The Flop House: Episode Three - A Sound of Thunder

[0:00] On this episode of The Flop House, we examine A Sound of Thunder, the movie that made Ray Bradbury prematurely roll over in his non-existent grave.

[0:30] Wikipedia has this to say about the plot of A Sound of Thunder.

[0:39] According to the film, the established rules of time travel are

[0:42] 1. Don't bring anything back.

[0:44] 2. Don't leave anything behind.

[0:46] 3. Don't change anything in the past.

[0:48] These rules were established by a businessman who has recently developed a time machine.

[0:52] With it, he created a business which offers prehistoric safari trips to wealthy hunters.

[0:57] Travis Ryan has been trained to lead these safaris.

[1:00] On one of them, the guides are escorting two men along a path, and they are attacked by an Allosaurus.

[1:06] And the leader's gun fails, so the Allosaurus does not die when it was scheduled to do so.

[1:10] Panicked by the attack, one of the explorers steps off the path.

[1:14] The guides exchange gun parts with another gun, kill the Allosaurus, and return to the time portal.

[1:19] Unseen to the explorers, a muddy footprint has been left off the path.

[1:23] On the next expedition, Ryan is taking two other hunters on the time safari,

[1:27] and states that they are about to witness a volcanic eruption,

[1:30] but the volcano is already in the process of erupting, and they are forced to return to the present.

[1:34] The time safari business calls on Sonia Rand, who invented the time travel machine,

[1:38] but she refuses to help anyone.

[1:40] Rand explains that since they altered something in the past, the future will proceed to change in a series of time waves.

[1:46] She says that the changes can't happen all at once, and they will proceed in order of evolution.

[1:50] First everything will reset, then the vegetation will change, then wildlife, and finally humans.

[1:55] The business attempts to send Ryer back to fix the past, but a time wave hits and all the electricity goes out.

[2:01] Ryer and Rand must determine what caused the change before they can fix the past.

[2:06] They discover that a butterfly was stepped on during one trip into the past,

[2:09] and it critically altered the evolutionary chain.

[2:12] They manage to reach the university, but thanks to various evolutionized creatures and plants,

[2:17] only Ryer and Rand are still alive.

[2:19] Rand manages to send Ryer back 65 million and one years to dodge the time waves.

[2:24] Then he is sent forward one year to the point when the original explorer has traveled into the past.

[2:29] In the present, the final time wave hits, and Rand is turned into a fish-like being.

[2:34] Meanwhile, Ryer tells the explorers about everything that will happen in the future.

[2:38] He stops the explorer from stepping off the path and killing the butterfly, and the future is saved.

[2:44] Back in the present, Ryer is shown the video of the alternate Ryer who saved the future.

[2:48] He requests that they shut down the time portal to stop such an occurrence from ever happening again.

[2:54] And now we join the others in the Flophouse.

[2:57] Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Flophouse. I'm Dan McCoy.

[3:01] It's me every time. It's me every time.

[3:03] Simon Fisher.

[3:04] And Stuart Wellington.

[3:05] I think to start off, what do you think of this film's view of time travel?

[3:11] Well, first of all, the movie was about time travel.

[3:15] You noticed that, too.

[3:16] I did notice that.

[3:17] It's what we would call subtext.

[3:19] I would think of that as text.

[3:21] It could be a subtext.

[3:24] Text.

[3:25] I'm trying to compare it to other time travel movies, and it's not holding up very well, Dan.

[3:31] Yeah, well, their conception of time travel is something gets changed in the past,

[3:37] and to be fair, this is based on the classic Ray Bradbury story that brought us the idea of the butterfly effect

[3:43] and the fact that changing the past drastically changes the future.

[3:46] Something changes in the past, and these time waves emanate from the past,

[3:51] and everything stays the same until one of these waves hits the future.

[3:54] And you have full memory of what preceded the wave,

[3:58] and you remain fully conscious of everything that's ever happened.

[4:02] Yeah.

[4:03] Until such a time as you, I don't know, cease existing.

[4:05] And this reminds me of a much better movie.

[4:09] I think we can all agree.

[4:10] The butterfly effect.

[4:11] Yes, the butterfly effect.

[4:13] Back to the Future.

[4:14] I was actually listening to the commentary track to Back to the Future recently.

[4:18] Was it?

[4:19] Pretty good.

[4:20] Okay.

[4:21] And they're talking about how the fact that it literally doesn't make any sense,

[4:25] the idea that Marty's brother and sister would slowly disappear from that photograph.

[4:31] Why doesn't the photograph just disappear immediately?

[4:34] Right, because they never would have seen it.

[4:36] In the context of that movie, it works.

[4:38] In the context of this movie, nothing makes sense at all.

[4:42] I'm going to say something crazy, and you guys are welcome to disagree with me if you want.

[4:46] At this point, I don't think anyone should be making time travel movies anymore.

[4:50] That seems like a bold statement.

[4:52] No, no, no, listen.

[4:53] You're going to watch any time travel movie, and you're going to be like,

[4:56] I've never time traveled before, but I'm pretty sure this movie's bullshit.

[4:59] I don't know how you can make a time travel movie and be like,

[5:01] they hit the nail on the head right there.

[5:03] That's pretty much how time travel might actually be.

[5:05] What I don't understand is why the apparent only people using time travel in the entire world

[5:13] use it so that people can go back in time and shoot dinosaurs.

[5:18] Well, that's human nature, Stuart.

[5:21] All people care about is blood sports.

[5:25] And that specific blood sport, in this case, is shooting an allosaurus.

[5:31] With an ice bullet, by the way.

[5:34] Because you can't leave anything behind in the past, or else you might change the future.

[5:37] Which is why it's so important that you use a gun that shoots a bullet made of ice

[5:41] so that there will be no bullet left behind.

[5:43] Into a dinosaur that was about to fall into a tar pit.

[5:46] I guess they somehow found out.

[5:49] They're like, okay, we've been taking snapshots of the past.

[5:51] We discovered there's this certain stupid allosaurus that stumbles into some tar and dies.

[5:56] What if we send people back moments before it dies and shoot it with ice bullets?

[6:01] It's as if people from the future came back to our time to shoot people in the electric chair.

[6:09] Before they got executed.

[6:11] It turns out that in 15 minutes, Simon gets run over by a subway train.

[6:16] Let's shoot him with ice bullets or with bullets that make an impact,

[6:20] an exit wound that looks exactly like a subway train.

[6:23] Let's do that right before we fall.

[6:25] They used ice bullets because of the prehistoric CSI shit that they would be doing.

[6:31] Dinosaur forensic investigators would be like, where are you, man?

[6:34] I think you were witness to the fact that I had trouble with this while we were watching the movie.

[6:39] Once they change the past, thus changing the future,

[6:42] they can't go back into the past to simply change the past back.

[6:47] They can't, like, Edward Burns immediately, he's like,

[6:50] oh, you know what, I'm just going to catch myself in the past and tell myself not to do that thing.

[6:54] Which is pretty much the logical explanation.

[6:57] For some reason, once they've changed the past, they can't go back to the past.

[7:01] Well, that part was really weird.

[7:02] However, that illustrates my point with the reason why you can't really make,

[7:06] I mean, let's for a minute just be dorks about this, all right, and talk about time travel.

[7:10] If that's what had happened, wouldn't that be what had happened the first time through?

[7:14] No, because then you don't have a movie.

[7:16] Because it's got to be a linear story that progresses from one point to another.

[7:19] Because otherwise, that would have happened, he would have been there the first time,

[7:22] and it never would have happened.

[7:23] That's why you shouldn't make movies about time travel.

[7:25] What you're talking about, Simon, is like a quantum movie, which all takes place in an instant.

[7:30] And every possible story that could be told is told in that instant.

[7:34] Yes, there you go. I believe in a quantum view of the universe, ergo,

[7:38] this time travel movie didn't work for me.

[7:40] Yeah.

[7:41] Don't they just keep killing the same dinosaur?

[7:43] Yes, yes, they do.

[7:45] So why don't they see, like, all those other jerks that killed that dinosaur,

[7:48] and they go back to kill it?

[7:49] That's a good point.

[7:51] I don't know why that is okay for you,

[7:54] Too quantum!

[7:55] Well, I mean, even on the dumb level that this movie was pitched at,

[7:59] Stewart's point makes sense.

[8:00] Like, shouldn't they all be converging on themselves all the time?

[8:04] On the same point every time now.

[8:05] It's like, oh, hey, there's Edward Burns number seven and eight.

[8:09] How you guys doing?

[8:10] Oh, we're here to kill that dinosaur, too.

[8:12] Okay, everybody line up your shot.

[8:15] Wait for it, let's step over each other's dicks here.

[8:17] Wait for it.

[8:18] Okay, everybody, shoot down everybody.

[8:20] Shoot the shit out of that dinosaur.

[8:21] Man, that was awesome.

[8:22] Good battle.

[8:23] Now we all have to remember to return, like, I don't know,

[8:26] let's say a week apart from each other.

[8:28] Otherwise it would get really crowded, our parties would get kind of weird.

[8:32] Now here's a question.

[8:33] Do you think that multiple Edward Burns would be more exciting than one singular Edward Burns?

[8:38] Yes, I do think that.

[8:39] I very much think that.

[8:40] I actually don't think that works.

[8:42] Because any time, like, multiplying zero times four, for instance,

[8:48] you still get zero.

[8:49] Okay.

[8:50] I would have gone with a more charitable route and said that it would be like trying to eat a million steaks.

[8:55] Even if the steak is delicious, it would be like, oh, God, it's too many steaks.

[8:59] You know what?

[9:00] The steak's ruined now.

[9:01] I don't even want any more steak.

[9:02] Because I don't want to, like, I know that this whole podcast is predicated on the idea that we're making fun of things.

[9:07] Sort of us being dicks.

[9:09] But I don't want to be too much of a dick about it,

[9:11] but it seems like Edward Burns is one of these actors that they tried to sell us and we rejected.

[9:17] Other than a supporting role in Saving Private Ryan, where I don't remember him irritating me,

[9:24] I don't think that there's any sort of little.

[9:26] I'm going to be honest with you.

[9:27] I don't remember Saving Private Ryan at all.

[9:29] I would say that he's a charisma black hole.

[9:31] He's sort of a blank as a person.

[9:34] He has the Josh Hartnett factor.

[9:36] Yeah.

[9:37] It's that certainly inexplicable factor, that factor of lacking a discernible personality, being very wooden.

[9:43] He's not quite Paul Walker.

[9:45] Okay.

[9:46] He doesn't, all light shining into him doesn't vanish into a hole of blackness.

[9:52] There's a certain amount of reflection that happens there.

[9:54] The light reflects a little bit.

[9:55] What were we talking about?

[9:56] Was Josh Hartnett in this movie?

[9:58] Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised.

[10:00] uh... so that he was

[10:01] and i i don't know what it is what it was served in kingsley ben kingsley

[10:05] wasn't

[10:07] uh... was he wearing a way to keep it was a pretty much the other side of it

[10:11] and i have a bright white wig

[10:13] and uh... i like the whole strip of chinstrap

[10:16] yes you know why it's so bad as well

[10:18] along with the right what we'd let's take a look at the also i think the most

[10:22] important part of his wardrobe the first character

[10:24] was uh... the almost permanent shooting really happened

[10:30] why do they put him in weeks and so many

[10:33] yeah i guess that they figure that

[10:34] uh... rich got that success wouldn't be the whole i think that i think that i

[10:38] think that if we see ben kingsley bald all we can think of gandhi

[10:43] was involved a lot of other movies too

[10:45] yeah who's bald and uh... i was in the fall of uh...

[10:49] uh... i think he's a sexy beast

[10:51] you know

[10:53] better movies than this one yes arguably

[10:56] at any point i thought it was really interesting when i first started watching this movie

[10:59] this movie was released in two thousand five

[11:02] i find that very very unlikely i think that this movie actually

[11:06] stayed on the shelf for a little while

[11:08] i find that hard to believe i'm gonna check that on uh... the internet

[11:12] because watching this movie here's the impression that i got i got the impression of a movie that was

[11:16] made in maybe

[11:17] nineteen ninety five

[11:19] whether or not it sat on the shelf for any amount of time i think is neither here nor there

[11:22] but when it was released it was released

[11:24] direct to video

[11:25] okay here yeah sound of thunder two thousand five film directed by peter

[11:30] hyams originally planned for two thousand and two release

[11:34] however flooding in prague and other financial difficulties including the

[11:39] bankruptcy of the original production company during post production yeah so uh...

[11:44] it was supposed to come out in two thousand two

[11:46] uh... delayed for three years

[11:48] so wait wait wait the production company the green lit this movie

[11:51] ran into financial troubles

[11:53] but it's not very implausible it's not apparent from the quality of the movie

[11:59] yeah well i think that we can't talk about a sound of thunder without talking about the

[12:02] special effects yes

[12:04] so uh... it's disgust i'm trying to think of a good i'm trying this whole time i've been trying to think of a

[12:09] touchstone

[12:10] what other movie

[12:11] had special effects

[12:13] like shitty that's so like

[12:15] oh look at that really crappy cgi and i can't come up with a good one i think you have to go to

[12:21] an original sci-fi channel

[12:23] movie like it has to be like manskito or something yeah yeah i would say yeah it's

[12:28] the ewok movie

[12:31] i made this comment as we were watching the movie

[12:34] yeah exactly there's literally no effect in this movie that could not have been done

[12:39] practically

[12:40] that they didn't do doing cgi yeah like any type of little little things

[12:45] yeah there's a scene in a flooded

[12:48] subway car

[12:49] where there are drips of water coming from the ceiling

[12:51] and they could have easily

[12:53] had actual water dripping from an actual subway car

[12:57] i think the idea there being that they would have had to have

[13:00] paid for an actual subway car

[13:02] like shoot we've got to find a scrapped subway car somewhere

[13:04] let's cgi ourselves up a right subway car it's gotta cost a little change to like render drips of water

[13:09] like yeah

[13:11] okay the subway car is flooded

[13:13] can you use some sort of computer water in a computer tunnel

[13:17] starring computer actors

[13:19] edward burns may have been a cgi effect of some kind

[13:21] i thought that the same thing the entire time it's like george lucas' hair

[13:25] it doesn't actually exist

[13:26] you're set wait

[13:28] i don't care about it sounding like a thunder rider this is a controversial statement about george lucas' hair

[13:33] i've been a firm believer for some time that george lucas' hair and potentially one of his children is

[13:37] completely cgi

[13:39] well here's something that i've wanted to say about george lucas for some time

[13:42] have you noticed that as he's grown older

[13:44] george lucas looks more and more like an ewok himself

[13:49] that's a tremendously stupid thing

[13:51] he looks like a wicket or something

[13:53] well not chief chirpa he looks like a wicket or medicine man as he was called

[13:58] i don't think he's that uh... i don't think he's that lovable

[14:03] that's an excellent point

[14:04] do we think that cgi is doing that or time is doing that

[14:07] i think that time makes ewoks of us all

[14:10] son of a bitch that's going to be on your tombstone

[14:14] time makes ewoks of us all

[14:17] so there were a lot of crazy monsters in this film there sure were dan

[14:20] what kind of monsters were there steve what was your favorite monster

[14:23] my favorite monster i know this is not going to be a popular choice

[14:28] but my favorite monster was when a time wave hit him at some point i don't really remember

[14:33] it was near the end but uh...

[14:35] but when the lady turned out turned into a fish monster

[14:38] i think that's another really good point to bring up

[14:41] this movie uh... now again i'm not

[14:43] i'm not a scientist

[14:44] i said it before and i'll be the first to admit i have a minimal science background

[14:49] you have no specialization in time travel no not at all

[14:52] but this movie plays it real loose and easy with my understanding of evolution

[14:57] now when you change time one of the interesting things that happens is

[15:01] monkeys and dinosaurs somehow combine into one another

[15:06] reptiles evolve into reptiles and mammals i don't know i can't answer these questions they're beyond me not being a scientist

[15:11] if you squish a butterfly in the past reptiles and mammals will mate yes they will

[15:16] into a supreme reptile mammal a giant kind of baboon

[15:20] that has scales

[15:21] first time wave brings on a bunch of beetles yes yes that's remember remember all the beetles

[15:26] remember the good laugh we had about that we did have a good laugh

[15:29] there's this part where when they're first sitting in the apartment of a really

[15:33] bitchy unlikable scientist character one of our three female leads there was a first time wave hit and they were all ahhhh

[15:40] it was the first time it had ever happened

[15:42] and they hear a scream

[15:44] they open the door and there are literally a million beetles out in the hallway i want to backtrack and point out that

[15:50] uh... edward burns sneaks his way into this woman's apartment by way of pretending to be a

[15:55] fertilizer delivery man yes he does

[15:57] she will not let him in she's not letting anyone into her apartment

[16:01] but this fertilizer delivery man comes by and I guess he bribes that fertilizer delivery man

[16:05] he's like hey

[16:07] let me take that jacket and that bag of fertilizer and I can get into this apartment

[16:11] I like to imagine a lot of cartoons and other movies

[16:14] if we looked at some of the deleted scenes there would be a scene where he'd like

[16:17] reaches out of the supply closet grabs the fertilizer supply man

[16:20] pulls him in a bunch of comic punch sounds makes you know he walks out whistling nonchalantly

[16:26] with a big manure bag

[16:27] well I mean that's the only believable solution because I mean if there's one thing I know about

[16:32] manure delivery men is that

[16:33] they're pretty much unable to bribe I mean they're unbribable they're unbribable

[16:39] with their you know their paycheck and that oath and lack of

[16:42] uh... wearing their hats if there's one thing I know about women too it's that they will not open their door to me

[16:48] but they will open their door to fertilizer delivery men

[16:52] but after the beetles

[16:53] uh... after the beetles came the rolling stones gents

[16:59] now after the beetles came a horrible baboon dinosaur hybrid this was a much later time

[17:05] a later time wave revealed the fact that

[17:08] dinosaurs or monkeys or monkeys and dinosaurs evolved together

[17:12] or they gained the ability to do it with each other after the evolution I think it's important that we

[17:16] stress that let's not you can't put too fine a point on this

[17:20] because a butterfly got killed

[17:22] evolution

[17:24] made this new species well logically if a butterfly gets killed in the past

[17:29] you get baboon dinosaurs

[17:31] after the first time tsunami and then after the next one

[17:36] you get giant bats just regular bats but they're giant but they're really big

[17:40] but then after the next one wildly carnivorous as well

[17:43] uh... you get baboon bats

[17:46] because

[17:46] in evolution there's a shortage of animals there are literally three animals there are only a few animals

[17:51] and they just combine in different ways so first come the baboon dinosaurs then the giant bats

[17:57] then the giant baboon bats and then as steve brought up the final monster

[18:01] is when the human lady she's the last one left behind there's a shot of her

[18:06] a time wave goes past

[18:07] and then she looks like a fish and has the nictitating membrane like the sideways going

[18:12] eyelids

[18:13] and it totally blew my mind

[18:14] I mean really I think at the end of the day humans were like one step away from

[18:19] becoming a fish monster

[18:21] uh... if I'm not mistaken again

[18:23] mid-science background but I believe if I'm not mistaken we share ninety-nine percent of the same DNA as a fish

[18:28] in fact you can look that up on wikipedia presumably

[18:34] sure now I'd like to point out the character that the monstrous bats took away was the

[18:40] french scientist

[18:42] was he french did we establish that? I think so maybe canadian hot wires a car for them

[18:46] whoa what are you doing dude

[18:49] uh... how do you think I paid my way through medical school

[18:53] find out um...

[18:54] larceny

[18:55] yeah and uh... you know what that's such a common like thing to have in the movies

[18:59] like where totally normal guys like

[19:01] well obviously the way I paid my way through fucking law school was by being

[19:06] a male stripper that also robbed banks

[19:09] gave that kind of like eyebrow raise so the audience is like oh my god that dude's a lot cooler than I thought

[19:15] you thought you had to pay

[19:16] yeah but dude it just goes to show

[19:18] well that's character development

[19:20] yeah wait wait wait is this another example of good script writing

[19:24] see everyone has to have good and bad in them

[19:26] oh okay and sometimes the bad

[19:29] helps the good

[19:30] okay that's dramatic irony that is dramatic irony that's true and what you also want to do is you want to present it in as

[19:36] you want to bludgeon

[19:38] the viewer with it film is a blunt instrument

[19:41] is it blunt? directors should strive to take the celluloid wrap it around the audience's

[19:47] neck and squeeze

[19:49] like look

[19:50] look at the fucking movie

[19:52] oh time travel you know what

[19:54] if I had the opportunity I'd never do it it's too dangerous I don't want to play with fire like that

[19:58] I'd like to point out who chose to do it

[20:00] this

[20:01] okay so i'd just like to point out that

[20:04] dan is a total dick for me

[20:08] i mean you know i'm the one who picked memory sure that's my fault

[20:13] okay my bad i knew it was going to be bad but

[20:15] this was really bad dan

[20:17] yeah well no i just hope by the end of this that is sort of a point of the whole

[20:21] endeavor

[20:22] yeah but i think you have to uh... i think you kind of owe us all apologies so you kind of need to work on that

[20:27] before the end of this whole thing a formal apology to us

[20:30] and possibly to the world like on behalf of this movie

[20:35] well he's a kettle for the movie?

[20:37] well just why not? i didn't have anything to do with the production i don't know if you understand the concept of this

[20:41] there's no proof of that actually so

[20:45] i think that's fair

[20:47] where did this movie come from what was the form of media that brought us this movie

[20:51] uh... i think i dvr'd this off of cable off cable what kind of what cable network

[20:55] i think this might have been a cinemax

[20:59] cinemax isn't gonna they're not going to format their movies or edit it for time are they

[21:03] this movie at the beginning said that it had an n

[21:07] or a bn or however they abbreviate it for a brief nudity steve do you remember there being a brief nudity

[21:12] i remember how my spirits kind of lifted when i saw the bn

[21:16] it made me it reminded me of when i was a child

[21:19] of roughly twelve years old and i would see that bn at two in the morning and i'd be like

[21:24] i'm gonna watch this entire movie

[21:26] gods be damned

[21:27] and you know what

[21:28] i watched this entire movie

[21:30] maybe it was those weird dinosaur or monkey monsters that account for it

[21:34] the movie was really boring maybe you fell asleep during it dan

[21:37] did you remember any brief nudity

[21:39] no there was no long nudity there was no brief nudity

[21:43] the closest form of nudity was that one girl's shoulders

[21:48] at the very beginning

[21:49] i don't think that counts as nudity the one girl like why don't we should

[21:53] pass this comment

[21:55] there's a woman early in the film

[21:57] as far as i'm able to discern the point is just that edward burns sleeps with her

[22:02] and then she disappears from the film entirely

[22:05] well i think this is one of those moments of good screenwriting you were talking about

[22:09] this shows that edward burns is desirable

[22:13] as a man

[22:14] right he is an attractive man to women even though he's a scientist don't get the idea that he's a wimp

[22:19] because he scores with chicks literally

[22:22] well this is basically the screenwriter saying

[22:24] yes we got edward burns to play this part

[22:27] but he is in fact the hero of this movie

[22:30] yeah and you know he's the hero because heroes get laid

[22:33] you wouldn't know without it

[22:34] otherwise i'd think he was a boring dude

[22:37] this boring guy is he the bad guy why is he trying to destroy time

[22:42] what a jerk

[22:42] and you're like oh if that girl wants to do it with him

[22:46] he's the hero got it

[22:47] got it got it got it

[22:51] that was the most desolatory like

[22:53] yeah man i don't know man i don't know what to tell ya

[22:55] i just want to point out it did suggest brief nudity and i think that's a um like a disturbing

[23:01] uh like trend in movies specifically on like cinemax and stuff

[23:05] where they'll be like you know it was rated r because of d and you know brief nudity

[23:09] and i think more often than not they err on the side of caution uh for movies that

[23:14] aren't even close to don't even have close to nudity

[23:17] whereas it's very very rare for them to say

[23:20] oh this movie has brief nudity when in fact it's like actually there's tons of nudity

[23:24] like there's really not a mistake

[23:27] you don't want to be that weirdo that undershoots it like yeah i think there's a little bit of nudity in it

[23:31] and have everyone be shocked like

[23:33] dude that movie was filled with nudity

[23:34] you call that brief nudity what are you a monster

[23:37] like well brief is less than a third of the movie

[23:41] like i don't know in my life i don't see nudity like

[23:44] every day all day long

[23:46] now dan would you classify this as say a regular style movie or a disaster movie

[23:51] that's a great point i was thinking about this movie as we were watching it

[23:54] remember there's no bad guys the thing there's no bad guy in this account

[23:58] i don't know the time

[24:00] time is sort of a thing in that movie

[24:02] i guess ben kingsley is sort of the bad guy

[24:05] in that he decided that the best application for time travel would be

[24:09] these weird safari shooting parties yeah however like

[24:14] the woman that we're supposed to sympathize with who invented time travel who's so angry at ben kingsley

[24:19] for sending people back in time

[24:21] because he might change the future

[24:23] what was she going to use time travel for that was less dangerous

[24:27] less possibly destructive

[24:29] i don't know i don't know like if she went back in time

[24:32] she is just as likely to step on a god damn butterfly of course

[24:37] i don't know if i actually owned a company that had the exclusive ability to send people back in time

[24:44] i would probably set it up so that people could go back in time to like

[24:48] like hunt people back in the past

[24:52] the most dangerous time travel safari

[24:54] yeah exactly

[24:57] danes

[24:58] hunting danish people invading england

[25:01] a shit load of ninjas

[25:03] how much better would this movie have been if they went back in the past

[25:07] to engage in like biking like raiding parties

[25:10] and then someone accidentally like

[25:12] i don't know kills the king of the vikings

[25:14] and then as a result there are dinosaurs that can shoot lasers out of their eyes

[25:18] how much better would this have been as a movie

[25:20] that sounds like an awesome movie

[25:22] see what if like the dinosaurs were super evolved and could talk and were like

[25:26] yes then you totally screwed up the future and we're not going to let you change it losers

[25:31] yeah because that would be the best part the dinosaurs would also know what had happened with the time travel

[25:35] from the cognitive they've evolved to the point where they obviously understand what happened

[25:40] so you want it to be like that movie where there's a uh...

[25:43] tyrannosaurus rex who is whoopee goldberg's partner

[25:46] and they're both cops

[25:49] wait a minute what movie is that? is that a real movie? son of a bitch what movie is this?

[25:53] that's tyrannosaurus rex where he's you know converse all stars

[25:56] is that movie called detective tyrannosaurus rex?

[26:00] it's called detective saurus rex

[26:03] holy shit that's way better it's called magnum p rex

[26:07] holy shit is it for real?

[26:09] oh my god is that the original title? no wait hold on

[26:13] i'm getting it it's called constable rex

[26:16] theodore rex aka t-rex

[26:20] that is amazing

[26:23] tagline

[26:24] the world's toughest cop is getting a brand new partner

[26:27] he's a real blast from the past

[26:30] he comes from the past that's the pun

[26:32] hey instead of talking about the days of thunder let's talk about this movie

[26:37] i haven't seen this movie but i'm pretty sure it's really good

[26:40] i have a question how does a uh... how does a dinosaur become a police officer?

[26:46] well i think i think i think i think dan was suggesting that much like in your

[26:49] scenario

[26:50] the dinosaur is super intelligent

[26:52] okay he's easily qualified to pass any kind of detective test

[26:56] he becomes a detective

[26:58] first you'd have to join the police force well sure he would join the police force

[27:02] is like weird atrophied limbs do you think those would hinder his abilities? no i don't think that

[27:07] okay why do you not think that? do you think the average caliber bullet

[27:11] could stop a tyrannosaurus rex? could pierce its hide? yes

[27:14] probably not okay so he wouldn't need to worry about getting into a shootout in most cases

[27:18] he could just run up to a criminal

[27:20] and be a tyrannosaurus rex

[27:22] and he would be so afraid that he would easily arrest him now is this tyrannosaurus rex

[27:27] roughly human height?

[27:29] no i think he's normal size? no he's roughly human height

[27:33] well that's a little bit weird then i don't think he's a tyrannosaurus rex does he get shrunk also?

[27:37] maybe he's a child

[27:38] he's a baby tyrannosaurus rex

[27:41] i imagine he gets into the force because he comes from a family of police officers

[27:45] a dynasty so i think we call it a dynasty

[27:49] i'd like to take this moment to point out that uh... jonathan r butel

[27:53] the uh... director of

[27:55] theodore rex the thing he made right before that was uh... two episodes of freddy's nightmares

[28:00] he directed

[28:02] and i think dan if you scroll down you'll be surprised to see

[28:05] he co-wrote the script of the movie we watched this evening

[28:09] he's a huge dinosaur enthusiast

[28:11] he likes imagining different types of dinosaurs

[28:13] well i think that the fact that we're more interested in discussing

[28:17] in whatever random fucking movies we can imagine

[28:22] here's a weird movie i saw one time when i was a kid let's talk about that for a little bit

[28:27] the fact that we're more interested in a movie that we did not watch this evening

[28:30] points to where this may be headed

[28:33] but uh... i think that it's the time in the program where we need to talk about

[28:37] our final judgments

[28:38] for what it's worth i want to point out that i'm fucking nostradamus because i remember

[28:42] turning you during this movie and being like

[28:44] i don't think we're going to be able to fill a half hour talking about this movie

[28:47] we'll be sidetracked i know it

[28:48] well i like dinosaurs

[28:51] wait wait a minute bring us back steve high five

[28:53] this podcast is designed to uh... be able to easily accommodate digressions

[28:58] sure that's true it's the magic of editing

[29:01] most of this will be edited no one will ever hear this

[29:03] alright the official flop house category is yet again

[29:06] is this a movie that

[29:08] we did not like at all

[29:10] uh... a movie that you might recommend to someone

[29:14] as a bad film or

[29:16] a movie that you secretly sort of liked

[29:18] i would rate this movie as a movie

[29:20] that is um...

[29:22] you know what it's not worth saying i don't even have the energy

[29:25] to make a joke out of that

[29:26] this movie sucked all the joy out of me

[29:28] you know if um...

[29:30] if the movie actually carried through on the brief nudity

[29:34] and maybe one of the hyper evolved dinosaur monkeys had like talked and stuff

[29:40] i might have said that it was a movie worth recommending to somebody

[29:45] but because it didn't have either of those two things

[29:48] uh... i would not recommend it to anybody in fact

[29:51] i kind of wanted that

[29:53] well i think i think you bring up an excellent point with this movie

[29:55] i think one of the weirdest phenomenons in movies is that

[29:58] yet you have to think that most

[30:00] They work on a project and they're like, oh, this is just kind of fun stupid little idea

[30:03] I have I don't understand why they want to hold themselves back and like wow

[30:08] I mean, I know it's not the best movie ever, but let's kind of let's let's take it seriously instead of being like, you know

[30:14] What fucking let's have one of the dinosaurs talk at the end. What if the dinosaurs could also breathe fire wouldn't that be weird?

[30:19] Let's have that be in the movie. What if the dinosaurs drove cars that were shaped like people that'd be weird, too

[30:26] Like no one ever is just like, you know, this movie sucks fucking I'm gonna have some fun with this

[30:30] Yeah, if this movie had at least been fun, I would have been like, yeah great

[30:34] Oh, well, I mean you asked me while we were watching it Simon. What lesson?

[30:40] What is supposed to take away from this film? And all I could say was if you go back in time don't step on anything

[30:48] Which is too dangerous really applicable to our day-to-day lives

[30:53] I'm gonna jump on the back wagon to and say like it hurts me to say this because this movie does have some crazy-ass

[30:59] special effects

[31:01] Giant bats it has

[31:03] Monkeys, and it's not easily it has serpent Kingsley really underutilized in a fright wig

[31:11] He bought it at a Spencer's gift, but I would not recommend this movie to be watched at all

[31:17] Yeah, I don't you know, what's weird?

[31:19] Then Kingsley was in this movie he was in this movie he was in blood rain

[31:24] He was in Gandhi and House of Satan thought he was in this movie in blood rain

[31:28] That's fucking weird. Like what a weird-ass, dude. Like, you know what? It makes me kind of respect him a lot more

[31:34] Yeah, he's like, you know what I'm in movies. That's what I do. So when the movie comes along I am in it

[31:39] That is my job

[31:40] Similar to the idea of I'm a plumber

[31:42] What I do is I fix plumbing if there's plumbing that needs to be fixed I go when I fix it

[31:46] I'm in movies. That is what I do even movies. I'm not offered

[31:52] I'll appear under the pseudonym the nom de gore f. Marie Abraham

[32:00] So to sum up

[32:04] Yeah, really bad

[32:06] so

[32:07] to prove

[32:09] as we do

[32:11] That we are not entirely sad bastards who hate the world and everything in it I like stuff

[32:17] This is the part of the show where we recommend things that we actually enjoyed. Oh damn. Why don't you start us off?

[32:23] I'll start I'm glad that I started cuz I I was actually thinking during this last week

[32:27] What the heck am I gonna recommend?

[32:29] Cuz I hadn't seen movies that I really liked recently, but I did catch flushed away the computer

[32:35] That's right. That's one about the guy who gets flushed on the toilet. Yeah. Yes

[32:39] Yes, that's a movie where he's checking his flushed on the toilet. No, I remember that. It's called Ghoulies.

[32:43] You're thinking of Ghoulies. And yes, that is a good movie. Dan, you're right. You win tonight's podcast.

[32:50] It's an art and animations movie

[32:53] You know the people who do walls and grommet and and it's like they're computer generated animated movie

[32:59] And I saw the trailers for this. I'm like, I don't want to see this movie. This is about toilets

[33:03] And the sewer.

[33:05] Like Ghoulies. You son of a bitch, that's what you took from those trailers?

[33:09] You don't have like movies about toilets? Fuck this.

[33:12] No, it looked like hmm. How can we make a cartoon that's completely

[33:17] Scatological humor. Well, okay, that's fair. Like it's a movie about like in a kingdom of mice. They ride around on turd rats.

[33:24] Because they live in the toilet.

[33:26] But I liked it. Okay, so you did see it in Worcester. It's much better.

[33:28] Were there an inordinate number of turd jokes? It was a little more crass than your average like like walls and grommet or

[33:37] Well, it was after all based on toilets in the sewer. I thought it was really good.

[33:42] Yeah, you got it. I enjoyed it.

[33:45] Stuart? I think Simon's nice.

[33:47] Christ on his cross. Um, you know what? I have a I'm having very much a similar crisis right now.

[33:52] I have no idea what to recommend. So a couple movies the other day

[33:56] So I knocked it up again, and that was really good

[33:59] But I've already seen that and it doesn't really count because I've already seen it

[34:02] I already knew it was good, and I watched it specifically because I knew it was good.

[34:05] What do you watch with that girl the other night?

[34:07] Well, that's the burbs and that again. I don't think all right. All right. I recommend the burbs. You know what?

[34:13] I rewatched the burbs and the burbs is a really good movie.

[34:16] You know, I'm gonna back you up on that.

[34:18] I like to think that the burbs got your leg.

[34:20] That movie was really good because I thought I didn't know that was Joe Dante.

[34:22] I love Joe Dante.

[34:24] The same guy who brought us Gremlins.

[34:26] Those are two really good movies.

[34:28] I really like the burbs and the gremlins.

[34:30] We should review those movies.

[34:32] Those are fun good movies to watch.

[34:35] I mean like I like the burbs. I like Gremlins. I like Gremlins 2.

[34:39] Gremlins 2 is good too.

[34:41] I like Matinee.

[34:43] I like The Howling.

[34:45] The Howling? Okay.

[34:47] So, let's see.

[34:49] Recommending.

[34:51] I think this is not necessarily gonna be a really popular thing to say.

[34:53] But I'm really excited about going to see Eastern Promises.

[34:55] The new David Cronenberg movie.

[34:57] Okay.

[34:59] I can't stir it.

[35:01] You can stir it.

[35:04] I can't stir it.

[35:06] You misunderstand.

[35:08] You have not yet seen this film.

[35:10] So, I don't know if you can recommend it.

[35:12] No, you can.

[35:14] You're recommending your own anticipation.

[35:16] So, if you're Stuart, you might enjoy

[35:18] thinking about seeing Eastern Promises.

[35:20] You're surely looking forward to that.

[35:22] So, wait.

[35:24] A movie I have actually watched.

[35:26] Recently that you would recommend.

[35:28] I just bought Death Proof.

[35:30] I got to watch the extended version of Death Proof.

[35:32] And that was really good.

[35:34] I really enjoyed it.

[35:36] It wasn't until the second or third viewing

[35:38] that I really enjoyed it, but totally worth it.

[35:40] Actually, I did it.

[35:42] I did it, guys.

[35:44] We'll throw you a party after the podcast is finished.

[35:46] Yay!

[35:48] You can drink the one remaining beer.

[35:50] That's the prize.

[35:52] So, here we are.

[35:54] Wow.

[35:56] It's always hard to say goodbye at the end of the day.

[35:58] Especially when it ends with a whimper.

[36:00] Not a bang.

[36:02] Well, thematically,

[36:04] I think that's in keeping with The Sound of Thunder.

[36:06] It imitates life, man.

[36:08] And my sadness

[36:10] at having to say goodbye

[36:12] to you, the audience,

[36:14] and to you, Simon and Stuart.

[36:16] I've got to go back to where I live and sleep.

[36:18] This is the most boring one ever!

[36:20] Jesus Christ!

[36:22] Let's pick up the pace.

[36:24] Hey, man! Holy shit!

[36:26] What a weird-ass movie!

[36:28] Ah, nerds!

[36:30] On that note,

[36:32] let's say goodbye

[36:34] to you for another couple

[36:36] of weeks.

[36:38] Take a couple weeks off and really reflect on this.

[36:40] Simon, I believe that I

[36:42] asked you to think about

[36:44] a movie that we might watch next time.

[36:46] While Simon's thinking about that,

[36:48] you should come up with a really good apology.

[36:50] I haven't forgotten that.

[36:52] To all of you

[36:54] who are Simon and Stuart,

[36:56] and to America,

[36:58] I would like to

[37:00] apologize personally

[37:02] for Sound of Thunder.

[37:04] That it exists at all.

[37:06] That I did not invent

[37:08] some sort of time machine

[37:10] and went back in time.

[37:12] Convince Peter Himes,

[37:14] director of End of Days,

[37:16] not to make this film.

[37:18] If I had any sort of temporal device,

[37:20] rest assured

[37:22] that episode three of The Flophouse

[37:24] would have been us watching Theodore Rex.

[37:26] Nice!

[37:28] If I had a time machine, I'd go back

[37:30] and steal a dinosaur.

[37:32] You know what I would do? I would ride that dinosaur around.

[37:34] I'd go take it to work. It would be my pet.

[37:36] I would go to the park with it.

[37:38] I thought you were going to say,

[37:40] if I had a time machine, I would go steal a diamond.

[37:42] Why do you need a time machine to do that?

[37:44] Wait, wait, wait.

[37:46] Are we planning a diamond heist?

[37:48] Phase one, get a time machine.

[37:50] Phase two, go and steal all the world's diamonds.

[37:52] Phase two, go back in time

[37:54] and steal a piece of coal,

[37:56] which will become a diamond in the future.

[37:58] Wait, that's not how time machines work.

[38:00] No, no, no.

[38:02] I think that's too time-based.

[38:04] I like the idea that you use a time machine

[38:06] to steal all the diamonds in the world.

[38:08] That's not a monopoly on diamonds.

[38:10] The irony would be if you stole all the diamonds

[38:12] in the world in the past,

[38:14] then diamonds wouldn't be worth anything in the future.

[38:16] Because no one would ever know about the diamonds' existence.

[38:18] You show them and they're like,

[38:20] That's a piece of glass.

[38:22] And I'd say it's not glass, it's a diamond.

[38:24] All right, okay, so, rephrase.

[38:26] If I had a time machine, I would go back in time

[38:28] and steal half the world's diamonds.

[38:30] Ah, raising the price of diamonds considerably.

[38:32] I would be called Diamond Sorcerer X.

[38:34] Hey, Dan, I just got a great idea for a movie

[38:36] we should watch next time.

[38:38] No shit.

[38:40] It's just kidding me, in real time.

[38:42] Oh my God.

[38:44] Uh, 23.

[38:46] Wait, what's that?

[38:48] Number 23.

[38:50] Oh, it's called The Number 23.

[38:52] I believe that's a Jewel Schumacher joint.

[38:54] Well, Jewel Schumacher

[38:56] has literally always let me down,

[38:58] except for one movie, so...

[39:00] Well, on that note of remembrance of lost boys past,

[39:02] let's say goodbye

[39:04] for this episode of The Flop House.

[39:06] I'm Dan McCoy.

[39:08] I'm Stuart Wellington.

[39:10] And I'm Simon Fisher.

[39:12] Good night.

[39:14] So long.

[39:18] And I'm Sarah Hampton, McCoy.

[39:20] That was a good twist ending.

[39:22] And I'm Sarah Hampton, McCoy.

[39:24] Like there was a fourth person

[39:26] the whole time.

[39:28] I think Sarah should record a bumper chorus.

[39:30] That's a good idea.

[39:32] Like, you guys are listening to

[39:34] the fucking Flop House, bitch.

[39:36] Yep.

[39:38] Like, really, well, really sassy

[39:40] with a lot of bad attitude.

[39:42] Like, hey, you fucking pubs,

[39:44] give us a bumper.

[39:46] Give us a bumper.

The Flop House: Episode Three - A Sound of Thunder

Transcript

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