main Episode #428 Jul 6, 2024 01:44:34
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Dan McCoy
[0:00] On this episode, we discuss Rebel Moon, Part 2, The Scargiver.
Elliott Kalan
[0:06] Now, there are rebels, but they're not technically on a moon, and the giver only gives one scar, but it is Part 2.
[0:14] So I'm going to give this just one and a half Pinocchios for title honesty.
Stuart Wellington
[0:18] Oh, one and a half Pinocchios is the prequel to nine and a half weeks, right?
Elliott Kalan
[0:23] You don't want to know what he does with that nose, yeah.
Stuart Wellington
[0:25] Oh, I know exactly what he does with that nose.
Elliott Kalan
[0:27] Saucy stuff.
[0:30] Hey, everyone, and welcome to the Flophouse. I'm Dan McCoy.
Stuart Wellington
[0:53] Hey, it's me, Stuart, The Scargiver Wellington.
[0:56] Oh, and this is Elliot, Part 2, Kalen.
Dan McCoy
[1:00] Yep.
[1:00] Ouch, ouch, Stuart, stop giving me scars. Ouch.
Stuart Wellington
[1:03] Again, Elvett, I got this nickname for a reason, baby.
Elliott Kalan
[1:07] I got so much scarred again.
[1:09] You have as much reason to get that nickname as the main character of this movie who gives one scar, maybe?
[1:15] Yeah, I also gave this movie one scar.
Stuart Wellington
[1:19] Oh, man, prequel. That's a preview of your letterbox score.
[1:22] Did you know what?
[1:23] You know what?
Dan McCoy
[1:23] I actually gave the first one one star, and this one, you know, I bumped up to two stars.
[1:32] Two stars.
[1:32] For reasons that I will get into in the movie, I like it slightly better.
[1:35] It could be because I was more distracted, and thus, like, the movie kind of served as, like—
Elliott Kalan
[1:42] This movie is the ultimate second-screen experience if it is not the first screen.
[1:46] If you are doing something else and you just want laser-fight background, then yes, this is the movie for you.
Dan McCoy
[1:51] I was in sort of a bad mood, and sort of—it distracted me from that rather than, like, before when I'm like,
[1:57] ooh, I'm going to watch a movie, and then the movie disappointed me so greatly.
Stuart Wellington
[2:01] When Dan started his review and he said, because I was more, I assumed he was about to say invested,
[2:07] in which case I started loading a pistol.
Elliott Kalan
[2:09] Yes, that would have been very surprising.
Dan McCoy
[2:11] Well, I will say this movie puts a lot of, like, story and, like, humanity to characters that previously had absolutely none.
[2:22] I wouldn't say it puts a lot.
[2:24] I was going to take the word a lot there.
[2:27] Generous.
[2:28] It gives some sketch of some reason why you might care about these characters late in the game.
[2:34] Like, that should not come, spoiler alert, in the second half of your two-half movie.
[2:40] Like, you should put that earlier so people can care about what the fuck's going on rather than being like,
[2:47] oh, you know, after the fact, maybe you like these characters now.
[2:50] I'm like, no, I'm sorry.
[2:51] I checked out Rebel Moon.
[2:52] This is a good effort, but this is too little too late.
Elliott Kalan
[2:54] It is the definition of too little too late.
[2:56] But here's the thing about this movie, guys.
[2:58] And this is something that I was going to go back to in my summary multiple times.
[3:01] So I think I'll just state it here.
[3:03] This movie was clearly made by human beings, written and directed by human beings.
[3:07] The special effects were done by human beings.
[3:08] This feels like an AI movie.
[3:10] Yeah.
[3:10] The look is the AI look of kind of glossy, blurry kind of stuff that would have looked cool in a fantasy or science fiction poster 20 years ago,
[3:19] but now is kind of overdone.
[3:20] The story is as boilerplate boring, dull standard as possible.
[3:25] The characters have no personality.
[3:26] The visuals are not interesting.
[3:28] Like, it felt to me this was the closest I've seen yet of a movie that felt like it was made by an AI system in that style.
Stuart Wellington
[3:34] Yeah, like if it was revealed at some point that it was like, okay, Haley Joel Osment's character from AI made this movie.
[3:41] I'd be like, I get it.
[3:42] You got me, movie.
Elliott Kalan
[3:43] It feels like a little boy who can't, who if he eats too much, it just kind of bulges out his cheeks.
[3:48] You're right.
[3:48] He did make this, yeah.
Dan McCoy
[3:50] Ellie, because even the images, the scattered images I thought were genuinely kind of cool.
[3:56] Like, do I enjoy seeing a robot, a lanky robot with several glowing eyes?
[4:02] And antlers?
[4:03] And antlers that kind of looks also like a suit of armor.
[4:06] Do I like that?
[4:08] Sure I do.
[4:08] But it also kind of feels like something that has been pulled from a bunch of, you know, human fantasy illustrators work online and like, yeah, slam together.
Stuart Wellington
[4:18] If you go, like, Instagram is full of images generated that are like, like robot Buddhists or like robots.
Elliott Kalan
[4:27] Robots in forests, yeah.
Stuart Wellington
[4:28] Yeah, like all that kind of crap.
[4:29] Robots fucking.
[4:30] Yeah, all that stuff.
Elliott Kalan
[4:31] I mean, people generate those, yeah.
Stuart Wellington
[4:33] A large part of the aesthetic of the creator is just that, which is, you know, like robots in like rural settings.
Elliott Kalan
[4:41] And here, it's the combination of that subject matter with the very, like the blur and gloss and dull coloring that with AI hides the fact that it has errors, you know, like.
[4:53] Yeah.
[4:53] It feels ultra shiny and all, but at the same time, like someone coated the lens with grease, you know, to, and it's, the movie just feels very, it feels, it feels like a movie that was not even made by, it feels like people used to say this movie was made by committee.
[5:07] And now I wish I could see a movie made by committee instead of a movie made by one computer that was just fed on all the things in, that exist already.
[5:15] But anyway, let's talk about Rebel Moon.
[5:16] So here's the thing.
[5:17] This movie is over two hours long.
[5:18] I mean, 11 minutes is credits, but it's over two minutes, two hours long.
[5:21] But I think this may be the shortest summary possibly that we ever do on the Flophouse.
[5:25] Yeah.
[5:25] Because so little happens in this movie.
Stuart Wellington
[5:27] I bet we can derail this thing.
[5:29] That's fair.
[5:30] But, but, but.
Elliott Kalan
[5:30] That's our challenge.
[5:31] Our challenge today.
Dan McCoy
[5:33] Another reason I liked part two more, shorter than the first half.
[5:36] That's true.
[5:36] That's true.
[5:37] Shorter.
Elliott Kalan
[5:37] And also, it was the easiest movie for the Flophouse that I think I've ever had in terms of taking notes while doing the dishes.
[5:44] Yeah.
[5:44] Because it's just long fight sequences that I don't need to write anything down for.
Dan McCoy
[5:48] So on that very specific metric, 10 stars.
Elliott Kalan
[5:51] If you're judging this movie on convenience of taking notes while doing something else, again, 10 out of 10, A plus, highest recommendation, perfect second or third screen experience.
[6:01] Stuart?
Stuart Wellington
[6:01] Yo, yo, so.
[6:03] Oh, okay.
[6:04] Yo.
[6:04] Oh, he said yo.
[6:05] This means he's serious.
[6:05] He's getting real.
[6:06] Yo, I'm serious, guys.
[6:07] Or he's speaking Spanish and he's talking about himself.
[6:08] Yeah.
[6:08] Time to turn this chair backwards for a second.
[6:11] So I feel like, so this is the second of two movies.
Elliott Kalan
[6:15] This is the second of two movies of a projected six movies.
Stuart Wellington
[6:18] Six movies, sure.
[6:20] So, but it isn't until like maybe 10 minutes before the end of the movie when Debra Bloodaxe shows up with her rebel.
[6:28] Spoiler.
[6:29] Shows up with their rebels.
[6:31] And one of the pilots is an alien that I'm like, oh yeah, there's fucking aliens in this movie.
[6:36] Like the first movie like.
[6:37] Had a couple aliens.
[6:38] There's more or two.
[6:39] It had like a Jenna Malone spider lady.
[6:41] Yeah.
[6:42] And there's like some other guys.
[6:43] Like where were those guys?
[6:45] Why couldn't one of their team be like a cool alien guy?
Elliott Kalan
[6:49] Yeah.
[6:49] Well, this movie really, it targets what people love most about science fiction storytelling, which is harvesting.
[6:56] Long scenes of harvesting and grain.
[6:58] And also just guns that shoot things the same way guns do in real life.
Stuart Wellington
[7:02] Like that's, this movie is about.
[7:03] I don't know.
[7:04] It shoots it like sparks and lava and shit fly out when you get hit by the guns.
[7:08] Yeah, that's true.
[7:08] That's true.
Elliott Kalan
[7:09] But this movie is about grain and guns.
[7:11] Like that's pretty much it.
[7:12] An alien.
[7:12] Yeah, right.
[7:13] When that alien showed up, there was part of me that was like, that's similar to what we're talking about with backstory.
[7:16] I was like, too little, too late.
[7:17] You can't just throw an alien in at the very end and expect me to be like, oh yeah, it's the science fiction epic.
[7:21] Yeah.
Dan McCoy
[7:22] This is just as a service to the one listener who was like, I wonder what the end of Dan's half-muttered sentence was going to be.
[7:29] Yeah.
[7:29] It was just going to be.
[7:30] I wonder when that Jenna Malone spider lady film is going to come out.
[7:34] The adaptation, of course, of the hit comic spider lady.
[7:37] Uh-huh.
[7:37] Yeah.
[7:38] It wasn't worth it.
[7:40] But I didn't want.
[7:41] You know, anyone who has maybe problems with like threads being dangled and then not resolved to be upset.
[7:47] Yeah.
Elliott Kalan
[7:47] No, I understand.
[7:48] No, you did a public service there.
[7:50] Yeah.
Stuart Wellington
[7:50] I feel bad for the actor who was initially cast to be the third pilot.
[7:54] And they're like, oh, actually, we need to put an alien in this role.
[7:57] And he's like, but I told my parents.
Elliott Kalan
[7:59] Yeah.
[8:00] No, sorry.
[8:00] We're casting an alien now.
[8:02] And then they've got to find an alien.
[8:04] Yeah.
[8:04] So let's talk about Rebel Moon Part 2, The Scargiver.
[8:07] Very few aliens, as we've mentioned, for a Star Wars ripoff.
[8:11] Yep.
[8:11] And a lot of grain.
[8:12] A lot of reaping and milling.
[8:15] So let's talk about it, shall we?
[8:18] We open with – here was my promise to myself before going in was I was not going to do any research.
[8:23] And I was just going to try to guess what was happening based on my vague memories of the first movie.
[8:27] Luckily, the movie understands nobody cares enough to remember.
[8:31] So we open with a voiceover from Anthony Hopkins, who, of course, is the voice of a robot named James or Jimmy.
[8:35] Jimmy the robot.
[8:36] Yep.
[8:37] He says – he reminds us that Cora and Gunner, they gather –
[8:41] He pronounces it Gooner, which is kind of wild, dog.
[8:45] You know what he's doing in his spare time.
Dan McCoy
[8:47] Oh, that's who you were talking about.
[8:48] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[8:48] When Stuart came in, he's like, are you sad because of the death of Gooner?
[8:52] And I'm like, what?
Stuart Wellington
[8:54] Yeah, yeah.
[8:55] I feel – and he's like – Gooner's kind of like – he's kind of like a baby girl, right?
[8:59] Like he's like – he's cute and he's got like his little five o'clock shadow.
[9:03] But he doesn't really – he can't really do much.
[9:05] He's like there to be like –
Elliott Kalan
[9:06] He saves Cora's life at the end.
[9:07] I guess so.
[9:08] He's very much the sub in their relationship, sure.
[9:11] He is the kind of – the gentle, softer man that the hard woman falls for.
[9:18] So Cora and Gunner – he represents a nicer world, a nicer universe than she knows.
[9:23] Cora and Gunner, they've gathered warriors.
Stuart Wellington
[9:26] That's how he pronounces it, guys.
[9:28] I mean, Anthony – are you going to correct Sir Anthony Hopkins?
Dan McCoy
[9:31] No, I won't.
[9:32] That's right.
[9:32] I'm assuming the director would not.
[9:33] Cute videos he posts of him with his cat hanging out.
Elliott Kalan
[9:37] Yeah, and I also don't care enough to correct.
[9:39] Again, most of the characters in this movie, I do not know their names.
[9:42] I don't care what their names are.
[9:44] I had the captions on for part of it just so I could find out what their names were because the captions would sometimes say who was talking.
[9:49] I know General Titus and I know Cora.
[9:51] Their names are said every five minutes.
Stuart Wellington
[9:53] Dan, can you name five characters in this movie that we haven't already mentioned?
[9:58] Oh, that I have –
[10:00] You can't name Jimmy the Robot, Cora, Gunner, or General Titus.
[10:03] Yeah, or Denver Blood Axe.
Dan McCoy
[10:05] I think I could only have named three of those anyway, and those would have been the three I think it could have come up with.
[10:11] Dan, what's the bad guy's name? Do you remember the bad guy's name?
Stuart Wellington
[10:13] If you get his first name, I will do ten push-ups right now.
Dan McCoy
[10:19] Darth Rebel Moon.
Elliott Kalan
[10:21] I mean, pretty close, pretty close.
[10:23] Do you remember – you can't name any of them?
[10:25] No, I don't.
[10:26] The only other character I remember their name is the character named Den because I was like, you got a lot of nerve, Rebel Moon, naming character after Den and not having him be a regular person in a barbarian body in a fantasy world.
[10:38] A nerd, Elliot.
[10:39] He's not a regular person in a barbarian.
[10:40] A nerd is a regular person, Stuart.
Dan McCoy
[10:42] I got to tell you, when you said that about not doing any research, I didn't as well, and I was like, oh, man, I'm not going to remember anything.
[10:49] Because they introduce – this is based on the seven samurai.
[10:53] They introduce seven characters as the mercenary team plus all the other people in the movie.
[11:02] Plus all the villagers, yeah.
[11:04] Yeah, I'm not going to remember this.
[11:05] And then as the movie started, I'm like, man, they could have just slipped a couple of them out the back door, and I would not have noticed.
[11:12] I'm like, are there still seven of them here?
[11:14] I don't know.
[11:15] I don't think so.
Elliott Kalan
[11:16] I don't think there are.
[11:17] There's one or two of them that just kind of come and go.
[11:19] They kind of appear and disappear.
[11:20] Okay.
Stuart Wellington
[11:21] And like one of them was a traitor.
[11:23] Charlie –
[11:24] Yeah, Hunnam.
[11:24] Charlie Hunnam's character was a betrayer.
[11:26] I forgot about that.
[11:29] Debra Bloodaxe's brother, like Darian Bloodaxe.
Dan McCoy
[11:33] How is Debra Bloodaxe's brother doing these days?
Elliott Kalan
[11:36] Not great.
[11:36] At the end of the last episode.
[11:37] At the end of the last movie.
[11:38] R.I.B.
[11:39] Remember, he dies and a random soldier is like, I'll take his place.
[11:43] This random lady soldier.
[11:44] I loved him.
[11:45] I'll take his place.
[11:45] And you're like, are you – who are you?
[11:47] Like, what?
[11:48] Okay, I guess so.
[11:49] But she's the one who has black paint over her eyes.
[11:52] Furiosa style.
[11:53] Yeah.
Dan McCoy
[11:53] And I think that – I mean, not that we're – I mean, we're talking about the characters,
[11:57] so it doesn't matter necessarily from that stance.
[12:00] But I think that that might be the person portraying that goes by they, them pronouns.
[12:06] But the thing is, like, there's so many different characters that I apologize in advance that we get it wrong
[12:11] because it's just because we don't know who any of these people are.
[12:14] Don't worry.
Elliott Kalan
[12:14] We're not going to be talking about most of them because they're not really that important.
[12:18] They are – they're a cannon fodder for the most part.
Stuart Wellington
[12:20] Of course, we've got to talk about my favorite villain of all time, General Atticus Noble.
[12:25] Okay, so let's wait.
Elliott Kalan
[12:26] Or no, Admiral Atticus Noble.
[12:28] Atticus Noble, that's right.
[12:29] Let's get to him.
[12:30] So let me just finish telling you what the VO says, which is they were collecting warriors to save the village on the planet.
[12:36] Velt from Imperial stormtroopers who have a dreadnought ship, and they said,
[12:41] we're going to destroy your village if you don't give us all your grain or whatever.
[12:44] And so then we see Atticus Noble.
[12:46] He died at the end of the last movie.
[12:49] Hora, our hero, killed him, right?
[12:51] Stuart, what happens to Admiral Atticus Noble?
Stuart Wellington
[12:54] Well, they picked him up, and then they, like, wrapped him in a cocoon and then pumped him full of juice.
[12:58] And he's all better now.
[12:59] And he's back.
[13:00] He's possibly, like, tougher.
[13:03] Like, it's tough.
[13:03] I don't remember exactly his skill set.
[13:05] I just remember he got wanked off by, like, a squid monster in the last one.
Elliott Kalan
[13:08] Yes, that was the one interesting thing that happened in the entire movie last time.
Dan McCoy
[13:11] I kind of liked the look of this med lab scene.
[13:16] Because, like, the doctor, very inefficient.
[13:19] I don't think, I mean, I think that you would be blinding anyone else who was in the room with him.
[13:23] But, like, has all of these huge glowing eyes, like, that shine right in people's faces.
[13:29] Yeah.
[13:29] Yeah.
[13:30] And then, like, you see, like, these, like, holographic scans of, like, the heart and the brain that, you know, as this person's in this cocoon, this chrysalis.
[13:40] Like, that was kind of neat.
Stuart Wellington
[13:41] Yeah, and it's kind of like, it's the cocoon material.
[13:43] It's kind of like Shelob's web that she covers Samwise in.
Elliott Kalan
[13:47] Yeah.
[13:47] This stuff would all look really cool if I hadn't seen it all before.
[13:50] If it wasn't all variations of stuff we'd seen.
[13:52] The same way that, like, as we've seen with many of these movies that we, you know, these blockbusters that we've, or would-be blockbusters, this would be cool stuff if we hadn't seen a lot of it already in 15 years.
[14:03] Like, those doctor outfits look cool, but I just rewatched David Lynch's Dune recently, and, like, the outfits in that look a thousand times cooler, and they're really similar to it.
[14:12] So, the, anyway, they know, but the baddie, he's resurrected Atticus Noble.
[14:16] He's back to life, back to reality, and he knows that the Scargiver, whose real name, we know her as Korra, but her real name is, like, Athia Les-Less or something like that.
[14:24] Arthalaeus, yeah.
[14:24] Arthalaeus.
[14:25] He's on, she's on Belt, the idyllic planet.
Stuart Wellington
[14:29] I have a skill set, and that's remembering dumb fantasy crap.
[14:32] No, that's good.
Elliott Kalan
[14:33] That's good.
[14:34] So, the heroes have returned to the village.
[14:36] Aris, a young private who is stationed there, is told via hologram call from the bad guys that the harvest has to be ready in five days.
[14:45] And meanwhile, Jimmy the robot, he's wearing antlers, dressing like a shaman, just because it looks cool.
[14:50] No real reason.
[14:50] He's just walking around in the wilderness doing nothing.
Dan McCoy
[14:53] I was reading, I think it was a David Ehrlich review.
[14:56] I'm not sure, but, like, that talked about how much there was about the grain in this movie, how much, like, threshing happens, and about how hilarious it is that, you know, I mean, this is, again, based on the Seven Samurai, but, like, how important this grain is to this giant, you know, universe conquering force in the same way it was to starving warlords.
[15:19] In feudal Japan.
Elliott Kalan
[15:20] I will say, it's like, if this was a better movie, then they could make the point for all the technological prowess this empire has, people need to eat.
[15:30] An army moves on its stomach.
[15:31] Like, they need that grain just to get back to their homeworld, basically, because it takes them so long and they have so many soldiers.
[15:38] And, like, that's an interesting thing to talk about, but they don't talk about it.
[15:42] And, like, the grain, the harvesting the grain, I guess it's treated as if it's, like, a sacred event.
[15:47] But in Seven Samurai, at the end, when the villagers are, they're either, are they replanting or are they harvesting the rice?
[15:53] I don't remember.
[15:54] And they're singing while they do it.
[15:55] And the samurai are, like, they're going to forget about us.
[15:58] Their lives have gone back to normal.
[15:59] Right.
[16:00] They don't care about us anymore.
[16:00] We've done our part.
Dan McCoy
[16:02] We have no place in a world of peace.
Elliott Kalan
[16:04] Yes, we have no place in a world of peace.
[16:06] And also, it's not like they're going to, we were heroes for a moment.
[16:10] And now they're back to the rhythms of this life that is less exciting, but in some ways more meaningful.
[16:15] And it's such a beautiful moment and a beautifully sad moment at the same time.
[16:19] This movie has nothing like that.
[16:20] In its, it's like, they've, it's.
Stuart Wellington
[16:22] There's, like, people with smoking swords, though, dude.
Elliott Kalan
[16:26] There are laser swords in it.
[16:28] That's true.
[16:29] A totally original idea to have a laser in the form of a sword.
[16:32] But anyway, so Korra tells the village leaders that Admiral Noble is dead, so the threat is over.
[16:39] But Aris is like, oh, no.
Stuart Wellington
[16:40] I do love that, like, simplicity of, like, no, man, you killed the leader and the whole team leaves.
[16:46] They're all like, oh, we've got to have a new election, I guess.
Elliott Kalan
[16:49] And Aris is like, oh, no, he's still alive and they're coming in, like, five days.
[16:52] You didn't do, you didn't accomplish shit.
[16:54] And Juman Honsu, he gives one of a couple of very half-baked, half-assed speeches where he says to the villagers,
[17:01] hey, it's time to fight for what you love.
[17:04] We have to harvest that grain in three days so we can use it for my strategy to protect us.
[17:09] Work begins at dawn.
[17:10] And this village of farmers is like, oh, at dawn?
[17:14] All right.
[17:15] I guess we can.
[17:16] It's like, they're farmers.
[17:16] I guess I can sleep in a little.
[17:18] Exactly.
[17:19] Like, usually we get up in the middle of the night so we can start doing work.
[17:23] But it's so funny because they're like harvesting the grain in three days, I guess so.
[17:27] Their field seems, the grain field seems to be about, what, 100 feet square?
[17:31] Like, it's so tiny.
[17:33] Yeah.
[17:33] But anyway, Kor and Gunnar, they talk.
[17:36] He admits that in the battle that they just had at the end of the first movie, he wasn't afraid of dying.
[17:41] He was afraid of losing her.
[17:42] And they start making out.
[17:43] They have, how would you rate their chemistry, their romantic chemistry on a scale from zero meaning none to ten meaning their souls will be reincarnated together through all eternity?
Stuart Wellington
[17:53] Yeah.
[17:54] Well, I just, I, you mean, you mean Jennifer Lopez and George Clooney and out of sight levels of chemistry.
Dan McCoy
[17:59] Yes, exactly.
[18:00] Yeah.
[18:00] I have to explain that I did just for my, for my friend Tom's birthday, he screened a double feature of action movies.
Elliott Kalan
[18:12] I'm interested to see how this connects with what we're talking about.
Dan McCoy
[18:14] The first one was pretty good and I think I might recommend it later on, so stay tuned.
[18:18] Oh, okay.
[18:19] The second one.
[18:20] Let me just move to the edge of my seat.
[18:22] I was mostly enjoyed for dumbness qualities and it was Fair Game starring Cindy Crawford and which Baldwin was it?
[18:33] Is it Stephen Baldwin or is it Billy Baldwin?
[18:35] I think it's, well, anyway.
Elliott Kalan
[18:36] And it's not, and it's not a manslaughter, guilt, or Alec Baldwin.
[18:42] Yeah.
Dan McCoy
[18:42] One of the lesser tufted Baldwins was the star.
[18:47] And so seeing the negative chemistry that Cindy Crawford and this Baldwin had.
[18:52] They seem to hate each other in that movie.
Elliott Kalan
[18:53] They seem to despise.
[18:54] So this isn't as bad as that.
[18:55] You're right.
[18:56] Zero would, I guess, be they hate each other obviously.
Dan McCoy
[18:58] Like he seems like a nice guy and she seems to appreciate that.
[19:01] So I'll give, I'll give it like a two or three.
[19:03] Okay.
[19:03] Okay.
Elliott Kalan
[19:04] But, but far from the kind, I mean, maybe it was love born in the heat of battle.
[19:08] So they, a cut to, they have just had sex.
[19:11] Now it's done, I guess, in the R-rated version.
[19:13] We'll see it happen.
[19:13] I don't know.
[19:14] Cause they're talking about it releasing a harder cut of this.
[19:17] Yeah.
[19:17] Yeah.
Stuart Wellington
[19:17] They probably do it to like some space version of Hallelujah.
[19:20] Yeah.
[19:21] Yeah.
Elliott Kalan
[19:23] Hallelujah droid.
[19:23] Yeah.
[19:24] Or something like that.
[19:25] And so the, he goes, he's, they're lying in bed and in the afterglow, as always, you
[19:30] ask your lover about their tragic backstory.
[19:33] So he's like, hey, how come since you were raised by General Balisarius who runs the space
[19:37] empire.
[19:38] The regent?
Stuart Wellington
[19:39] Regent?
Elliott Kalan
[19:40] Sorry.
[19:40] Regent Balisarius.
[19:41] Why are you considered a criminal?
[19:42] And she goes, oh.
[19:43] A scar giver.
[19:44] That's an interesting name.
[19:45] What, where does that come from?
[19:46] Now again, dear listeners.
[19:47] I thought you just met the scars on my back from your nails while we were in the Throws
Stuart Wellington
[19:50] of Passion.
[19:51] I just want listeners to understand that, of course, I know that we're not talking about
[19:55] Belisarius Call, the Archmagos who invented the Primaris space marine technique.
[20:01] Thank you.
[20:01] Thank you for making that clear.
[20:02] We're not talking about him.
[20:03] We're talking about Regent Balisarius from the movie Rebel Moon Part 2, The Scargiver.
Elliott Kalan
[20:08] Yeah, the movie we're speaking about today.
[20:11] And so he explains how she, when she still worked for the Empire, she was the bodyguard
[20:18] of Princess Issa.
[20:19] We learned that last movie.
[20:21] The princess had started persuading her father to stop conquering things and crushing other
[20:26] planets.
Dan McCoy
[20:27] Oh, that's why we're supposed to care about her.
[20:29] I miss that part because at the end when they all pledge their fealty to the old bloodline
[20:36] or whatever, I'm like, why?
[20:38] They seem bad too.
[20:39] It's okay.
[20:39] Thank you for clearing that up.
[20:41] She's being set up as a sort of-
Stuart Wellington
[20:42] They're also like kings and queens.
[20:45] Yeah.
[20:46] Well, I mean, we shouldn't want them to be saved.
Dan McCoy
[20:48] I already, yeah, I already have problems with the monarchical system.
Elliott Kalan
[20:51] But they are also, they are setting her up as a sort of divine, almost Christ-like figure.
[20:57] So she is the innocence embodied in a child.
Stuart Wellington
[20:59] Of course she's divine.
[21:00] She's the daughter of Cary Elwes, Dan.
[21:02] Yeah, that's true.
[21:03] Mm-hmm.
[21:03] There's two great-
[21:04] Body fucking wobbly.
[21:06] Cary Elwes.
Elliott Kalan
[21:07] Now, of the two great carries of film, Cary Grant and Cary Elwes, Cary Elwes is certainly
[21:12] the lesser.
[21:12] I think Cary Elwes would admit that.
[21:14] But he is so wonderful.
[21:15] Still a national treasure.
[21:16] Ruffling feathers.
[21:18] Cary Elwes, if you're listening, I love you.
[21:20] I think you're great.
[21:21] But I think even you would admit that Cary Elwes is a different order of magnitude.
[21:24] Where does Cary White fit in this?
[21:26] Spelled differently, right?
[21:28] Mm-hmm.
[21:28] Yeah.
[21:28] I'm just talking about C-A-R-Y carries.
[21:30] Okay.
[21:31] Yeah.
Dan McCoy
[21:31] I guess.
[21:32] So-
[21:33] You said great carries of film, so I had to think of-
Elliott Kalan
[21:35] Not talking about the Carry On series of British comedies?
Stuart Wellington
[21:39] Sure.
[21:39] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[21:40] Not talking about the pig blood magnet telekinetic monster?
[21:46] No.
[21:46] That's true.
Elliott Kalan
[21:47] Yeah, no, not that carry.
[21:49] So, moving on, we can list carries forever.
[21:51] There's Carrie Fisher, of course, which is someone who fishes for carries in the sea of carries.
[21:56] Mm-hmm.
[21:57] There's Cash and Carry, and also Carry On, and there's also Carrion, the Spider-Man villain,
[22:01] who is a zombie version of-
[22:05] Yeah, well, actually, let's not even get to him.
[22:07] His origin is complicated enough.
[22:08] Anyway, so, Dan, I'll tell you more about this.
[22:10] I can't believe Elliot stopped.
[22:12] Elliot was about to digress even too much for him.
Dan McCoy
[22:15] Yeah, too much.
Elliott Kalan
[22:15] Dan, I'll tell you about the origin of Spider-Man villain Carrion.
[22:18] You know what?
Dan McCoy
[22:19] I honestly am interested, but you're right.
[22:21] We probably shouldn't.
Elliott Kalan
[22:23] Yeah, we have so much plot to get through.
[22:24] There's so much plot to get through.
[22:25] So, she explains, Princess Issa was like, hey, maybe we shouldn't conquer things anymore,
[22:30] and her dad was like, yeah, that's right.
[22:33] So, they were going to go christen the last of the battle dreadnoughts, and Belisarius was
[22:37] like, I've fought for all my life for this army.
[22:40] I'm not going to give up now, and told Korra, you have to kill the princess.
[22:44] And so, at the christening, as a blindfolded string quintet plays, like they're in Eyes Wide
[22:51] Shudder.
[22:52] I kind of like that.
Dan McCoy
[22:53] I like this, too.
[22:54] I like that there was live scoring for all this murder that was about to happen.
[23:00] They just got like, they're like, they went with it.
Stuart Wellington
[23:02] They're like, okay, I guess it needs to get more intense and scary.
[23:04] And it's also funny, like, I feel like this scene kind of reflects, I think, the general
[23:10] like Cliff Notes version of a story that these movies are, because like, neither the queen
[23:18] nor the princess, it looks like they spent more than like, maybe 10 minutes in the like,
[23:24] hair and makeup chair.
[23:25] Yeah, even Cary Alley's beard looks super fake.
[23:27] You're like, give me a-
Dan McCoy
[23:28] The villain looks weird as shit.
[23:30] He looks like a Wooly Willie.
[23:31] He does, yeah.
[23:32] His beard also looks terrible.
Stuart Wellington
[23:33] I mean, in a way, that makes him a good villain, because he looks like it breaks your brain
[23:38] to look at him.
Dan McCoy
[23:38] Like the ultimate villain, Wooly Willie.
[23:40] Yeah.
[23:41] We don't have time.
[23:42] Stick your face in this pot of paste, and then we're going to blow iron filings onto you.
Stuart Wellington
[23:48] Like, they didn't even give the princess an updo.
[23:52] I mean, come on.
[23:53] Like, never-ending story princess, Princess Leia.
[23:57] Oh, yeah.
[23:58] These are classic princess hair styles.
[24:00] Her hair is just down.
Elliott Kalan
[24:01] Yeah.
[24:02] Yeah.
[24:02] So anyway, so they kill the king and queen, and Korra is like, not sure if she can shoot
[24:09] the princess, and Belisarius is like, do it!
[24:11] And the princess goes, it's okay, I forgive you.
[24:14] And Korra shoots and kills her, and then Belisarius is like, and then she gets upset,
[24:19] and Belisarius is like, oh, by the way, I'm going to blame all this on you.
[24:23] And he starts going, she just killed the king and queen and the princess, and everyone's
[24:27] going, yeah, traitor, traitor.
[24:28] Like, they jump into the play acting so fast, and she fights her way out, runs away, and
[24:34] she decides she's going to honor the princess by being more than a weapon.
[24:37] She's now going to be, I guess, a farmer and a lover.
[24:40] And that's her backstory.
[24:42] Next morning, we begin-
[24:43] Joker.
[24:44] Next morning, we begin the famous-
Stuart Wellington
[24:47] Well, I think you kind of glossed over the fact that when she shot the princess, the princess
[24:51] started like shooting out glowing light, and that's all we see.
Elliott Kalan
[24:54] I wasn't sure if that was the laser beam working, or if that was- because they never talk
[24:57] about it again.
[24:58] So I didn't know if that was just the weapon, or if that was her body being magical.
Dan McCoy
[25:01] I presume, you know, look, sometimes with these movies, if I'm having a hard time following
[25:07] everything, particularly if it's, you know, the second half of a two-part movie that got
[25:13] split unceremoniously, I have the Wikipedia open.
[25:16] So I knew ahead of time, like, we were headed towards, like, that princess was going to be
[25:21] alive at the end.
[25:22] And spoiler for anyone who was not intending to listen to all of our synopsis for some
[25:26] reason.
[25:28] But, like, so I was like, oh, this glowiness, this must be related somehow to how she survives.
[25:33] But we don't know yet.
[25:34] We don't know yet until, you know, Rebel Moon Part 3, Glowy Girl.
Elliott Kalan
[25:39] Glowy Girl.
[25:40] Yeah, yeah.
[25:41] That's what it's going to be called.
[25:42] Glowy Girl.
[25:43] Yeah.
[25:44] And so the next morning, everyone goes out.
[25:46] They start harvesting grain in various degrees of slow motion.
[25:49] This goes on for a long time.
[25:52] And we go to the king's gaze.
[25:53] That's the dreadnought that noble commands.
[25:56] And he demands, he goes, I need to be put back in command.
[25:58] And his doctor is like, oh, we just have to run some tests.
[26:00] And he shoots the doctor and kills him in anger.
[26:02] And everyone's like, yeah, you're in charge again.
[26:04] That's all it took.
[26:04] Yeah, you passed the final test.
[26:06] And they're like, oh, we're sorry that that scar is still in your chest.
[26:09] The med droids couldn't remove it.
[26:10] We'll work on that.
[26:11] And he goes, no, no.
[26:12] It was given to me by the scargiver herself.
[26:14] I will cherish it.
[26:15] And it's like, it's not that good a scar.
[26:17] Like, it does kind of look, it looks like an octopus sucker got stuck to his chest.
Dan McCoy
[26:21] She's known for, you know.
[26:23] It's like, whatever.
Elliott Kalan
[26:23] She doesn't do it at all.
[26:25] I mean, mostly she cuts people's heads off or shoots them with guns.
[26:28] So the idea that she's the scargiver makes no sense.
Stuart Wellington
[26:30] Yeah, I'm just saying it's in her name, you know.
[26:32] Did she give someone else a scar in the first movie?
[26:34] I don't remember.
Elliott Kalan
[26:35] I mean, unless the thing is that she's giving herself scars like Zazaz, the Batman villain.
[26:40] You know, for each victim, she cuts a scar.
[26:43] But she doesn't seem to be doing that.
[26:43] I know Zaz.
[26:44] You don't have to explain it.
[26:46] It was more for Dan.
[26:47] Who treats Stuart like an idiot?
[26:49] Dan wasn't super familiar with Carrion.
[26:50] So I know he's familiar with Zaz.
[26:52] Sure, yeah.
[26:54] Zaz, a villain who honor and honor and honorly does not have that much Zaz.
Stuart Wellington
[26:57] Yeah.
[26:58] Certainly no riz.
[26:59] No.
Elliott Kalan
[27:00] Not at all.
[27:02] No.
[27:02] So there's more harvesting.
[27:05] We see that Titus, the Juman Hantu's character who was an alcoholic, is now dipping his flask
[27:11] into just a barrel of plain water.
[27:13] Oh, perhaps he cares a little bit.
[27:15] The harvesting, it's all set to soulful village, kind of choral and music.
[27:18] It goes on forever.
[27:19] Yeah.
[27:19] It takes forever.
[27:21] Blessedly night falls.
Stuart Wellington
[27:22] The one nod to futuristic crap is the thing, the truck they throw all the grain onto is
[27:30] floating.
[27:31] Yes.
[27:31] That's the only thing.
[27:32] Other than that, it's like old school scythes.
[27:36] They're basically Amish.
[27:37] Yeah.
Elliott Kalan
[27:37] And the horses they ride are alien horses.
[27:39] They look a little different.
[27:41] They sound a little different.
Stuart Wellington
[27:41] Which, I gotta say, the whole trad lifestyle push here, I'm not into.
[27:47] No.
[27:48] Not at me either.
[27:48] I feel like this is the kind of movie that John Krasinski would be like, hmm, this sounds
[27:52] good.
Elliott Kalan
[27:53] This is my fantasy.
[27:54] But also, in a better movie, they would be setting up duality between the mechanized
[28:00] inhuman empire and the kind of personal, individual, agricultural, kind of close to the land village.
[28:06] But instead, they're just like, they can't be bothered to put a point on it.
[28:09] So they're just kind of, they're just going with this shorthand of like, grain good, farming
[28:13] good, plow good.
[28:14] You know these people are good because they plow.
[28:16] And to be honest, there are no, until the heroes come in, they're all white anyway, right?
[28:21] They look like, you know, white trad people.
[28:24] Which is, whereas the-
Stuart Wellington
[28:27] We also know they're good because they have this big ceremony where they give all the
[28:31] like, heroes their own special banner.
Elliott Kalan
[28:33] We're getting to when everybody gets their own knit banner, yeah.
Dan McCoy
[28:36] Okay, well, before we get to that, I want to dive a little bit into like, Stuart, I feel
[28:40] like your strong dislike for John Krasinski is moving into like, a new zone where you're
[28:47] starting to like-
[28:48] I don't get a trad political viewpoint from him.
[28:50] There are two characteristics to him that I don't necessarily associate with him.
[28:56] With John Krasinski.
[28:57] Because there's two things you dislike and you're like, I bet that guy is-
Stuart Wellington
[29:00] Oh, well, I don't know.
[29:01] I'm just wondering where it's coming from.
[29:02] I mean, I feel like A Quiet Place has a pretty strong and a pretty obvious like, trad family
[29:07] structure reading.
[29:10] The idea that they're like, yeah, you know, we live in a world where if you make noise,
[29:14] aliens will eat you.
[29:15] Let's pump out a bunch of fucking babies.
[29:18] Yeah.
[29:19] So that's stupid.
Elliott Kalan
[29:20] I mean, you do need to continue.
[29:22] I mean, if you have any interest in the continuing of the human race, you do need to have babies
[29:25] at some point.
Dan McCoy
[29:26] Yeah, but I feel like-
[29:28] You just want to put it off until like, maybe we figure out the alien problem.
[29:30] Thank you, Dan.
[29:31] Okay, yeah.
[29:32] You don't need to make those decisions.
[29:34] If you can put off a baby for like, you know, work reasons or whatever, you can probably
[29:37] do it for like-
[29:38] For alien invasion reasons.
Stuart Wellington
[29:40] I mean, I know, Dan, that you share his, John Krasinski's belief that the CIA is a necessary
[29:45] evil in the world and that it's not evil at all.
[29:48] It's actually a good thing.
[29:49] I mean, is that just based on him being in a TV show about it?
[29:52] Or is that a real thing?
[29:53] He like did an interview after visiting the CIA headquarters and he's like, everybody should
[29:58] be so thankful that the CIA is out there.
Dan McCoy
[30:01] I also would like to admit, I don't, in the political sense, I don't have a lot of understanding
[30:06] of like the usage of trad.
[30:08] I recently used trad to refer to like trad menswear fashion, like a trad look.
Stuart Wellington
[30:16] And the menswear Twitter guy beat you up.
[30:18] No, well, yeah.
Dan McCoy
[30:20] Famously-
[30:20] It was Jesse.
[30:21] Jesse Thorne beat him up.
[30:22] Yeah.
[30:23] Yeah, I think he works for Jesse.
[30:25] No, it was with Audrey and she's like, what are you talking about?
[30:28] Because she like only thought of it as this political thing.
Stuart Wellington
[30:31] Or she's like, I thought you were talking to traditional Irish folk music.
[30:35] Yeah.
Elliott Kalan
[30:36] Now, unfortunately, we live in a climate right now where everything is political.
[30:39] I only just recently learned how Mac Tonight has become a symbol of alt-right racism over
[30:44] the years.
[30:45] Oh, no.
[30:45] Which I don't love.
[30:45] Not you, Mac.
[30:46] Really?
[30:47] Exactly.
[30:47] I was devastated to learn it.
[30:49] And so everything is political.
[30:51] Everything has that angle, which sucks.
[30:52] But I also, I want to take a moment after that to just celebrate Stuart's intense, passionate
[30:57] dislike for John Krasinski.
[30:58] Someone who, my opinion on him is like, eh, like I don't really think about him one way
[31:02] or the other.
[31:02] But Stuart, so much of your brain space is spent mad at John Krasinski.
[31:06] And I want to cherish that and recognize it and honor it.
Dan McCoy
[31:08] Thank you.
[31:08] Yeah.
[31:09] Stoke that fire, please.
[31:11] Yeah.
[31:11] To me, he just seems like a guy.
[31:12] But yeah, I appreciate it.
[31:14] I appreciate, you know, in this topsy-turvy world, there are certain like rocks we can cling
[31:19] to.
[31:20] Yeah.
Elliott Kalan
[31:20] And what is that Stuart does not like John Krasinski?
[31:22] And I'm looking forward to Stuart's power broker size takedown of John Krasinski 20 years
[31:26] from now.
Stuart Wellington
[31:26] And I'm a passionate man.
[31:28] My fiery blood burns hot.
[31:32] And, you know, I feel like that's, this podcast is a great way for me to share those passions
[31:38] in the world.
[31:38] Yeah, yeah.
Stuart Wellington
[31:38] I think that's true.
[31:39] Like talking about Warhammer and my dislike of certain famous people.
Elliott Kalan
[31:42] You have to vent your hot Indiana blood sometimes, you know.
Stuart Wellington
[31:46] Yeah.
[31:47] We're known for being a passionate people.
Elliott Kalan
[31:49] Us Hoosiers.
[31:50] I mean, it's the one state where they were like, daylight saving?
[31:54] No, thank you.
[31:55] I don't know.
Dan McCoy
[31:55] I mean, not to disbelieve your, you know, lived experience, Stuart, but I experience you
[32:02] as more like me where there's a lot of anger there and it all gets directed inward at oneself.
Elliott Kalan
[32:08] But a certain amount of it is being directed inward to, I guess, one of the two John Krasinski's
[32:12] that live inside him.
[32:13] Yeah, that's true.
[32:13] There's two John Krasinski's in all of us.
Stuart Wellington
[32:14] There's always spillover, I guess.
[32:16] Yeah.
[32:16] Yeah.
[32:16] We'll do other podcasts where I talk about other celebrities I don't like.
[32:20] Oh, thank goodness.
Elliott Kalan
[32:21] Yeah.
[32:22] Take down.
[32:23] I'm just looking forward to Stuart's new podcast, Krasinski, Krasinski.
[32:25] Which one is worst?
[32:29] You'll be surprised at the conclusion Stuart gets to.
[32:31] Anyway, Stuart's opinions about John Krasinski don't necessarily speak for the entirety of
[32:35] the flop.
[32:35] No.
[32:35] Just because I haven't thought about it that much.
[32:37] Yeah.
[32:38] That's my disclaimer.
[32:39] Okay.
[32:40] So, Noble's back in charge, harvesting.
[32:44] The Aris, he reports back to his superiors something and Admiral Noble is like, well, I guess
[32:48] he's picked sides.
[32:49] He knows that the young private who's been stationed at the village has taken the village's side.
[32:53] Now, guess what they're doing, guys?
[32:55] Exciting science fiction epic.
[32:57] They are milling the grain.
[32:59] We get to watch them milling the grain for a while.
[33:01] Oh, okay.
[33:01] Cool.
[33:02] They say, we're the millers.
[33:04] As they do it.
[33:05] They do say that as they're doing it.
[33:07] Yeah.
[33:08] And, okay.
[33:09] Then it's that night.
[33:10] The village girl who's in love with Aris, I think her name is Sam.
[33:13] But I only thought I looked it up.
Stuart Wellington
[33:14] He saved her from being assaulted by the evil soldiers.
[33:19] Right.
[33:19] That's right.
Elliott Kalan
[33:19] She gives gifts of hand-woven blankets and banners.
[33:23] Each one gets their own symbol.
[33:25] And Gunnar, she's like, you're the heart of us all.
[33:28] So it's just got a big cartoony heart on it.
[33:29] And if I was Gunnar, I would be like, what is this?
[33:31] Everybody's got lightning bolts and mountains and monsters.
[33:35] I got a big goofy heart.
[33:36] Come on.
Stuart Wellington
[33:37] And this is one of those, I don't know about you guys, but I love it when a movie has characters
[33:41] not really do anything.
[33:42] And then all of a sudden everyone's like, and I love you because you're so good at fighting
[33:46] and doing this other stuff.
[33:48] And you're like, you didn't see anything, Donnie.
Elliott Kalan
[33:50] No, she is investing so much personality into each of these characters through just the
[33:55] gift she's giving them, much more than we've seen.
[33:56] And this is where I want to talk about something.
[33:58] This is where I'm going to digress to talk about something related to the movie, which is
[34:01] the aspect of personality.
[34:03] It seems like what this movie thinks is that we think characters are cool or charismatic
[34:08] if they are badass fighters and super buff.
[34:12] When in reality, I think audiences are drawn to personalities.
[34:15] Think about this.
[34:15] Here's my thought expressed.
[34:16] Okay, sure.
[34:17] Think about Star Wars.
[34:18] Who is the character in Star Wars that everybody seems to gravitate towards?
[34:22] Han Solo, right?
[34:23] People love Han Solo.
[34:25] Is he a super badass?
[34:27] Not really.
[34:27] He's kind of a screw up.
[34:28] Like there's something cool about him, but he's a screw up.
[34:30] But he's got so much personality, partly because of the way Harrison Ford plays him, partly
[34:34] the way he's written in contrast to Luke Skywalker, who has minimal personality in some ways.
[34:40] He wants to be a Jedi, dude.
[34:42] He has a whiny far boy personality.
[34:43] And he becomes a Jedi.
[34:44] I mean, as a Jedi, he has less personality than he had before.
Stuart Wellington
[34:47] Well, and like Luke Skywalker, I feel like kids can identify with Luke Skywalker because
[34:50] his needs are, his wants are similar to theirs.
[34:53] Yes.
[34:53] But Han Solo is like the cool older brother.
Elliott Kalan
[34:56] He's aspirational in that way.
[34:58] But so much of it is just that he has so much personality.
[35:00] It's not just that he's a badass.
[35:01] Here's an example we're not supposed to talk about anymore because he's a guy people don't
[35:05] like anymore.
[35:05] But who is the opposite of a badass?
[35:08] Woody Allen.
[35:09] Was the star of many movies because he has a lot of personality.
[35:11] Even if he has a personality that you find irritating.
[35:14] His personality is very clearly defined and has a lot of detail to it.
[35:18] The character, I think audiences are drawn to characters who, whether they're likable or
[35:22] not, whether they're attractive or not, whether they're charismatic or not, have a lot of personality.
[35:26] And the characters in this movie have no personality.
[35:29] Nothing.
[35:29] Yeah.
[35:30] Nothing differentiates them.
[35:31] And it means that you kind of don't know or care who anyone is.
Dan McCoy
[35:35] Well, and this doesn't give them any more personality.
[35:38] But failing this, at least give them something sort of relatable.
[35:43] And this goes back to me saying like, yeah, I did kind of like this better than the first
[35:49] one for reasons associated with like, look, it all comes in the form of sort of a dumb generic
[35:57] info dump where like everyone goes around the table being like, what's your story?
[36:02] You know, like that kind of thing.
[36:04] But at least.
[36:04] They do do that.
[36:05] At least.
[36:06] In a little bit, we're going to get to it.
[36:07] They do do that.
[36:08] Yeah.
[36:08] At least when that comes.
[36:10] They go around the table going, what's in your wallet?
[36:12] Yeah.
[36:12] When that comes, those stories are like generally like tales of like sadness or what they've
[36:18] like lost or whatever that make you relate to them versus how we are introduced to these
[36:23] characters.
[36:24] And the first movie where it's just like, we get a bunch of action scenes that don't mean
[36:27] anything, but they're there to be like, there's new characters pretty cool, right?
[36:31] Because we meet them doing this action thing, you know?
Elliott Kalan
[36:34] Look how cool this character is.
[36:35] Not look how interesting or relatable or just identifiable the character is, you know, as
[36:42] a character with a personality.
Stuart Wellington
[36:44] But yeah, I mean, this movie does suggest like, would seven sandals.
[36:48] Would seven samurai have been better if there was like the townspeople were super excited
[36:53] to have these samurai show up and there was no conflict between them at all?
Elliott Kalan
[36:58] Yeah.
[36:58] I mean, that's again, I mean, no one, even Zack Snyder, I have to assume is, does not think
[37:03] this movie is as good as seven samurai, which is an amazing movie.
[37:05] But you look at that movie, which was, has, there's the template for so many adventure movies.
[37:09] And it's like, yeah, there's conflict between the heroes and the people they're protecting,
[37:13] which enriches it.
[37:14] The characters have different personalities.
[37:15] Tishiro Mifuni's character, who's like, you know, Tishiro Mifuni is basically the Wolverine
[37:19] of any movie that he's in.
[37:21] His character is like a screw up who is lying about who he is.
[37:25] And the other ones are like, okay, we'll just accept him.
[37:27] And he has, and when he dies, it's incredibly, you're like, oh, like this guy, like he probably
[37:33] shouldn't have even been there, but he gave his all.
[37:35] And like he did in the end, like he doesn't even have a full set of armor.
[37:38] He's not wearing pants when he dies.
Stuart Wellington
[37:39] Like, did you guys, did you guys see, have you guys watched Shogun yet?
[37:44] Have you guys watched the new Shogun series?
[37:45] I watched the first episode.
Elliott Kalan
[37:46] I haven't watched the rest yet.
Dan McCoy
[37:47] I hear very good things, but I've not.
Stuart Wellington
[37:49] Yeah, there's, well, the character Yabushige is like, the actor is clearly channeling some
[37:54] like Tishiro Mifune energy and he's like such a scoundrel.
[37:58] And it's the same actor.
[38:00] He was the guy from Ichi the Killer with the, you know, the piercings in his cheeks.
[38:04] Oh, really?
[38:05] Oh, the one?
[38:05] Yeah.
Elliott Kalan
[38:06] I hope he cuts off the tip of his tongue as punishment, right?
[38:10] I love sweet things.
[38:11] So I'm going to sacrifice that part.
[38:13] Now I really got to watch it.
[38:15] Yeah, I think you'd like it.
[38:16] Does he still have the piercings in his cheeks and he can open his mouth real wide?
[38:19] Of course.
[38:19] Yeah.
[38:21] But there's, linked to that personality is the fact that, guys, why do you think people
[38:26] really responded to the first Star Wars movie?
[38:28] Do you think it was because there's an elaborate mythology and it's really like the characters
[38:34] all have, there's a thousand characters running around?
[38:36] Do you think it was because it's a fun-ass movie?
[38:38] It's super fun to watch.
[38:39] And the characters look like they're having fun during a lot of the movie.
Stuart Wellington
[38:43] Yeah.
[38:43] I feel like people went to see it initially because of the promise of spectacle.
[38:49] But the reason why people, the reason why it endured is because of the fact that it's
[38:52] fun.
Elliott Kalan
[38:53] It's fun.
[38:53] And I think that it was fun spectacle that they were seeing.
[38:55] They weren't seeing, it wasn't the spectacle of person after person being shot in slow motion,
[39:02] sadly, with laser blasts.
[39:04] It was, you know, characters running around doing things in big spaceships.
[39:06] And also that that was stuff that people had not really seen in a movie at that level,
[39:10] whereas we've seen it, but there was novelty to it, I guess is the other thing.
[39:13] But this movie is so unfun.
[39:15] Like, it's so not fun at all.
[39:17] And we go to, anyway, they're giving out banners.
[39:21] The descriptions of these characters, as Dan was saying, they imbue a lot of character to
[39:24] these characters that otherwise don't have them.
[39:26] And it's like, oh, this village girl is a very probing judge of characters.
[39:31] And so we haven't seen anything that would lead us to believe these.
[39:33] There's a village dance.
[39:34] General Titus sings a song in a made-up alien language.
[39:36] And I was thinking, this is the kind of scene you see a lot in John Ford movies, where
[39:40] you just see like a cavalry dance or like people on the frontier.
[39:43] They're kind of partying.
[39:45] Right.
[39:45] And those function as like a way of saying to you, this is the way people used to live.
[39:51] We're going to live with them for a little bit.
[39:52] Whereas this is all made-up science fiction nonsense.
[39:55] Like, none of it's real or means anything.
[39:57] So it's not accomplishing the same thing.
Stuart Wellington
[39:59] I don't think it gives enough flavor.
[40:02] It feels like it's like, it gives you plenty of like vanilla.
Elliott Kalan
[40:06] Yes.
[40:06] And it feels very vanilla.
[40:07] That's the thing.
[40:07] There's nothing specific about it.
Dan McCoy
[40:09] You know.
[40:09] It's not accomplishing that.
[40:10] I think that in a plot sense, it's trying to be like, here's the calm before the storm.
[40:16] Here's like the last minute.
[40:17] Like they're all happy together and they've been accepted into the community and et cetera,
[40:22] et cetera, et cetera.
[40:23] And then the violence starts.
Elliott Kalan
[40:24] Yeah, that's true.
[40:25] I mean, I feel like there's such a, that's done so well in like Fiddler on the Roof in
[40:30] the wedding scene.
[40:31] They're dancing and literally the pogrom starts.
Stuart Wellington
[40:33] The dancing scene sequence isn't as good as Fiddler on the Roof.
Elliott Kalan
[40:36] Well, that's true.
[40:37] But it's, but also that like, I don't know, when something is a, it's harder, it's harder
[40:41] for me to be, I mean, if you're going to try to get me invested in a rural dancing
[40:44] scene in a made up science fiction world, the dancing better be good.
[40:48] It better be interesting.
[40:49] Like it better be something I haven't seen before as opposed to, it just looks like I'm watching
[40:52] space seven brides for seven brothers for a moment.
[40:54] Yeah.
Stuart Wellington
[40:54] I better see, I better see like Sonic and Tails dancing their little hearts out.
[40:58] And then making out in a corner.
Elliott Kalan
[41:01] Yeah.
[41:02] And then getting pregnant somehow.
[41:04] Yeah.
[41:04] So the next day there's a prepping the village.
[41:06] Somehow.
[41:07] Yeah.
[41:07] It's pretty mapped out.
[41:09] Well, prepping the, I mean, I don't know how they do things, but they're prepping the
[41:13] village for battle.
[41:13] There's a whole montage of that.
[41:14] The villagers all seem like they're already really good with weapons.
[41:17] They put weapons in their hands and they're really good shots.
[41:20] They're really good at chopping the heads off of straw mannequins.
[41:22] There's not a lot of training that has to be done, which is good because they don't have
[41:25] a lot of time.
[41:25] They go get Korra's crash drop ship.
[41:27] Yeah.
Stuart Wellington
[41:27] I mean, that's, that's the thing is like, I, there's, there's no, I mean, obviously we
[41:34] know what this movie is going to give us.
[41:35] So we know that they're going to win.
[41:37] But like, there isn't enough of a feeling that they're like, yeah, we're going to die.
[41:41] Yeah.
[41:41] I keep, like, we're not good at this.
[41:43] They're like, no, everybody's super good at shooting and their guns are amazing.
[41:47] Yeah.
[41:47] Yeah.
[41:47] You need, you need Axel Rose to come in and be like, you're going to die.
Elliott Kalan
[41:51] Yes.
[41:52] I do need that.
[41:53] It would be helpful.
[41:55] I hate to keep doing this.
[41:57] I hate to keep just comparing it to movies that do a better job of this.
[42:00] But if you watch Mulan, it gives you a better sense of like, these people have to shape
[42:04] up and become soldiers.
[42:05] They don't know what they're doing.
[42:07] I mean, that song rules.
[42:08] It's a great song.
[42:09] Yeah.
[42:10] As mysterious as the dark side of the moon.
[42:12] Yeah.
[42:13] It doesn't get better than that.
[42:14] Yeah.
[42:14] But the, it's just like, we've seen this stuff done in movies so many times to do it.
[42:19] This half-assed is very, is just like, feels lazy to me.
[42:23] Okay.
[42:23] Let's keep moving because they find Korra's ship.
[42:26] They hide it behind a, behind a waterfall.
[42:28] The droid keeps watching from a distance, does nothing to help anybody at any point.
Dan McCoy
[42:33] He's hoping that someone will bathe in that waterfall at some point.
Elliott Kalan
[42:36] So he's just like a perv droid.
[42:38] Yeah.
[42:39] He's just like, where's, where's Sheena where I need her?
[42:41] Yeah, exactly.
[42:43] Night falls.
[42:44] This is when Titus talks to the heroes.
[42:45] They go around the table and they tell their stories.
[42:48] Every single one of their stories is, the empire came and destroyed my village or city.
[42:52] And so I vowed revenge.
[42:53] It's the same time, every time.
Stuart Wellington
[42:55] Well, and like when Titus tells his story, so he leads off and he's like,
[42:58] everybody has to tell the truth, no lies.
[43:01] And I'm like, okay, so people are going to reveal moments of personal weakness.
Elliott Kalan
[43:05] He's like, we're playing two truths and a lies minus one lie.
Stuart Wellington
[43:07] But like he, you know, he makes a point of, like his story at least, there's some element
[43:11] where he's like, I'm ashamed that I took away the opportunity for my soldiers to fight back.
[43:17] I surrendered thinking I was saving them, but in fact, I killed them.
[43:21] They were all executed.
[43:22] So there's some element.
[43:24] There's some element where he's like, look, I made a mistake and I'm ashamed for it.
[43:28] And so I'm trying to atone for that.
[43:30] And everybody else is just like, yeah, I just, the empire is bad.
[43:34] So you're not going to see me running.
Elliott Kalan
[43:37] You're right.
[43:38] It's funny.
[43:38] He's like the truth, no lies.
[43:40] And it's like, they didn't tell these stories before.
[43:42] Why not?
[43:43] Yeah, there's nothing.
[43:44] Yeah.
Stuart Wellington
[43:44] I feel like this is, it's all like super surface backs.
[43:47] Like, I feel like part of the thing is that like all these characters were picked because
[43:51] they're like legendary, like fighters kind of, right?
Dan McCoy
[43:55] Well, also that set up.
[43:57] And eventually we learned that like, uh, Jaiman Hanzo's character knows, uh, who the scar
[44:03] giver is.
[44:04] Yeah.
Dan McCoy
[44:04] And it's really Athelon.
[44:05] What's her name again?
[44:06] That she killed the thought, or at least thought she killed the princess, et cetera, et cetera.
[44:11] But him like setting it up with no lies is a weird thing to do.
[44:16] If not for like trying to be like, are you going to tell us about the princess?
[44:20] This is your chance.
[44:20] All your princess killing.
Elliott Kalan
[44:21] And Cora doesn't tell them, but she goes, oh, by the way, Titus has been drinking water
[44:25] instead of liquor.
[44:26] Like that's the secret she reveals.
[44:28] And they're all like, you SOB, you pulled a fast one on us.
Dan McCoy
[44:32] I love the, I love his idea that like, I gotta, I gotta keep it secret that I found sobriety.
Elliott Kalan
[44:37] Well, I can understand that he does not want them to know that like he cares enough to
[44:42] stop drinking.
[44:42] Yeah.
[44:42] I guess.
Stuart Wellington
[44:43] It's like when somebody orders a non-alcoholic drink, like a non-alcoholic beer from me.
[44:47] I often offer them a glass so they don't have to feel like.
[44:50] Well, that's the context of a bar where they feel peer pressure.
Dan McCoy
[44:53] I don't think anyone's going to be like in the context of training for like fighting.
[44:58] I think you should be drunk for this.
Elliott Kalan
[45:00] They picked up his flask and they drank it and they go, Titus, are you pregnant?
[45:03] And you didn't want to tell us?
[45:05] Yeah.
[45:06] Love it.
[45:07] Then it would, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[45:08] But it is, it is a, it is a, I feel like the characters are not really, except for Cora
[45:13] having killed a princess, the characters are not allowed to be like complicated characters.
[45:17] Even Titus's thing was, I made a mistake when I tried to save my men.
[45:20] And like the secret that he's ashamed of is that he's not drinking anymore.
[45:24] Like they have to be heroes and there's no, there's no shades of gray, you know?
Stuart Wellington
[45:27] So she, so she has a nickname presumably given by somebody else where she's called the
[45:32] Scargiver.
Elliott Kalan
[45:33] I mean, if she gave herself the nickname, the Scargiver, that would be incredibly uncool.
[45:36] I had a friend.
[45:36] That's like the edge naming himself the edge, you know?
[45:38] Yeah.
Stuart Wellington
[45:38] I had a friend in high school who tried to give himself the nickname Bones and we're like,
[45:43] you can write bones on your baseball cap as much as you want, buddy.
[45:47] Nobody's going to buy it.
[45:48] But so somebody else gave her this nickname.
[45:51] And then I think they did that before she was framed for murdering the entire royal family.
[45:56] She was already the Scargiver.
[45:57] Yeah.
[45:57] Don't you think they would have come up with like a new, less flattering nickname?
[46:01] Like the child killer or something?
Dan McCoy
[46:03] Supersedes the Scargiving.
[46:05] Or even the traitor.
[46:07] Yeah.
[46:08] Lady Regicide.
[46:09] They called her.
[46:10] Yeah.
[46:10] Like something that like-
Elliott Kalan
[46:11] We are Lady Regicide.
[46:13] Yeah, yeah.
[46:13] Kill that princess out now.
[46:16] Yeah, yeah.
[46:17] Kill the king and queen.
Stuart Wellington
[46:19] Highlighting that she killed like theoretically killed the defenseless princess would have been as opposed to be like a cool name.
[46:26] Try and give her a name that's like makes like diminishes her-
[46:30] Right.
[46:30] Yes.
[46:31] Legend a little bit, I guess.
[46:32] The Faithless or something.
[46:33] I don't know.
Elliott Kalan
[46:33] Or I can understand it if she was still called the Scargiver by rebels.
[46:36] But the royals, like the government called her something different, you know?
[46:40] But then this is more thought than-
[46:42] She needs more nicknames is what I'm saying.
[46:43] She needs a-
[46:44] Yeah, she needs better nicknames.
[46:44] Korra.
[46:45] Arthalaeus.
[46:46] Yeah, for her trading card.
Dan McCoy
[46:47] There needs to be a space for all of the different aliases.
[46:50] Yeah, for her aliases.
Elliott Kalan
[46:51] Yeah.
[46:51] She has more names than a character in a Russian novel.
[46:54] I mean, this is nuts.
[46:55] So anyway, the next day, Korra, this is when she hides her ship behind a waterfall.
[47:00] She encounters James the robot.
[47:01] He also feels regret and hopelessness and tells her they can't win because even the robot has to be dour and serious all the time.
[47:08] And it's like, guys, remember those robots from Star Wars?
[47:10] Remember how sad and serious they were?
[47:13] I don't because they were super fun.
Dan McCoy
[47:15] How one of them was like a sassy little guy you didn't understand, but you knew he was sassy.
[47:20] And the other one was real fusspot.
[47:21] Yeah, exactly.
Elliott Kalan
[47:22] Remember how they had the cattiest, gayest robots that were ever in a science fiction movie?
[47:29] And we loved it because there was so much personality to them.
[47:31] Yeah.
[47:32] Yeah.
[47:32] Oh, man.
[47:33] But instead, this robot is very sad and depressed.
[47:35] Yeah.
[47:35] I mean, it reminds me of Patton Oswalt's bit about the Star Wars prequels where it's like, yeah, remember how cool Darth Vader is?
[47:41] Oh, yeah, yeah.
[47:42] Well, you see him as a kid and he's sad.
[47:44] Like, remember Boba Fett?
[47:45] Oh, yeah, yeah, with the helmet and everything?
[47:46] Yeah, you see him as a kid and he's sad.
[47:48] Like, it feels like Zack Snyder was like, yeah, that is the way Star Wars should be.
[47:51] Everyone should be sad.
[47:52] So, anyway, he's like, you know you can't win, blah, blah, blah.
[47:56] The dreadnought reaches the village and Noble and his lieutenant, they're like, oh, we can tell from the sky.
[48:00] They arranged the grain for strategic purposes.
[48:03] Why don't we just go to that building where all the women and children are held and just kidnap all of them?
[48:07] And they decide to do that.
[48:10] Arthalaeus, Cora.
Stuart Wellington
[48:10] So, wait, their plan was, so the reason they had to get that grain cranked out, they had to crank the grain,
[48:15] was because they need to have it ready to use it as both a bargaining chip,
[48:20] which they never really use, and as, like, defensive measure because they're like,
[48:26] the Empire's not going to shoot the grain because they need it.
[48:29] But that does not matter at all.
[48:30] There's like, that is out the window immediately.
[48:33] They're like, just shooting grain.
Elliott Kalan
[48:34] Well, they say the Empire needs this grain.
[48:37] He hates this grain.
[48:38] And as rational actors, they will not destroy the thing they came here for.
[48:42] And we can also use it to hide behind, like sandbags.
[48:45] And that is a good strategy if you're not dealing with Atticus Noble, who does not give an F what happens to the grain.
[48:51] Yeah, that's true.
[48:52] He's a wild boy.
[48:53] He's back from the dead with a new attitude.
[48:54] He doesn't give a G.
Stuart Wellington
[48:56] I gotta say, you know, as much as I was like, you don't need to bring the bad guy back from the first movie for the second one,
[49:01] he's the only one who seems to be having fun, man.
Elliott Kalan
[49:04] Yes, that's true.
[49:05] He does a lot of Nazi smiling in this movie, I would call it.
Stuart Wellington
[49:08] And he's got like, he's got possibly the worst haircut I've ever seen.
[49:13] Like, if I had to look at it, it's like worse than Jim Carrey's in Dumb and Dumber.
[49:18] I'm sorry if my listeners out there are like all the Stuart listeners out there, not you guys listening,
[49:23] just the ones who only listen to my voice.
[49:24] Sorry, sorry, yeah.
[49:25] That are out there that are like, I just got that haircut.
[49:28] I think it looks really cool.
[49:29] I'm like, I'm sorry if you went to your barber and asked for the Atticus Noble.
Elliott Kalan
[49:33] He said, give me the one where it looks like a bowl cut by way of Hamlet.
Dan McCoy
[49:37] Stuart, have you been releasing a cut of these episodes that's just your voice?
[49:41] Uh-huh, yeah.
[49:42] Because we need to talk about it.
[49:42] People love it.
Stuart Wellington
[49:44] It's a lot of me saying sure and uh-huh and wowzers.
Elliott Kalan
[49:51] So Korra, she cuts her hair for battle just like the historical Joan of Arc
[49:54] or the non-historical Furiosa in the movie Furiosa.
Stuart Wellington
[49:59] And it kind of looks like Noble's haircut.
[50:00] So maybe that's like a traditional going into battle haircut.
[50:04] It could be from the mother world.
Elliott Kalan
[50:06] The baddies send out their drop ships and Noble lands and he just starts taunting Korra.
[50:11] If you want – and she goes, leave now or die.
[50:14] And he goes, I think instead I'll destroy the village unless you surrender to me.
[50:18] Uh-oh.
[50:18] It's kind of the same challenge that Titus was given.
[50:21] And Korra is about to surrender when Gunnar, he rings the bell that signals the villagers to attack.
[50:28] And the villagers do.
[50:29] And Gunnar runs off with Korra.
[50:30] And the villagers are just beating the shit out of the bad guys.
[50:34] They are – they're just slaughtering the elite troops of the Imperium.
[50:38] Like it's ridiculous.
Stuart Wellington
[50:40] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[50:40] Like they're Fremen and the Sauticar getting this.
Elliott Kalan
[50:43] Yeah, I mean similarly, they're popping up out of the ground.
[50:45] They fire.
[50:45] They go back in and get – like they're – it's amazing.
[50:48] And Laser Sword Lady, she does some slow-mo laser sword fighting.
[50:51] Why don't the bad guys shoot her instead of fighting her with laser swords?
[50:54] It doesn't matter.
[50:55] It's just supposed to look cool.
[50:56] It doesn't.
[50:57] But she's there defending the women and children who soldiers have been sent to get out.
Stuart Wellington
[51:00] So the Laser Sword Lady, her name is Nemesis.
[51:03] So I appreciate it if you remembered her cool name, Nemesis.
[51:07] So she – her backstory revealed that –
Elliott Kalan
[51:09] Played by Duna Bay who has been in much, much better movies.
[51:12] Yeah.
Stuart Wellington
[51:14] She – in her backstory, she – the Empire screwed her over.
[51:18] So she used laser swords to chop off her own arms or hands or wrists or whatever.
Elliott Kalan
[51:24] Yeah, to replace them with traditional robo-fighting gauntlets.
[51:26] Yeah.
[51:27] Uh-huh.
Stuart Wellington
[51:29] That's kind of cool.
Elliott Kalan
[51:30] I can see that coming down the road.
[51:32] I'm like, I don't think Sura has a comment here.
Stuart Wellington
[51:34] I think he just thinks it's cool.
Elliott Kalan
[51:35] I mean, if you told me this character has had to cut off her own hands to put on robot hands
[51:40] that are programmed with the techniques of the greatest sword fighters,
[51:43] I'd be like, that's a really cool thing.
[51:45] But it doesn't feel cool in the movie.
[51:47] It would have been cool if like they did extra stuff.
[51:50] Yeah.
[51:50] Yes.
[51:51] But all they do is sword fight.
[51:53] They're just hands.
[51:54] Well, the other thing is that sword fighting is not mostly in the hands.
[51:57] A lot of it is in the rest of your body and the arms.
[51:59] Yeah, yeah.
[51:59] Hips.
[51:59] Yeah, you got your core.
[52:01] It's a little bit like being, I'm going to be the greatest baseball hitter ever.
[52:04] I'll just cut my hands off at the wrists and then I'll hold the baseball bat better.
[52:08] It's like, well, there's a place of the powers coming from the rest of your body.
Stuart Wellington
[52:10] The entire plot of the movie, rookie of the year, Elliot.
[52:14] No, no, Dan.
[52:14] No, no, Stuart.
Elliott Kalan
[52:15] Stuart, Dan, stay out of this.
[52:16] Stuart, that is his shoulder that gets injured, thus giving him a better throwing.
[52:21] Yeah.
[52:21] He doesn't get his hands cut off and then, what, a famous baseball player's hands sewn
[52:25] on like in cowards bend the knee.
[52:27] And then he becomes the best at bunting.
Dan McCoy
[52:29] He's just a real good bunter at that point.
[52:31] Yeah, they call him the bunter.
Elliott Kalan
[52:32] They call him Billy Bunter.
Dan McCoy
[52:33] Just because you bring up the silliness of using the laser swords against, I also, later
[52:38] on, when Jimmy shows up, you know, no, no, you know, like we'll get into it.
Elliott Kalan
[52:44] But like Jimmy's going to show up in a couple minutes.
[52:45] Yeah.
Dan McCoy
[52:45] He like beats the shit out of a bunch of space Nazis, like grabs a gun.
[52:50] And then he just like starts whacking people with that gun.
[52:53] I'm like, why aren't you shooting people with that gun or using, I don't know, you must
[52:58] have some sort of robot powers.
[53:00] But instead you're just like.
Elliott Kalan
[53:01] He is with this movie that character, the hero characters.
[53:04] And again, maybe it's a way, it's a way of differentiating them.
[53:06] So they look cooler, but like they'll have like a battle ax and they'll rush against a
[53:10] bunch of guys with lasers.
[53:11] The guys with lasers will wait until the battle ax guy is close enough to kill them.
[53:15] They will then pick up the gun, shoot a couple of people, throw the gun away, and then just
[53:18] go back to running at people with a battle ax.
[53:20] And it's, it's so like, it makes sense from a, what would look cool fighting point of
[53:24] view, but from a fighting point of view, it doesn't really make sense to throw away your
[53:28] distance weapons so that you can run at the guy who has a distance weapon.
Stuart Wellington
[53:30] It would have been cool if like they made any effort into making people fight like differently.
[53:35] Like the robot should fight like a cool, tough robot as opposed to a robot that does flips
[53:39] and stuff.
[53:40] Maybe I'm.
Elliott Kalan
[53:41] As opposed to just, yeah, they all kind of fight the same way.
[53:43] I mean, it's.
Dan McCoy
[53:43] Unless he was a circus robot, then that would be cool.
Elliott Kalan
[53:46] Yeah.
[53:46] A flipping robot.
[53:47] Acrobot.
[53:47] Yeah, sure.
[53:48] Yeah.
[53:49] So they're fighting, fighting, fighting.
[53:52] Noble, he just leaves at a certain point.
Stuart Wellington
[53:57] It just goes back to his picture.
[53:58] Well, he realizes that like, yeah, he's like, this is pointless.
[54:00] I'm going to just blow it up.
[54:02] I don't want to watch Rebel Moon part two.
Elliott Kalan
[54:04] Yeah.
[54:04] One of the heroes jumps into a ship and they fight and Noble kills him.
[54:07] This guy's name is Den.
[54:08] I only knew that from the captions.
[54:11] He's a, he's a local farmer, I guess, who, who is involved.
[54:14] Cor and Gunner, they fake that their drop ship is injured so that they can be brought back
[54:19] into the dreadnought and saying, oh, we've taken hits.
[54:22] You've got to help us.
[54:23] They weaponize the compassion and very real concern that the soldiers inside show for their
[54:28] injured comrades.
[54:30] This is the most mercy or heartfeltness of any character in the movie.
[54:33] Yeah.
[54:33] And it is the bad guys trying to administer medicine.
Dan McCoy
[54:37] I did bump up against this.
[54:39] Yeah.
[54:39] Because I'm like, look, I understand that, you know, like they're part of a bad system
[54:45] and this happens in war all the time.
[54:47] But in like narratively, I was just like, oh, these people like, like are like med people
[54:52] who seem to care about like, you're like, we'll get you, we'll get you put back together,
[54:55] buddy.
[54:55] Like that's what, like, it was not like, we'll get you put back together and then you'll be
[54:59] back down there killing those rats.
[55:01] Yeah.
Elliott Kalan
[55:01] We're like, okay, fix them up so that we can throw them in the, in the meat vats so
[55:05] they can mold it into new soldiers.
Stuart Wellington
[55:07] They're not like orcs.
[55:08] They're not like, oh, meat's on the menu, fellas.
Elliott Kalan
[55:11] They're like, they're like, don't worry, buddy.
[55:12] We'll get you, we'll get you patched up.
[55:14] We'll take good care of you.
[55:15] And then, oh, I don't see any actual wounds.
[55:17] And then our heroes just get up and slaughter them.
[55:18] And it's like, all right, well, you really took advantage of their desire to help their
[55:23] fellow man.
[55:25] But that's war, Dan.
[55:26] I mean, that's the thing in Star Wars.
[55:27] Actually, I was going to say in Star Wars, the bad guys are all bad and the good guys are
[55:30] all good, but this is more real.
[55:31] But in Star Wars, the bad guys are not all bad and the heroes kill them all.
[55:34] Anyway, we're fighting an army of forced child soldiers.
[55:38] Oh, that's too bad.
[55:39] I guess we have to blow them all up.
[55:40] No, you don't have to.
[55:42] But anyway, on the ground, battle, battle, battle, fight, fight, fight.
Stuart Wellington
[55:44] But I mean, when it's forced child soldiers versus like carnivorous teddy bears, I feel
[55:51] like I'm going to land on the side of the teddy bears.
[55:53] Yeah, there is that part.
[55:54] They're adorable.
[55:55] I guess that's true.
[55:57] The teddy bears have their picnic.
[55:59] They barbecue them.
Dan McCoy
[56:02] Well, we see.
[56:02] We see them trying to barbecue.
[56:04] Which one of them was it?
[56:05] Han Solo?
[56:06] Han?
[56:06] Yeah.
[56:07] Yeah.
[56:07] He's trying to blow the flames out.
Elliott Kalan
[56:09] It's great.
[56:10] It was technically a teddy bear's picnic.
[56:12] Yep.
[56:12] But except, Dan, it wasn't fully beneath the trees.
[56:15] It was the top of the trees, right?
[56:16] I guess it's beneath the canopy.
[56:18] But so there's a lot of fighting.
[56:19] It's very somber, very serious, heavy strings, choral music.
[56:23] This movie is treating this battle between a fictional future space empire and a fictional
[56:28] farming planet with all the seriousness it deserves.
[56:32] The same kind of seriousness you would expend on a real battle that actually happened.
[56:36] And the laser lady dies.
[56:38] The heroes briefly think they have won.
[56:39] But then the baddies send another wave of troops in with like a stumpy laser tank mech.
[56:44] It's like a tank that shoots lasers and it walks on four stumpy legs.
[56:48] And they act as if this is the scariest thing they've ever seen.
[56:51] And it looks kind of adorable.
[56:52] Like it looks really goofy.
[56:54] But...
Stuart Wellington
[56:54] Yeah, it kind of looks like one of those like tiny water bears.
[56:57] One of those tiny little things.
[56:58] Tardigrades.
[56:58] Yeah, it looks like a tardigrade.
Elliott Kalan
[56:59] Yeah, like a tardigrade.
[57:00] A big tardigrade with a laser on it.
[57:02] Cora and Gooner, they're on the dreadnought.
[57:03] They split up.
[57:04] Cora's going to go set explosive charges in the engine room on this big glowy piece of machinery
[57:08] that the subtitle, that the captions told me was called the Neuralink.
[57:14] And Gooner's supposed to go get a ship so they can escape.
[57:17] Battle, battle, battle.
[57:18] The lady who was upset that Blood Axe got killed in the last movie, she blows up the mech tank.
[57:25] Noble, he's like, ah, the scar giver's on the ship.
[57:29] Lieutenants, fire on the village.
[57:31] And they're like, but our own soldiers are there.
[57:32] He's like, I don't care.
[57:33] Just fire the cannon, destroy them all.
[57:35] But what about the grain?
[57:36] Well, if we kill our own men, we'll have fewer mouths to feed, won't we?
[57:38] Because all he cares about is getting Cora.
[57:41] Battle, battle, battle.
[57:42] The space prince, remember him?
[57:44] He gets a little speech about not wanting to die in battle, but he will if he has to.
[57:47] It's the least necessary speech I've ever seen in a war movie ever.
[57:51] Another tank mech shows up.
[57:53] But James the robot, Jimmy the robot shows in.
[57:55] More solemn men's choral singing to justify, celebrate the sacred moment when a robot starts fighting a tank.
Dan McCoy
[58:04] And blows up a tank.
[58:05] When Jimmy gets shot, so there's like goo, that glowy goo that comes out.
[58:12] And I couldn't tell whether that's plasma from the weapon that is on him or whether it's like robot blood.
[58:19] But either way, it didn't seem to really hurt him.
[58:22] I think it's just hot plasma because he just wipes it off.
Elliott Kalan
[58:24] It doesn't seem to bother him.
[58:25] And again, as a military robot, the hardest of hardened killers, he does a lot of punching and flipping guys over.
[58:34] And eventually he gets a gun and he shoots people.
[58:35] So back up the dreadnought.
[58:38] Gunnar has started the escape ship, but Korra gets found by Admiral Noble, who I kept wanting to call Admiral Nibbles, but it's Admiral Noble.
[58:45] Yeah, it's fine.
[58:46] Aw.
[58:46] That's a good pet name.
[58:48] Yeah.
[58:48] The dreadnought is about to fire its can at the village when the bombs in the engine room go off.
[58:53] It takes these guys forever to recognize that there are bombs covering the engine.
[58:57] They're just with a Neuralink or whatever.
[58:59] They're just looking at them.
[59:00] And it's not till—
Stuart Wellington
[59:00] Well, I mean, the Neuralink's the last place you check for bombs, dude.
[59:03] That's true.
Elliott Kalan
[59:04] Even though you'd know that Korra was just in the engine room.
Stuart Wellington
[59:06] I do like that the engine room of this space dreadnought is like an old-timey steamship.
Elliott Kalan
[59:11] There are guys with shovels shoveling coal into the furnaces, which is a cool—
[59:16] I kind of like it.
[59:17] I like it less when Korra just starts murdering them, and they're fighting her, and it's like, well, you have a laser gun, and they have shovels.
[59:22] Like, this is—you're not—again, you're not the hero in this situation.
[59:25] But I do like that idea.
[59:27] That's a nice anachronistic idea.
[59:29] The bombs go off.
[59:30] It knocks the trajectory of the shot off so the cannons don't hit the village.
[59:34] They just hit, I guess, the village on the other side of the planet.
[59:37] But this is one of those—it's like a whole planet where there's just like 40 people who live in a village together,
[59:41] and there's nobody else there.
[59:43] As the dreadnought falls from the sky, Korra has her rematch with Noble.
[59:47] It goes on for a long time.
[59:50] This is a long fight, and not in a fun, they-live long fight way.
[59:54] I found it just to be kind of numbing.
[59:56] Yeah, they're still fighting, I guess, in a way.
[59:58] Eventually, Noble is choking Korra, which allows Gunnar to stab him with a laser sword,
[1:00:03] and then she chops his head off, hopefully never to be revived again.
[1:00:07] They escape the crashing dreadnought in a drop strip that they also crash,
[1:00:11] and Gunnar's badly injured, and he's like, Korra, I love you.
[1:00:15] And a fleet of rebel ships led by Debra Bloodaxe, they come in,
[1:00:19] they start fighting all the bad guy fighters, and Korra's like—
[1:00:22] There's one alien.
[1:00:23] There's one alien.
[1:00:24] Yeah, everyone cheers.
Dan McCoy
[1:00:25] Thank God Debra Bloodaxe is here.
[1:00:27] Yeah.
[1:00:28] The character that I definitely remember existed.
[1:00:31] Yeah.
Stuart Wellington
[1:00:31] I mean, it's a character of more of a name than anything.
Elliott Kalan
[1:00:34] Yeah, and Gunnar dies well.
[1:00:36] Korra cries.
Stuart Wellington
[1:00:37] Now, just to clarify, Debra Bloodaxe is not related to the Bloodaxe clan of space orcs.
[1:00:42] That's a completely different thing, although they are kind of rebellious.
[1:00:46] Thank you for making that clear.
Dan McCoy
[1:00:47] Now, what about Moon Bloodgood?
[1:00:49] Are they related?
Stuart Wellington
[1:00:50] That's a really cool actor's name.
[1:00:52] Yeah.
[1:00:53] Yeah.
Elliott Kalan
[1:00:53] Blood is good, guys.
Stuart Wellington
[1:00:56] You know, it keeps us alive.
Elliott Kalan
[1:00:58] It's very good.
[1:00:59] Yeah.
[1:00:59] I mean, it goes beyond good, just necessary.
[1:01:02] Yeah.
[1:01:02] Wow.
Stuart Wellington
[1:01:02] I didn't realize I was doing a podcast with a couple of Draculas.
Elliott Kalan
[1:01:06] It's good to have in your body.
[1:01:07] Yeah, this is a vampire PSA.
[1:01:08] Blood's good.
[1:01:10] I'm Dracula for blood.
[1:01:11] Does the body good?
[1:01:12] And then he has a blood mustache.
[1:01:14] Yeah.
[1:01:16] Gross.
[1:01:16] There's a commercial where a kid vampire is looking at his future self in the mirror
[1:01:21] and then his girlfriend shows up in the mirror and he goes like, oh, I better drink this
[1:01:24] blood now.
[1:01:25] It's going to get strong.
Dan McCoy
[1:01:26] Get strong.
[1:01:27] Only 90s kids remember.
[1:01:29] Or 80s.
[1:01:29] I can't remember what that was.
[1:01:30] I mean, he wouldn't even show up in the fucking mirror, dude.
Elliott Kalan
[1:01:32] He's a vampire.
[1:01:33] That's true.
[1:01:33] Yeah, he's a vampire.
[1:01:34] Actually, he shouldn't be looking in the mirror.
[1:01:35] Yeah.
[1:01:36] So the villagers, so they win.
[1:01:38] A bunch of people die.
[1:01:39] The villagers hold a funeral pyre for those who died.
[1:01:42] And Korra admits to everybody.
[1:01:43] She's like, I lied about who I was.
[1:01:45] I assassinated the princess.
[1:01:46] And Titus goes, I always knew, but you didn't assassinate the princess because she's still
[1:01:50] alive.
[1:01:51] And I figured I wasn't going to tell you until this was all over.
[1:01:55] And Titus says-
[1:01:57] I need you to be powered by regret.
[1:01:59] Yeah.
[1:01:59] Distract you.
[1:02:00] I figured you wouldn't fight as well if you didn't think you had something to prove.
[1:02:04] He says, your mission now is to find the princess and fight.
[1:02:07] And people are like, I'll find the princess and fight alongside you.
[1:02:10] And they say the phrase, find her and fight.
[1:02:12] So many times they go, find her and fight.
[1:02:15] Find her and fight?
[1:02:16] And finally, even James the robot.
[1:02:18] And Korra goes, to find her and fight.
[1:02:21] And accepts her quest.
[1:02:22] That's the end of part two.
[1:02:24] Now, here's the thing.
[1:02:25] I thought that this was originally a trilogy.
[1:02:27] And I was like, okay, so part three will be finding the princess.
[1:02:29] No, no, no, no.
[1:02:30] This was originally a trilogy.
[1:02:32] And they split part one into two parts.
[1:02:33] And they plan to do the same for the other parts of the trilogy.
[1:02:36] So this will be a six-chapter series.
[1:02:39] So who knows when they'll find this princess, if they ever finish this thing.
[1:02:42] Guys, from what you've seen, do you think this will carry a six-movie series?
Dan McCoy
[1:02:46] Well, I mean, here's the thing.
[1:02:48] If they keep going at this rate, but maybe by the sixth movie, I'll kind of like that one.
[1:02:54] I'll just barely edge its way into likability.
[1:02:58] But I don't think this was—
Stuart Wellington
[1:02:59] It's kind of like the Saw franchise, where if you watch enough of them, you're like, I hate these.
[1:03:04] But there's something about the way they do the big reveal at the end with the music that I can't help but love.
[1:03:14] Yeah, I tried to get on that train.
[1:03:16] It didn't happen to me.
[1:03:17] I don't recommend it.
[1:03:19] I was only able to do it, I think, because I was like—
[1:03:21] You're sick.
[1:03:22] I was like bedridden for two days.
[1:03:24] So I'm like, I'm going to make my life worse.
Elliott Kalan
[1:03:26] You're like, what would Jigsaw do to me in this situation?
[1:03:28] He'd make me watch the Saw movies when I can't leave my bed.
[1:03:31] Yeah.
Dan McCoy
[1:03:31] I heard you were doing that.
[1:03:32] I'm like, I'm a follower.
[1:03:33] Maybe I'll do that, too.
[1:03:34] And then Stu and I can talk about Saw.
[1:03:36] Then I'm like, no.
[1:03:37] You tapped out like super fast.
[1:03:39] I'm like, no thanks.
Elliott Kalan
[1:03:40] Dan, you're not just a follower.
[1:03:42] You can be a leader sometimes, too.
Dan McCoy
[1:03:44] Thank you, friends.
[1:03:45] No, I don't think these movies were particularly successful for Netflix.
[1:03:52] It's so hard to know.
[1:03:53] Based on the budget that they have.
[1:03:56] I mean, these movies are expensive.
Elliott Kalan
[1:03:58] I don't understand why.
[1:03:59] I mean, Netflix just announced another movie that they're spending like $300 million on.
[1:04:03] And it's one of these things where it's like, Netflix, you will not be able to get that money back.
Dan McCoy
[1:04:07] Well, not this way.
[1:04:09] You've already dipped your finger or dipped your finger?
[1:04:13] Dipped your toe in like.
[1:04:14] Dipped something.
[1:04:15] You dipped something in like the world of theatrical distribution because you put things out just to get like.
[1:04:22] For awards, yeah.
[1:04:22] Awards, qualifying runs or whatever.
[1:04:24] But like, I don't know if you're going to do this blockbuster shit.
[1:04:29] Why not actually put them out in theaters where movies still can make money and then you are vertically integrated or whatever.
[1:04:38] So you can be like, and then once it's done, you can only see it on Netflix.
[1:04:42] Like that's going to be its home.
[1:04:44] You know, like I don't understand the model where we're like, we're going to do blockbusters, but just for, you know, absolutely.
Stuart Wellington
[1:04:51] Yeah, and with something like Rebel Moon Part 3, I don't think it's going to get people to be like, what's this Netflix?
Dan McCoy
[1:05:00] Yeah, I got to subscribe to this thing so I can see the third Rebel Moon.
Elliott Kalan
[1:05:03] Now, here's the thing.
[1:05:04] So this movie, so according to Wikipedia, the budget for the two movies together was $166 million.
[1:05:09] That's a lot of money, but that's not as much as I thought it was.
[1:05:11] To get two movies out of that is not bad.
[1:05:13] But to get these two movies out of it is a mistake to me.
[1:05:17] It's always bad.
[1:05:17] The whole concept behind this was what?
[1:05:20] Like I'm going to give you a more mature, harder-edged version of Star Wars, right?
[1:05:25] And instead, if anything, I find it less mature and less harder-edged than Star Wars.
[1:05:30] Like it's so – it feels so like meaningless.
[1:05:34] It's so fluffy and meaningless.
[1:05:35] Like it's like a styrofoam movie.
[1:05:36] And the – it just feels very – it feels weird that someone like Zack Snyder who can make whatever he wants,
[1:05:43] like this is what he does.
[1:05:44] It feels very lazy.
Stuart Wellington
[1:05:45] Like, yo, do you guys remember when Anakin killed all those younglings?
[1:05:49] That was brutal.
[1:05:51] Yeah.
[1:05:51] Talk about hard-edged.
Dan McCoy
[1:05:52] Now, if it was a styrofoam movie though, like a sort of Michel Gondry version of Rebel Moon,
[1:05:57] then I might like that.
[1:05:58] I might be on, yeah.
Elliott Kalan
[1:05:59] If it was made – everything was really made out of styrofoam.
[1:06:01] But like when she cuts her – she's like, I had to cut my hands off to put robot hands on.
[1:06:06] It's like, yeah, I saw that in Star Wars.
[1:06:08] And it was a lot harder-edged when a guy cut his son's hand off while they were fighting.
[1:06:14] Like there's – it feels very – it feels – maybe that they're not accomplishing their stated mission with this movie.
[1:06:20] Yeah.
Dan McCoy
[1:06:21] I think that's fair.
[1:06:22] Let's get into final judgments, whether it's a good, bad movie, a bad, bad movie, or a movie we kind of like.
[1:06:30] Again, it's a Rebel Moon movie.
[1:06:33] Even if I liked it slightly better personally than the last one, like being the best Rebel Moon movie is not a –
[1:06:39] Jamming with great praise.
Elliott Kalan
[1:06:40] I actually like this one less than the first one.
[1:06:42] Yeah.
Dan McCoy
[1:06:43] No, and I can see that too.
[1:06:44] I can see that version of it where it's like at least we see a bunch of different stuff in the first one.
[1:06:50] Yeah.
[1:06:50] Then this one that kind of stays in one place.
Elliott Kalan
[1:06:52] This is essentially one giant battle scene is almost – is the vast majority of the movie.
[1:06:57] And it's a very – it's not like – like say what you will about the like Lord of the Rings Hobbit movies where they're like –
[1:07:03] those battle scenes are inflated.
[1:07:05] But there's lots of different things going on.
[1:07:06] The characters are doing different stuff like –
Stuart Wellington
[1:07:08] There's a dwarf riding a goat or whatever.
Elliott Kalan
[1:07:10] Yeah.
[1:07:11] Whereas this is just kind of the same stuff over and over again.
[1:07:13] And it's all very muted colors and kind of bleh, you know.
Dan McCoy
[1:07:16] And either – look, either way – bad, bad is my answer.
[1:07:20] But like also – like Zack Snyder is a guy where like I feel like we shit on him a lot.
[1:07:26] And the thing is like I feel like he had – he had potential.
[1:07:30] He had potential.
[1:07:31] I'm not like – like I think he could do a good movie.
[1:07:35] But he's gone so far down this road that is the wrong road and he's not going to get – he's not going to get better because he's only been lauded for it by a bunch of weirdos on the internet.
Elliott Kalan
[1:07:47] So I don't know.
[1:07:48] Like when he first came on the scene, like 300 was a movie that like I genuinely really liked a lot of.
[1:07:54] I thought the politics of it were kind of gross.
[1:07:57] Gross, yeah.
[1:07:57] But the –
[1:07:58] But the –
[1:07:58] It was like, oh, I feel like I'm watching a movie that is just one heavy metal album cover after another like being shown at me.
[1:08:04] And I kind of like that.
[1:08:05] But then it was like the imagination of that gave way to like I'm just going to do this.
[1:08:09] I'm going to do the stylistic things over and over again but not – yeah, not doing anything different.
Stuart Wellington
[1:08:13] And he was adapting a –
[1:08:16] He's adapting stuff.
[1:08:16] Something that existed that fit his style.
Dan McCoy
[1:08:20] That's one of his more successful –
[1:08:21] Like the Dawn of the Dead is one of his more successful than that as a James Gunn script.
[1:08:24] I think that he needs collaborators.
Elliott Kalan
[1:08:26] I mean say what you will about his Watchmen, which is not a great movie.
[1:08:29] But it certainly is –
[1:08:31] I certainly like it more than his recent stuff.
[1:08:33] And I think you're right.
[1:08:33] Maybe he's a guy who can bring an extreme style to an adaptation but is not at his best with original material.
[1:08:41] You know?
Stuart Wellington
[1:08:42] Oh, I'm going to say it's a bad, bad movie.
[1:08:44] I think it's tough to say which Rebel Moon I like better or less.
[1:08:49] At least like the first one kind of has a twist.
[1:08:52] So that's I guess kind of interesting.
[1:08:55] And there were more aliens.
[1:08:56] What was the twist?
[1:08:57] Well, that Charlie Hunnam was –
[1:09:00] Oh, yeah.
Elliott Kalan
[1:09:00] That's true.
[1:09:01] There's a betrayal, yeah.
Stuart Wellington
[1:09:03] So there's like some friction between characters.
[1:09:07] There's a character that we don't know if they're good or bad.
Elliott Kalan
[1:09:11] I am going to –
[1:09:12] It's strange when I'm not on the same page as you guys but love it 100%.
[1:09:16] Great movie.
[1:09:17] Oh, wow.
[1:09:17] Weird.
[1:09:17] My favorite of the year.
[1:09:18] It's going to be hard to beat.
[1:09:20] It's top of my list.
[1:09:21] No, I also think it's a bad, bad movie.
[1:09:23] I found it to be so –
[1:09:25] It's just so like boring.
[1:09:29] And there's no –
[1:09:30] Yeah.
[1:09:30] It's so unimaginative.
[1:09:31] And I feel like I've wasted a little bit of the time I have –
[1:09:37] Limited time I have to spend on this earth watching it.
[1:09:41] And my only –
[1:09:42] The only thing that puts a smile on my face is that the movies that I watched right before this meant so much to me that I'm like, okay, good.
[1:09:50] At least my average is I'm watching more movies that are interesting than movies like this in my life.
[1:09:56] Yeah, like you watched like what?
[1:09:58] Leonard Part 6.
[1:09:59] Yeah, Leonard Part 6, Ghost Dad, all the Bill Cosby movies.
[1:10:02] He's great.
[1:10:03] Anyway, what's he been up to?
[1:10:04] I haven't heard –
[1:10:04] I haven't checked the news on him in about 30 years.
[1:10:07] Oh, no.
[1:10:08] No, he's terrible.
[1:10:08] He's a monster.
[1:10:09] But yeah, I would say –
[1:10:11] So definitely Crawl, Don't Run.
[1:10:14] Crawl.
[1:10:15] Let's see Rebel Moon Part 2.
Stuart Wellington
[1:10:22] Hello, Podcast Recommendation Service.
S4
[1:10:24] Hello there, young man.
[1:10:25] I'm looking for a new podcast to listen to.
[1:10:28] Something amusing, perhaps.
Stuart Wellington
[1:10:29] Oh, what about Beef and Dairy Network?
S4
[1:10:31] Something surreal and satirical.
Stuart Wellington
[1:10:33] Well, I would suggest Beef and Dairy Network.
S4
[1:10:36] Ideally, it would be a spoof industry podcast for the beef and dairy industries.
Stuart Wellington
[1:10:40] Yes, Beef and Dairy Network.
S4
[1:10:42] Maybe it would have brilliant guests such as Josie Long, Heather Ann Campbell, Nick Offerman,
[1:10:47] and the actor Ted Danson.
[1:10:49] Beef and Dairy Network.
[1:10:50] I don't know.
[1:10:51] I think I'm going to stick to Joe Rogan.
[1:10:54] The Beef and Dairy Network podcast is a multi-award-winning comedy podcast,
[1:10:58] and you can find it at MaximumFun.org or wherever you get your podcasts.
S5
[1:11:05] Somewhere in an alternate universe where Hollywood is smarter.
Elliott Kalan
[1:11:10] And the Emmy nominees for Outstanding Comedy Series are
[1:11:15] Jet Pacula,
[1:11:17] Airport Marriott,
[1:11:19] Frepple,
[1:11:20] Dear America, We've Seen You Naked,
[1:11:23] and
[1:11:24] Allah in the Family.
S5
[1:11:27] In our stupid universe,
[1:11:29] you can't see any of these shows,
[1:11:31] but you can listen to them on Dead Pilot Society,
[1:11:35] the podcast that brings you hilarious comedy pilots that the networks and streamers bought,
[1:11:41] but never made.
[1:11:42] Journey to the alternate television universe of Dead Pilot Society on MaximumFun.org.
Dan McCoy
[1:11:49] Hey, this podcast has sponsors,
[1:11:53] and this week,
[1:11:55] the podcast is sponsored in part by Factor.
[1:11:58] It's summer, guys.
[1:11:59] It's summer.
[1:11:59] There's all this stuff going on.
[1:12:00] You got to go to the beach where you're going to get on.
[1:12:03] You're going to be in one of those.
[1:12:04] You just got to.
[1:12:06] Pyramids of water skiers.
[1:12:09] Got to do it.
[1:12:10] You got to do it.
[1:12:11] You got to,
[1:12:11] like,
[1:12:11] then you got to,
[1:12:12] I don't know,
[1:12:13] open up the municipal pool and swim some laps.
[1:12:18] You both manage the pool,
[1:12:19] and you got to swim in there.
[1:12:20] Yeah,
[1:12:21] I mean,
Elliott Kalan
[1:12:21] that's why you manage it,
[1:12:22] so you can get that time in.
[1:12:23] Dan,
[1:12:24] have you ever experienced a summer?
[1:12:26] I'm not sure,
[1:12:26] but the point is,
Stuart Wellington
[1:12:27] you got to get one of those beach dogs that you can put sunglasses on,
[1:12:30] like a bandana around his neck.
[1:12:32] Yeah,
[1:12:32] or sunglasses on like a Hawaiian shirt.
Dan McCoy
[1:12:34] That's a cool dog.
[1:12:35] Point is,
[1:12:37] for all this,
[1:12:37] you're going to need some fuel.
[1:12:38] You got to fuel up for summer with factors,
[1:12:41] no prep,
[1:12:42] no mess meals,
[1:12:43] ready to eat in just two minutes.
[1:12:45] See,
[1:12:46] that's where that was all leading,
[1:12:47] to factor.
[1:12:48] Oh,
[1:12:48] yeah.
[1:12:48] With 35.
Elliott Kalan
[1:12:48] So logically,
[1:12:49] looking back now,
[1:12:50] I'm amazed I didn't see the clues.
[1:12:53] Yeah.
Dan McCoy
[1:12:53] Mr. Policeman,
[1:12:54] I gave all of them to you.
[1:12:55] With 35 different meals,
[1:12:57] and more than 60 add-ons to choose from every week,
[1:13:00] you'll always have new flavors to explore.
[1:13:02] Now,
[1:13:03] Dan,
[1:13:03] I don't have to eat all 35 meals at the same time,
Elliott Kalan
[1:13:05] right?
[1:13:05] Because that's a little too much for me.
Dan McCoy
[1:13:06] No,
[1:13:06] no,
[1:13:07] no,
[1:13:07] no.
[1:13:07] You can space them out.
[1:13:08] I've recommended one per meal time.
[1:13:11] Okay.
[1:13:11] Make your day delicious.
[1:13:12] From breakfast to dessert,
[1:13:14] stay fueled,
[1:13:15] there's that word again,
[1:13:15] with easy,
[1:13:16] nutritious options.
[1:13:18] Enjoy effortless support for your lifestyle.
[1:13:20] You can choose from six menu preferences
[1:13:22] to help you manage calories,
[1:13:25] maximize protein intake,
[1:13:27] avoid meat,
[1:13:28] or simply just eat well balanced.
[1:13:32] You know,
[1:13:32] I've had some of these factory meals.
[1:13:34] I am not a fussy eater in that I will eat anything,
[1:13:37] but I'm a critical eater of quality.
[1:13:40] I'm like,
[1:13:41] is this good?
[1:13:42] Is this good what I'm eating?
[1:13:43] Let me think about it.
[1:13:44] I like these factory meals.
[1:13:45] I think they're high quality,
[1:13:47] particularly extra high quality,
[1:13:48] knowing that like they come prepared.
[1:13:50] You don't have to worry about it.
[1:13:51] It was a nice break when I had one of these,
[1:13:54] you know,
[1:13:55] in the fridge to just,
[1:13:56] you know,
[1:13:57] toss in the oven or microwave
[1:13:58] or however I chose to reheat that day.
Elliott Kalan
[1:14:02] We were sent,
[1:14:02] we were sent factory meals
[1:14:03] and I only got to have a little bit of it
[1:14:06] because my wife tried one and was like,
[1:14:08] okay,
[1:14:08] well,
[1:14:08] this is what I'm going to have for lunch
[1:14:09] at work every day now.
[1:14:12] And so she enjoyed them a lot.
[1:14:14] I liked the ones I had,
[1:14:15] you know,
[1:14:15] but that,
[1:14:17] that shows you if you,
[1:14:18] that if you get them,
[1:14:18] you gotta,
[1:14:19] it's,
[1:14:19] it's like a,
[1:14:20] you know,
[1:14:20] the tricks rabbit or something is around.
[1:14:22] You might try to take them from you
[1:14:23] because they're that good.
Dan McCoy
[1:14:25] So if you're interested,
[1:14:26] head to factor meals.com slash flop 50
[1:14:29] and use code flop 50
[1:14:31] to get 50% off your first box
[1:14:33] plus 20% off your next month.
[1:14:36] That's code flop 50
[1:14:37] at factor meals.com slash flop 50.
[1:14:40] So you get 50% off your first box
[1:14:42] plus 20% off your next month
[1:14:44] while your subscription is active.
[1:14:47] And I actually think that's all we got to plug in.
Stuart Wellington
[1:14:49] Unless Elliot,
[1:14:50] I like that the code is flop 50
[1:14:52] because it means that we're going to be doing this show
[1:14:53] for 50 years,
[1:14:55] baby.
Dan McCoy
[1:14:56] I don't know if you want to mention Hercules
[1:15:00] or something.
[1:15:00] Yeah.
[1:15:00] I just love to remind people
Elliott Kalan
[1:15:01] that my Hercules comic series
[1:15:03] from dynamite comics
[1:15:04] is in comic book stores now.
[1:15:07] As this episode is coming out,
[1:15:08] I think the fourth issue
[1:15:10] is about to come out.
[1:15:11] It's further adventures
[1:15:12] for Disney's Hercules.
[1:15:14] You know him from the movie Hercules.
[1:15:16] And now he's starring in the comic book Hercules.
[1:15:19] And it's all going to,
[1:15:20] I'm writing the final issue of it
[1:15:22] right now actually.
[1:15:23] And these,
[1:15:24] the individual stories
[1:15:26] are going to build
[1:15:26] until it gets to a big epic conclusion.
[1:15:29] And don't worry,
[1:15:30] you're going to get to know
[1:15:31] each of these characters
[1:15:31] before the big epic conclusion.
[1:15:34] So you're going to care about them
[1:15:35] when it happens.
[1:15:36] It's going to be great.
Stuart Wellington
[1:15:37] Was writing these issues laborious?
[1:15:40] Oh.
Elliott Kalan
[1:15:41] Oh, because of Hercules, right?
[1:15:43] It actually wasn't.
[1:15:44] I'm having a lot of fun writing.
Dan McCoy
[1:15:45] Now, Elliot,
[1:15:46] I don't want to depress
[1:15:47] sales of individual issues.
[1:15:50] Yeah, thanks.
[1:15:50] Appreciate it.
[1:15:51] But will these ever be collected?
[1:15:53] This is just for my personal interests.
Elliott Kalan
[1:15:55] I believe they will be collected.
[1:15:57] But at modern comics today,
[1:15:58] often the sales of the individual issues
[1:16:00] will justify the sale of a collection.
[1:16:02] So I hope it sells well enough
[1:16:04] that it can be collected in the future.
[1:16:05] Because I think it'll read really well.
[1:16:07] as a collection.
[1:16:08] But it also reads well month to month.
Stuart Wellington
[1:16:11] And then hopefully it'll come out
[1:16:12] in some big oversized artist format
[1:16:15] with little notes in the margins
[1:16:17] by Elliot Kalin and the artist.
[1:16:20] Oh, man.
Elliott Kalan
[1:16:21] And I also want to mention,
[1:16:23] I do another podcast,
[1:16:24] 99% Invisible Breakdown,
[1:16:25] The Power Broker with Roman Mars.
[1:16:27] We're breaking down the greatest book
[1:16:28] about municipal corruption
[1:16:30] and also municipal infrastructure
[1:16:32] ever written, The Power Broker.
[1:16:33] Going over to the 99% Invisible feed,
[1:16:35] but finish this episode first.
Dan McCoy
[1:16:37] Yeah.
[1:16:37] Don't get confused, people.
[1:16:39] Here's the thing.
[1:16:40] Similar stuff.
Stuart Wellington
[1:16:41] Similar levels of content.
[1:16:43] It's kind of its own podcast,
Dan McCoy
[1:16:46] but it is within the 99% Invisible feed.
[1:16:50] It's all the same feed.
[1:16:51] It's like months and months.
Stuart Wellington
[1:16:52] I would say it's kind of like the flop.
[1:16:53] It's kind of, well, it kind of is.
[1:16:55] I mean, like, I'm amazed at how, honestly,
Dan McCoy
[1:16:59] the degree to, like,
[1:17:00] the number of, like, silly jokes
[1:17:01] you get in there that Roman allows,
[1:17:05] and not only allows, but laughs at.
[1:17:06] He likes it.
[1:17:07] Yeah.
[1:17:08] Amazes me.
[1:17:09] Against all odds.
Elliott Kalan
[1:17:10] Yep.
[1:17:10] I still want to make it fun, entertaining.
[1:17:12] I mean, that book is amazing,
[1:17:13] but got to make it entertaining.
[1:17:15] And it's like I get to take over
[1:17:16] the 99% Invisible feed once a month
[1:17:18] and tell people the greatest bedtime story
[1:17:21] ever told,
[1:17:22] the life of Robert Moses.
Dan McCoy
[1:17:27] Let us go on to letters from listeners.
[1:17:29] Listeners like you, perhaps,
[1:17:30] did you write this letter?
[1:17:31] This letter is from Monty,
[1:17:33] last name withheld.
[1:17:35] So if you're Monty,
[1:17:35] maybe you wrote this letter.
[1:17:37] And I apologize right at the top.
[1:17:39] There are going to be a couple of Russian names
[1:17:41] in here that I probably will not say correctly.
[1:17:44] And perhaps my friends can help me with them,
[1:17:47] or maybe no one knows.
[1:17:49] But anyway.
[1:17:49] It's pronounced Boris Badanov, Dan.
[1:17:54] Monty, last name withheld, writes.
[1:17:56] Zinnia Anatov.
[1:17:57] Zinnia Anatov.
[1:17:59] She was Anatov, wasn't she?
[1:18:04] Normally your podcast,
[1:18:05] sorry, I was just thinking of a James Bond villain
[1:18:06] called Boys On Aside.
[1:18:10] Anyway.
[1:18:13] Normally your podcast is my go-to
[1:18:15] for accurate Russian revolutionary history.
[1:18:17] So you can imagine my dismay
[1:18:19] when the episode for Argyle,
[1:18:21] Elliot repeatedly referred to
[1:18:22] the anarchist hacker character as
[1:18:24] Bukharin.
[1:18:26] I thought this might have been
[1:18:27] a screenwriting goof,
[1:18:28] but IMDb confirms
[1:18:30] the character is actually called
[1:18:32] Bakunin.
[1:18:33] Oh.
[1:18:34] As I hardly need to tell you,
[1:18:36] Bakunin was an anarchist philosopher
[1:18:38] and political rival of Karl Marx,
[1:18:40] while Bukharin was a Bolshevik
[1:18:42] and leading economist
[1:18:44] of the Soviet Union.
[1:18:45] However, it's understandable
[1:18:46] these two might get mixed up.
[1:18:47] Their names sound similar
[1:18:48] and both have a lot to do
[1:18:49] with the question of Marxism
[1:18:50] and the peasantry in Russia.
[1:18:53] Bakunin,
[1:18:54] again, I don't know
[1:18:54] if I'm saying this right,
[1:18:55] believed Marxism would lead
[1:18:56] to a minority dictatorship
[1:18:58] of industrial workers
[1:18:59] over the peasantry,
[1:19:00] while Bukharin,
[1:19:02] new economic policy
[1:19:04] was in part driven
[1:19:05] by the need to shore up
[1:19:06] the worker-peasant alliance,
[1:19:08] which had been strained
[1:19:09] by the extremities
[1:19:10] of civil war.
[1:19:11] I'm sure this is a one-time slip-up
[1:19:13] and you'll be back
[1:19:14] to the usual high level
[1:19:15] of academic rigor
[1:19:16] the flop house is known for
[1:19:17] in no time.
[1:19:18] That's from Monty.
Elliott Kalan
[1:19:19] Thank you for the correction, Monty.
[1:19:20] I apologize.
[1:19:21] That's exactly it.
[1:19:22] I just got their names mixed up
[1:19:23] and I do get them mixed up
[1:19:25] probably because
[1:19:25] they were both wrong.
[1:19:26] It ended up turning into
[1:19:28] a dictatorship of one dude
[1:19:29] over everybody.
Stuart Wellington
[1:19:31] And I got to say,
[1:19:32] thank you for sending in
[1:19:33] a correction
[1:19:33] and still listening to the show
[1:19:35] and having the patience
[1:19:36] for us to be better.
Dan McCoy
[1:19:37] Yeah, not throwing
[1:19:38] your phone into a lake
[1:19:39] because of our lack
[1:19:40] of accurate question.
[1:19:42] I mean, it hurts you
Elliott Kalan
[1:19:42] more than anything else.
[1:19:43] You just got to get a new phone.
[1:19:44] It's just like in Goodfellas.
[1:19:45] It's true.
[1:19:45] They'd spit on the ground,
[1:19:47] spit on their own carpets
[1:19:48] when the FBI would come by.
[1:19:50] I can't imagine that.
[1:19:51] Spitting on your own carpet.
Dan McCoy
[1:19:52] Yeah, that is why I would.
[1:19:55] So this is from
[1:19:56] Andrew, last name withheld.
[1:19:59] Who writes?
[1:20:00] Andrew WK.
[1:20:01] Hi, Peaches.
Stuart Wellington
[1:20:02] Wow.
[1:20:03] Oh, man.
Dan McCoy
[1:20:04] Let's prepare for some
[1:20:05] good party vibes.
[1:20:06] Yeah.
[1:20:06] Hi, Peaches.
[1:20:08] We wanted to thank you
[1:20:09] for not one,
[1:20:10] but two recent references
[1:20:11] to our favorite obscure creature,
[1:20:14] the tapir.
[1:20:15] It may feel like a
[1:20:16] tossed aside remark to you.
[1:20:18] But our hearts flood with joy
[1:20:20] when you hear you mention
[1:20:21] these strange,
[1:20:22] ancient things that are
[1:20:23] not quite an elephant,
[1:20:26] not quite a donkey,
[1:20:27] but man.
[1:20:29] Anyway,
[1:20:30] we even live and work
[1:20:31] in the rainforest
[1:20:32] with field biologists
[1:20:33] who hear the word tapir
[1:20:34] and have no idea
[1:20:35] what we're talking about
[1:20:36] or when we show them
[1:20:37] photos of our tapir friend
[1:20:38] at the animal rescue.
[1:20:40] They are somewhat
[1:20:41] rightfully confused
[1:20:42] about what they're looking at.
[1:20:44] So we really appreciate
[1:20:45] the representation.
[1:20:47] Since you all seem
[1:20:47] to be feller,
[1:20:49] fellow,
[1:20:49] fellow,
[1:20:50] sorry,
[1:20:50] fellers.
[1:20:50] We are fellers.
[1:20:51] We all seem like fellers.
[1:20:52] Good fellers.
[1:20:54] We're not good fellers.
[1:20:56] Good fellers.
[1:20:58] The like,
[1:20:59] what would that be like?
[1:21:00] Sort of a farm mafia?
[1:21:01] Yeah, good fellers
Elliott Kalan
[1:21:02] would be like a rural mob.
[1:21:03] Yeah, yeah.
[1:21:04] Like a justified type mob.
[1:21:05] Yeah.
[1:21:05] Uh-huh.
Dan McCoy
[1:21:06] Like we're living in a holler.
[1:21:08] TM, TM, TM.
[1:21:09] Since you all seem to be-
Elliott Kalan
[1:21:11] TM it, Dan.
[1:21:11] What are you,
[1:21:12] TM-ing justified?
[1:21:13] I hate to bring it to you.
[1:21:15] We need to get there first.
Dan McCoy
[1:21:16] Since you all seem to be
[1:21:17] fellow tapir connoisseurs,
[1:21:20] we have also created
[1:21:21] a tapertacular television
[1:21:23] and film quiz
[1:21:23] for your enjoyment.
[1:21:24] So I'm glad that we had
[1:21:25] a plot light movie
[1:21:28] so we could get to this quiz,
[1:21:30] which I actually cut
[1:21:32] from a previous episode
[1:21:33] at the time.
[1:21:33] So here we go.
[1:21:35] Tapir quiz.
[1:21:36] Question one.
[1:21:37] There are at least four movies
[1:21:38] featuring tapirs
[1:21:39] that have been nominated
[1:21:40] for an Oscar.
[1:21:42] Two have won Oscars.
[1:21:43] Which are they?
[1:21:44] Further hint,
[1:21:44] winners from 1968,
[1:21:47] 2022,
[1:21:48] and NOM from 1974
[1:21:50] and 2006.
[1:21:54] Out of Africa.
Elliott Kalan
[1:21:56] Well, it didn't win,
[1:21:57] but there's a tapir
[1:21:57] in 2001 A Space Odyssey.
[1:21:59] That's one of them.
[1:22:00] Okay.
[1:22:01] And that's it.
[1:22:02] I don't know the others.
Dan McCoy
[1:22:04] So we got 2001 A Space Odyssey.
[1:22:07] They say,
[1:22:07] despite the fact that Africa...
Elliott Kalan
[1:22:08] Is there a tapir
[1:22:09] on board the Titanic?
Dan McCoy
[1:22:11] Could be in the crowd scenes.
[1:22:12] Despite the fact that Africa
[1:22:14] is one of the only continents
[1:22:16] tapirs never existed on,
[1:22:17] they needed a weird
[1:22:18] prehistoric creature
[1:22:19] that looks like a food source
[1:22:20] that current people
[1:22:22] didn't really know about
[1:22:22] to interact with
[1:22:23] the early humans,
[1:22:24] so that accounts for them
[1:22:25] in 2001.
[1:22:26] And Papillon,
[1:22:29] or Papillon,
[1:22:30] Papillon?
[1:22:30] Oh, there's a tapir
[1:22:31] in Papillon?
[1:22:31] I've seen that one.
[1:22:32] Yeah.
[1:22:32] There's a clip of a sleepy tapir
[1:22:34] knocking over
[1:22:35] its own water bucket.
[1:22:38] Cool.
[1:22:39] It's pretty cute.
[1:22:40] They said on YouTube.
[1:22:43] Apocalypto?
[1:22:43] They say that
[1:22:44] they never saw this,
[1:22:46] but know that there is
[1:22:47] an extended scene
[1:22:48] about eating tapir balls.
Elliott Kalan
[1:22:50] Oh, that's right.
[1:22:51] Okay, that's right,
[1:22:51] because they trick him
[1:22:52] into doing it
[1:22:53] as like a prank.
[1:22:53] That's right,
[1:22:54] they're hazing him.
[1:22:54] Yeah, yeah.
Dan McCoy
[1:22:55] And apparently in Encanto,
[1:22:57] there also are some
[1:22:59] animated ones.
[1:22:59] I remember the tapir
Elliott Kalan
[1:22:59] in Encanto.
[1:23:00] Well, Dan,
[1:23:01] I'm going to ask you
[1:23:02] to forward me this email.
[1:23:03] Okay.
[1:23:04] Listeners,
[1:23:04] I don't remember
[1:23:05] if I mentioned it,
[1:23:05] but tapirs are big
[1:23:06] in my household
[1:23:06] because they are
[1:23:07] my younger son's
[1:23:08] favorite animal.
[1:23:09] We talk about tapirs a lot.
[1:23:11] He is a big fan
[1:23:12] of the tapir
[1:23:12] at the LA Zoo
[1:23:13] who is named Mojito.
[1:23:15] I bet he's got
[1:23:19] some pretty good vibes
[1:23:19] right there.
[1:23:20] He must, yeah.
[1:23:21] He's a pretty laid-back tapir.
[1:23:22] I mean,
[1:23:23] most tapirs are
[1:23:23] pretty laid-back.
[1:23:24] And there's a tapir
[1:23:26] in Nashville
[1:23:27] that there's a picture
[1:23:28] book about,
[1:23:29] and so my younger son
[1:23:30] is always like,
[1:23:31] can we go to Nashville
[1:23:32] someday?
[1:23:32] And I'm like,
[1:23:33] yeah, I've heard
[1:23:33] it's a real fun city.
[1:23:34] He goes,
[1:23:34] I really want to meet
[1:23:35] that tapir.
[1:23:36] So to him,
[1:23:36] Nashville is tapir city.
Dan McCoy
[1:23:38] There are two other
[1:23:39] questions and a bonus.
[1:23:40] They're shorter
[1:23:40] than that first one.
[1:23:41] Okay, but send me this,
[1:23:42] forward me this email
[1:23:43] when the episode's over.
[1:23:44] There is one
[1:23:45] NSFW video
[1:23:48] attached to this.
[1:23:49] With a tapir in it?
[1:23:51] Well, we'll get into it.
[1:23:52] I won't show him that one.
[1:23:54] In some cultures,
[1:23:55] tapirs represent
[1:23:56] a mythological creature
[1:23:57] called a baku or mo.
[1:24:00] According to legend,
[1:24:01] they were created
[1:24:02] by the spare pieces
[1:24:03] that were left over
[1:24:03] when the gods
[1:24:04] finished creating
[1:24:04] all other animals,
[1:24:06] and it devours
[1:24:07] human dreams.
[1:24:08] The sad movie,
[1:24:10] Hello Tapir,
[1:24:11] from 2020,
[1:24:13] features a relationship
[1:24:15] between a young boy
[1:24:16] and bakuz
[1:24:17] and was made
[1:24:18] in what country?
[1:24:19] What country?
[1:24:21] The answer,
[1:24:22] I see it on your face,
[1:24:23] you don't have it,
[1:24:24] is Taiwan.
[1:24:25] Oh.
Elliott Kalan
[1:24:27] I was trying to remember
[1:24:28] what countries tapirs
[1:24:29] show up in
[1:24:29] because they're only
[1:24:31] in Asia and South America,
[1:24:32] right?
[1:24:32] Yeah.
[1:24:33] In fucking Nashville,
[1:24:34] dude.
[1:24:35] Well, I mean,
[1:24:35] that's in a zoo.
Stuart Wellington
[1:24:38] By Malaysian director
Dan McCoy
[1:24:39] Katsvin Lee.
[1:24:41] I probably butchered that,
[1:24:43] but that's what I can do.
[1:24:45] Prince Gaspian,
[1:24:46] yeah.
[1:24:47] Question three,
[1:24:48] there's a Pokemon modeled
[1:24:49] after a Baku tapir.
[1:24:51] Which is it?
[1:24:53] And for extreme bonus points,
[1:24:54] which film did it appear in?
Elliott Kalan
[1:24:56] I mean,
[1:24:56] one of the Pokemon movies,
[1:24:57] I assume.
[1:24:57] I assume it wasn't
[1:24:58] Love, Lies, Bleeding.
[1:24:59] No.
[1:25:02] Any idea which?
[1:25:03] It wasn't Drive-In Dolls,
[1:25:04] right?
[1:25:05] Yeah.
[1:25:06] Well, it's Drive-Away Dolls.
[1:25:07] Oh, Drive-Away Dolls.
[1:25:08] Oh, yeah,
[1:25:08] Drive-In Dolls
[1:25:09] is when they go to movies.
Dan McCoy
[1:25:10] Have you caught them all?
[1:25:12] Do you know
[1:25:12] which one this is
[1:25:14] from your
[1:25:15] Pokemon training?
[1:25:17] I don't know.
[1:25:17] Is it Snorlax?
[1:25:18] That sounds right.
[1:25:19] Pretty close.
[1:25:20] It's Drowsy.
[1:25:22] Oh, Drowsy.
[1:25:24] Oh, was I right?
[1:25:24] Is it Detective Peter?
[1:25:25] No.
[1:25:27] Drowsy appears
[1:25:27] in the 2019 remake
[1:25:29] of Pokemon
[1:25:30] Mewtwo Strikes Back
[1:25:31] Evolution.
[1:25:32] Oh, right.
[1:25:32] I was going to say
Stuart Wellington
[1:25:33] Pokemon Mewtwo
[1:25:34] Strikes Back remake.
Elliott Kalan
[1:25:36] I think Mewtwo
[1:25:37] was involved somewhere, yeah.
[1:25:38] Mewtwo's the one
[1:25:39] with the big old ass, right?
[1:25:42] Yes,
[1:25:42] and a long tail
[1:25:43] and big, big feet
[1:25:44] like a kangaroo bottom.
Stuart Wellington
[1:25:45] Dan,
[1:25:45] you got to check this one out.
[1:25:46] Okay, I got to look it.
[1:25:47] That's probably
[1:25:48] the NSFW element of this.
Elliott Kalan
[1:25:50] Except Mewtwo,
[1:25:51] it's not the sexiest Pokemon
[1:25:54] who we all know is
[1:25:55] because I did a presentation
[1:25:56] about this not too long ago.
[1:25:57] Salazzle.
[1:25:58] Okay.
[1:25:59] Look at the pictures
[1:26:00] of her on her card
[1:26:01] and you're like,
[1:26:02] so this is,
[1:26:03] is this Pokemon coming on to me?
[1:26:04] Like, what's going on?
Dan McCoy
[1:26:05] Wait, hold on.
[1:26:05] How do you spell this?
[1:26:07] Salazzle?
[1:26:07] It's just like it sounds.
Elliott Kalan
[1:26:09] S-A-L-A-Z-Z-L-E.
Dan McCoy
[1:26:10] Oh, I got it right
[1:26:11] first time.
[1:26:12] Amazing.
[1:26:13] Yeah, this looks like
[1:26:14] a seductive Pokemon.
[1:26:16] I got it.
[1:26:16] Oh, someone
Elliott Kalan
[1:26:17] on the free site,
[1:26:19] it looks like
[1:26:19] drew it doing a split.
[1:26:20] So that, yeah.
Dan McCoy
[1:26:22] Drowsy appears
[1:26:23] in the 2019 remake
[1:26:24] of Pokemon
[1:26:25] Mewtwo Strikes Back
[1:26:26] Evolution.
[1:26:27] In the remake,
[1:26:28] the pirate trainer
[1:26:29] who battles Ash
[1:26:30] has a Drowsy
[1:26:32] instead of a Golem.
[1:26:34] This change,
[1:26:35] or Golem,
[1:26:36] this change may have been
[1:26:37] made to fix
[1:26:38] a continuity error
[1:26:39] from the original movie
[1:26:41] where Pikachu
[1:26:41] defeats Golem
[1:26:42] with a Thunderbolt
[1:26:43] even though Golem
[1:26:44] is a ground type
[1:26:46] and should be immune
[1:26:47] to electric attacks.
[1:26:47] We're not talking
[1:26:47] about tapirs anymore.
Elliott Kalan
[1:26:48] What's going on
Dan McCoy
[1:26:49] in this letter?
[1:26:49] No, we're just
[1:26:50] talking about tapirs.
[1:26:51] We may need a heavier
[1:26:52] editorial hand
[1:26:53] in this one.
[1:26:53] Okay, well,
[1:26:54] okay, bonus question.
[1:26:56] This isn't movie related.
[1:26:57] Oh, perfect.
[1:26:59] But tapirs are the animal
[1:27:01] with the largest
[1:27:02] what compared
[1:27:03] to body size?
[1:27:05] The largest
[1:27:06] what compared
[1:27:07] to body size?
Elliott Kalan
[1:27:09] I mean,
[1:27:10] the thing is
[1:27:11] they've got like
[1:27:11] a little trunk,
[1:27:13] but it shouldn't be that
[1:27:13] because I imagine
[1:27:14] elephants still have
[1:27:15] a bigger nose
[1:27:16] to body size, right?
[1:27:17] Uh-huh.
Dan McCoy
[1:27:17] Well, let's recall
[1:27:18] that I warned
[1:27:20] that something
[1:27:21] may not be
[1:27:21] safe for work
[1:27:22] and that is indeed
[1:27:23] there's a video
[1:27:27] included here.
[1:27:28] The penis is fully
[1:27:29] the same length
[1:27:31] as the leg.
[1:27:32] It is a real
[1:27:32] fifth leg situation.
Elliott Kalan
[1:27:35] So it can lift
[1:27:36] itself up on it.
[1:27:37] Oh, I didn't know that.
Dan McCoy
[1:27:39] Yeah, probably.
[1:27:39] Yeah, that's
[1:27:40] jacking with a
[1:27:42] tapir penis
[1:27:42] means a different thing.
[1:27:44] It's like a car jack.
[1:27:46] Anyway,
[1:27:47] so that's
Elliott Kalan
[1:27:48] that's our
[1:27:48] letter section.
[1:27:50] Oh, wow.
[1:27:50] We learned a lot
[1:27:51] about tapirs
[1:27:52] and Pokemon.
Dan McCoy
[1:27:53] We really did.
Elliott Kalan
[1:27:54] I think I'm going to
[1:27:54] that's a lot
[1:27:55] of good information.
[1:27:55] We found this
Elliott Kalan
[1:27:55] educational.
[1:27:56] A lot of good
[1:27:57] information there
[1:27:57] I'm going to share
[1:27:57] with my son.
[1:27:58] Maybe not the last part.
Dan McCoy
[1:28:00] I mean,
[1:28:00] it's kind of
[1:28:01] the most fascinating
[1:28:02] part in a way.
Elliott Kalan
[1:28:04] I don't know
[1:28:05] if it's going to be
[1:28:05] the most fascinating
[1:28:06] to him.
Dan McCoy
[1:28:08] Let's recommend
[1:28:09] movies,
[1:28:10] movies that we
[1:28:10] watch that
[1:28:11] might be a better
[1:28:12] use of your time.
[1:28:13] I'll kick us off
[1:28:14] with the other movie
[1:28:15] that I teased before.
[1:28:16] Before we watched
[1:28:17] Fair Game,
[1:28:18] we watched a movie
[1:28:19] that has a,
[1:28:21] it shares a title
[1:28:22] Unfair Game.
[1:28:24] No,
[1:28:24] it shares a title
[1:28:25] with another
[1:28:26] slightly more famous
[1:28:28] movie,
[1:28:29] even though that one
[1:28:30] also was not that
[1:28:31] successful.
[1:28:32] But it's not that one.
[1:28:34] It's called
[1:28:34] Last Man Standing
[1:28:35] from 1995.
[1:28:37] It is not the,
[1:28:38] I think,
[1:28:39] 1994 Bruce Willis movie.
[1:28:42] Walter Hill,
[1:28:43] yeah.
[1:28:43] Yeah,
[1:28:44] it's not that one.
[1:28:45] This one,
[1:28:46] it was a direct
[1:28:48] to video action film.
[1:28:49] This was the Tim Allen
[1:28:50] sitcom,
[1:28:51] Last Man Standing?
[1:28:53] Yeah.
Stuart Wellington
[1:28:54] Dan's recommending
[1:28:54] a sitcom.
[1:28:56] Classic Dan.
Elliott Kalan
[1:28:58] Dan doesn't play
[1:28:59] by the rules.
[1:28:59] Yeah.
Stuart Wellington
[1:29:00] That was the sitcom
[1:29:01] that the liberals
[1:29:02] were frightened of,
[1:29:03] right?
[1:29:04] Yeah.
[1:29:04] Yeah,
[1:29:05] exactly.
Dan McCoy
[1:29:05] No,
[1:29:06] this one stars
[1:29:07] Jeff Wincott.
[1:29:09] It has
[1:29:11] a sort of brief
[1:29:14] supporting role
[1:29:15] from Jonathan Banks,
[1:29:16] of course,
[1:29:17] beloved character
[1:29:18] actor Jonathan Banks.
[1:29:19] And?
[1:29:20] Oh,
[1:29:20] and it has
[1:29:21] Jonathan Fuller,
Stuart Wellington
[1:29:23] a.k.a.
[1:29:24] Giorgio
[1:29:25] from Castle Freak,
[1:29:26] baby.
Dan McCoy
[1:29:27] Yeah,
[1:29:28] but I was amazed
[1:29:29] by this movie
[1:29:29] basically because
[1:29:30] in terms of
[1:29:33] practical
[1:29:34] stunt
[1:29:35] action sequences,
[1:29:37] it has some
[1:29:38] really,
[1:29:39] really fun ones,
[1:29:41] really impressive ones,
[1:29:42] particularly with
[1:29:42] the direct-to-video
[1:29:43] budget they must
[1:29:44] have been working
[1:29:45] with.
[1:29:45] They have a scene
[1:29:46] where they do
[1:29:48] a reverse
[1:29:48] on the
[1:29:50] L.A.
[1:29:50] freeway chase
[1:29:51] that is,
[1:29:53] you know,
[1:29:53] it is no shame
[1:29:55] to say it is not
[1:29:56] as good as
[1:29:56] To Live and Die
[1:29:57] in L.A.,
[1:29:58] but it gives it
[1:29:58] a run for its money
[1:29:59] on a DTV
[1:30:00] budget.
[1:30:02] I was really
[1:30:02] impressed by it.
[1:30:03] And also,
[1:30:03] it kicks off
[1:30:04] with a chase
[1:30:06] sequence where
[1:30:07] so much glass
[1:30:08] is just
[1:30:09] broken
[1:30:10] unnecessarily.
[1:30:12] Like,
[1:30:12] any pane of glass
[1:30:13] you see
[1:30:14] in the frame
[1:30:15] will be broken
[1:30:16] by this.
Stuart Wellington
[1:30:17] I do think
[1:30:18] Run for Its Money
[1:30:19] is a good
[1:30:20] alternate title
[1:30:20] for To Live and Die
[1:30:21] in L.A.
[1:30:22] Yeah.
[1:30:22] Yeah.
Dan McCoy
[1:30:24] Anyway,
[1:30:24] it's probably a little
[1:30:25] hard to track down.
[1:30:27] I don't know,
[1:30:27] maybe it's on
[1:30:27] Tubi or something,
[1:30:29] but Last Man Standing,
[1:30:30] 1995.
[1:30:31] I think I threw it up
[1:30:32] on Just Watch
[1:30:33] and it was like
[1:30:33] rentable somewhere,
[1:30:34] maybe?
[1:30:35] It's,
[1:30:35] I mean,
[1:30:36] it's a lot of fun.
[1:30:37] It's a tight
[1:30:38] 96 minutes.
[1:30:39] It has a really
[1:30:40] wacky
[1:30:41] closing freeze frame.
[1:30:43] If that's the kind
[1:30:43] of thing you like,
[1:30:44] you'll like it.
Stuart Wellington
[1:30:45] You're speaking
[1:30:45] my language,
[1:30:46] Dan.
[1:30:47] As soon as he texted,
[1:30:48] Dan texted me
[1:30:49] immediately after
[1:30:50] watching it,
[1:30:51] I'm assuming.
[1:30:51] Yeah.
[1:30:52] I was hooked.
Dan McCoy
[1:30:53] I was like,
[1:30:53] this is for Stu.
[1:30:54] I know Stu loves
[1:30:55] his direct
[1:30:56] to video action.
Stuart Wellington
[1:30:59] I'm going to
[1:30:59] recommend a movie
[1:31:00] that unfortunately
[1:31:01] is basically
[1:31:02] going straight to video
[1:31:02] because not enough
[1:31:03] of you people
[1:31:04] went out and saw it.
[1:31:05] I'm going to recommend
[1:31:06] George Miller's
[1:31:07] Furiosa,
[1:31:09] a Mad Max saga.
[1:31:10] Have you guys
[1:31:10] seen Furiosa yet?
[1:31:11] I did see Furiosa.
[1:31:12] I did indeed.
Elliott Kalan
[1:31:12] If there's a movie
[1:31:13] I'm going to make
[1:31:13] time to go see
[1:31:14] in the theater,
[1:31:15] it's a George Miller
[1:31:16] Mad Max movie
[1:31:16] for sure.
Stuart Wellington
[1:31:17] And it's,
[1:31:18] man,
[1:31:18] it's so much fun.
[1:31:19] George Miller
[1:31:19] understands that like
[1:31:20] that's why you go
[1:31:22] to the fucking movies,
[1:31:23] man.
[1:31:23] And it's like,
[1:31:24] it's not quite Fury Road.
[1:31:25] It's not like the tightness
[1:31:26] of very singular
[1:31:28] linear action sequence
[1:31:30] of a movie.
[1:31:31] But it's,
[1:31:32] yeah,
[1:31:33] it's great.
[1:31:33] And you see stuff
[1:31:34] you haven't seen before
[1:31:35] and edge of your seat,
[1:31:37] nonstop,
[1:31:38] high octane thrill ride.
[1:31:39] And Chris Hemsworth
[1:31:40] is having the time
[1:31:41] of his life.
[1:31:42] Yeah,
[1:31:43] I was a big fan.
[1:31:43] This is my favorite
Elliott Kalan
[1:31:44] of his performances
[1:31:45] by far.
Dan McCoy
[1:31:46] Yeah.
[1:31:46] In this movie.
[1:31:47] I said something
[1:31:48] similar to this
[1:31:49] on Letterboxd,
[1:31:50] but I feel like
[1:31:50] I saw a lot of
[1:31:51] sort of like
[1:31:51] grumbles of like,
[1:31:53] and I'm not,
[1:31:54] you know,
[1:31:54] like you liked it,
[1:31:55] so I'm not saying
[1:31:56] this to you,
[1:31:56] but like a lot
[1:31:57] of grumbles of like,
[1:31:58] well,
[1:31:58] it's no Fury Road.
[1:31:59] And my reaction was like,
[1:32:00] oh,
[1:32:01] it's not one of the best
[1:32:02] action movies ever.
[1:32:04] It's just fucking amazing.
[1:32:06] Boo hoo.
[1:32:06] And it's different.
Elliott Kalan
[1:32:08] No movie set in that world
[1:32:09] is going to pack the punch
[1:32:10] that Fury Road had
[1:32:12] where it felt like
[1:32:12] this thing is coming
[1:32:13] out of nowhere
[1:32:14] and you just don't expect
[1:32:15] how intense
[1:32:16] and how amazing it is.
[1:32:17] But it's still great.
Dan McCoy
[1:32:18] The movie wisely
[1:32:19] doesn't try to be
[1:32:20] in the same vein.
[1:32:21] It's like,
[1:32:22] let's do something else
[1:32:23] within this universe.
[1:32:24] But also,
Elliott Kalan
[1:32:24] but it feels like
[1:32:25] it's within,
[1:32:26] it's a different thing
[1:32:27] within that universe,
[1:32:28] but still feels of a piece
[1:32:29] with that universe.
[1:32:29] It doesn't feel like
[1:32:30] now he forgot
[1:32:31] what was good about
[1:32:32] Fury Road.
[1:32:33] And it's just,
[1:32:34] it's worth seeing
[1:32:34] if only just to see
[1:32:35] all the costumes
[1:32:36] look amazing,
[1:32:37] the different vehicles
[1:32:38] will look amazing.
[1:32:39] But you're like,
[1:32:40] well,
[1:32:40] I've seen every vehicle
[1:32:41] they can throw at me.
[1:32:42] And then by the end
[1:32:42] of the movie,
[1:32:43] they're riding a motorcycle
[1:32:44] that's made out
[1:32:45] of a mannequin torso.
[1:32:46] And you're like,
[1:32:46] what?
Stuart Wellington
[1:32:48] You're like,
[1:32:48] oh yeah,
[1:32:49] yeah,
[1:32:49] I've seen the Octoboss
[1:32:51] ride around
[1:32:51] on his flying contraption.
Dan McCoy
[1:32:54] What about this guy?
[1:32:56] Have you seen this guy
[1:32:57] who's like flying
[1:32:58] like a kite
[1:32:59] from the back of a motorcycle?
[1:33:00] That's what I'm saying.
Elliott Kalan
[1:33:01] I haven't seen it.
[1:33:02] It's,
[1:33:03] yeah,
[1:33:03] the,
[1:33:03] it's,
[1:33:04] yeah,
[1:33:04] I really love that movie.
[1:33:06] I would have,
[1:33:06] I would have recommended it
[1:33:07] except I thought we,
[1:33:07] I thought one of you
[1:33:08] had recommended it already.
[1:33:09] I guess not.
[1:33:10] I guess that's why
[1:33:10] it's not a huge hit.
[1:33:11] I had to double check.
[1:33:12] Yeah.
Dan McCoy
[1:33:13] Yeah,
[1:33:13] because we didn't get
[1:33:14] the flop house bump.
[1:33:15] Yeah.
Stuart Wellington
[1:33:15] On the other hand,
[1:33:16] I think it's gonna,
[1:33:17] it's gonna be,
[1:33:18] what,
[1:33:18] rentable or purchasable
[1:33:19] online soon,
[1:33:21] so.
[1:33:21] I mean,
Elliott Kalan
[1:33:21] it'll live forever.
[1:33:22] It's not,
[1:33:23] it's,
[1:33:23] I mean,
[1:33:23] the thing is,
Stuart Wellington
[1:33:23] Fury Road was not a huge hit
[1:33:25] when it came out.
[1:33:26] No,
[1:33:26] no,
[1:33:26] I mean,
[1:33:27] I don't,
[1:33:27] I feel like none of the Mad Max movies
[1:33:29] except for maybe Road Warrior,
[1:33:30] like maybe the first two were hits,
[1:33:32] but like,
[1:33:33] luckily this one was subsidized
[1:33:35] so hugely
[1:33:36] by the Australian government
[1:33:37] that it did make a little bit of money.
Elliott Kalan
[1:33:38] That's good.
[1:33:39] I feel like the,
[1:33:40] we are living in a world now
[1:33:41] where hit is no longer
[1:33:43] relative to budget.
[1:33:45] Instead,
[1:33:45] it's just huge numbers.
[1:33:46] So like Mad Max and Road Warrior,
[1:33:47] when they came out in the United States,
[1:33:48] Mad Max,
[1:33:49] Mad Max 2,
[1:33:49] as they're known in Australia,
[1:33:50] like they were surprise hits,
[1:33:52] but it wasn't like they were
[1:33:53] in the top five movies of the year.
[1:33:55] Right.
[1:33:55] They just made a lot of money
[1:33:56] compared to their budgets.
[1:33:57] Yeah.
Dan McCoy
[1:33:57] Well,
[1:33:58] well,
[1:33:58] also everything now
[1:33:59] is so tied to
[1:34:00] opening Wakened
[1:34:01] in a way that like
[1:34:02] is slowly killing
[1:34:04] the film industry.
[1:34:06] So like,
[1:34:07] yeah.
[1:34:08] Yeah.
[1:34:09] Longevity.
[1:34:09] This will have a long tail.
Stuart Wellington
[1:34:10] Yeah.
[1:34:10] Like Elliot said,
[1:34:11] this is going to live forever.
[1:34:12] It's a movie that I am
[1:34:13] really looking forward to
[1:34:14] re-watching soon
[1:34:15] and like discovering new things
[1:34:18] I missed the last time.
[1:34:19] Yeah.
[1:34:20] I missed them because
[1:34:21] I was in a theater
[1:34:22] where there were two people
[1:34:23] talking the entire movie.
[1:34:24] Oh,
[1:34:25] that's too bad.
Elliott Kalan
[1:34:25] I was not,
[1:34:26] but I'm sure there's details I missed
[1:34:27] just because it's so packed
[1:34:28] with detail,
[1:34:30] you know,
[1:34:30] it's so,
[1:34:31] anyway,
[1:34:31] I really like to do,
[1:34:32] but that's not what I'm here
[1:34:33] to recommend.
[1:34:33] Oh,
[1:34:34] but I figured I'd like to recommend.
[1:34:36] So Rebel Moon is ostensibly
[1:34:37] a science fiction movie,
[1:34:38] right?
[1:34:39] Like it's supposed to be
[1:34:40] a sci-fi action epic.
[1:34:42] And I thought I'd recommend
[1:34:43] two movies that I saw recently,
[1:34:45] one I had not seen before,
[1:34:46] one I've seen many times
[1:34:47] that are also science fiction,
[1:34:49] but give you a different
[1:34:50] idea of what science fiction
[1:34:51] can do and are arguably
[1:34:52] better movies than Rebel Moon
[1:34:55] Part 2,
[1:34:56] The Scargiver.
[1:34:58] I'm intrigued.
[1:34:59] Dan,
[1:34:59] should I start with the movie
[1:35:00] that our listeners
[1:35:03] may not have seen
[1:35:03] or should I start with the movie
[1:35:04] that our listeners
[1:35:05] have probably seen
[1:35:06] but should watch again?
[1:35:06] Start with the probably seen
[1:35:07] and then go obscure.
[1:35:08] Okay,
[1:35:08] so on Father's Day,
[1:35:10] I went with my children
[1:35:11] and my wife.
[1:35:12] We went to the local
[1:35:14] movie theater,
[1:35:15] Vidiot's.
[1:35:15] They were showing
[1:35:16] a little movie called
[1:35:17] E.T.,
[1:35:17] The Extraterrestrial,
[1:35:19] which was that
[1:35:19] at one point
[1:35:20] the most successful movie
[1:35:21] dollar money-wise
[1:35:23] in the history of movies,
[1:35:24] but a surprising number
[1:35:25] of people,
[1:35:26] I feel like,
[1:35:26] have not seen it
[1:35:27] in the years since then
[1:35:28] and watching it again,
[1:35:30] I hadn't seen it
[1:35:31] in a couple years
[1:35:31] since we showed it
[1:35:32] to my older son
[1:35:33] and watching it again.
Dan McCoy
[1:35:34] I assumed you hadn't
[1:35:35] seen it since childhood
[1:35:36] since you were so
[1:35:36] annoyed at being
[1:35:38] bedeviled by people.
[1:35:39] I can't blame the movie
Elliott Kalan
[1:35:40] for that.
[1:35:40] It's too good a movie
[1:35:41] and just watching it
[1:35:42] and it's like,
[1:35:42] all the things
[1:35:43] that I am frustrated
[1:35:44] about with a movie
[1:35:45] like Rebel Moon,
[1:35:46] E.T. does so beautifully
[1:35:48] where it's like,
[1:35:49] I feel like I know
[1:35:49] these characters,
[1:35:51] where they live
[1:35:51] and how they live
[1:35:52] and who they are
[1:35:52] feels specific
[1:35:53] and yet universal
[1:35:54] because specific.
[1:35:55] The movie takes
[1:35:56] so much time
[1:35:57] to get you
[1:35:58] into the hearts
[1:35:59] of these characters
[1:36:00] before like
[1:36:01] action-y type stuff
[1:36:02] happens
[1:36:02] and it all
[1:36:04] means something.
Stuart Wellington
[1:36:05] Before E.T. shows up
[1:36:06] and starts flipping
[1:36:07] and flipping
[1:36:08] his heads open.
Elliott Kalan
[1:36:09] Or he uses his laser sword
[1:36:10] to just cut guns
[1:36:11] out of the hands
[1:36:12] of FBI agents.
[1:36:12] Yeah, he just starts blasting
[1:36:13] and replace them
[1:36:14] with walkie-talkies.
[1:36:15] Yeah, and it's just like
[1:36:16] the, and it is such a,
[1:36:17] it's such a powerful movie
[1:36:19] like it toys
[1:36:20] with your emotions
[1:36:21] so hard
[1:36:21] but it does it so well
[1:36:22] and like we showed it
[1:36:23] to my older son
[1:36:23] a couple years ago
[1:36:24] and he got so upset
[1:36:25] but then really loved it.
[1:36:26] We showed it
[1:36:26] to my younger son
[1:36:27] it was so overwhelming to him
[1:36:28] he got so upset
[1:36:29] but in the way that
[1:36:30] a movie makes you upset
[1:36:31] when you are,
[1:36:32] when a sad thing
[1:36:32] happens in it
[1:36:33] and you are overwhelmed
[1:36:34] by it.
[1:36:34] And like,
[1:36:35] it's so,
[1:36:36] like every time
[1:36:37] I see this movie
[1:36:37] and I'm like,
[1:36:39] yeah, there's like,
[1:36:40] this is one of the greatest
[1:36:41] movies I've ever seen
[1:36:42] and it's a story
[1:36:42] about an alien
[1:36:43] who becomes friends
[1:36:44] with a kid
[1:36:44] which is a dumb idea
[1:36:46] for a plot
[1:36:47] in some ways
[1:36:47] but it's because
[1:36:48] it's all,
[1:36:49] it is consistently
[1:36:51] hitting the emotion
[1:36:52] of the characters
[1:36:52] rather than like,
[1:36:54] oh, we've got to
[1:36:55] make sure there's a lot
[1:36:56] of like running
[1:36:57] and gunning,
[1:36:57] you know,
[1:36:58] and stuff like that.
[1:36:59] So it just does
[1:37:00] such a good job
[1:37:01] of being,
[1:37:01] and also,
[1:37:02] this is not like
[1:37:03] an art movie.
[1:37:04] This is a huge
[1:37:05] blockbuster movie.
[1:37:06] Like,
[1:37:06] this is the most
[1:37:07] middle-of-the-road
[1:37:07] storytelling you can get
[1:37:09] and it's just done
[1:37:10] so well
[1:37:10] that like you're crying
[1:37:11] by the end of it.
[1:37:12] So,
[1:37:12] E.T.,
[1:37:13] if you haven't seen it
[1:37:13] in a long time,
[1:37:14] I recommend you go back
[1:37:14] and watch it.
[1:37:15] If you've never seen it,
[1:37:15] you should go see it.
[1:37:16] Just be ready to cry
[1:37:17] and the movie
[1:37:18] and the movie
Elliott Kalan
[1:37:18] that you may not
[1:37:19] have seen,
[1:37:19] which is a-
[1:37:20] I'm ready.
[1:37:21] Yeah,
[1:37:21] you're ready.
[1:37:22] Dan's always ready to cry.
[1:37:23] That's the secret.
[1:37:24] He's always ready.
[1:37:25] Yeah.
[1:37:26] The other movie
[1:37:27] is also a science fiction movie
[1:37:28] also from 1982
[1:37:30] and I kind of am imagining
[1:37:31] a science fiction
[1:37:32] double feature in 1982
[1:37:34] of E.T.
[1:37:35] and then the movie
[1:37:35] Liquid Sky,
[1:37:37] the independent
[1:37:37] science fiction film
[1:37:39] that is
[1:37:40] partly doubles
[1:37:41] as a portrait
[1:37:42] of a certain
[1:37:43] early 80s
[1:37:44] New York downtown
[1:37:45] kind of art scene
[1:37:46] but is also the story
[1:37:48] of tiny aliens
[1:37:48] that live in a tiny
[1:37:49] flying saucer
[1:37:50] and are attracted
[1:37:52] to the chemicals
[1:37:54] of heroin use
[1:37:55] but even more than that
[1:37:56] are addicted
[1:37:56] to the chemicals
[1:37:57] of orgasm
[1:37:58] and have to
[1:37:59] kill men
[1:37:59] in order to
[1:38:00] retrieve it
[1:38:00] and it is such a
[1:38:02] beautiful looking movie
[1:38:05] in terms of
[1:38:06] 80s New Wave
[1:38:07] type look
[1:38:07] and it's such a
[1:38:09] strange movie
[1:38:11] that kind of operates
[1:38:12] on a downtown
[1:38:13] dream logic
[1:38:14] and not a movie
[1:38:16] that everyone will like.
[1:38:18] It's got this
[1:38:18] great electronic score.
[1:38:20] There's also a very
[1:38:21] simple score
[1:38:21] but it's another
[1:38:24] example of like
[1:38:24] this is as much
[1:38:25] or more of a
[1:38:26] science fiction movie
[1:38:27] than Rebel Moon
[1:38:27] and it was made for
[1:38:29] one
[1:38:29] 320th
[1:38:31] of the money
[1:38:32] and it feels
[1:38:33] so indelible.
[1:38:34] I'll be remembering
[1:38:34] images from this movie
[1:38:35] for the rest of my life
[1:38:37] and performances from it
[1:38:38] for the rest of my life
[1:38:38] when I've forgotten
[1:38:39] that Rebel Moon
[1:38:40] existed.
Dan McCoy
[1:38:41] I saw this
[1:38:42] just out of college
[1:38:43] in an era
[1:38:44] where it was like
[1:38:45] it was much harder
[1:38:46] to find
[1:38:46] oddball movies
[1:38:48] just in general.
[1:38:49] It was also hard to find
[1:38:51] this movie in particular
[1:38:53] but now it is on the
[1:38:54] Criterion Channel's
[1:38:55] synth scores collection
[1:38:58] as well as being
[1:38:59] available on other
[1:39:00] streamers but like
[1:39:00] that's probably where
[1:39:01] you're going to see
[1:39:02] the best print I would
[1:39:03] assume.
[1:39:03] So I've been looking
[1:39:04] I want to revisit it
[1:39:06] I haven't watched it
[1:39:07] yet but I would.
Elliott Kalan
[1:39:07] It is such a
[1:39:08] it's such a
[1:39:09] I had actually tried
[1:39:10] to start watching
[1:39:10] this movie a while
[1:39:11] back and the opening
[1:39:13] of it it feels like
[1:39:14] the I was like this
[1:39:15] movie is this a bad
[1:39:16] movie like the acting
[1:39:18] and the dialogue
[1:39:18] when it first starts
[1:39:19] are it's like
[1:39:20] it's you have the
[1:39:22] same actress Anne
[1:39:23] Carlisle is playing
[1:39:23] a male character
[1:39:24] and a female
[1:39:24] female character
[1:39:25] in the same scene
[1:39:26] and the man is like
[1:39:27] you got the stuff
[1:39:28] when are we going
[1:39:29] to get the stuff
[1:39:29] and it's like
[1:39:30] this is like
[1:39:31] it's like the most
[1:39:32] generic kind of
[1:39:33] drug talk
[1:39:33] as the movie goes on
[1:39:34] it's almost like
[1:39:35] the movie was like
[1:39:35] okay we want to
[1:39:37] make sure anybody
[1:39:37] who might be thrown
[1:39:38] off by that is not
[1:39:39] watching the movie
[1:39:40] because this movie
[1:39:41] is going to
[1:39:41] it's the squares
[1:39:42] it's just going to be
[1:39:43] too much for them
[1:39:44] they are not going
[1:39:44] to be able to
[1:39:45] handle this
[1:39:45] and by the time
[1:39:46] early on
[1:39:46] that the evil
[1:39:48] performance artist
[1:39:50] drug dealer girlfriend
[1:39:51] of the main character
[1:39:52] is doing her
[1:39:53] performance art piece
[1:39:54] about her rhythm box
[1:39:55] and how you know
[1:39:56] and it's
[1:39:57] by that point
[1:39:58] the movie is like
[1:39:59] okay now we're
[1:39:59] going to start
[1:40:00] showing you
[1:40:00] what this movie
[1:40:00] is really like
[1:40:01] and yeah
[1:40:02] it just
[1:40:03] I had been
[1:40:04] meaning to see it
[1:40:04] for years
[1:40:05] and I finally saw it
[1:40:05] and it's just
[1:40:07] it's like
[1:40:07] if you watch
[1:40:08] that in ET
[1:40:08] it's like
[1:40:09] this is the breath
[1:40:10] of type of
[1:40:10] science fiction movies
[1:40:11] that existed
[1:40:12] in 1982
[1:40:12] like doesn't that
[1:40:13] make you feel
[1:40:14] sad
[1:40:15] that
[1:40:15] there's
[1:40:16] even the
[1:40:16] independent
[1:40:17] science fiction
[1:40:17] movies now
[1:40:18] I feel like
[1:40:18] are still
[1:40:18] trying to be
[1:40:19] kind of like
[1:40:20] they're trying
[1:40:20] to do what
[1:40:21] ET does
[1:40:21] or what
[1:40:22] horror movies
[1:40:23] and the
[1:40:23] rebel moon
[1:40:23] movies are just
[1:40:24] doing star wars
Stuart Wellington
[1:40:25] did liquid sky
[1:40:27] make Sammy
[1:40:28] and Gabriel cry
[1:40:29] or no
Elliott Kalan
[1:40:30] the weird thing
[1:40:32] we watched it
[1:40:33] and I haven't
[1:40:34] seen them
[1:40:35] since then
[1:40:35] in the middle
[1:40:36] of the night
[1:40:37] they stole my car
[1:40:37] and I've just seen
[1:40:38] they started an
[1:40:39] Instagram feed
[1:40:39] and they're just
[1:40:40] painting their
[1:40:40] faces bright neon
[1:40:41] colors
[1:40:42] and going to
[1:40:42] late night
[1:40:43] raves
[1:40:44] and performance
[1:40:44] art things
[1:40:45] so they're really
[1:40:46] getting a city
[1:40:46] education
[1:40:47] so they're just
[1:40:48] living the New York
[1:40:48] downtown lifestyle
[1:40:49] so they really
Stuart Wellington
[1:40:50] inspired them
[1:40:51] yeah that's great
Elliott Kalan
[1:40:52] I'm glad
[1:40:53] that you know
[1:40:54] great art can do that
[1:40:55] yeah this was one
[1:40:56] that I watched
[1:40:56] solo
[1:40:57] as in I watched
[1:40:59] it as Han Solo
[1:41:01] dressed up
[1:41:01] the vest and
[1:41:04] everything
[1:41:04] yeah
Stuart Wellington
[1:41:05] what else would
[1:41:06] you wear if it
[1:41:07] wasn't the vest
[1:41:08] yeah
[1:41:08] what is like
[1:41:09] snow parka
[1:41:10] yeah yeah
[1:41:11] his bespin outfit
[1:41:12] yeah
Dan McCoy
[1:41:12] yeah
[1:41:13] otherwise just
[1:41:14] kind of like a
[1:41:14] white shirt
[1:41:15] pants
[1:41:16] hey guys
[1:41:19] thanks for taking
[1:41:19] this trip back
[1:41:20] to that old
[1:41:21] rebel moon
[1:41:22] with me
[1:41:22] when the rebel
Stuart Wellington
[1:41:24] moon hits
[1:41:25] your eye
[1:41:26] like a big
[1:41:27] laser blast
Dan McCoy
[1:41:27] for the listeners
[1:41:28] we you know
[1:41:29] I just wanted to
[1:41:30] say quickly
[1:41:30] like we've been
[1:41:31] blessed with a lot
[1:41:32] of great guests
[1:41:34] recently like
[1:41:34] terrific guests
[1:41:35] and we've been
[1:41:37] doing sort of
[1:41:38] a lot of
[1:41:38] flashback episodes
[1:41:40] in part because
[1:41:41] of that
[1:41:42] in part because
[1:41:42] other things
[1:41:43] but if you like
[1:41:44] these like
[1:41:45] classic peaches
[1:41:46] episodes where it's
[1:41:47] just the three of us
[1:41:47] and like a newer
[1:41:49] movie rest assured
[1:41:50] we're not giving up
[1:41:51] on those
[1:41:52] it was just a
[1:41:53] sort of a
[1:41:54] trick of scheduling
[1:41:56] that it ended up
[1:41:57] being a block
[1:41:57] of that
[1:41:58] but we
[1:41:58] we try and
[1:41:59] mix it up
[1:41:59] and I think
[1:42:00] we'll do
[1:42:01] some more
[1:42:02] more recent
[1:42:02] ones soon
[1:42:03] perhaps just
[1:42:05] with the three
[1:42:06] of us
[1:42:06] for a while
Elliott Kalan
[1:42:07] I mean
[1:42:07] part of the
[1:42:08] part of the
[1:42:08] issue is that
[1:42:09] we are in a
[1:42:10] in a little bit
[1:42:11] of a movie
[1:42:12] relative drought
[1:42:13] too
[1:42:13] like there's
[1:42:14] fewer things
[1:42:14] coming out
[1:42:15] but we've got
[1:42:16] some crap
[1:42:16] lined up
[1:42:17] oh yes
[1:42:18] we'll talk to you
[1:42:19] about
Stuart Wellington
[1:42:22] before we go
Dan McCoy
[1:42:23] I'd like to
[1:42:24] say
[1:42:25] go over to
[1:42:26] MaximumFun.org
[1:42:28] to check out
[1:42:29] other great shows
[1:42:30] on our network
[1:42:31] and also
[1:42:32] under the
[1:42:33] merch tab
[1:42:34] over there
[1:42:34] we put up
[1:42:35] some new
[1:42:36] shirts
[1:42:37] we haven't had
[1:42:38] new merch
[1:42:39] on the official
[1:42:39] MaxFun store
[1:42:40] for a while
[1:42:40] but Tom Fowler
[1:42:41] designed us
[1:42:42] a beautiful shirt
[1:42:44] Tom Fowler
[1:42:44] it's available
[1:42:45] with or without
[1:42:46] sleeves
[1:42:47] it looks like
[1:42:49] the flop house
[1:42:49] with a bunch of
[1:42:50] like it's like
[1:42:50] roots
[1:42:51] or like
[1:42:52] kind of
[1:42:53] crackling electricity
[1:42:54] between roots
[1:42:54] and crackling
[1:42:55] electricity
[1:42:55] look
[1:42:56] it looks very
[1:42:57] metal
[1:42:57] looks very cool
[1:42:58] super metal
[1:42:59] it looks really
[1:42:59] cool
[1:43:00] and also
[1:43:02] thank you to
[1:43:03] Alex Smith
[1:43:03] our producer
[1:43:05] he goes by the
[1:43:06] name Howell Dottie
[1:43:07] on various socials
[1:43:08] last full episode
[1:43:10] I handed him
[1:43:11] some bad audio
[1:43:12] and he did
[1:43:12] some magic with it
[1:43:13] we're glad to have him
[1:43:15] so thank you
[1:43:17] Alex
[1:43:17] but that's it
[1:43:18] for now
[1:43:19] for the flop house
[1:43:20] I've been Dan McCoy
[1:43:21] I'm Stuart Wellington
Elliott Kalan
[1:43:22] I'm Elliot
[1:43:23] the scar
[1:43:25] taker away-er
[1:43:27] Kaylin
[1:43:29] actually guys
[1:43:29] I don't know
[1:43:30] how to take scars away
[1:43:31] I really promised
[1:43:31] a lot
[1:43:32] with that nickname
[1:43:32] and I don't know
[1:43:33] how to
[1:43:33] they use lasers
[1:43:34] yeah maybe I have to
[1:43:35] do laser dermatology
[1:43:36] that's what I'll do
[1:43:37] okay
Stuart Wellington
[1:43:38] okay bye
[1:43:39] whatever
[1:43:39] alright
[1:43:41] okay
Dan McCoy
[1:43:52] I was waiting
[1:43:53] I've been so used
[1:43:55] to having a guest
[1:43:55] and then there's a
[1:43:57] oh okay
[1:43:58] oh right
[1:43:58] there's only three of us
Elliott Kalan
[1:43:59] I think we're alone now
[1:44:01] there doesn't seem to be
[1:44:03] an Alonzo around
[1:44:05] I think we're alone now
[1:44:07] that's great
[1:44:07] uh-huh
[1:44:07] yep
[1:44:08] there's no Scardinos
[1:44:09] it's just the three of us
[1:44:10] clowns
[1:44:11] podcasting as fast as we can
[1:44:13] oh man
[1:44:14] we fucked up
Stuart Wellington
[1:44:14] we should have brought
[1:44:15] Meredith back
[1:44:16] because it could have been
[1:44:17] the Scardino giver
Elliott Kalan
[1:44:18] oh you're right
[1:44:19] oh wow
[1:44:20] and she would have loved
[1:44:21] watching this
[1:44:22] she would have loved
[1:44:22] this movie
[1:44:23] styrofoam movie
[1:44:23] this barely existent film
[1:44:25] Maximum Fun
[1:44:27] a worker-owned network
[1:44:29] of artist-owned shows
[1:44:31] supported
[1:44:31] directly
[1:44:32] by you

In this episode

Speakers
Elliott Kalan 52mDan McCoy 31mStuart Wellington 18m

Description

We had to do it. We had to return to that ol' Rebel Moon to see what happened to all our favorite space pals, like... uh... there was the one guy who trained like, a bird dragon? And, um... Lady Sword-haver? And Charlie Hu-- no, wait, he was killed in the first one because he was a traitor. There's definitely a Scargiver in this one, though. That one we're 100% on. Oh Zack Snyder. We wish we could quit you. But like, for serious. We're very tired.

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Wikipedia page for Rebel Moon Part 2

Recommended in this episode:

Last Man Standing (1995)

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024)

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)

Liquid Sky (1982)

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