks from the gun soldiers and takes them to the command bridge

[58:20] of the – what is it?

[58:22] The eclipse device I think it's called in the notes.

[58:26] It's a giant space platform with a laser gun and they –

[58:31] It's a geostorm basically.

[58:32] Yeah.

[58:33] And they fire that bad boy up and it rises up out of a secret hangar underneath the Thames.

[58:40] All of London is obviously concerned because of – it doesn't –

[58:44] They're like, oh, blimey.

[58:45] It's rising right out of the Thames.

[58:47] It's kind of interesting.

[58:48] It opens up – the floodgates open but it doesn't actually – it doesn't really look

[58:53] like the water level of the Thames lowers that much.

Elliott Kalan

[58:55] No, that's a good goof to put in IMDb.

[58:57] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[58:58] Dan, can you add that to our goofs list?

[59:00] All right.

Elliott Kalan

[59:01] Oi, what's that rising up over there?

[59:04] Meanwhile –

[59:04] Some kind of big spaceship.

Dan McCoy

[59:05] Meanwhile, Tom –

Elliott Kalan

[59:06] Oh, didn't know they had one of those under the Thames?

[59:09] There's a lot of that stuff.

Dan McCoy

[59:10] Oi, why is it the water level dropping?

Elliott Kalan

[59:12] Ah, the kippers is burning.

[59:14] Oh, what's that?

Dan McCoy

[59:17] Our British listeners are going to be so mad at us.

Stuart Wellington

[59:20] They're going to be so mad because they're like, am I listening to my parents talking?

Elliott Kalan

[59:25] Did I end up in this podcast?

[59:26] Yeah.

[59:27] Oi, it sounds like me in that podcast.

Stuart Wellington

[59:32] So meanwhile –

[59:33] Jason Statham, I didn't know you were listening.

[59:35] Clive Oton.

[59:36] I'm a beekeeper.

[59:40] So out in the street, Tom is being put into an emergency vehicle to take advantage of the British healthcare system.

[59:48] And he – Sonic is like, yo, we need to stop these guys.

[59:53] And there's only one option.

[59:54] We need to use the Master Emerald.

[59:56] Tails and Knuckles are like, no, we agreed never to use that for revenge.

[1:00:01] Which I loved.

[1:00:02] Only for erotic adventures.

[1:00:04] Yeah.

[1:00:06] And so it looks like they're going to fight.

[1:00:08] And Knuckles is like, no, no, no, we can't use it for revenge.

[1:00:11] And then Knuckles actually backs down.

[1:00:12] He's like, you know what?

[1:00:13] More important than that rule is our rule to always trust our friends.

[1:00:17] And I'm like, wow, Knuckles.

[1:00:18] That's a really good statement.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:19] He is so more emotionally stable than Sonic throughout this movie.

Jamelle Bouie

[1:00:22] I got to say, I did raise my eyebrow at that.

[1:00:24] It's sort of like, okay, well, the rule against using this for revenge seems pretty strong and important, right?

[1:00:30] Like this is incredibly powerful.

[1:00:32] And if your friend wants revenge, then maybe that's actually a situation in which you shouldn't trust them.

[1:00:39] So I don't think the trust thing outweighs the revenge.

[1:00:43] If anything, the revenge thing trumps the trust thing.

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:47] You would think so.

[1:00:47] But Knuckles is like, well, I don't like what you're doing, but I have to respect the office of Sonic.

[1:00:52] First round.

[1:00:53] Number one buddy.

[1:00:55] Technically, this isn't how it's supposed to be used, but I guess there isn't a rule that says never let Sonic use it for revenge.

[1:01:00] So we have to let you do it.

[1:01:02] But I agree with you, and it feels like there was probably an earlier version of this movie where they fought.

[1:01:08] And Sonic was so mad that he just beat Knuckles to a pulp or whatever.

[1:01:12] Or he's about to hit Knuckles so hard.

[1:01:14] And then he's like, what am I doing?

[1:01:16] And he leaves.

[1:01:16] And I think they were like, this movie is too long.

[1:01:18] Cut this scene.

[1:01:19] Let's just have Knuckles.

Stuart Wellington

[1:01:20] He's like ripped his guts out, Invincible style.

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:24] So Knuckles is trying to hit him with his hands, and Sonic is holding Knuckles' wrists down.

[1:01:29] And he's vibrating so fast that it's causing friction burns on Knuckles' wrists.

[1:01:32] And he's going, ah, ah.

[1:01:34] And then Sonic just goes in and bites Knuckles' throat out.

[1:01:37] Yeah.

[1:01:37] And rips his throat out, and there's blood everywhere.

[1:01:39] And Sonic is covered in blood.

[1:01:41] And Tails steps back and is like, Knuckles, Sonic, what did you do?

[1:01:45] And Sonic is like, he got in my way.

[1:01:47] I thought he was stronger.

Dan McCoy

[1:01:50] Elliot, you should write this fan fiction.

[1:01:52] And then you should change all the names slightly and have a literary hit on your hands.

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:57] It would be a huge hit.

[1:01:58] It would be called like, it would be like Mikey Muskrat's Cosmic Adventure or something like that.

[1:02:04] Okay, so.

[1:02:04] I should do that.

[1:02:05] Dan, if I was smart, I would do that.

Stuart Wellington

[1:02:08] So Sonic runs over and gets the Emerald, which is being used as a hockey puck by Adam Pally.

[1:02:15] That was exciting to see Adam Pally briefly.

[1:02:17] Sure.

Jamelle Bouie

[1:02:17] You got to reward the viewers at the Knuckles' television show.

Stuart Wellington

[1:02:21] Yeah.

[1:02:22] And fans of the show, what, 101 places to go before you die or whatever.

[1:02:27] Party before you die.

[1:02:28] Him and Gabriels' show.

Elliott Kalan

[1:02:29] But they're watching the movie the whole time going like, where's Adam Pally?

[1:02:31] When's he going to show up?

[1:02:32] Oh, there he is.

[1:02:33] Yeah.

[1:02:34] This is very much in the Pirates of the Caribbean tradition of if you have introduced a character in one of the movies, that character then continues in each movie like a Katamari, just picking up objects until it becomes unwieldy and impossible to play.

Dan McCoy

[1:02:47] I guess I admire the loyalty on a certain level, but narratively unnecessary.

Stuart Wellington

[1:02:51] Again, these are people that I like to see.

[1:02:53] Sure.

Elliott Kalan

[1:02:53] I'm not against seeing Adam Pally.

Stuart Wellington

[1:02:55] Talking about side characters, this is also the moment when Agent Stone calls Robotnik and is like, yo, I got the feeling that your grandpa actually has some bad ideas and isn't just going to rule the world that he's going to blow everything up.

[1:03:09] And Robotnik's like, oh, you're just jealous.

[1:03:11] You're fired forever.

[1:03:12] I hate you.

[1:03:12] You suck.

[1:03:14] Harry and the Hendersons him.

[1:03:17] Meanwhile.

[1:03:17] Not exactly.

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:18] I mean, Harry and the Hendersons is for the good of the Harry.

[1:03:21] Yeah.

[1:03:22] You're saying you don't mean it.

Dan McCoy

[1:03:23] Yeah, maybe.

[1:03:24] I don't know.

[1:03:25] You know, honestly, talking about things that we expected to happen in the movie that, like, we thought there would be a different payoff for, like, I thought that at some point it would be clear that, like, Carrie was, like, laying on extra thick because as, like, the genius Dr. Robotnik, he had realized that it was true, you know, and he was, like, doing it to keep his grandfather off the tail while he, like, worked against, you know, something like that.

[1:03:50] Because it was such a, like, a kiss off.

[1:03:52] And then later on, he's like, I love you, essentially, on his, like, final message back.

[1:03:56] He's like, I was wrong.

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:57] I shouldn't have done that.

[1:03:58] Yeah.

[1:03:58] I think we are all waiting for this movie to be slightly more clever than it actually is.

[1:04:05] And not in a way that is unpredictable, but in a predictable, like, oh, this character was actually tricking this.

[1:04:10] But it is a very straightforward movie.

[1:04:11] Yeah.

[1:04:12] Whatever is happening on screen is exactly what is happening.

[1:04:14] Nobody has a – nobody has an ulterior motive.

[1:04:17] Like, the moment – I kept – again, like I said, I kept waiting for that moment when Dr. Robotnik would reveal, oh, my granddaughter didn't die.

[1:04:22] I've just been using you for my own needs.

[1:04:24] No.

[1:04:25] It's just – it's all straightforward.

[1:04:26] Everything you saw happen, happened.

[1:04:27] It's a – it's rare to see a movie, I feel like, nowadays, even a kid's movie where there's no twist at all.

[1:04:33] And this one, there's no – there's no twist.

[1:04:35] It's like there was that third Venom movie where the whole time I'm like, when's – when are they going to bring in the interesting idea that makes this more than just Venom and Carnage hitting each other?

[1:04:43] Oh, never.

[1:04:44] Okay.

[1:04:45] That's all it is.

[1:04:45] That was the second one.

[1:04:47] Oh, yeah, the third one was the last one.

[1:04:49] I mean the second one.

Stuart Wellington

[1:04:49] The third one was like the more like overtly romantic one between the two of them.

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:53] Yes, and there were twists in that.

[1:04:55] You had a Venom horse.

[1:04:56] You had a Venom frog.

[1:04:56] Yeah, exactly.

Stuart Wellington

[1:04:57] So speaking of things on screen, here we now see the space station leave orbit and is now above planet Earth and it extends its laser beam array.

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:07] Oh, wait, guys.

[1:05:08] I should mention – I'm just looking at the Knuckles Wikipedia entry just to learn some more.

[1:05:11] Sure.

[1:05:12] He does appear as an unlockable playable character in Super Monkey Ball Banana Rumble.

[1:05:16] Oh, okay.

[1:05:17] Okay.

[1:05:17] All right.

[1:05:18] So if you guys were wondering if he was an unlockable playable character in this game I've never heard of before.

[1:05:23] Did he never play the Super Monkey Ball games?

[1:05:25] No, I am not aware of them.

[1:05:27] Didn't know they existed.

Jamelle Bouie

[1:05:28] The first Super Monkey Ball actually was quite good.

[1:05:30] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:31] Oh, okay.

[1:05:31] Yeah.

[1:05:31] Oh, that's good to know.

[1:05:32] All right.

[1:05:32] I'm not familiar with them at all.

[1:05:33] I thought it was – it feels like a – like if a character in a sitcom goes to Japan, this is like the quiz show they would see on TV.

[1:05:39] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:05:41] So Sonic the Hedgehog who is now powered up by the Master Emerald is now a being of pure light and energy.

[1:05:48] He's Goku the Hedgehog now.

[1:05:49] Yeah.

[1:05:49] He is – this is when we enter Dragon Ball Z territory.

[1:05:53] And in this case I would imagine Shadow would be Vegeta.

[1:05:56] So he blasts through space and he blasts through the space station and he and Shadow punch the crap out of each other.

[1:06:05] We get a full-on super fight.

[1:06:07] And this is very Dragon Ball that they're just fighting in a nondescript landscape.

[1:06:12] Punching through – yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:06:12] Punching through mountains.

Stuart Wellington

[1:06:14] Yeah.

[1:06:15] They don't spend that much time powering up, which is the joke about Dragon Ball Z because they're already powerful.

[1:06:21] At some point the Master Emerald splits into its component Chaos Emeralds and they end up sharing the power so we have a super shadow.

[1:06:29] That's not good.

[1:06:30] Uh-oh.

[1:06:31] And they're like beating the crap out of each other.

[1:06:33] Meanwhile, the young Robotnik realizes his grandpa is going to destroy the world.

[1:06:39] They're not going to rule it together.

[1:06:41] He sees no hope for humanity and the only justice for his dead granddaughter is destroying the world.

[1:06:49] And they will die as well.

Elliott Kalan

[1:06:51] They will die as well.

[1:06:51] The wave of energy will destroy the earth and kill them.

[1:06:53] So it's a very nihilistic thing for a villain to be doing.

[1:06:57] It's almost as if him then turning into like a goofy scorpion armored man is not enough to overcome the idea that he's literally going – trying to kill every human in existence including himself.

[1:07:08] That that's his ultimate plan.

Stuart Wellington

[1:07:09] Yeah.

[1:07:10] So we get a fight scene where they use their nano armor to turn themselves into scorpion men or a praying mantis man.

[1:07:19] And there's – you know, they throw in some like cartoon-style goofs here.

[1:07:24] Yeah.

[1:07:24] And it is again like two Jim Carrey's fighting each other.

[1:07:27] And, you know, there's some jokes there.

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:29] There's some fun jokes there.

[1:07:30] Again, it's slightly overshadowed by the fact that one of them is a man so in grief over the death of his granddaughter that he wants to erase humanity and end his own life in the bargain.

[1:07:39] So it's a little bit – again, there's a darker Paul that hangs over these – the jokes about like I hit you with a really big fist.

Stuart Wellington

[1:07:46] Yeah, it's a battle for the soul of Gerald Robotnik and they do it by hitting each other with weird fists.

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:53] That all the bug puns in the world can't quite wash away.

Stuart Wellington

[1:07:57] Yeah.

[1:07:57] It's all deflection.

[1:07:58] I don't know.

[1:07:59] I talked about this movie with my therapist this week and –

[1:08:02] You know, it's complicated.

[1:08:04] I'm kind of like a hedgehog.

Dan McCoy

[1:08:06] I've got this spiny exterior.

Elliott Kalan

[1:08:09] And it keeps people away from me.

[1:08:11] I'm always running.

[1:08:12] I'm always running from intimacy, from affection.

[1:08:15] Yeah.

[1:08:16] I'm kind of like a hedgehog.

Jamelle Bouie

[1:08:17] I love to eat hot dogs.

[1:08:20] I wear red shoes.

Stuart Wellington

[1:08:29] I'm positive about rings.

Elliott Kalan

[1:08:32] I mean, honestly, if you're going to describe Sonny the Hedgehog's personality, what words would you describe – he's just like a rambunctious kid, right?

[1:08:38] But there's not – what's more – is there anything more specific than that?

[1:08:41] In this?

Dan McCoy

[1:08:41] Like before the movies, I wouldn't have – I'd be like, he's fast.

[1:08:45] Like that's not a personality trait.

[1:08:47] No, but I mean in the movies.

[1:08:47] I don't know, but that's what I got.

Stuart Wellington

[1:08:48] In the movie, yeah, rambunctious kid is his personality.

[1:08:52] It's like rambunctious kid who is aspiring to be Bugs Bunny.

[1:08:57] Okay, yeah.

[1:08:58] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:08:59] Okay.

[1:08:59] He really wants to be Bugs Bunny pretty bad.

[1:09:01] That's true.

Stuart Wellington

[1:09:02] So Sonic and Shadow beat each other up a bunch.

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:04] Now I'm imagining the same movie, but they're all Bugs – they're all Looney Tunes characters.

[1:09:07] Sonic is Bugs Bunny.

[1:09:09] Yep.

[1:09:09] Knuckles is probably Daffy.

[1:09:11] Like Tails is probably Porky.

[1:09:14] And who would – Shadow would be – they'd invent some new cool tough-ass rabbit that doesn't quite fit with the other characters.

[1:09:22] Robotnik is Elmer Fudd or Yosemite Sam.

Stuart Wellington

[1:09:24] Some more cool-ass rabbit that smokes, right?

Jamelle Bouie

[1:09:27] Oh, yeah.

[1:09:27] He smokes and uses a gun.

Dan McCoy

[1:09:28] This honestly sounds like a better movie.

[1:09:31] Daffy should play Dr. Robotnik.

[1:09:34] I don't know who Knuckles is.

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:36] Well, except Knuckles – it's not that Knuckles and Daffy are similar personalities, but the role of the competitive friend.

[1:09:42] Yeah.

[1:09:43] It feels like that's a Daffy role.

[1:09:44] A frenemy.

[1:09:46] A frenemy, exactly.

[1:09:47] Whereas you want the villain to be like a real character that they can actually go up against.

[1:09:51] That's true.

[1:09:51] So it's probably Yosemite Sam.

[1:09:53] Yeah.

[1:09:53] And it's funny to see Yosemite Sam doing science fiction-y things.

[1:09:55] Also mustache.

[1:09:56] Yeah, mustache.

[1:09:57] And mustache.

Stuart Wellington

[1:09:58] Same mustache, exactly.

[1:09:59] So Sonic and Shadow bond over their shared trauma.

[1:10:04] One was the death of a little girl.

[1:10:06] The other is the death of Longclaw.

Elliott Kalan

[1:10:08] These two alien hedgehogs who have been powered up by a magic crystal.

[1:10:12] Sitting on the moon.

[1:10:12] They bond over the deaths of the loved ones through their lives.

[1:10:15] Yes.

Stuart Wellington

[1:10:15] Sitting on the moon.

[1:10:17] Maria?

[1:10:17] Watching the stars.

[1:10:18] That's the name of my mom.

[1:10:19] Yeah.

[1:10:21] There's a moment where –

[1:10:22] Why did you say that name?

[1:10:24] There's a moment where a shadow is like, you know, like even a dying star emits light or something.

[1:10:29] And I'm like, what the fuck do you –

Elliott Kalan

[1:10:31] He remembers what Maria told him, which is that the light we see – that star may have died hundreds of years ago, but we still see – yeah.

[1:10:38] So he's like, huh.

[1:10:39] And it's – you know, like you know what it is.

[1:10:41] It's just the way of saying Maria's dead, but the light of her life shines through me still.

[1:10:44] No, I know what he's saying.

[1:10:45] It's just wild in a Sonic movie.

[1:10:47] It's true that the Sonic the Hedgehog movie is about these hedgehogs coming to terms with their grief.

Stuart Wellington

[1:10:51] Okay, so they decide – shadow's like, oh, man, this is all my fault.

[1:10:55] And Sonic's like, you know what?

[1:10:56] The only thing we can do when we mess up is try and fix it.

[1:10:58] And so they both get their energy and they team up and they're going to stop Robotniks.

Elliott Kalan

[1:11:04] This is what happens when you hire Adam Agoyan to direct a Sonic the Hedgehog movie.

[1:11:09] It's going to touch on grief and desire at different points.

[1:11:11] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:11:12] So Robotnik unleashes a wave of drone, like Gundam drones for them to fight, and they start blasting them.

[1:11:20] It was at this point that I was like, movie, end.

Elliott Kalan

[1:11:23] Don't care.

[1:11:24] No more of this.

[1:11:25] 30 minutes left.

[1:11:26] You've established what you're doing.

[1:11:28] Do it.

[1:11:29] Stop throwing wave after wave of stunts at me.

[1:11:31] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:11:32] Older Robotnik manages to gain the upper hand and he's about to eject his grandson into space.

[1:11:39] But he is saved at the last moment by Tails.

[1:11:42] Then young Robotnik manages to –

[1:11:44] How does –

Stuart Wellington

[1:11:44] Tails used a ring, right?

[1:11:46] Yeah.

[1:11:46] It's not like Tails flew through outer space.

[1:11:48] Yeah.

[1:11:48] Okay.

[1:11:48] Yeah.

[1:11:48] And then younger Robotnik throws his grandpa into an energy wall, killing him.

[1:11:55] And makes a joke about it.

Elliott Kalan

[1:11:56] And makes a joke about vaporizing his grandfather.

[1:11:59] Yeah.

Jamelle Bouie

[1:11:59] I thought that was pretty funny.

[1:12:01] I did enjoy that whole scene.

Dan McCoy

[1:12:03] I was my own grandpa, but no more.

Stuart Wellington

[1:12:07] They realize that there's no way of turning the laser off.

[1:12:11] It's going to fire no matter what.

[1:12:12] So their only option is to try and move it.

[1:12:14] So they start to move it, move it, move it.

[1:12:17] They start to move it, move it.

[1:12:18] Exactly, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:12:19] They like to move it, move it.

[1:12:20] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:12:20] And then the two super-powered hedgehogs use their super energy to kind of block the laser

[1:12:27] until they're able to get it free from pointing directly at Earth.

[1:12:32] So much of this.

[1:12:33] This process, however, depletes Sonic, who collapses and is falling through outer space.

[1:12:38] Tails and Knuckles use rings to catch him and save him, and they escape.

[1:12:41] His blood should literally be boiling.

[1:12:43] He is falling through outer space.

[1:12:45] Like, extreme decompression should be killing him right now.

Elliott Kalan

[1:12:48] No, he's so fast.

Stuart Wellington

[1:12:51] Up on the space station, Robotnik and Shadow realize that this thing is going to explode,

[1:12:56] and it's going to damage Earth.

[1:12:58] And meanwhile, when they move the laser away from planet Earth,

[1:13:01] it does slice off a sizable chunk of the moon, which will destabilize the tides.

[1:13:07] Yeah.

[1:13:07] They don't talk about that, but that's fine.

[1:13:09] I've seen Akira.

[1:13:11] Okay.

Elliott Kalan

[1:13:12] I mean, it's bad news for Tokyo.

[1:13:13] It already got beat up in that fight earlier,

[1:13:15] but this is only going to make things worse for them if Akira has anything to go by.

Stuart Wellington

[1:13:18] So Team Sonic escape and they make it to Earth.

[1:13:20] Robotnik and Shadow stay behind to move the station further away from Earth

[1:13:26] so when it explodes it will not kill everybody on Earth.

[1:13:29] They sacrifice themselves.

[1:13:32] Robotnik records a final message apologizing to Agent Stone.

[1:13:36] It's actually pretty touching, right, guys?

[1:13:39] As much as anything in the movie is.

Elliott Kalan

[1:13:41] I think this moment with Jim Carrey is one of the most successful emotional beats in the movie, I think.

[1:13:47] He's pretty good in this movie.

[1:13:49] Yeah.

[1:13:50] I don't know if it's controversial to say it.

[1:13:52] Jim Carrey's really good.

Stuart Wellington

[1:13:53] He's a great performer.

[1:13:54] He's really good.

[1:13:55] It's kind of wild that like, I mean, obviously, from what I can tell,

[1:13:59] he's been going through things in his personal life,

[1:14:01] but like professionally and he has the energy of –

[1:14:05] he has the performer energy where it's like this guy is hiding something.

Elliott Kalan

[1:14:09] It's such a weird – this is a weird medium for us to rediscover

[1:14:13] one of the top box office stars of the mid-'90s.

[1:14:17] In 1994 was his Anna Mirabilis or whatever,

[1:14:21] where he had three hit movies in one year.

[1:14:23] Two of them were in the top ten movies of the year in terms of box office.

[1:14:26] Like he was a – he's a huge –

[1:14:27] it's so weird that it's through –

[1:14:29] as the villain in the Sonic the Hedgehog movies

[1:14:31] that we're getting this glimpse of this guy who like was such a bright star when we were kids, you know?

[1:14:36] Yeah.

[1:14:36] And there's no reason why he couldn't be again except,

[1:14:39] I don't know, whatever's going on in his personal life.

[1:14:41] But the whole time –

[1:14:42] every time he's on screen, I'm like,

[1:14:44] either just do a Robotnik movie or like have a movie where Jim Carrey gets to do this kind of stuff

[1:14:48] and it's just him and I don't have to put up with a CGI hedgehog fighting robot drones in space,

[1:14:53] you know, and pretending that I care if the space laser goes off at the wrong time.

[1:14:58] Like it's – you know, I don't know.

[1:14:59] I never thought at this point in my life that I would be such a Jim Carrey proponent, you know,

[1:15:03] that I'd be like, get him in a movie.

[1:15:05] Do this thing.

[1:15:06] You know, I don't know.

Stuart Wellington

[1:15:08] So they sacrifice themselves but the Earth isn't destroyed.

[1:15:12] Meanwhile, sometime after, back in Green Hills –

[1:15:15] So not really meanwhile.

[1:15:16] Yeah, not meanwhile.

[1:15:18] We have a take two of the Be Earth Day party and we have another race from our Team Sonic.

[1:15:25] Everybody's happy and our team won the day.

[1:15:28] That's the end of the movie.

[1:15:30] But apparently there were some after credit scenes and anybody who knows me knows I say no thank you.

Elliott Kalan

[1:15:36] As soon as Stewart finishes a Flophouse movie and the first credit starts to roll,

[1:15:39] he immediately kicks the screen out of his TV.

[1:15:42] Yeah.

[1:15:44] He says, that's it for me.

Jamelle Bouie

[1:15:46] It's a good thing that TVs are like commodity items these days then.

Stuart Wellington

[1:15:49] There's two.

[1:15:50] I kick the screen out and then I slide down a brontosaurus's tail.

Elliott Kalan

[1:15:54] The second one barely exists.

[1:15:56] But Dan, why don't you describe what happens in the first one?

Dan McCoy

[1:15:59] I mean, in the first one, Sonic comes across –

Elliott Kalan

[1:16:02] And I say this knowing that Jamel will be so much more clearly able to describe it

[1:16:06] because he knows the character that they're introducing.

[1:16:08] But I want Dan to try to do it.

Dan McCoy

[1:16:09] So Sonic is running around at night.

[1:16:13] He encounters a robot hedgehog.

[1:16:17] He's just running wild doing terrible things.

[1:16:19] I don't know.

[1:16:20] He's just running through the woods because he likes to, I guess.

Stuart Wellington

[1:16:23] Do you guys remember when kids could just run through the woods?

[1:16:26] Yeah.

[1:16:27] He's a real youth gone wild.

Dan McCoy

[1:16:28] He encounters this robot hedgehog that wants to kill him, but he's able to defeat it.

[1:16:34] And then there's a bunch of other robot hedgehogs that show up.

[1:16:36] And he's like, what's this all about?

[1:16:38] And then he's saved by this cute girl hedgehog.

[1:16:43] Let's not editorialize, Dan.

[1:16:45] Well, she's very meant to look cute.

[1:16:49] I mean, obviously, it's a cartoon hedgehog.

[1:16:51] I'm not particularly –

Stuart Wellington

[1:16:53] You're telling us more about yourself than I can realize.

[1:16:55] I'm not particularly into it.

[1:16:55] Wait, what's the hedgehog's name?

[1:16:57] And I'll find out if she's cute or not.

Dan McCoy

[1:16:58] She's got big eyes and a short skirt.

[1:17:01] And this is the love interest hedgehog, I assume.

[1:17:06] I know nothing about this hedgehog.

Elliott Kalan

[1:17:07] So, Jamel, this is when we need your help more than ever.

[1:17:10] Who is this girl hedgehog?

Jamelle Bouie

[1:17:11] This girl hedgehog is Amy Rose, who is a hedgehog.

[1:17:14] She was first introduced in Sonic the Hedgehog CD for the Sega CD.

[1:17:20] Sonic CD, which is a great game.

[1:17:22] Oh, she seems cool.

[1:17:23] Famously great soundtrack.

[1:17:27] Also introduced in Sonic CD is Metal Sonic.

[1:17:31] But this entire kind of scenario is like a Sonic CD homage for the real Sonic heads out there.

Elliott Kalan

[1:17:41] So does that imply that the next movie will be pulling from Sonic CD the way that this pulled from Sonic Adventures 2?

Jamelle Bouie

[1:17:49] It's possible.

[1:17:51] It's possible.

[1:17:53] This game doesn't.

[1:17:54] None of these early games really apply.

[1:17:56] But Sonic CD does have time travel in it.

[1:17:59] Okay.

[1:17:59] So I can actually very much see that happening.

[1:18:01] Like the next Sonic movie being.

[1:18:01] That's how they save Longclaw or something like that.

[1:18:03] Yeah, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:18:04] I think we're writing Sonic the Hedgehog 4 right now.

[1:18:07] But what was the second post-credit sequence?

[1:18:10] So the second post-credit sequence near the very end.

[1:18:12] It's super short.

[1:18:13] And it's literally one of those things where there's like – it's like there's dirt.

[1:18:17] It looks like you're on Mars or something.

[1:18:18] And there's like a big ring sticking out of the dirt.

[1:18:21] And then a gloved hand grabs that ring.

[1:18:23] And I assumed it was just Dr. Robotnik being actually alive again.

[1:18:27] So my guess was that the – you don't see anyone's face.

[1:18:30] It's just a hand.

[1:18:31] I could not remember his costume well enough to actually –

[1:18:33] It's probably Shadow.

Stuart Wellington

[1:18:34] I think it's – I think according to Wikipedia, it's Shadow.

[1:18:39] Oh, is it Shadow?

Jamelle Bouie

[1:18:40] Okay.

[1:18:40] I can tell.

[1:18:40] If they killed off Shadow again, January 6th part 2.

Elliott Kalan

[1:18:44] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1:18:45] You know what?

[1:18:46] It says in Wikipedia, it says elsewhere Shadow has survived the cancer.

[1:18:48] So it just tells you that Shadow is still around.

Dan McCoy

[1:18:50] Either way, like, you know, like it's not like I truly believed either of those characters have died if this movie is successful.

Elliott Kalan

[1:18:58] Damn, we saw it happen on camera.

[1:19:00] Yeah.

[1:19:00] I mean, surely if an exploding satellite happens right next to you, you can't come back with no explanation later in the movie.

[1:19:07] Wait a minute.

[1:19:08] Hold on.

[1:19:08] That's what happened with Samuel L. Jackson in Triple X, The Return of – what's his name?

[1:19:12] Xander Cage.

[1:19:13] You literally see a satellite explode and his body engulfed in flame and then later he comes back and there's just no explanation.

[1:19:19] It's like it's fine.

[1:19:20] He faked it all.

[1:19:21] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:19:21] They're not going to kill Shadow.

[1:19:22] It's not like they've killed any children in this movie.

Elliott Kalan

[1:19:27] Maria never comes.

[1:19:28] Well, that's not like the Hedgehog 4 Return of Maria where it turns out maybe she is – her brain was put into Amy Rose's body.

[1:19:34] Then it's not like the Hedgehog 5 is they're looking for the original brain for Amy Rose.

[1:19:37] Yeah.

[1:19:38] This is – it all – I mean it hangs together so tightly, this tight continuity.

[1:19:41] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:19:41] Well, this tight movie, let's do our final judgments about it.

[1:19:45] Is it a good, bad movie, a bad, bad movie or a movie we kind of like?

[1:19:48] And I – it gives me no joy to like talk about the Sonic movies these ways because I feel like – I feel like there's probably a lot of listeners.

Elliott Kalan

[1:19:59] Because they're beyond these ratings.

[1:20:01] They're just so beautiful.

Dan McCoy

[1:20:02] No, I know a lot of people like these movies and I think probably a lot in our listenership as well because – and I include myself in this number.

[1:20:11] I'm not trying to insult.

[1:20:13] I'm saying that probably the people who listen are like me, affable nerds who are maybe too attached to the junk of their childhood perhaps as a defense mechanism against a horrible universe that we live in.

[1:20:29] And so like people have a lot of nostalgic affection for Sonic.

[1:20:35] But I would ask that people expect a little bit more out of their baby shit that they still like.

[1:20:43] The blanket that we all clutch to ourselves.

[1:20:46] I mean I feel a little bit better about this movie knowing that it is so tied to this particular game and that's the way it is because without that I'm like this is such a generification of – like this is just what every movie feels like these days.

[1:21:03] That's like a big blockbuster that's kind of boring.

Elliott Kalan

[1:21:06] You didn't realize that the Sonic games were the template for all the blockbuster movies to come.

Dan McCoy

[1:21:11] Like this is the sort of movie where I'm like, well, I don't know.

[1:21:14] Like why are we fighting so hard against AI if like someone presumably wrote this but it still feels like just like a conglomeration of every type of movie that is made these days.

[1:21:24] Anyway, bad, bad.

[1:21:26] Stuart.

Stuart Wellington

[1:21:28] Yeah, I mean I think this is probably a bad, bad movie.

[1:21:31] I mean I enjoyed talking about it quite a bit and I find like if you can skip over all the battle sequences, it's – I think there's stuff that's likable.

[1:21:40] There's stuff likable in it.

[1:21:41] I mean like again, I enjoy Jim Carrey's performance and there's a lot of other actors who I think are doing fine work and I wish they could do other things but I'm glad to see all of them.

[1:21:54] But no, I mean there's – I mean it feels very silly and I'm a little disappointed that it reaches a point where we have these two characters who at least one of them is coded as a child are just like punching each other over and over.

[1:22:10] And it's – yeah, that kind of sucks.

Elliott Kalan

[1:22:12] I'm also going to call this a bad, bad movie.

[1:22:15] It's – I was really surprised looking up reviews for this.

[1:22:17] A lot of people were like, this is clearly the best of the Sonic the Hedgehog movies.

[1:22:20] Like it really won a lot of reviewers over and I was surprised by that because again, like I'm just saying the same thing you guys are.

[1:22:27] Like there are comedy moments in this that I think are very successful and I wish that I could see these performers in something that was not tied to the concept of doing a serious take on a Sonic the Hedgehog story.

[1:22:40] But it's a – I wish – I think the real falling down of it is that in a movie like this, the action should be like the high point.

[1:22:47] Like you should be like this movie is real dumb but there's a couple of action scenes that are really cool and it's actually the stuff that is the hardest to get through in this movie in my opinion.

[1:22:55] So I'm going to call it bad, bad but it's like – well, I've seen worse.

[1:22:59] You know, I've seen worse movies.

Stuart Wellington

[1:23:01] Part 4 is set for release March 19th, 2027 by the way.

[1:23:05] Okay.

[1:23:06] Oh, okay.

Jamelle Bouie

[1:23:08] That's honestly my thinking.

[1:23:09] It's like I've seen worse.

[1:23:11] I mean as far as like blockbuster franchise filmmaking for kids goes, this is far from the worst thing you could show a 7 or 8-year-old.

[1:23:20] The fact that you do get in each of these movies like a real 90s vintage Jim Carrey performance is kind of magical.

[1:23:28] Like I think you're right, Elliot.

[1:23:30] Somehow people have forgotten that like Carrey is this tremendously talented performer and comedic performer and it's fun to see him in this mode.

[1:23:39] So it's like it's not good but I don't – I didn't like feel bad watching it.

[1:23:44] I don't know.

[1:23:45] It's like it's not good but it wasn't like intolerable.

Elliott Kalan

[1:23:49] Yeah, that's fair.

[1:23:50] I wish it was shorter.

[1:23:51] I feel like there are bad movies that I will watch because Peter Sellers is in it and he's giving a funny performance.

[1:23:56] And I feel like this is not that different from that.

[1:23:58] Yeah.

[1:23:58] But usually those movies are like an hour and a half and this is nearly two hours.

Jamelle Bouie

[1:24:02] If this were 90 minutes long, it'd be decent.

[1:24:07] Put it on a poster.

Dan McCoy

[1:24:08] In some ways I totally get where you guys are coming from but I also feel like the longer we've engaged in this project, the more I'm like it could have been worse movies are the worst movies to me.

[1:24:20] The ones that are just like super mediocre.

[1:24:23] Like I'd rather watch a worse movie than watch something like this.

Jamelle Bouie

[1:24:26] You could watch Smurfs, the recent one.

[1:24:30] I did see that one.

Stuart Wellington

[1:24:32] Yeah, that was – that's a rough one at times.

[1:24:35] Yeah, this is way better than Smurfs.

[1:24:37] Put that shit on the poster.

[1:24:38] Yeah, I enjoyed it less.

Dan McCoy

[1:24:40] Oh, you enjoyed Smurfs more?

[1:24:42] Yeah, because it was weirder.

[1:24:45] I mean this is like the most boilerplate version.

[1:24:48] I feel like if like two people who are overpaid screenwriters and I'm mad at them because they have jobs are told to write an adaptation, like this is what gets crapped out.

Elliott Kalan

[1:25:02] I think, Dan, I think – no, I think – well, one, the idea that two people wrote this would be hilarious to me.

[1:25:07] Like obviously there was a – there's three credited screenwriters and you know there was a – there were many more that probably worked on it.

[1:25:13] But it is not like – you can't – it's not like they were like, hey, let's just crap out a Sonic script.

[1:25:18] No, they were – they wrote the project that they were directed to write.

Dan McCoy

[1:25:23] I'm sure they like earned their money simply by dealing with the number of crazy rewrites and bad ideas.

Elliott Kalan

[1:25:29] You know there was a moment where in a meeting an executive said to them, but how do we really establish Shadow's emotional trauma?

[1:25:37] And that is worth being paid at least $200,000 just to have to deal with that moment of being told that.

[1:25:44] I think – I don't know if I mentioned this on the podcast.

[1:25:46] My nightmare that I have right now – I used to have a nightmare that I was this age and I still worked at The Daily Show and I was on a panel talking about comedy and the news.

[1:25:53] And I was like, no, no more of that.

[1:25:55] My new nightmare is I come home depressed from a meeting and my wife goes, so how did the meeting with Lucky Charms go?

[1:26:01] And I go, they didn't like my take on Lucky.

[1:26:03] And I'm like that's my – that's the world of a working screenwriter right now is what's your take on Lucky the Leprechaun?

[1:26:08] How do you get across what drives Lucky?

[1:26:11] And so anyone who worked on this, you know they had to deal with that kind of stuff.

[1:26:14] How do we get across – at some point they said, well, what's Tails' comedic fastball?

[1:26:21] What's the kind of joke only Tails can tell?

[1:26:23] And the writers had to be like, how do we answer an unanswerable question?

[1:26:27] So I have nothing but sympathy.

Dan McCoy

[1:26:29] No, you're right.

[1:26:30] They deserve their hazard pay.

[1:26:32] Exactly.

[1:26:32] They deserve it.

[1:26:33] I'm just mad at the sorts of movies that are making money.

Elliott Kalan

[1:26:38] It's disappointing that this – there's a – I was complaining to my dad about this and he didn't really understand what I was talking about.

[1:26:42] There's an entire generation, maybe more, of creative people who should be making the movies that define these times and define what our imaginations can do in these times.

[1:26:52] And we're not getting them because these people have to make Sonic the Hedgehog movies, superhero movies, movies based on old cartoons from when we were kids.

[1:26:58] Like we're just not – we're going to miss an entire generation of original ideas and imaginings.

[1:27:03] And I'm very sad about it.

[1:27:03] Yeah.

[1:27:04] But you can't blame the people who are doing it.

[1:27:05] They've got to do the job.

[1:27:06] They've got to make a living.

Jamelle Bouie

[1:27:07] Or just not even – even if not original ideas, just like strange blockbuster movies.

[1:27:12] I don't know.

[1:27:13] I watched Dick Tracy for the first time recently.

[1:27:15] Oh, man.

[1:27:16] And I was sort of like –

[1:27:16] I haven't seen that since it came out.

[1:27:17] I've got to watch it again.

[1:27:18] That is a singular vision.

[1:27:19] I was just like – it boggles my mind how the movie got made.

Stuart Wellington

[1:27:25] There was so much marketing behind it.

[1:27:28] I remember being so – like going to McDonald's and being like I've got to catch all the villain like stickers or whatever the fuck.

Elliott Kalan

[1:27:34] Just the idea also that it was like Batman was huge.

[1:27:36] You know it will be big.

[1:27:38] Dick Tracy.

[1:27:38] They're both old comic book characters, right?

[1:27:41] But that was the same thing where Warren Beatty was like – I assume Warren Beatty was like when I was a kid I loved Dick Tracy.

[1:27:45] I've got to make this Dick Tracy movie.

[1:27:46] But instead he made it in a strange way as opposed to Michael Bay making like an Ninja Turtles movie where it's like how do we make these characters fuck?

[1:27:55] How do we make them super badass?

Dan McCoy

[1:27:57] It was definitely marketed as Batman too.

[1:28:00] And by the way, the first Batman, also a nutty vision in its own way.

[1:28:03] It was one that hit with the public.

[1:28:06] Like I remember watching Dick Tracy in the theater as a kid and being like I wanted another Batman.

[1:28:11] And then I saw it like I don't know a year ago.

[1:28:14] They did a screaming at Nighthawk and I'm like this is amazing.

[1:28:18] This is like a kaleidoscope of nuttiness.

[1:28:23] I love it.

[1:28:24] I got to watch it again.

Stuart Wellington

[1:28:25] Would you describe it as colorful?

Dan McCoy

[1:28:27] It is colorful.

Elliott Kalan

[1:28:29] Like the comics.

[1:28:31] No, the comics were not colorful, Dan.

Dan McCoy

[1:28:33] Well, there were four color – no, I mean I'm talking about the –

[1:28:36] On Sundays.

[1:28:36] The Sunday –

[1:28:37] Yeah.

[1:28:37] Anyway.

Elliott Kalan

[1:28:39] The other thing is what's funny about the Dick Tracy movie is if I'm remembering correctly, they actually had to clean it up quite a bit because the old Dick Tracy comic strips are very violent.

[1:28:46] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1:28:46] He's constantly killing his bad guys.

[1:28:48] It's like Prune Face committed this crime.

[1:28:50] Shoot him in the face.

[1:28:55] The original Judge Dredd.

[1:28:57] There's Flat Top.

[1:28:58] Stab him in the heart.

[1:28:59] Okay, Dick Tracy.

[1:29:00] Like, all right.

[1:29:01] And I have a watch with a little TV on it.

[1:29:03] Anyway, kill these guys.

Dan McCoy

[1:29:04] Man, at the time that was like the height.

[1:29:06] It was like, ah, can you imagine if you could have a TV on a watch?

S5

[1:29:17] Greatest Trek is the hit podcast about new Star Trek shows.

[1:29:20] And right now we're talking about all things Starfleet Academy.

S6

[1:29:24] Starfleet Academy is a Star Trek show made for everyone.

[1:29:28] From lifetime Star Trek nerds to folks who only like my so-called life in Dawson's Creek.

S5

[1:29:33] We even had a special writer and actor guest for the fifth episode this season, the hilarious Tawny Newsome.

S6

[1:29:39] Look, there's always something fun on the Greatest Trek feed because when the season's over, we're going back to watching the original series.

S5

[1:29:45] And hey, if you like old Star Trek, the Greatest Generation just had its 10th anniversary.

S6

[1:29:50] That's Greatest Trek for new Star Trek and Greatest Generation for the Star Trek you grew up on.

S5

[1:29:56] Both shows you can find on MaximumFun.org.

Jamelle Bouie

[1:30:01] Ready, go.

[1:30:02] Knock, knock.

[1:30:03] Who's there?

[1:30:04] We got this.

[1:30:05] With Mark and Hal?

Dan McCoy

[1:30:06] You knew this one.

[1:30:10] We can't put that out as an ad.

Jamelle Bouie

[1:30:12] We just did.

[1:30:13] New episodes every week on MaximumFun.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

[1:30:17] Now it's hewn in rock.

[1:30:18] Hewn in rock?

[1:30:20] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:30:21] How do you hew something in rock?

[1:30:23] With a chisel.

[1:30:24] There's only one hew in rock and it's Huey Lewis.

[1:30:28] And the news is we got this with Mark and Hal.

S5

[1:30:30] It's available every week on MaximumFun.org.

Dan McCoy

[1:30:33] I walked right into that.

[1:30:40] This podcast is brought to you in part by Squarespace.

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[1:32:07] Also, before we get back to the show, just a brief message to say that if you're listening to this, when it's released, you have a very, very short time to get in those flop TV viewings before the show goes away at the end of the flop TV viewing window.

[1:32:27] And we said that's the end of February.

[1:32:29] Maybe there's a grace day.

[1:32:31] I don't know.

[1:32:32] I don't know.

[1:32:32] That's actually Matt's job.

[1:32:35] Matt, our tech person.

[1:32:36] But if you haven't watched flop TV yet, check it out while you still can.

[1:32:41] And now, back to Sonic 3 and Jamel and everything.

[1:32:46] Let's do letters from listeners.

[1:32:49] Let's do them.

[1:32:49] Like you?

[1:32:49] No, why not?

[1:32:50] This one's from Declan, last name withheld, who writes,

[1:32:54] Hi, Floppers.

[1:32:55] I'm wondering if you guys have any tips on how to write about or review something positively.

[1:33:03] In this case, I'm talking movies.

Elliott Kalan

[1:33:04] From this podcast, no.

Dan McCoy

[1:33:06] In this case, I'm talking movies on Letterboxd, but it applies to the world in general.

[1:33:10] Maybe it's just a byproduct of being on the internet with its widespread negativity.

[1:33:14] But for some reason, I feel my reviews are more likely to focus on the aspects of a good movie that bothered me rather than the aspects I liked.

[1:33:22] Almost as if I'm trying to justify why I didn't give the movie five stars rather than what I liked that gave it an above average rating.

[1:33:31] For instance, I recently watched Paris, Texas.

[1:33:34] My review was four paragraphs of how I thought the beginning hour in the desert was too long and boring

[1:33:38] and how the movie didn't feel like it delivered on the promises it set up

[1:33:41] and how I got really close to turning it off, followed by one paragraph about how I liked it.

[1:33:46] My rating?

[1:33:47] 4.5 stars out of 5.

[1:33:50] I don't know whether it's because I'm more comfortable verbalizing something I didn't like

[1:33:54] than I am putting myself out there and trying to describe why something made me feel.

[1:33:58] But I'm kind of afraid that this is something that might be indicative of my personality,

[1:34:01] not to mention that this brand of negativity feels like a symptom of the world we live in

[1:34:05] and is something we should all probably try to curb.

[1:34:09] I'd also like to get ahead of the jokes and say that I recognize the irony in writing to a bad movie podcast about this.

[1:34:14] But obviously you guys love movies, have a history with professional movie reviewers,

[1:34:19] and give recommendations on each episode.

[1:34:21] So I feel like you guys are amongst the foremost experts on the subject.

[1:34:26] Help me, floppy wine.

[1:34:27] Kenobi's you're my only hope.

[1:34:29] Love, Declan Lasting withheld.

Elliott Kalan

[1:34:31] I would like to jump in if it's okay.

[1:34:32] This is very unlike me to jump in and talk first.

[1:34:36] And interrupt everybody.

[1:34:37] Declan, I feel like you were answering your own question in a number of ways,

[1:34:41] not in the how-to but in the why.

[1:34:42] I think that we live in a world where it is very hard to make yourself vulnerable by saying,

[1:34:48] I like this thing because it's so easy for someone else to say,

[1:34:51] that thing is bad, you're wrong for liking it, you're dumb.

[1:34:54] And the internet, which should have created a world where there's a certain level of anonymity

[1:34:58] so you can say, I like this thing without fear that someone's going to come at you

[1:35:01] because who gives a shit if someone you don't know in real life comes at you,

[1:35:05] is the opposite.

[1:35:06] It's much easier for somebody who you've never met to shit on you

[1:35:10] for saying you like a thing that they don't like.

[1:35:12] And so I think that it's very hard for anyone right now to be,

[1:35:17] to make them, or it's harder than it once was,

[1:35:19] to make yourself vulnerable by saying, I like this thing.

[1:35:22] It really means something to me.

[1:35:23] It feels like all of politics right now is based around,

[1:35:26] it's easier to say what I hate than to say what I like,

[1:35:29] to say what is good rather than what is bad.

[1:35:31] And so I would say, this is what, this is my, this is my theory about this.

[1:35:36] This is my thing we have to do.

[1:35:37] I feel like we've got to drop the kind of nihilistic fear of vulnerability that has typified a lot of culture since,

[1:35:46] let's say that in those 1990s that Sonic the Hedgehog was trying to teach us were so great,

[1:35:51] and go back to the more like sincere, more innocent, kind of cornier, goofier, in a lot of ways,

[1:36:01] kind of like less cool way of living that I would say existed from the romantic era into, you know,

[1:36:10] roughly the 1970s, 1980s, with some bumps here and there, when it was like people were really excited about things they liked and really wanted to share things they liked.

[1:36:17] And I feel like that's a lot of where science fiction fandom comes from, is I like these things that the people around me don't like.

[1:36:23] So I'm going to find other people like me by being extremely vocal about what I like and searching out the people who also like those things.

[1:36:31] And now we've kind of gone the other way where I think people glom together based on sharing that they don't like things.

[1:36:37] And the first step is just to like be – try to be okay with being vulnerable.

[1:36:42] And if someone says, I don't like that thing you like, to be like, okay, cool.

[1:36:45] Well, I still like it, you know.

[1:36:47] But it's hard to do.

[1:36:48] I know I certainly – when I was a younger man, I felt it was much easier to be funny about the things I didn't like than to be genuine about the things I did like.

[1:36:56] And when I hosted a film series at the 9toY Tribeca, it was a lot easier to get people to come see movies if I was like, this movie is so bad.

[1:37:02] You're going to love it.

[1:37:03] Then if I said, this movie is great.

[1:37:04] You're going to love it.

[1:37:05] And I think it's all that fear of being vulnerable, I think, at a certain level.

[1:37:09] So I would say you got to just gird yourself for those moments and try it when you're writing the next – this is my assignment I'm going to give you.

[1:37:18] The next time you write a letterbox review, I don't want you to mention anything in the movie you didn't like.

[1:37:22] I only want you to mention the things you did like.

[1:37:24] And don't feel like you need to justify your star rating in any way.

[1:37:28] The star rating and the write-up can be separate things in a way.

[1:37:33] And you can just focus on the things that you like.

[1:37:34] That's my assignment for you, Declan.

[1:37:35] Yeah.

[1:37:35] And for the world.

[1:37:37] Guys, prove me wrong.

[1:37:38] I don't care.

[1:37:39] What?

[1:37:39] I'm not letting this – I'm letting myself be vulnerable here.

Dan McCoy

[1:37:41] How can I even prove that?

[1:37:42] I don't –

Elliott Kalan

[1:37:43] Debate me, Dan.

[1:37:45] Debate me on it.

Dan McCoy

[1:37:46] No.

[1:37:47] Tell me why it's not good to like things.

Elliott Kalan

[1:37:48] I have to write positive reviews over here.

[1:37:50] I have to write positive reviews over here.

Dan McCoy

[1:37:51] No, I mean I found that like even in my like non-review like life, I have a problem with like leading with the negative and just sort of assuming that the positive is understood to be positive if I don't mention it.

[1:38:05] Like that's okay.

[1:38:07] You know, and like –

[1:38:08] Yeah.

[1:38:08] The baseline.

[1:38:09] And I don't think that that's a good – I've had trouble talking with Audrey because of that sometimes.

[1:38:14] I had trouble with my friends sometimes where it's just like, oh, the negativity is obvious but the positivity is left unsaid.

[1:38:22] Stuart's nodding his head probably because he's, you know, remembering a cool song he heard once and he's bobbing his head along to it.

[1:38:30] But –

[1:38:32] Yeah, probably the Addams Family song.

[1:38:33] No, it's good to be aware of this sort of thing.

[1:38:35] I think in – like if you want a how-to, I think in reviews like it's – the only thing to do is to think like, you know, why did this affect me positively?

[1:38:46] Like what did I think wasn't – that I responded to and write about that?

[1:38:51] Or like even if it didn't affect you per se, like what is the movie that you're watching?

[1:38:59] Like what's it trying to do?

[1:39:01] And did it succeed at that and why?

[1:39:03] And like talk about why it succeeded in that because like, you know, that's sort of a side note to that.

[1:39:10] I think a lot of people get very negative like imagining the movie that they thought they were going to watch.

[1:39:16] And if it doesn't live up to that, they're mad rather than engaging with like what is actually in front of them.

[1:39:22] And, you know, a lot of that's advertising and expectations.

[1:39:24] But do you have any thoughts?

[1:39:26] Yeah, it's just like my girl, right?

Stuart Wellington

[1:39:28] You get mad about those bees?

Dan McCoy

[1:39:30] I am mad at those bees years later.

Stuart Wellington

[1:39:33] I don't know.

[1:39:34] Yeah, I mean, I think – I mean, one, I know that I was raised in a family and an environment where –

[1:39:40] If I shared a particular affection for something that became ammunition for people to make fun of me for liking it.

[1:39:50] And I – and while I feel like I've gotten over most of that, there's also – you know, that's lingering.

[1:39:55] And the – but I do know that like as somebody who deals with depression a lot that like I try to focus on the things that I like because, you know, it's hard to find joy in the world sometimes.

[1:40:08] And you need to figure out what you like so that you can get that.

[1:40:13] And so I guess I just find myself, I guess, thinking about the positives of a lot of things more often.

[1:40:20] That doesn't necessarily help you with your reviews.

[1:40:23] I would recommend sticking to the things that you like and follow what Elliot said because that was well thought out.

[1:40:28] But yeah.

Jamelle Bouie

[1:40:29] Yeah, Elliot said something that I thought was quite useful just to separate a star rating from just what – like what you're going to write about the movie, right?

[1:40:37] Like if – there are plenty of movies for which I would give a two-star rating on the letterbox.

[1:40:42] I might write about the things about the movie that I just like that like, you know, made it worth watching.

[1:40:47] Or even if I – sometimes I'll give a movie a low star rating, we give it a heart.

[1:40:52] And that's just a signal that like, you know, this movie isn't particularly good but I still enjoyed it and I enjoyed it for these reasons.

[1:40:58] And I think it's worth just sort of – but recognizing that there is this internet premium on negativity but doing what you can to push against it.

[1:41:06] And like Elliot said, being a little vulnerable is worthwhile.

[1:41:13] Being a little cringe is worthwhile, you know?

[1:41:15] Like I think one thing – not to bring too much of my day job into this conversation but one thing that I think is true is that I think our politics at this moment are somewhat downstream of a cultural belief that negativity and cynicism

[1:41:35] are somehow more authentic and more true than positivity and the things you might label as cringe.

[1:41:45] That like for whatever reason we view that stuff as insincere, as virtue signaling.

[1:41:51] When – I think that virtue actually needs to be signaled.

[1:41:55] That's a thing.

[1:41:56] Virtue is a public performance and it has to be demonstrated and that is going to look embarrassing.

[1:42:05] And you just have to power through that.

Elliott Kalan

[1:42:08] Yeah, there's something – this is kind of a semi-unrelated but I feel like it's similar in that there's – in one of Chuck Klosterman's essays, he talks about being like a young punk and going to a bar where there was a group of like hair metal guys who would dress up in really ridiculous outfits and then play hair metal at this bar.

[1:42:24] And then he and his friends would just sit in the back and laugh at them and be like, oh, that sucks.

[1:42:28] Look at that.

[1:42:28] And in the essay, he's like – and you know what those guys probably did later that night?

[1:42:31] Had sex with their girlfriends.

[1:42:34] Like they were having a really fun time.

[1:42:36] And our idea of a fun time was just to sit on them – sit and shit on them having a fun time, which is not fun.

[1:42:40] Like that he was so – they were so afraid of not looking cool that they were cutting themselves off from enjoying themselves.

[1:42:48] And it's a little bit like – I feel like a lot of – in terms of like political reporting and our national culture right now, it's like the people who refuse to dance at weddings, which I was one for many years where it's like, oh, because I don't want to look stupid.

[1:43:01] And it's like, well, why not?

[1:43:01] Have a great time.

[1:43:02] Who cares if you look stupid?

[1:43:03] Everyone else is.

[1:43:04] Like just have a good time.

Stuart Wellington

[1:43:05] And you're like, who cares if somebody films it and puts it on the internet?

[1:43:08] Like everybody looks stupid on the internet.

[1:43:09] It's okay.

[1:43:10] Like –

[1:43:11] Is that happening?

Elliott Kalan

[1:43:13] Are people putting wedding dancing up on the internet?

Stuart Wellington

[1:43:15] I mean I think that is a concern for some young people is that because everything is filmed, people are nervous about being filmed in a way that they can't control.

Elliott Kalan

[1:43:23] Yeah.

[1:43:23] That makes sense.

[1:43:24] But I think if – what you're saying I think is great to me.

[1:43:27] Like you have to be a little cringe in order to – in order to engage sincerely and enjoy life to a certain extent.

[1:43:34] Yeah.

[1:43:35] And you can't just always hold yourself back and be like, eh.

[1:43:37] You can't always be Daria.

Stuart Wellington

[1:43:38] Yeah.

[1:43:39] And you can't always – if you keep finding ways to not do something, you'll never fucking do anything.

Dan McCoy

[1:43:46] Yes.

[1:43:46] That's a good point.

Stuart Wellington

[1:43:47] So Declan, you have no excuse now.

Dan McCoy

[1:43:50] That was more inspiring.

Stuart Wellington

[1:43:51] I mean you gave him an assignment, Ali.

[1:43:54] I feel like that's better than a lot of our letter responses.

Dan McCoy

[1:43:59] Speaking of letters, there's one more.

[1:44:01] This is from Aaron LastnameWithheld who writes,

Elliott Kalan

[1:44:03] Why do movies suck so hard?

[1:44:06] This guy Declan writes the dumbest reviews.

[1:44:08] What do I say to him to get him to stop?

[1:44:11] Aaron, why don't you?

[1:44:13] Dan, why did you pair these two letters together?

Dan McCoy

[1:44:15] Because he's got to be shown.

[1:44:18] No, this is from Aaron who writes,

[1:44:20] I'm listening to your Smurfs episode with guest Jesse Thorne.

[1:44:23] And he mentioned Field of Dreams as a baseball movie he enjoyed.

[1:44:27] I saw Field of Dreams for the first time this summer in Iowa City at an outdoor movie event.

[1:44:32] When the line, is this heaven?

[1:44:34] No, it's Iowa.

[1:44:36] Came up.

[1:44:36] Everyone there said it along with the movie and then we all cheered.

[1:44:41] It was really fun to be there and witness that,

[1:44:43] especially for my first time seeing the flick.

[1:44:46] Thinking about that experience,

[1:44:48] I was wondering whether there are any movies that you strongly associate with place.

[1:44:52] It could be because you watched it in the location where it happened

[1:44:54] or that it brought up a particularly strong memory of a place for you.

[1:44:59] My second question, less related to movies,

[1:45:00] are there physical spaces, whether from your past or present,

[1:45:04] without doxing yourself, of course,

[1:45:06] that really stuck out to you and shaped you into who you are or want to be?

[1:45:10] Thanks, Aaron.

[1:45:10] Last name withheld.

[1:45:11] P.S.

[1:45:12] I was at the late Chicago show.

[1:45:14] Had a really great time.

[1:45:15] Thanks for all you do.

[1:45:16] And I hope Stuart and Elliot aren't too mad at Dan for the roast

[1:45:20] because I had a great time.

Stuart Wellington

[1:45:22] Oh, yeah.

[1:45:23] Dan's referencing a PowerPoint he does where he roasts me and Elliot.

[1:45:27] And I'm still livid.

Dan McCoy

[1:45:30] Yeah.

[1:45:31] Look at him.

[1:45:31] He's shaking.

Stuart Wellington

[1:45:33] I'm vibrating like an angry Sonic.

[1:45:35] Yeah.

[1:45:37] The vein in his forehead is throbbing.

[1:45:40] I mean, I feel like the cheat on a question like this is always—

[1:45:43] And his penis.

[1:45:44] Dan.

Dan McCoy

[1:45:45] Sorry.

[1:45:46] I thought about not saying it and then I said it.

Stuart Wellington

[1:45:48] I mean, I have my penis out while I podcast.

[1:45:52] I mean, the cheat for me is always movies that are like—

[1:45:54] Stuart says, what would Tom Bombadil do?

[1:45:59] You wouldn't take that goddamn ring.

[1:46:00] The cheat is something like, you know, I, as somebody who has chosen to live in New York,

[1:46:07] I obviously have an affection for New York.

[1:46:09] And growing up, I saw a lot of movies set in New York.

[1:46:11] And I still have a thing where, like, seeing movies that are clearly set in the city that I choose to live in, I, like, it already gives me an affection for it.

[1:46:24] Especially, like, in particular, if it shows, like, a New York slightly before my time, that's, like, even better.

[1:46:30] Like, give me a 90s New York.

[1:46:32] I'm like, oh, take me there.

[1:46:33] Because that was kind of the feeling I had when I was going—when I was, like, where do I want to live?

[1:46:38] That was the type of movie that I would see.

[1:46:40] And those were the things that kind of pushed me over the edge.

Dan McCoy

[1:46:43] I have a couple of thoughts of movies for slightly different reasons in each case.

[1:46:48] I saw—why am I blanking?

[1:46:51] Night of the Hunter for the first time.

[1:46:54] It was being screened.

[1:46:57] Like, someone had a 60mm, probably, print that they were playing in an airplane hangar near where my ex, her family, is from.

Elliott Kalan

[1:47:08] It sounds like a way that the cops entrap nerds that have committed crimes.

Dan McCoy

[1:47:12] But, no, it was just a wonderful, like, it was, like, semi-outdoors, like, a unique way to see that movie.

[1:47:18] And, you know, I've seen a lot of movies at different, like, interesting venues.

[1:47:23] But this one stuck with me for some reason, possibly because I was also seeing a great movie for the first time.

[1:47:29] And I think I mentioned before that there was, like, a documentary about the Eugene Merman Comedy Festival that I watched somewhat recently that just had a cavalcade of, like, stages I had performed on.

[1:47:42] Or people I had seen when I was first in New York coming to comedy shows that, you know, felt very specifically interesting to me when maybe someone else wouldn't be as fascinated by the movie.

[1:47:54] What do you guys think?

Jamelle Bouie

[1:47:57] I—so, this isn't a memory of a good movie.

[1:48:01] But when I was just out of college, I went to a recently defunct, soon about to be brought back, drive-in movie theater in the middle of nowhere, Virginia, and saw the 2000—saw the movie that came out that year, obsessed with Beyonce, Hallie Larder, and Idris Elba.

[1:48:19] And it was just, like, such a great time, like, watching this terrible movie with a bunch of my friends, eating snacks and, like, hanging out.

[1:48:26] And just sort of, like, that's—I associate drive-in movies with that experience.

[1:48:30] And whenever I see Ali Larder or Beyonce or Idris Elba, I do think about that movie obsessed.

Stuart Wellington

[1:48:38] The stretchy arms, right?

[1:48:39] That's the stretchy arms one where somebody's hanging and their arms look like they're really long.

Elliott Kalan

[1:48:43] Yeah, I think so.

[1:48:44] That's a flop-ass movie.

[1:48:44] I think we did an episode on that one years ago, yeah.

[1:48:47] Similarly, I have—there are two movies that stick out to me particularly for the time and the place, which was—one was when I was a kid, my mom took me and my brother and sister to a—to Mystic Connecticut for the weekend because Penn and Teller were performing there.

[1:49:01] And our car broke down, and we missed a day of school, and we went to the movies, and we saw The Sandlot in an otherwise empty theater.

[1:49:07] It was just the four of us and nobody else.

[1:49:11] And so The Sandlot will always be associated with Mystic Connecticut to me for that reason.

[1:49:14] But also on the day of my wedding in Sonoma, California, earlier that day while my wife and her friends were getting ready, Dan and Stuart and I and a bunch of my other groomsmen and friends, we went to go see Piranha 3D.

[1:49:28] And so now my wedding day is forever intertwined with Piranha 3D.

[1:49:33] And when I'm in Sonoma, which we go to regularly because my wife's parents still live there, it's a—I often will just think about, like, yeah, this is where I got married and I saw Piranha 3D.

Stuart Wellington

[1:49:46] Two equally important things.

[1:49:48] There's something so fun about this pile of rowdy weirdos showing up to a multiplex that is other—like, just, like, we're waiting there for them to open the doors.

[1:49:56] And there's no one else in this empty parking lot, and we're like, yep, ten tickets for Piranha 3D, please.

Dan McCoy

[1:50:05] And I think there were, like, two other people in the theater who were not with us.

[1:50:08] Yeah, they had to put up with us talking.

[1:50:09] And we dragged them to the wedding.

Elliott Kalan

[1:50:13] Great friends now.

[1:50:14] They're very close friends now.

[1:50:15] Yeah, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:50:16] Are there, like, personal spaces, like she asked about?

[1:50:20] I mean, the thing for me is, like, you know, everything imprints on you, you know?

[1:50:24] Like, I don't know if I have a—

[1:50:25] Especially if you're made out of Silly Putty.

[1:50:27] I don't know if I have a better answer.

[1:50:31] You know, like, the first 17 years of my life, I was in a small Midwestern town where I was bored all the time.

[1:50:39] And obviously that looms large in my life just because it was where I grew up.

[1:50:45] But I can't really, like, think of—

Elliott Kalan

[1:50:47] I mean, certainly, like, when I first got married and things were very strange and my husband was, like, was still enthralled to the memory of his first wife, the first Mrs. De Winter, I often find myself still dreaming of Manderley.

[1:51:02] You know, that I'm still back there.

[1:51:03] So it made a big impression on me, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:51:06] Well, there you go.

Elliott Kalan

[1:51:08] That's where you get a Rebecca reference.

[1:51:11] Yeah, exactly.

[1:51:12] That's where it was the movie of Rebecca.

[1:51:14] For more, see the Mitchell and Webb sketch where they're talking about how they made—the mistake was making the movie of Rebecca where they're saying, no, no, that's the room the second Mrs. De Winter will not be allowed into.

[1:51:23] They had to convince Hitchcock to make the movie about the second wife as opposed to the first one.

Stuart Wellington

[1:51:29] And Hitchcock's that superhero guy, right?

[1:51:31] That's right, yeah.

[1:51:32] No, that's Hancock.

[1:51:32] Will Smith, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:51:34] Hancock is—it's Hitch and Hancock put together to make Hitchcock.

[1:51:37] He's a superhero who teaches Kevin James how to fall in love, yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:51:41] And half-cocked is what you should never go off.

[1:51:44] And a Mr. Woodcock is what they call Tom Bombadil.

[1:51:52] Those forest full of ants were filled with Mr. Woodcock.

Stuart Wellington

[1:51:56] Yeah.

[1:51:57] That's why Goldberry was always smiling, right?

Dan McCoy

[1:52:02] Let's move on to our final segment where we recommend a movie that we saw that we liked perhaps better than Sonic 3.

[1:52:09] I, last night—

[1:52:10] Is that possible?

[1:52:11] Just last night, I watched The Color of Money, which is one of the few Scorsese movies.

[1:52:17] It's green.

[1:52:17] I hadn't—thank you.

[1:52:19] A plus.

Elliott Kalan

[1:52:21] I mean, in other countries, it's other colors.

[1:52:23] That's the thing.

[1:52:23] What?

[1:52:24] That's the thing.

[1:52:25] When they released it in other countries, they had to redub the part where they said what color the money was.

Jamelle Bouie

[1:52:29] Yeah, when Paul Newman looks directly into the camera and says, the color of money is green.

[1:52:35] That's the last line.

Elliott Kalan

[1:52:37] Can you imagine Paul Newman?

[1:52:38] They're like, well, we had to bring in for ADR for the international.

[1:52:41] It just looks like everyone goes, the color of money is blue.

[1:52:44] Okay, great.

[1:52:44] We got that.

[1:52:45] Okay, now for the next—now for Italy or whatever.

[1:52:47] The color of money is orange and yellow.

[1:52:49] Okay, great.

[1:52:50] Keep moving.

Stuart Wellington

[1:52:50] The color of money has a little—a petit prince on it.

Dan McCoy

[1:52:56] I think that this movie sort of had, like, a middling reputation for a long time because it was a—it was a—you know, it was a pretty big hit for Scorsese standards.

[1:53:10] But it was also, I think, among critics, like, looked at as, like, oh, he's doing something commercial.

[1:53:17] Like, even—

[1:53:17] With money.

[1:53:18] Even though you look at it now and it's, like, a damn art film compared to, like, most movies that are released.

[1:53:24] But, you know, there's—

Elliott Kalan

[1:53:25] But at the time it was seen as the equivalent of him taking on, like, a Jurassic Park movie.

[1:53:28] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:53:28] I mean, especially because it's, you know, it's a sequel to a long-ago classic film, The Hustler.

[1:53:34] And so people were on him for that, I think, too.

[1:53:37] But, you know, it's great.

[1:53:39] So it's written by Richard Price off of a novel by the same man who did The Hustler.

[1:53:45] And I just thought that, like—I specifically—I particularly was impressed, like, right out of the gate by the first scene,

[1:53:54] which I think sets up all the characters in such an elegant way with, like, you know, the Scorsese camera moving back and forth.

[1:54:01] Like, Paul Newman is talking to the woman he's sleeping with about, you know, she owns the bar.

[1:54:08] And he's, like, a booze distributor.

[1:54:10] And he's having this whole conversation while John DeToro just keeps coming in asking for more money to be staked because he keeps losing to Tom Cruise,

[1:54:17] even though he's supposedly a hustler himself.

[1:54:19] And, you know, Newman's slowly becoming more interested in the pool game that's going on than the woman he's talking to.

[1:54:27] And Tom Cruise being set up as this cocky weirdo.

[1:54:30] It's all in there.

[1:54:31] And you get so much character and sort of exposition about who these people are without it seeming like it.

[1:54:37] And, you know, it's just a—if you give someone who's masterful a pretty basic story, they're going to make something masterful out of it.

[1:54:45] And I really enjoyed myself.

Jamelle Bouie

[1:54:46] One thing I like about that movie, which I also have been a big fan of for years, is how wild the camera gets during the pool sequences.

[1:54:56] And it's fun because, you know, it's an example of seeing a technique that Scorsese would use to great effect in, like, much more—

[1:55:06] you know, obviously classic films like Goodfellas, but, like, it seems much more, like, appropriate subject matters applied to pool.

[1:55:14] So, like, in Scorsese's hand, like, a game of pool is the most dynamic thing that's ever happened on the planet Earth.

[1:55:23] Something that's played on a stationary piece of furniture.

[1:55:26] Stuart.

[1:55:28] Stuart.

[1:55:28] Sounds great.

Stuart Wellington

[1:55:30] I am going to recommend a movie I saw this week that just saw a U.S. release.

[1:55:35] It's the movie Pillian, starring Alexander Skarsgård and Henry Melling.

[1:55:41] It's a movie about a young, kind of timid, nervous man who begins this kind of whirlwind, complicated romance with a very handsome biker

[1:55:54] who is part of the BDSM community.

[1:55:57] And it's really funny, and it's also hot and, like, sweet.

[1:56:03] And I think it deals with the BDSM community in a really sensitive way.

[1:56:10] And it's, yeah, it's just really, like, it's this beautiful rom-com that has jokingly been called a Dom-com.

[1:56:17] But this is also a really good—

[1:56:19] Oh, because Dom DeLuise is in it.

[1:56:20] Yes.

[1:56:22] I mean, you don't have to say com if Dom DeLuise said it because you know it's a com.

[1:56:25] He brings the com.

[1:56:26] But this is also—

[1:56:28] I think this is also—

Elliott Kalan

[1:56:28] Dom implies com.

[1:56:29] That's what they used to say about him.

Stuart Wellington

[1:56:30] Yeah.

[1:56:30] It's a really strong performance from Alexander Skarsgård, who is a guy who can—who is often called upon to be this, like, silent, brooding figure.

[1:56:39] And I think he is able to add layers to this otherwise kind of, like, kind of stationary character in a lot of ways.

[1:56:49] And he, like, he imbues this character of very few words with a lot of emotion.

[1:56:54] And I think it's a really beautiful movie, and it's, like, the perfect Valentine's Day movie.

Elliott Kalan

[1:57:02] Speaking of perfect Valentine's Day movies, maybe not, I don't know.

[1:57:05] Every now and then I have to wash out my brain by watching an old movie that I don't—I haven't seen before and I don't know about.

[1:57:12] And this time I watched the movie Heat Lightning from 1934, which I really loved.

[1:57:17] It stars Aileen McMahon, one of my favorite kind of 30s supporting performers.

[1:57:22] You may know her best as the most gold diggery of the gold diggers of 1933, one of the all-time great 30s musicals.

[1:57:30] But she often was, like, a supporting character, but here she gets to be the star.

[1:57:34] And she plays a woman who, with her younger sister, runs a kind of, like, gas station and lunchroom in the middle of the desert and lives an isolated life out there.

[1:57:43] She does all the—what they keep calling the man's work in it.

[1:57:46] She runs—she fixes the cars and pumps the gas and things like that.

[1:57:49] And it's because she has a scandalous past she doesn't want her younger sister to know about.

[1:57:54] But then the man from her past, by coincidence, shows up at the roadside lunchstand after—while he's on the run from a robbery that he committed in which he killed a man.

[1:58:04] And a couple other characters were also around and adding their kind of, like, little bits of personality to it.

[1:58:11] And it's a real tight movie.

[1:58:12] This is one of those movies that's barely over an hour long.

[1:58:15] But where I feel like you get a full idea of who these characters are and what they're feeling.

[1:58:20] And it, you know, ends somewhat in tragedy, as it has to.

[1:58:24] But I really loved it.

[1:58:25] It's such a shot of, like, real, like, 1930s, like, filmmaking.

[1:58:32] In a way where the story moves fast, the characters are sketched in really strongly, the acting is really fun.

[1:58:38] And it looks really good.

[1:58:39] It was directed by Mervyn Leroy, who was, you know, one of the big, big directors of that period.

[1:58:45] And I just really enjoyed it a lot.

[1:58:47] So that's Heat Lightning.

[1:58:48] If you want to watch a quick, fast, old movie that's fun to watch.

Jamelle Bouie

[1:58:52] I've been watching the Leroy films on Criterion as well.

Elliott Kalan

[1:58:56] I think this is in that set.

[1:58:57] Yeah.

[1:58:57] I think this is in there.

[1:58:58] Yeah.

[1:58:59] He's one of these directors where, like, people don't talk about him because he's not –

[1:59:03] I guess he doesn't fit the idea of, like, what a great director is.

[1:59:06] But he's got so many fun, good movies to his –

[1:59:08] I mean, he did Gold Diggers of 1933 also, which has some of the best musical numbers of any –

Dan McCoy

[1:59:12] I really like I Was a Fugitive from a – I am a fugitive from a chain gang.

[1:59:16] Yeah, not even was.

[1:59:17] He still is.

[1:59:18] He is.

[1:59:19] He am a fugitive from a chain gang.

[1:59:21] I'm currently a fugitive from a chain gang.

Elliott Kalan

[1:59:22] I continue to be a fugitive from a chain gang.

[1:59:24] That one's great.

[1:59:24] He did a little Caesar, which is great.

Jamelle Bouie

[1:59:28] Yeah.

[1:59:29] I'm going to recommend – we mentioned Wuthering Heights earlier, the new film.

[1:59:34] But I'm going to recommend the 1939 William Wyler Wuthering Heights that I recently watched.

[1:59:41] And it's just – it cuts out half the book.

Elliott Kalan

[1:59:45] It cuts out the –

[1:59:46] They cut out the whole second half, basically, right?

Jamelle Bouie

[1:59:47] Yeah, it cuts out the second half dealing with the children of everyone, like the next generation of the Lintons and the whomevers.

[1:59:59] The Earnshaws, Lintons and the Earnshaws and Heathcliff in the book.

[2:00:03] But what it does cover, which is basically – I don't want to spoil anything up to Catherine's death, is great.

[2:00:12] And it stars Laurence Olivier.

[2:00:16] So it's sort of like, yeah, Laurence Olivier is Heathcliff.

[2:00:19] Do you want to watch that for an hour and 40 minutes?

[2:00:20] Because it fucking rules.

[2:00:22] So that's what I'm going to recommend.

[2:00:26] Yeah.

[2:00:27] The 1939 Wuthering Heights.

[2:00:29] William Wyler is another – oh, sorry.

[2:00:30] I was going to say –

[2:00:31] I recommend reading Wuthering Heights as well.

[2:00:33] My wife is reading it for the first time right now.

[2:00:35] And I think she likes it.

[2:00:36] Tess, do you like it?

[2:00:37] She likes it.

[2:00:38] I know I really enjoyed it when I read it in high school along with Jane Eyre, the other – the Charlotte Bronte novel.

[2:00:46] The three Bronte sisters all produced highlights of Victorian literature and they're worth – it's worth reading, worth checking out.

Elliott Kalan

[2:00:55] I wish – so when I was in high school, I didn't give them a fair shot because I had to read them for school.

[2:00:59] And there were always other books I wanted to read more.

[2:01:01] And I remember one summer where they – I had to read Jane Eyre for the next – for my senior year coming up.

[2:01:06] But I also had Hells Angels, the Hunter S. Thompson book, like lined up after that.

[2:01:10] So I was like, come on, Jane Eyre.

[2:01:11] Like keep – let me get done with this so I can read Hells Angels.

[2:01:14] And it's – I need to go back and relook at it.

[2:01:17] But William Wyler who did that, he's another one of those directors who like – his stuff in the 40s and 50s like is astounding.

[2:01:23] Like he has such an amazing run of movies.

[2:01:24] He's so good.

Stuart Wellington

[2:01:24] I was the same way as you, L.A., with Jane Eyre.

[2:01:27] And I was like, oh, this is boring.

[2:01:28] I want to get back to reading my Vampire the Masquerade rule book.

[2:01:30] But then it gets to the point where the other wife shows up and you're like, what?

[2:01:35] Where was this?

[2:01:37] Where was this the whole time?

Dan McCoy

[2:01:38] I love Jane Eyre all the way through.

[2:01:40] I would be more interested in that than – what were you saying?

[2:01:45] Hunter S. Thompson?

[2:01:45] Hells Angels?

[2:01:46] No, thank you.

Stuart Wellington

[2:01:47] Yeah, Hunter S. Thompson.

[2:01:48] Yeah, yeah.

[2:01:48] Oh, man.

[2:01:48] I love how much of the book – I feel like it was really eye-opening to read a book where she spends the whole time talking about like how ugly and weird this dude is.

[2:01:56] But she can't not be obsessed with him.

[2:01:58] And I'm like, wow, okay.

[2:02:00] Well, all the stuff –

Elliott Kalan

[2:02:01] People's brains are different than I thought.

[2:02:02] The stuff with Rochester is all really – what my trouble was when once she's done with that storyline for a while and she's with Sinjin for a while, I was like, oh, boy.

[2:02:11] This guy is a drip.

[2:02:12] Like I don't want to – this was a really cool story about a weird guy who keeps his wife in an attic.

[2:02:17] It's like something out of a horror movie and now suddenly she's with this missionary who's just kind of like a boring dude.

Jamelle Bouie

[2:02:23] If I were going to try to sell like reading 19th century literature to younger people outside of the context of school is that you have to remember this stuff was mass entertainment.

[2:02:33] It's the same deal with like Hollywood.

[2:02:36] I think younger teens, people in their 20s may imagine 30s and 40s Hollywood as being like homework.

[2:02:45] This is all mass entertainment for like almost lowest common denominator.

[2:02:49] So a thing like Jane Eyre, yeah, weird guy with his wife locked up in the basement is meant to be titillating to audiences.

[2:03:02] And it's worth reading that stuff and watching that stuff with that in mind.

[2:03:06] This is not – this isn't really homework.

[2:03:08] This is supposed to be entertainment for you to enjoy.

Elliott Kalan

[2:03:11] It was meant to be enjoyed.

[2:03:13] Yeah.

[2:03:13] It makes me feel like though that in 100 years people were like, young people don't want to watch Sonic the Hedgehog 3.

[2:03:18] They think it's going to be boring.

[2:03:19] But at the time –

Jamelle Bouie

[2:03:20] At the time, children loved watching movies about dead kids.

[2:03:28] Okay.

[2:03:28] Well, before we –

Elliott Kalan

[2:03:30] Now that kids only want to watch strobing lights and colors that have no narrative content whatsoever, they don't realize stories were meant to be enjoyed.

[2:03:39] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[2:03:40] Before we go, Elliot plugged for you at the beginning.

[2:03:43] But in your own words, Jamel, is there anything you would like to bring up before we say goodbye?

Jamelle Bouie

[2:03:47] Sure.

[2:03:48] If you want to read my stuff, it's at the New York Times.

[2:03:50] I have my podcast with my buddy John Gans on clearing present danger.

[2:03:54] And I'm on YouTube and TikTok and the like so you can watch me do videos about our crumbling society.

[2:04:01] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[2:04:01] If you want a smart person being justifiably mean to some awful people.

Elliott Kalan

[2:04:08] I mean there's – I feel like there are a lot of people in the – not to blow too much smoke up you, Jamel, but like there are a lot of people in the press who, like you're saying, are built on cynicism and that cynicism becomes a like, well, I have to pretend that everything is okay or that things are – like I have to show I'm above caring about this.

[2:04:26] This is just normal stuff.

[2:04:28] And I feel like your work is such a corrective where you're like, this is bonkers.

[2:04:32] This is not how this is supposed to work.

[2:04:34] This guy is – he's an insane liar.

[2:04:36] This is not –

[2:04:37] And my mom is frequently forwarding me your newsletter and I'm like, yeah, I subscribe to it.

[2:04:42] You don't have to –

[2:04:43] I read this.

[2:04:44] You don't have to send it to me.

Jamelle Bouie

[2:04:45] Yeah, I think – I mean I think just – thank you first of all, Elliot.

[2:04:48] But I think just to kind of observe my own approach here.

[2:04:53] I think people mistake what I'm doing for a kind of like Pollyannish optimism.

[2:05:00] But it's not really that at all.

[2:05:01] It's more sort of like I do take this stuff seriously and I do, you know, sincerely, you know,

[2:05:07] believe in the ideals and aspirations of our country and such.

[2:05:10] And so I think it's important to just, you know, say that you shouldn't take this kind of deviance as sort of just the way things are.

[2:05:21] It's actually – they've often been this way, but they don't have to be this way.

[2:05:26] And like how it is is often very like literally up to decisions we make as individuals.

Elliott Kalan

[2:05:33] Yeah, I found it very refreshing and maybe we'll be turned out to be wrong.

[2:05:36] Who knows?

[2:05:37] But part of being honest is being aware that you might be proved wrong at some point if things change.

[2:05:42] But recently you online have been arguing with people who are like, Trump's going to shut down all the elections.

[2:05:47] And you're like, that's not how our election system works.

[2:05:49] Like let's take a look at how the system actually works, what can actually be done.

[2:05:52] And that – I think your point that by buying into that fear, we are helping them basically.

[2:05:57] Yeah, yeah.

[2:05:57] Like we're doing their job for it.

[2:05:59] The same way that when AI people are like, it's going to take over the world and people parrot that.

[2:06:04] It's like, well, you're helping them sell their products.

Dan McCoy

[2:06:06] Only if people, yeah, let it.

[2:06:07] Like you don't have to.

[2:06:08] Yeah.

[2:06:10] You're not a visitor from the future like Sam Rockwell telling us that it's already happened.

[2:06:15] You know?

Elliott Kalan

[2:06:16] We can make that choice.

[2:06:17] Very topical about your visitors from the future, Dan.

[2:06:19] You picked the current one.

[2:06:21] And that you are – I think you're – especially when you connect things to historical things, I feel like you are in the tradition of the great Robert Caro as presenting things as choices rather than inevitabilities.

[2:06:34] Yeah.

[2:06:34] You know, and that we continue to live in a world where choices can be made rather than, you know, just being pulled wrong by the current of whatever.

[2:06:41] So I appreciate it.

[2:06:41] Thank you for doing that.

[2:06:42] Thank you.

[2:06:42] Thank you for taking time out of doing that.

[2:06:44] Talk to us about this.

[2:06:46] Oh, man.

Dan McCoy

[2:06:47] If us taking Jamel away really like – it was a butterfly effect thing, I'm going to be so upset.

Elliott Kalan

[2:06:53] As soon as the episode is done, me with an eyepatch is going to jump out in a scar on his face, going to jump out of a portal.

[2:06:57] Quick.

[2:06:58] You don't have Jamel on the podcast.

[2:07:00] He needs to be doing something else right now.

[2:07:01] Oh, it's too late.

[2:07:02] We have two hours too late.

[2:07:03] We already recorded it.

[2:07:05] Oh, no.

Dan McCoy

[2:07:06] Well, from something inspiring to a bleak sci-fi scenario, yeah, what a way to end the podcast.

[2:07:15] Thank you to our network, Maximum Fun.

[2:07:17] Go to MaximumFun.org for all the other great shows that they put out.

[2:07:21] They're wonderful people.

[2:07:22] Check out the other shows.

[2:07:24] Thank you to Alex Smith, also a wonderful person.

[2:07:26] Our producer goes by the name of Howell Doughty on the internet for his own music and comedy stuff.

[2:07:34] Check him out.

[2:07:35] But for now, for the Flophouse, I've been Dan McCoy.

Elliott Kalan

[2:07:39] I've been Stuart Wellington.

[2:07:41] I've been Elliot Kalin.

[2:07:42] And we've been joined by –

[2:07:43] Jamel Bowie.

[2:07:45] Bye.

[2:07:45] Gotta go fast.

[2:07:48] We said after a two-hour podcast.

Dan McCoy

[2:07:58] Yes, thank you for coming back, Jamel.

[2:08:01] We'll start.

Elliott Kalan

[2:08:02] We appreciate it, Jamel, that you continue to potentially wreck your very respectable career as a major public thinker to continue to talk to us about hedgehog movies.

[2:08:12] That's something that I really appreciate.

Stuart Wellington

[2:08:13] I feel like this does not have the footprint to wreck his career.

Jamelle Bouie

[2:08:16] I was just observing.

[2:08:18] I was looking at my camera feed here, and it occurred to me that I have gray.

[2:08:22] And you can see the progression of the gray on me based on these hedgehog episodes.

[2:08:30] Maximum Fun.

[2:08:31] A worker-owned network.

Dan McCoy

[2:08:33] Of artist-owned shows.

[2:08:34] Supported.

[2:08:35] Directly.

[2:08:36] By you.

Sonic the Hedgehog 3, with Jamelle Bouie

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