Tomorrowland

[00:00:01] Blank Check with Griffin and David, Blank Check with Griffin and David Don't know what to say or to expect All you need to know is that the name of the show is Blank Check What is the word?

[00:00:33] Feed. You don't remember that iconic exchange that is shoehorned in and then called back three times in the last 20 minutes? Wow. Of Tomorrowland I gotta say, it's a movie with a lot of those kinds of lines though With like, let me ask you a question

[00:00:52] There was an idea Oh my god, Whiteneck Fury just walked in here Hello everybody, my name is Griffin Newman Hi David Sims Welcome to Blank Check with Griffin and David We are hashtag the two friends

[00:01:06] It's a competitive advantage because we are the only two podcasts who had a strong enough vision of the future The only two podcasts? Podcasters Right Who had a vision of the future saying what if podcasters were friends What if there was a podcast

[00:01:24] If you fed the podcast, I don't know, I need to warm up Yeah, come on, come on We're recording from an alternate dimension right now So the tachyons might be reaching you weird I'm drinking my raspberry café You still drink that shit

[00:01:37] Oh my god, you're gonna like grow a tentacle Can't wait Can't wait This is a podcast called Blank Check with Griffin and David We're hashtag the two friends that are conscious of context And this is a podcast about filmographies

[00:01:51] Directors who have massive success early on in their career And are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want And sometimes those checks clear And sometimes they bounce all the way into Into an alternate dimension A field of wheat, baby

[00:02:07] Sometimes they walk through a field of wheat and suddenly fall down This of course is a miniseries on the films of Bradley Byrd Yes, this might be his last live action film I don't think so, he's coming back, you can't keep this guy down

[00:02:21] How chill do you think Byrd is? He seems like a chill dude You know how there's like the Kinsey scale for like sexuality Well like the Byrd scale for like chillness You know, he's like zero I do love that when you watch like behind the scenes stuff

[00:02:37] He like always comes off very folksy He's like, I just want to make a film about believing again And people are like Brad you're intense, he's like, yep I am And he's from Montana We talked about it, you know like so he yeah

[00:02:49] And he's you know, he's a milky skinned man with red hair And he says a lot of things that sort of sound like Maxims Like when he gives his Oscar speech where he's like You know I just like believed in my you know

[00:03:02] And right, he feels like like he's fucking Andy Griffith But then you know like once the door is closed But he also doesn't hide how intense he is No, he doesn't hide how intense he is at all

[00:03:13] And he's very happy to rant about the things he cares about I think the Clooney character in this is like He's looking at himself and you know Picking out like a bad version of himself Like a depressed version of himself But we'll get to that

[00:03:28] Many series is called the podcast Oh right, we haven't even said what it is And today we're talking about Tomorrowland The big bounce This is the definition of a blank check bouncing Right? Like I mean In every possible sense This is one of those movies that came out

[00:03:47] After we started this show That's true, not long after Not long after where you were like And it was on our blankies episode You gave Rafiqasity a... I did a Best of Poring Actress Which I don't know if I totally stand behind I think she's very good

[00:03:59] I do too I do too I have to look at that year again Right I don't think the performance is bad now No I know But this was one of those movies Where we were like Fuck, we should do Brad Bird someday Yes, absolutely

[00:04:14] And it came out while we were recording something else Star Wars I would imagine Yeah, we were like fuck, we gotta do this It's kind of like Jupiter Ascending Which is that same year Another one that we'll be talking about soon

[00:04:27] That came out while we had already done the podcast Wink wink wink wink Next many series A movie that's very blank checky Wink wink wink But it's always nice when we can do We can finally talk about these movies That we've been waiting a couple years to do

[00:04:40] You know? Like we've been here We've had the show We've had the platform And we've just been waiting for the right time To discuss that entire You want to turn your phone off or If you want it to loudly ding I just did Who texted you?

[00:04:52] That should be the rule At least he's consistent At least I'm consistent Yes That should be the rule though, right? Yeah If you get a text You should have to read it aloud Okay You want the text? Yeah, sure Mm-hmm Regardless, Henson Let's not blow Henson

[00:05:08] I don't think you know how invested I am in him And I'd really like to share that J.D. Mato? I won't tell Here's the rule I don't have to say who it's from I have to read the content But what if I guess right?

[00:05:19] Then I would tell you Okay Not J.D. What a twist! Wow What a white cheddar bagel twist Sure Twist it I should mention that This is a twisted episode Because I did eat a White cheddar bagel twist That's right We twisted it up Yeah So

[00:05:38] The year is 2011 Okay Oh, that's when this Really? Yes Okay Damon Lindelof has had meetings with Disney Damon Lind I remember That when He's the creator of Lost Right, when Lost was running Everyone was like Why don't they get this guy to write the movies? Sure

[00:05:58] In the same way that people make that like Why don't they have the guys who cut the trailers Cut the entire film? I guess no I think that's not fair And Lindelof said that I'm making a joke But it was like

[00:06:08] Lost was so exciting when it was on It was so exciting on a week to week basis That it was like This guy should write all the fucking temples You know how to do it Well, alright And also, you know Abrams sort of in general

[00:06:20] Was kind of like Head like smurged over to the film world Right And Lindelof worked with him Very closely on Star Trek Which was Quote unquote Written by Orchie and Kurtzman And then there was a writer strike Yes And then Damon Lindelof Is a quote unquote producer

[00:06:37] On the film Right And is on the director's commentary Talking about the plotting of the film I wonder what happened there No, the film was shot during a writer strike So it's not like Orchie and Kurtzman Could have been on board Lindelof have any Anyway

[00:06:52] Do you know what's the weirdest Writer strike example That I always think of? Yeah There was like an 110 weekly piece About like how productions were running During the writer strike Adam McKay on Stepbrothers Because he was the writer Of the film In addition to being the director Right

[00:07:06] Couldn't suggest improvs Right That's weird Which his whole style is yelling out Like what if you did a take that was like this Of course that's like the style Just keep the camera running But that would constitute writing So he had to like

[00:07:15] Reverse like psychology them into it Maybe that's an approach You should try more Because Stepbrothers ruled And I don't mean to imply That Lindelof like broke rank With the union I have no idea Anyway I think he had a major hand in Star Trek So people were like

[00:07:29] But it's oh If someone is not If they're producing the I don't know Who knows who knows who knows We can't report on this But in 2010 Lost is over Lost ends then People hate the finale But nonetheless Lost was a big deal Right So

[00:07:45] Lindelof is going around Hollywood Right And so there's stuff like You know Cowboys and Aliens 2011 Prometheus Where he's coming on You know And taking a pass at them Prometheus has passed as much more Substantive I think in terms of What he changed

[00:08:00] I can tell you exactly what happened So Prometheus Someone John Spatis Or whatever Writes an alien prequel script Off the heat of passengers I'm telling you That thing was there on the page Creepypasta That thing was there on the page Well if you say so

[00:08:15] Well I mean they didn't Ridley Scott reads this script You want to know why it was there on the page? Why? Because it knew it was creepy Creepypasta Right What if a movie knew it was creepypasta It's called passengers What if a movie thought that it was charming

[00:08:28] It's called passengers Morton Tilden's passengers Yeah So Scott Ridley Scott sees that script And is like Eh you know alien prequel That's fine Like we could film this It was much more of just like What happened to make that Chip land that they find an alien

[00:08:45] Like I'm going to explain it In a pretty straightforward way Ridley Scott famously who was Uninterested in alien prequels Was not excited at the idea Of doing a literal alien prequel Well that's what's so weird about it Well then he's like Yeah alien prequel Alien prequel

[00:08:59] I'm more interested in like Some kind of like Paradise Lost You know Where Android's arguing with God So then that was the big announcement So he calls up Lindelof And he and of course I interviewed Lindelof And so I asked him a lot about

[00:09:12] Prometheus because I'm obsessed with that movie Because their announcement at the time The press release was like Ridley Scott's Aliens film Is no longer an Aliens film Damon Lindelof comes on It's now original sci-fi And the way Lindelof put it Is he's like He wrote the movie

[00:09:27] And he did a page one rewrite And obviously he kept some of this stuff But you know But it's the way those movies work And the way every Ridley Scott movie works Is he's standing there With a cigar in his mouth And he's like

[00:09:37] And then that should happen And then this is gonna happen You know It's not really my movie I just write it Apparently he did with Blade Runner It's like it's working Because with everything Yes well 2049 He was gonna direct it There was a toss up between it too

[00:09:49] And my hot take has always been What if Villeneuve and Scott Swap those films Yeah it's interesting I like both movies I do too I think I'd like both of them more If they had directed the other Who knows But anyway it's just like funny to me

[00:10:02] That Lindelof gets so much shit From Perunetheus Sure I'm not throwing that shit at his feet But Disney's kinda come into him With the idea of like Damon Lindelof blank check What would you like to do If you were able to Birth something from the ground up

[00:10:15] Rather than taking over someone's project Right And he goes I'd love to make a big budget Live action original sci-fi film So he starts meeting with them He brings on Jensen Jeff Jensen who had Was the TV critic at EW And Lindelof who obsessively Reads everything written about

[00:10:33] Everything he's ever done Which is one reason A bit of a griff in that respect Yeah one reason that he drives himself So crazy A real griff in that respect He really respected Jensen So he brings Jensen aboard And says like do all the research

[00:10:44] For me because I am thinking About writing something about Like space age, Disney thinking Like Walt Disney, Tomorrowland The Epcot like you know city Like all this shit Now in the Disney theme park IP boon of the early 2000s Right Where they're like let's make

[00:11:01] A haunted elevator movie Right Excuse me it's called the haunted mansion Whatever the fuck it's called It's one of the greatest rides of all time Have you been on the haunted elevator You're confusing two rides There's a tower of terror Which is an elevator

[00:11:15] And there's a haunted mansion Which is a dark ride No I haven't been to Disney Since I was a child You didn't go on the haunted mansion then No it was raining when I went So I also don't remember I don't remember the day well

[00:11:29] And this is the only time you did it And it's the only time I ever did it Was it in California or in Florida Florida It rains a lot in Florida I know Rainy place It kind of stunk I'll say my parents

[00:11:41] My parents pulled one of those on me Which we didn't go on a family vacation to Disney Until I was maybe like eight or nine And I wanted to go every year And my mom's argument was like But I took you to Euro Disney And I was like

[00:11:52] I was a year and a half And it rained the whole time Everything was shut down Like I was tiny But I just remember being in a slicker And everyone being like No no no no Fermé fermé No no no no

[00:12:06] So the thing that they're trying to tap into Disney as they're going through all these Different like theme park properties They keep on going like Tomorrow lands a good bucket To put a movie in It's a name It's a good aesthetic And it's this idea of

[00:12:19] The future as we imagined it 50 or 60 years ago They announced it at one point As a Dwayne Johnson movie I don't know if you remember this 2008 they were like We're gonna make a big budget Sci-Fi family film But I don't think they ever have any

[00:12:31] Strong take on it No because it's hard to have a take On the concept of 1950s future Like that's not a movie But Lindelof comes in It's a theme park Ben's telling me to be an optimist So Lindelof comes in and goes

[00:12:46] What if we made a movie about that notion Of trying to make that future in the 50s And where we went wrong How we lost that our way And it is announced with a working title of 1952 Which was the year that Tomorrow Land was started

[00:12:59] And it's just funny that Brad Bird Has had two movies in production That are just a year in the 20th century Correct He announces that And then very shortly thereafter Brad Bird is announced as director And people go May 2012 Is this Star Wars? Because Disney's bought Star Wars

[00:13:18] Yeah, yeah, sure Right, right, right And they go That sounds like it could be the pair Right It would make sense that they would hire Lindelof and Brad Bird to do Star Wars What comes out is Kathy Kennedy offers Brad Bird Star Wars

[00:13:31] Yes, he was her first call Right And he would Well no, I think Nolan was her first call Nolan was like Not doing franchises By Were by all accounts a few people where she went Like I'm just doing due diligence No chance you want to do this Right

[00:13:44] Like Spielberg That's like when the NBA trade season begins Where you call the Cavs You're like You want to trade me LeBron James? Like no thanks, all right fine I didn't think so Michael Jordan want to come off the bench? Yeah, right

[00:13:54] Right, she did a couple of those calls By all accounts her first legitimate Like swing at the bat was like Brad Bird I think you could do this Yeah You know she said this is a very rare opportunity And he said getting to make an original film

[00:14:05] Of this size Is an equally rare opportunity And I can't pass that up I think there was a logic to that decision And that is much easier for Brad Bird To now go and do a Star Wars movie Than it would have been for him

[00:14:15] To do Tomorrowland post-Star Wars Sure I think the last five years changed The entire climate in which Tomorrowland could be made Even then it seemed anomalous That the film was produced Yeah, definitely This was the number one Original sci-fi film of its year Yeah And it was

[00:14:31] Do you know what the others were? Colossal flop, Jupiter sending 2012 2015 No, 15, wow it's that reason Right, 2012 and it's announced I'm mixing up the dates Sorry, freaking out I'm freaking the fuck out Basically it's this movie Where like Someone is like consciousness You know what I mean? Oh Lucy

[00:14:52] No No You know he's like Consciousness It's like he's alive Oh, Chappy Yes His love is real but he's not Yeah, Ben's favorite movie Love, Chappy Because De-Antwood are involved Oh they're great Is that what they're called? De-Antwood De-Antwood That's the only like crust sci-fi movie Right?

[00:15:12] There should be more Gutter sci-fi I feel like they're I feel like Super Mario Brothers Is like an underrated crust punk sci-fi movie Yeah, that's true Because like everyone in that movie Except for the Mario Brothers Wears like leather jackets And his a turtle

[00:15:25] And Toad like is like A crust like busker Like he's like a fucking Like street musician Yep We gotta cover that Yeah we should Cool, let's do it Cool, great So that's next week But today we're talking about tomorrow They announced it in 1952

[00:15:41] And they start mystery boxing really hard What is this project? Oh we found a box They literally do the social media thing They start tweeting out photos Where like Rad Bird takes a picture Of like a vinyl record A secret box they found in the Disney vault

[00:15:53] And all these clues to what we're making And then they did like D23 The big Disney convention They opened the box And they had a camera on it And they showed off each idea Everyone's like what the fuck is this thing And then they announced it's Tomorrowland

[00:16:06] Which still doesn't really tell you anything But at least tells you the direction Of what this movie is That it's not rebooting some pre-existing property It's using this Right, this brand Umbrella term that's existed for Disney And then the movie is made In pretty much secrecy

[00:16:23] It's very closely guarded The first teaser trailer fucks When I saw a trailer I was like I just can't believe We live in a world where Like Rad Bird makes movies I'm so excited for this The first teaser trailer for this movie Takes off its pants

[00:16:36] Finds an enthusiastic and consenting partner And fucks So the trailer The teaser if you guys remember It's just that scene of her in the prison You know in the jail Where she gets the pin Is that Bill Camp as the cop? It's not

[00:16:55] It's just a Bill Campy guy Yeah it's like an older camp Yeah yeah yeah And when she touches the pin She sees this wheat field in the city In the distance It's cool Right and then you hear George Clooney going like What if there was a place

[00:17:08] There was an idea To bring together the lands Swear to me Unite the lands My man This movie I think Like you and I see that teaser trailer And we're like fuckin yeah Yeah that's what we're like Right we're like sold

[00:17:28] No I don't need to know anything else Brad Bird, original sci-fi Light touch in the teaser Stunning visuals in the maltos But Robertson who I was a fan of Because she was on Life Unexpected Same here Which I inexplicably watched every episode of Her character's name was Lux

[00:17:45] Life on X Expected Yeah and then the rest of the title Is not represented her name But she's really fucking good in that She is And I was like this is someone who's gonna pop One of those people who's just waiting for the vehicle

[00:17:59] And when she gets cast there's kind of that Or around it of like Disney's entrusted This $200 million movie to this like CW star Like they're anointing her They've decided that she's capable of holding this And then they bring on George Clooney My favorite man

[00:18:14] Like my favorite movie star That's not true Your favorite of Right yeah thank you No but I mean like I really like George Clooney Your favorite of the traditional leading man The sort of ablest me You know But the thing that I think people don't kind of

[00:18:28] Process when he signs on to this Is that he doesn't fucking do movies like this No never He's got his one franchise which is Oceans Yeah but he did Batman and Robin and that like Swore him off any of these kinds of things Forever

[00:18:41] There are five George Clooney movies in total That have made over $100 million And it's the three oceans It's Batman and Robin and the perfect storm I think Is there another one? Clayton Seriana Did that do good He actually did well I don't think he made $100 It did like $50

[00:18:57] That becomes a Clooney success Is like he makes an adult drama And it does $50 or $60 It had the most baguettes Of a big release that year You know We got the baguette prize I love Clayton so much I like it too I mean I think that should be

[00:19:11] I mean there's so many of those books You could totally make a franchise out of that I don't know What is He's referencing something What have you confused Michael Clayton with What are you Are there all those paperback books? About the lawyer? You think it's Michael Clayton?

[00:19:27] You think that movie is a Michael Clayton biopic? Those aren't the same You think that's Michael Clayton's origin story? Maybe it is It was a fixer who then ran a failed restaurant 100% thought that Saw a horse on a hill 100% thought that Okay We're really getting into old school

[00:19:40] Because I'm trying to check your Clooney thing And the wifi's not working No Well anyway we'll get back to that So Griffin Have you heard the news? Our two of our friends Are now friends with each other We've both been on our podcast separately

[00:19:54] Now they're doing their podcast together We're talking about friend of the show Amy Nicholson She was on the Memento episode Maybe you heard it We're talking about friend of the show Paul Scheer He was on the Running Scared episode Maybe you heard it

[00:20:08] Together they're watching the greatest movies Of all time on their new podcast Unspooled And the first episode is out now I think the second episode's out now It's about they covered Citizen Kane They covered Ben Hur They're going through the AFI 100 list Oh okay

[00:20:23] No it's just when you said They're covering the greatest movies of all time I was like that's crazy They're committing to just doing Toy Story 2 Every week That's quite a I can't believe they got to that before I did Well they're going to watch some of the

[00:20:36] Classic movies you're supposed to have seen Like Citizen Kane that's the first episode But they're going to cover everything on this list Taxi driver, graduate, Pulp Fiction I will point out number 99 on the AFI 100 Is Toy Story Really? Where does TS TWA rank? TS TWA? Yeah, TS TWA

[00:20:52] You're saying 2? Yeah Not there No there's 3 Oh no 3 is TWA right Yeah but no neither of them are just the first one Interesting But they're going to cover crazy back stories Like how a group of Hollywood bigwigs Tried to stop Citizen Kane from being made

[00:21:07] They wanted to burn the celluloid Yeah They're going to bring on film experts To talk about what happened behind the scenes And if you've heard like how did this get made Paul's podcast Or Amy's podcast The Canon You know this is going to be fun

[00:21:20] They're people who love movies Maybe you heard them on blank check Maybe you heard them on blank check And if you're listening to blank check You like people talking about movies I mean they've been doing a great job so far I love hearing them talk to each other

[00:21:32] I agree they're both really smart engaging people And I realize it was very presumptuous For me to refer to them as friends You were much smarter to say friends of the show Because now I'm worried they're listening to it And Paul's going to be like

[00:21:43] I don't hang out with that guy I'm friendly No I think Paul's a great friend of ours He was like hey No we're all friends And we're asking you to check out Unspooled In podcast apps like Apple Podcast right now Yeah there are two best friends

[00:21:59] They're the four friends with us Listen to Unspooled Clooney is like an A-list star Who mostly makes like Yeah he doesn't want to make that shit He owns a tequila company he doesn't need to But this is part of that

[00:22:12] Which means that this is the last time he will He's like he's a tequila company Yeah what's it called again? Trace Amigos or something Casa Stil Amigos When I interviewed him in Toronto He had just sold it He literally said like I just sold my tequila company

[00:22:30] I don't ever need to make a movie Like I only make a movie if I want to make a movie Clooney's episode Of the Letterman Netflix show is Really fascinating And he talks about all this a lot He also be happy never acting again Yeah he seems chilled

[00:22:46] Also he married this like Ridiculously impressive lady So I guess he could just like hang out with her He seems like he wants to produce and direct more Which the American public does not really want him to do Well I'm happy for him to do it

[00:22:58] I guess I don't fucking know But it's a weird big deal for him to do this And it cuts both ways It's like this seems like a prestigious project For like a big blockbuster And this seems like A blockbuster for Clooney

[00:23:12] And then they're keeping the lid on it Which I think conclusively at this point The kind of mystery box marketing Which Abrams has like really ushered In the new era of Is a failure as an experiment Yeah definitely People need to know, especially with a movie like this

[00:23:28] They need to know what the movie is about And not even just a failure in terms of like Financial success But I think it almost always Impedes enjoyment of the movie Because marketing is so omnipresent now That if they're keeping that title lid on it

[00:23:42] You start speculating way too much about what the film could be And when you get into the theater It's always going to be disappointing because it's only going to be one thing So you forgot, you got it right with the

[00:23:51] The Three Oceans movies Perfect Storm and Batman and Robin What's the other one? His most successful film His most successful film He's not the star of it He's not the star But he is above the title and he is like the second star Yeah

[00:24:03] He is the second star of the film Came out just five years ago It came out just five years Oh gravity Gravity You kind of forget he's in that but you know what? So good in it Yeah he's very good in it Agreed But that's the point

[00:24:17] Very few Yeah right But I mean yes When you're looking at it You do see like He makes films like Up in the Air The Descendants Burn After Reading That don't cost a lot of money And make surprising amounts of money Right like Grounds are reading did like 60

[00:24:30] And the other two did close to 90 Correct Yeah right So those are Clooney Home Runs A Clooney Home Run is You make a 20, 30 million dollar movie And it makes 100 domestic And another 100 overseas Now he was trying to be like A billion dollar man Yeah

[00:24:43] Because Tomorrowland's one of those movies That needs to kind of make a billion dollars In order to be profitable Which is insane that they let him do this This movie cost Like probably I mean listed by 200 million dollars With a lot of marketing Of course That was vague

[00:24:59] Like they spent a lot of money to not answer Tea Tea It was a lot of just the letter T Oh yes the pen The opening was a lot of the pen Tea You know there's a big music festival In Europe called Tomorrowland So they own the copyright

[00:25:12] And a lot of countries this film Had to be released as Project T Which is the worst fucking title In other countries it also had the subtitle A World Beyond Which is a terrible subtitle True I will say this is a movie where I think

[00:25:24] Every single cent is on screen Yeah no it looks good This movie looks so fucking expensive Looks great It looks expensive is a good way to put it though Yeah Because some of the visual effects Some of the designs a little bland I like the design overall

[00:25:39] I also say anytime it's a practical set I'm really impressed There are a lot of big sets in this movie Ben's making the right face right now A lot of big sets So the movie comes out No one's seeing it There's like total embargo

[00:25:50] Like up until like three days before The movie comes out It's a complete mystery Pretty much Like really Right I mean there was an official trailer And there was I remember Basically most of the house escape scene Came out That came out

[00:26:06] They released a clip to hide people up And I remember watching that and thinking This looks fucking astonishing This is like a just Brad Bird directing action Just what I want And sci-fi it's cool And I remember there was a synopsis That came out early that leaked out

[00:26:20] From some Disney insider That was like It's about like a little girl robot In alternate reality And they were like Not true Yeah But that was like the only thing out there And then like the week of the movie's release

[00:26:32] A bunch of critics who were all bird fans Who were like No way this isn't like A beautiful surprise under the Christmas tree This is gonna fucking stun us All of them came out and were like Um It's interesting He's going for it And it comes out

[00:26:47] Disappoints opening weekend Although does a number that's bigger Than you in retrospect would believe this movie did Doesn't multiply super well And it's sort of forgot Yeah Like not sort of forgot And Brad Bird much like Understand before him is kind of sent with his tail

[00:27:04] Between his legs Back to Pixar to be like Okay I'll make that sequel Apparently Bird also felt like he finally had a good idea For Incredibles Sure But it's this interesting thing that both those guys Had to do where it's like

[00:27:16] I gotta lick my wounds and rebound here Yeah Now Stanton I heard Apparently agreed to do Finding Dory Under the condition that Disney would let him Make another live action film Which still hasn't been announced Even though Finding Dory is

[00:27:28] No one remembers one of the ten highest grossing films Of all time Yeah The highest grossing animated film period Okay I think they end up throwing him something In the next couple years Okay I mean we're not here to talk about it I know I'm just saying

[00:27:43] I wonder if Bird has a similar condition Yeah I don't know I wish he was doing a Star War But now it feels like their dance card So fucking filled up Yeah and also Forget it Do something else Right But let's talk about Honestly

[00:28:01] Let's talk about this film Yes It opens very strangely So every decision this film makes is strange Yes But yeah Opening is weird Yeah It's a video Of George Clooney Direct addressing the camera Yup A really cool countdown clock with light bulbs Yeah that's the thing

[00:28:21] Right at the start you're like Fuck this is This is gonna be fucking good Getting hard And I'll say this A lot of movies try to like recapture What is the name for those weird Like light countdown There's some name for them

[00:28:35] And they are specific and really cool Yeah A lot of movies today People go like I'm trying to recapture that like Spielberg feel That like ambliny like warm glow feel Yeah And you watch it and it feels kind of affected This is one of those movies

[00:28:50] That really somehow captures that feeling visually Yes Not in reappropriating Or recreating the way those movies look No This movie looks unbelievable just from a cinematography standpoint Claudia Miranda Who's one of the best digital DPs He's one of the guys who figured out how to make

[00:29:09] The digital camera warm What else has he done Benjamin Button He did Life of Pi Did he do Life of Pi? He won the Oscar for Life of Pi Right There's another big digital one I'm forgetting that he did

[00:29:20] But he was like not a feature guy essentially before The failure to launch was his first feature He was mostly a music video and commercials guy He did Tron Legacy Right Which is a gorgeous movie Right then Fincher brings him up to the big leagues with Benjamin Button

[00:29:33] He's only done a handful of movies Yeah But he's a guy who is able to Cause the backhand slap against digital cinematography Is that it often feels kind of cold and sterile That you can't get those warm color tones And make them feel natural

[00:29:49] And this movie has such a great color palette And a real animator sense of how color dictates the mood Of a scene And I do get that kind of tummy glow From watching the inspirational optimistic scenes Of this movie Right

[00:30:05] So even just that slow push into the clock I'm like here we go I'm in good hands Yeah baby Right And then interrupted by Britt Robertson off-screen Who's like you're telling the story wrong Right And now it's the two of them bickering

[00:30:18] And get ready for a lot of that That's my like it's cute if this is just it But it is on rewatch I was like It is crazy how much of this movie is people arguing with each other Over weird little details Yes Like what is that?

[00:30:33] Don't worry about it Come on explain to me And you should explain to me I can't explain to you right now So much of that And I read a lot of critics say I realized at that moment this movie wasn't going to work Okay

[00:30:43] Like just it felt off The second they start fighting But then he's like oh well alright fine Like what would you use you know What's your take and she's like I'm an optimist right Like Like I need the exact dialogue Because they're talking about like the world ending

[00:30:58] Why would you do it differently Right Yeah Because I'm an optimist And then it cuts to his childhood right first It cuts to his childhood It cuts to him, the little boy inventor Making a jet pack And going to the World's Fair In Queens Yes

[00:31:16] And showing off his jet Where Disney kind of presented F-COP Well not F-COP A lot of stuff A lot of stuff Carousel of Progress which is one of my favorite attractions Because it's dorky and they use that song here That it's the great big beautiful tomorrow That song

[00:31:33] And he's there with his jet pack Trying to get people to pay attention to him Now I couldn't sleep last night In a stunning uncharacteristic off brand turn of events And so I watched literally every special feature on this Blu-ray They were weirdly educational

[00:31:50] Into the process of making this film And it's a lot of people talking about how difficult Breb Herd is Right And a lot of him talking about NASA And believing in the future and stuff like that He originally wanted the cold open of this film

[00:32:03] To be what we see only for two seconds Which is Frank Walker on his farm Trying out the jet pack and failing And it was supposed to be like beautiful Like Spielberg-y Tableau Here's the farm he puts on the jet pack He goes, it crashes

[00:32:18] He goes back, his dad reprimands him And that was going to be the first five minutes of the movie You don't open with the arguing thing And everyone's like yeah It took us like seven days to shoot that sequence

[00:32:28] It's really tough to do it with a real kid And have the camera moving and sync with the jet pack He didn't want to use CGI The movie has a lot of kids You see and doing stunts with kids is really difficult You have limited hours

[00:32:40] All the kids, I mean the two kids Young Frank and Athena Had to do five weeks of stunt training Before they even started filming the movie Yeah, especially Athena has a ton of stunts And young Frank is mostly flying His one big scene is the jet pack scene

[00:32:55] Right, and this other jet pack scene that they didn't end up using And the producers like The thing that's great about Brad is that He comes from animation so he's got these great shot ideas And the thing that's interesting about Brad

[00:33:07] Is that he doesn't understand how difficult they are To do in live action And you just see Brad Bird wearing a hack going like Okay, let's put the kid up on the wires And they're not in a green screen place

[00:33:17] They're in a farm and they have this rig And the cameras are like a fucking 16 wheeler And they scrap all of that They just use it as a cut-in when he goes Drops his jet pack onto Hugh Laurie's desk Hugh Laurie says does it work

[00:33:31] You see half a second Boom, crash Kind of, and you see what's going like Right But that was supposed to be the cold open That was supposed to go straight to that Right He feels disillusioned And also the other question is What good does this do?

[00:33:48] And he goes it's just fun, can't it just be fun Which is weird because that's not really what the rest of the movie is saying No But this movie throws a lot of ideas out there That it then sort of just lets hang out there But no

[00:34:01] And then he demonstrates his jet pack By sneaking into tomorrow night Well first Little robot girl In a little blue dress She gives him the tea Follows him Right, gives him the tea pen And goes like follow us through here But don't get caught

[00:34:16] So he gets on the car after them For it's a small world after all Scans the pen Secret hatch Now he's in Tomorrowland He's almost vomiting Yes, right Weird transportation But I love all of this stuff I love using the iconography of Like 60s theme park rides

[00:34:35] Yeah, well we're going to talk about it Yeah So Disney was supposed to be Two things One on the Blu-ray There's the option to watch this with a cartoon short Before the film Weird Like a sort of like 60s Like that It's a 2D animated

[00:34:51] Short film that's supposed to look like it's from the 60s And it was supposed to be in the world's fair sequence As one of the videos on one of the rides Sort of Jurassic Parky where it like sets a lot of stuff up for you Right, yeah

[00:35:03] And I think it's really good and it should have been in the movie Well I mean at 130 minutes But this movie feels like it has a lot of stuff you could cut Yes But if you put this scene in You're able to cut four other scenes later on

[00:35:18] Where people have to explain what Tomorrowland is Right This idea of This movie never really explains what Tomorrowland is This video does it perfectly Which is insane That is my biggest problem with this movie Right So this video does it perfectly which is Plus Ultra Was Right

[00:35:36] Jules Verne A secret society comprised of I believe Jules Verne Thomas Edison Nikolai Tesla Which is insane because they hated each other No, they got along And Gustave Fell And initially Walt Disney This movie was going to include Walt Disney as the fifth member of this

[00:35:51] They decided to strip him out of it Probably I'm assuming Because someone said like Disney's legacy is way too complicated To just make him a simple like dreamy guy I'm not sure They shot that stuff though It's all in the deleted scenes

[00:36:03] I know and it's interesting to me Because what is so fascinating about this movie to me Is that it is so invested in the 60s, 50s, you know, 60s Walt Disney legacy of the future Like vision of the future shit And that shit is so capital P problematic

[00:36:18] If you dig into it But it's not if you just like do the surface Disney World, you know And like I guess they were just like Well just do the surface of the Disney World thing And then at some point someone was like I think it's too tricky

[00:36:30] Right? Like you know it has to be I think it has to be It also feels weird when you see the characters On screen being like And Walt Disney himself Right Like there's a longer version of the Catherine Haan Keegan-Michael Key scene

[00:36:43] Where they talk about Walt Disney a lot You're like this is odd They're all talking around it though Where they're like what is Tomorrowland? Well it's not Walt Disney's idea But like but it is obvious It's just Disney, you know Right

[00:36:56] The one line they should have kept him was like She goes like the theme park Like well that was the cover Sure, right You know he was in an old Uncle Walt Right But he gets sucked into Tomorrowland This Rubbit almost

[00:37:10] Knocks him out but then fixes his jet pack So now it works Yeah Which I kind of dislike because it's like Well then he didn't really deserve to be here The robot Yeah but he had the ambition That's what Athena sees in him

[00:37:21] He has the and he has the joy for invention Which is Athena sees in him Right so then he gets the jet pack on Just in time Lands in front of David Nix Played by Dr. House MD Hugh Laurie George Clooney has a very funny line

[00:37:34] On one of the behind the scenes Where he's like For me and I think you would say the same Tomorrowland is a film about Two TV doctors who finally get to hang out together Sure I wish they would hang out more Me too

[00:37:47] I mean I also wish Hugh Laurie had like A character in this Okay so you want Such a talented actor Agreed You want my number one hot take Griff Fix for this movie Because I think I figured I had to fix this movie

[00:37:57] I think Hugh Laurie and George Clooney Should be one character Okay Okay So I'm gonna go through my fixes As we go through the film Yeah But I think for this sequence You probably don't get an actor If Hugh Laurie's caliber to only do this

[00:38:09] But you have someone Sure Stuff shirt to play the guy Oh hey Doesn't want to let him in Right Then George Clooney enters Tomorrowland I like all this stuff a lot I like all this Young Frank stuff Yeah me too Sure I like Athena I think

[00:38:22] Graphic Cassidy is really good I think a lot of me giving her The Blinky nomination was just like How the fuck did they find this kid? Yeah and also you were just being a griff It's a real griff pic But it's also like A masterpiece of casting

[00:38:32] Where it's like Hey I'm Brad Burt Here's an impossible ask Yeah Get me a 10 year old who looks 10 but behaves like A 70 year old robot Right And who has like The wisdom of years And also She's gonna need to like Fly around and do crazy stunts

[00:38:47] Well she did all her own stunts Good for her Insane Like the whole thing's insane Right So then it flashes forward to Right it goes back to the narration Where Casey's like Okay enough of this You're gonna go through a whole trial Yeah Casey's like Jesus alright

[00:39:03] And she's like Let me talk about myself And you see this Her looking at the stars Is a little kid With her dad Tim McGraw Her mom Judy Greer Who gets cut out of the movie Which they shot I know The film with her being alive I know

[00:39:17] There was a whole different family situation Where they were like Strapped lower middle class So they're like The uncle and his kids Had moved in with them It was like Cuny kids in one household Everyone's sort of Feeling the strain of the economy And the mom's still alive

[00:39:34] Yeah Then they were like Fuck the home stuff Doesn't work There's too much We need to simplify it Just down to the dad And also They shot all of it Where Casey was like Really disaffected And disillusioned And they were like This doesn't work

[00:39:50] Cause for the first 20 minutes of the movie She's just a bummer She needs to be Unairingly optimistic Which it's like How do they recognize that That need to be fixed But didn't recognize All the other things that need to be fixed Maybe they did And just another time

[00:40:04] Or I'm not sure That makes a huge change Sure The bummer Casey scenes are A bummer Well so that's the thing Now forget Frank Right We're not with Frank Casey Yeah Who is How old is she supposed to be 15 20s Looks like a girl in her mid 20s

[00:40:21] Right But she's supposed to be 15 or 16 Right I mean I describe this to Griffin Off-mic as like an Allison Lohman situation Where If you put her in a baseball cap Like maybe if you squint Could still be a teenager But she's too old really

[00:40:34] She's got a very young face But she also doesn't look young She's just got the features Of a young person But she looks like her age And so I'm like I can't I just can't And maybe some people can't Watch the movie without thinking Like

[00:40:46] This is about a 25 year old Who lives with her 8 year old brother And is obsessed with Restoring NASA's dominance Right Like I just can't buy her as a kid Do you know the first two people They offered this part to Who Shilene Woodley Okay And Amelia Clark Okay

[00:41:07] All in the same age range Right I wonder why they didn't just go Hey maybe the main character Should be like 25 I mean clearly they wanted An experienced and talented actress Which is fine And someone This is a very demanding movie So they couldn't have an actual teenager

[00:41:20] They need a grown person But also is there a reason The character needs to be a teenager Uh No Right No Yeah That's my big question Right No There's nothing gained from her Being a teenager She could still be I mean like She's idealistic And I guess teens

[00:41:40] She could play 18, 19 And it would be the same story She could be college students She could be 22 Right She could be out of college But even 20 makes a big difference From like 16 or 17 I mean not that they say her age Never It's just that it's She's a teenager

[00:41:53] I'm pretty sure And you can tell she's trying to play younger Than she is Which I think she does a very good job She's a talented actress Yeah She's very expressive And this is one of those movies Where this is a deceptively difficult performance

[00:42:04] Because of how technical this film is Sure And also a lot of her characters Arc is demanding to know What's going on from everyone Which is a tough thing to be hampered But I also think a lot of these shots The way they're constructed

[00:42:17] She has to have like very precise blocking In order to hit certain marks Because of the way the CGI is interacting with her Like the Tic Yes The show you're on Yeah Does well in my opinion To make it a joke That you're not given information Well, disagree

[00:42:34] Not my kind of show Not a fan If you can land that And the Tic is good at it And I do think other things are good at it She's not quite Disagree Because you know what I'm talking about Where it's like Having what Tomorrowland is

[00:42:44] Which can be little less problem in general Which is a lot of circular conversations That just frustrate you He's so good at making things Making it feel like something amazing Is about to happen Right And then he strings you along too long And then when it happens

[00:42:58] It feels unbawling Right Whereas if you can make it a joke Where it's just the information Just bounces off of someone And it's funny Okay, then you landed it But this movie does not do that So you're saying this movie should Start a Griffin Newman type Yeah, exactly

[00:43:10] Okay, cool So KC A little girl with way too much Paprika on the sandwich Where she's like I want to go up there to the stars Like doing like the ultimate Like too much cute kid performance Right Yeah, for sure Right And then it cuts ahead to like

[00:43:29] Okay, her dad's an ass engineer But they're about to shut everything down Close it down They're dismantling it Why? Because we gave up We stopped looking at the stars And I guess this is Like interstellar We stopped looking at the stars

[00:43:40] You know, yeah, it has that sort of Interstellar vibe of like, you know And then this is the period where Even Obama's like Yeah The NASA The NASA budget's getting cut pretty hard At this point You know, so NASA's like

[00:43:50] It's like, what do you want to do, NASA? NASA's like I don't know Post-recession NASA was like Getting fucking Right Yeah, like should we Like, maybe satellite or something Yeah Like, you know, like that's all they got They're not like We're going to the moon The moon

[00:44:04] They make a big deal And people like Brad Bird Who grew up in the space age Are like, you know, man What's that was the good stuff? Like I was a kid and I watched Neil Armstrong land on the moon Like the space station's last orbit

[00:44:16] Was when they were filming this movie I totally am Yeah They're tapping into a real thing Wasn't that long that we sent The Mars rover So like, I understand We got all that shit We got a lot of unmanned probes Out there Yeah, sure Probin Yeah

[00:44:34] So we still have a space program There were two things that happened Simultaneously while they were Filming this film One is the space station Made its final orbit And it felt like that's the end of an era Right And two was they sent the Mars rover up Right

[00:44:49] So it was kind of like a baton off But it felt a little pessimistic At that moment Because before the rover landed It felt like, well now we don't really have Anything going on up there You know Okay It felt like that was kind of shoe leather

[00:45:03] But the dad's out of a job In case he keeps on trying to sneak in And dismantle the cranes that are gonna To take down the platform To take down the landing launch platform It's not a great plan She comes home, tells her brother

[00:45:18] Is really excited that now her dad's Gonna be able to go back to work Or at least have time off to work On his own stuff Yeah Rather than deconstructing And he's like, no, nothing changed In case it goes to school Negativity, negativity Famic, world, disease

[00:45:31] And now you're starting to get What Bird is doing Yeah, you see Bird Just grinding that axe Like that scene where the teacher's like The world will, you know, scrub Something over the board And she's like, what can we do about it And he's like, what?

[00:45:47] World plus now equals poo poo Disease And like anytime you see a TV Much like the village It's like tornado destroys country You know, it's always like some Contrary event or war thing There's another thing they cut out of this movie

[00:46:09] Was the notion that in addition to all this Like terrible stuff happening in the world Art is being stolen Like the largest series of art heists are Happening because Tomorrowland is collecting all Like the Mona Lisa has disappeared Right

[00:46:23] So this movie, and we have to talk about it As we have, you know In Atlas Shrugged The world's great thinkers and inventors Who are like too individualistic for You know, governments and society Go to this place called Grants Gulch Where they like have their own society

[00:46:40] And it's the subjectivist vision of like The strongest and the smartest and whatever Right, it's creepy That's what this movie is about Now it's about how that's bad It's a rebuke to that It is, but it is fascinating That after years of being criticized

[00:46:56] Is like incorporating a lot of this thinking Bird has made this movie that's like Trying to wrestle with exactly that idea But I think that's exactly what he was intending to do I want to make a movie explaining why that isn't what I believe in Right

[00:47:10] Why it looks close to that But it isn't Like that's what I love about this movie And that's why he's putting himself in He's like dividing his personality, I think Really strongly And you know The pessimistic side of him is being put into cloney Right

[00:47:25] All of the sort of like Man we just don't We're not, you know, try anymore And we're not optimistic about the future And the world's gonna end Done, it's over Nothing we can do about it Like art is being quenched Right

[00:47:37] And then the younger version of himself in Casey which is like Tilting at windmills Right, like you know It takes us believing in things to try And you have to make this effort Right And she knows how things work She knows how things work

[00:47:50] So Casey tries to go in again And do another fucking I don't know Who cares? I hate the fucking NASA thing Forget it Like I honestly I clearly like this movie a lot more than you do No, I actually really like this movie

[00:48:06] Although, but it bums me out It bums me out a lot And I think that's why Where maybe the movie Fails for me There are few films where I get more Frustrated by the fact that they aren't Great in recent memory than this one Agreed

[00:48:19] Like when I watch it I'm just like Why aren't you a fucking master piece But there are parts of this movie Where I'm just so into it And excited by it But I'd really dislike the first part Because I think it's one Confusing what she's doing Yeah

[00:48:29] Two makes her seem like a weirdo Yeah And I don't know Like it just feels like What she's doing is so obviously pointless Yeah, is it a justification though For why she's recruited? Like I don't even really understand that I guess Rafi sees that

[00:48:44] I mean whatever Athena sees That she's like refuses to give up on the world As has Athena Athena's like the one tomorrowland robot Who would not like close the doors You know what I mean Right, we finally see the recruitment robot That's supposed to look for those

[00:48:58] The dreamers Right And No Yes Yes Uh-huh Leap it out because I want people to guess what I said So I think What's interesting is These first three minutes are the stuff that was Most reshot and rewritten So I think it feels a little haphazard

[00:49:18] In terms of like putting two things together But I'm pretty much on board with this movie It's sloppy but at this point I'm pretty much on board with it I'm on board with it but a little bit in that Lindelofi way of like Well what's it about

[00:49:29] Where's it going? Yeah where is this going So she gets this pin The pin gives her these visions of tomorrowland Gotta get that pin Give me that pin Yeah And she's running around This stuff is great In tomorrowland it's very exciting And the vision of tomorrowland is cool

[00:49:42] And she Fucking Brad Bird is doing The monorail But on a much more complicated technical level He's kind of doing the Buster Keaton Sherlock Junior gag Where it's like the actor stays the same in the frame And their environment changes around them Yeah that's fun

[00:49:56] Which I fucking love And I love just the way the entire color palette changes In tomorrowland Yeah right Well right Casey's world is very bleak Right And gray And the police station is like all concrete It's like poured concrete Right Yeah

[00:50:12] And all of this stuff I think is fun Where like she's in the car And she touches the pin And she's like Yeah that's cool Realizing the rules of how this pin works But then finally gets out into a field

[00:50:21] Is able to do it for the full two minutes Before it runs out quote unquote Right Where she gets on the monorail but doesn't get to go on Right So in her pursuit of what's going on She goes to Kevin Smith's comic book store A secret sash

[00:50:35] Do you know the Silent Bob secret sash? No she goes to whatever It's a blaster in the past Is the name of the store Right A nostalgia zone Right Run by Keegan-Michael Key And Katherine Hunt The great Katherine Hunt Yeah the great Friend of the Shack Yeah Exactly

[00:50:51] The greatest celebrity couple you can imagine Right And they work at a Brad Bird memorabilia store Right At a 1950s memorabilia store We've talked about how limited The Iron Giant toys were At the time that the film came out Seemingly all of them ended up in this one

[00:51:07] Store Like the entire supply This is where rare Steven Spielberg went Just to buy all the background posterity player one Right Like he just went to that store I think they shot the entire movie in this one set Right Exactly What if ready player one

[00:51:21] When it comes out Isn't like state of the art Like mocap CGI But it's just Steven Spielberg's hands with toys Going like BOOM BOOM I'm the Iron Giant Look at me I'm Freddy Krueger Yeah that's what it is Did you see the new trailer? No how's it look

[00:51:38] Really? Yeah By the time this episode comes out We either loved it or hated it It will have been three months ago Yep So In a store with all the Iron Giant merchandise And Simpson merchandise And Mr Incredible merchandise They give this kind of spiel

[00:51:55] Right she tracks down I like this scene Through eBay No I know it's just they want her pin Give me that pin Give me that pin And when she provides the pin But she's there sleuthing No I know she's sleuthing I like journey movies Sure

[00:52:08] Where it's about the step by step Trying to figure out You know Solve the mystery kind of stuff And she's starting to get the information on them When she doesn't want to give them the pin They start Bottting out There are a couple of robo bots

[00:52:18] I like that I just like The reveal that someone's a robot I like the flickering of the eyes It's that bad They call them AAs Audio Amatronics Which is what Walt Disney called The Rubbits on the rides Sure Which I think is a nice touch

[00:52:32] Yeah they're chunky cheese bots Like the Hall of Presence robot Right That one that looks like John Voight Donald Trump You see that one that looks like John Voight Oh yeah Donald Trump Yeah They're sick looking That John Voight robot Kind of like Donald Trump Voight bot

[00:52:45] So Voight bot Okay So they start botting out And Casey's freaking out They got guns She thinks they're just role playing items But then boom Hold in the ceiling A gag I really like Cause then she's like How do I get out of this

[00:53:00] The bird falls down from the ceiling Which distracts them And then Athena comes in Then Athena comes in That's right And throws a time bomb Which Hello Love that Love that Yeah that's good That's such a cool design Yeah that's cool And Athena's like doing back flips

[00:53:16] And shooting She's got a little denim jacket She's like come with me Yeah Very terse little girl Her sped up movement Yes Throughout any of these Like kind of fight sequences Yeah Which she runs Yeah Are so good looking So good So she gets Casey out of there

[00:53:34] Destroys these robots They are they auto destruct Yeah And she Gets Casey Throws her into a car I know she's a little Ten year old girl Driving a car Yeah Delivering a lot of exposition Yes and I That scene I love half of it Which is

[00:53:51] A little robot driving a car Really calmly And talking about things calmly I don't love Britt Robertson Just yelling over And over again Like what is this How are you doing that What's going on You know But here's what I do love It's just like 20% to dialed up

[00:54:04] Here's what I do love And this is an ultimate Fan praise award I'm watching Like why does this feel so weird And it's like Oh right because it's a 10 minute stretch of the movie Where it's just two Female characters talking That's true

[00:54:16] Especially in a film of this size You don't see that True Like there's not like The one girl Who's getting everything Explained to her No you're right It's not a Taylor Sheridan movie Right Exactly So she starts kind of Vaguely doling out The information

[00:54:31] A little bit where it's like You have to come meet this person He built something He shouldn't have It's all this like Vague And we know Clooney's Their destination Because we're like Where's Clooney But they also don't want her To get to Tomorrowland yet

[00:54:43] So the movie now starts I feel like artificially Putting breaks A little bit On a story Yeah Because up until this point It's pretty much moving forward But you know Yeah but I'm fine with this Because I love The Clooney scene Like the whole I love the whole

[00:54:57] Escape from the barn Uh huh But I also just I love that the crux Of the movie is the The flicker on the World ending thing I do too Like that's when I get a little fired up And I'm like Oh I think I'm into

[00:55:12] What this movie is about And that's an hour in Right It Clooney answers Literally aside from the Opening Minute 55 Now here's where My fix really comes Into effect Here's my question though Why does Rafi Cassidy Apart from the fact That she just can't do All those stunts

[00:55:27] Why does she drop her off At the barn And just leave Thank you So this is where The movie I think starts Artificially Right Which this movie does not Need to stretch things out At all It's not like it needs To stall for time Because they kind of

[00:55:41] Make it like One moment She's like Robot on a mission Get the job done Nothing can stop her And the other moment She's Fucking Nick Fury In the Avengers movies Were just a little push I want them to get to With themselves Where there's no clear Advantage to

[00:55:56] Her leaving Casey figuring this out In her own So here's my fix I'm throwing it out here As part of this larger Story fix Get to Tomorrowland Minute 60 Rather than like Minute 90 Right So when Rafi Cassie's taking her In the car She takes her to Her house

[00:56:17] Where she has The doomsday clock That she's Pirating the signal off of She essentially is Frank in this whole section Sure I've been living here Off the grid I'm a robot They kicked me out Of Tomorrowland Yeah it's a good picture I have a chip on my Shoulder

[00:56:32] And I'm trying to Just a clever gag Yeah He's I mean that actor Matthew McCall Okay Love him Yeah I mean just his like face And his weird smile He's the weird robot Who's like hi Oh I'm here to Take care of this situation

[00:56:48] And they vaporize the cops Ding dong Oh jeez It's the other bell Weird Yeah The one that occasionally Rings I installed two doorbells You know we're Lux over here We have two doorbells I'm opening the door Great Music Oh Oh my Hello Hey You've brought an original

[00:57:08] Score with you That's right I always make an entrance I'm vapein bad He's For the listener at home This man is vaping Oh That is Really good Unicorn milk A unicorn milk That's the flavor Of this Awesome rig I got from Eliquid.com Oh I've heard of

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[01:01:55] I'm gonna make Actually Alright you know what I'll make a unicorn For you out of smoke It's prancing across the room Griffin is just stunned into silence Thank you for visiting us Vaping Ben Can we have regular Ben Back now? Perduer Ben Okay here he is

[01:02:20] What a guy I really think he's cool Yeah no He's up your alley This movie is violent by the way Super violent But it's robot violence Which is so smart But they do vaporize some people 100% The bad robots That creepy ass smile Bad robot

[01:02:43] Is this a DJ or what? Keep talking man But yeah it was really disconcerting And it was effective And I love all their heads popping off Or when they get punched And then they have like a weird Dent in their face The baseball bat head

[01:02:57] Where his whole face is like knocked in You have one minute to Just that smile It's so deranged This whole booby trap sequence Where they're like You keep on establishing new devices Like that weird portal thing I like the little laser grid That chops him into little bits

[01:03:12] Like in the hallway He too The magnets on the walls That's just fun man But he's stuck Because of the hand All this stuff I would have all this stuff happen With Athena But this Well for one I think they're desperate to get Cluny into the picture Obviously

[01:03:26] They need him there Two And so here that is And they just want him active You know They want him involved So ready for this Athena gets her through the house They get in the bathtub They go to the Eiffel Tower Right You do all this stuff

[01:03:40] But you cut the time It's just the sort of like Action of it Because you don't have to Have a lot of arguing You know Athena In case you're on the same point At this point In the story They're at the same

[01:03:51] Why am I not speaking for her Oh my god What's happening Yes we get it They get to tomorrow land And here comes George Cluny in his long coat Right Hi I was an optimistic kid once like you Right I took over tomorrow

[01:04:04] So you're saying the crux of the movie Is now turning him around Correct Rather than having him say to Hugh Laurie I've been turned around Yes By her Right And Laurie being like Well I mean I guess I could spend the next 25 minutes Explaining everything to you

[01:04:19] But I'm not going to be turned around Cluny was her He rose through the ranks No I get it I get it He invented the clock Right The clock's the movie anyway Right Yeah That he's able to look anywhere in the world At any point in time

[01:04:31] And is able to go forward So he sees when the world's going to end And at this point Tomorrow land freaks out They kick him out forever He's got a chip on his shoulder They kick a theme out as well Because she tries to defend him I guess

[01:04:43] And they just go Well let's just count out the days Whittle it down to a skeleton crew Steal the Mona Lisa Yeah Keep ourselves here But let's not maintain it at all Let's let it look really shitty Which is Doesn't really make sense Explained What is that

[01:04:58] Where do they live What do they do What do they eat How many people are there 80 I don't fucking know It drives me crazy All the explanation that Hugh Laurie does He never says like And now we live here And like Yeah we live over there

[01:05:11] And it's cool No one ages Do they have babies What is happening He mentions drinking his chocolate shake Which I guess keeps him immortal Or whatever It comes in chocolate now I think Minute 60 You get here You get to Clooney Clooney gives the one big speech

[01:05:26] Where he's like Look kid I was like you I believed in all this Let me show you the device There's 62 days left Right He shows her The monitor Congratulations You made it Join me here We'll wait out the rest of the time He shows her the monitor

[01:05:40] Which is this thing Which I like Again I like the design Yes I like the weird red ball Yeah me too And he's like Look see We look into the future And it's all Right 100% chance of destruction She's like I know that That's fatalistic And instead

[01:05:56] We can still do it And then it flickers Right And he's like Beautiful But then of course Here are some problems Beautiful then Here are some problems You don't have a villain So what's the rest of the movie You do have to deal with that

[01:06:08] You need some kind of Climax I think Rather than being a villain movie It is an obstacle movie Right That's fine But then I think Disney Is quaking a little bit But I mean I think they kind of mess it up And has a very weak villain

[01:06:23] Makes barely a villain I know Right But then So I'm getting my chance Yeah until he gives that one speech Right Right I'm getting to that But also you know The movie does have like Some set pieces at the end You know Which clearly it just sort of

[01:06:39] Feels like an easter Set pieces at the end Like robots fighting And it has the death of Athena You know But so maybe All that's harder to crowbar in I mean this would be the scarier thing To them is to kind of make Clooney the villain

[01:06:50] But you go like He shows him around Right And it's just like Look we're committed to this And she's like I got a solution And he's like Oh okay And he's humoring her Until Athena and Casey figure out Oh he's doing this on purpose Right

[01:07:04] Oh so you're saying He stays the villain I'm saying They ultimately have to convert him Yeah but if he's been doing it on purpose That's You can't come back from that It's too evil Well I think The other part of it is Yeah And I think

[01:07:18] This whole plotline Works better If he is the villain Okay I think you essentially make him Darth Vader Darth Vader fairly evil You let him have the redemption At the very end I'm saying What you're now proposing Is like a huge restructure Of the movie

[01:07:32] That would never happen But it's interesting to talk about It only changes from minute 55 on I know what you're saying It's just yeah Right But it's the same thing Where like the big thing That really crushes optimism Uh huh More than anything else Is that this robot girl

[01:07:47] Didn't love him back Right And he's very caught up on this Lolita thing Which is very bizarre Where it's like he had this formative relationship That he couldn't live out As a child Right But in the way that Lolita It's like set up that he couldn't get over

[01:08:00] That relationship when he was 13 Yeah I know You know And Athena represents like It's all really weird But Athena represents like The lost optimism Of believing that things are possible Right And he's this guy who went irate And started becoming fatalistic Because this robot girl

[01:08:16] Couldn't laugh at his jokes Can I say something? We actually should talk about what the movie Actually is about though Because now we're so deep in your pitch I agree Right Okay so let's get back on to that But I do think It's an interesting pit

[01:08:27] And I think that ending is more effective If it's Clooney going like I know what I have to do I have to blow up the robot girl And save humanity But why does he have to blow her up? Because she's the self-destruct That's able to Create enough damage

[01:08:39] To kill the antenna Yeah That's hard to buy That's what it is in the movie I know but it's hard to buy in the movie Because you're like It's fucking tomorrow and you're immortal You can't build a bomb? Like what are you talking about?

[01:08:49] They don't have enough time Yeah they don't have enough time I think symbolically that actually works Well so the movie's pitch Instead is here you have Clooney He was part of the Tomorrowland brain trust Now he's converted but he's still a grump He got kicked out because

[01:09:04] He wasn't as into their whole Wow the world's fucked anyway Let's just close all the doors But he is a grump Right As you might be If you got kicked out of paradise We have 20 minutes of them fighting They go through Here's how we get through the house

[01:09:18] The bathtub to the secret hut Where we take the powder and Bandage our eyes And then the Eiffel Tower Oh my god all of that I was like how many more Forms of transportation Are they gonna take Before they get to Tomorrowland? Why is this movie killing time?

[01:09:35] I don't know Keep it moving Like I think this stuff is fun But if it was happening faster It's when this is being intercut With arguments about whether or not What they're trying to do is futile Gets frustrating Or lean into it

[01:09:46] It would have been funny if they were like They get out of the pond Then they get on a train Then they're on a plane You know and then they're like I don't know on a blimp And then they get in a rocket ship

[01:09:56] But yeah there on a blimp But that's like I love it You do a six minute montage With all the steps Right And at this point Everyone should just be on board Of what they're doing Like they should be into it We're gonna fucking save the day

[01:10:08] They get to Tomorrowland At minute 90 In this movie Right Yeah And when they arrive He's always like Hey what's up What are you doing here Yeah And it's shitty It sucks It's empty Which you think if they want to live there forever They try to Right

[01:10:26] This is what doesn't I mean I mean they again Also I think Bird is saying that though Where it's like right You can't have paradise If it's just like Your chosen few You know And he also says like Well you know the grass And everything

[01:10:39] Like who needs that Was taking up time and energy It's like Milked all joy And wonder out of this environment Yes It sort of looks like the Javits Center now That's what it looks like The sight of one of the worst nights Of your life Oh yeah

[01:10:53] Let's not revisit that Yeah That's when Hillary lost And we live in a nightmare Yeah Right I mean he was right Let's be clear Yeah His little weird ball machine Was right The worst night of your life When you were at the Javits Center

[01:11:06] And then got a text from us saying Maybe we shouldn't record The man who knew too little Tomorrow Yeah Do you remember that night Where we were just like We can't fucking talk about this Movie tomorrow Yep Donald Trump is the president Yep It was just a sea

[01:11:22] People of color Women Just Alright wait I said that I thought he said We weren't revisiting it No I just Now he's in it Ben's got this thousand yard stare This is Ben's Athena robot This is the thing He can't get over So What Nick tells them is

[01:11:39] Right We've got this machine And it tells us the world is ending Right It's too late And After a little while Yeah The thing that Casey figures out Yeah That Frank has maybe been too close To figure out It's like It's not just that the machine

[01:11:54] Says the world is ending They've been broadcasting it Into all of our brains It becomes almost a positive thinking Sort of idea Of like If everyone thinks the world's Gonna end Then the world's gonna end Right It's fatal isn't Right And Hugh Laurie admits it Yeah

[01:12:10] And goes on this very specific rant Where he's like And instead of like Taking up action And going to their politicians They ate it up Going to their captains of industry They've turned it into video games And movies And like All this apocalyptic talk You know Right

[01:12:24] And so they're just resigned to it Right And one As you're listening to him talk You get really bummed out Yeah Because you think about this way Of the world Yeah And you're kind of like Yeah fuck I don't know Like that And I don't think that's Yeah

[01:12:39] Is go like Yeah fuck this guy He's an asshole Like yeah We just you know He's just encouraging negative thinking Right And that's not how I feel And here's what I want to say Yeah I talked to Lindelof About this movie Hummelbrack It was a Hummelbrack

[01:12:55] It was great It wasn't it's just a brag Sure I asked him about this movie And he said I will never do What happened on that movie again Which is What happened was It was a script and it got green lit right away

[01:13:08] Which had never happened to me before Usually that shit just takes a long time Yeah And instead they were like We love this and we're going to move on this now Obviously it took a while to make the fucking thing Sure And he said

[01:13:20] And it was a real problem because I had gotten a green light from HBO And the leftovers at the same basic time And so For the first time in my life I had these two really big projects running simultaneously And I was spread way too thin between them

[01:13:31] Yeah And he's like And he sort of implied Like that's what I think The leftovers is kind of a mess And why I think that movie is kind of a mess But another thing he's talked about extensively Is that he was in a really deep depressive funk

[01:13:43] When he wrote the leftover season one Which is like one of the bleakest seasons of TV ever made This movie isn't maybe quite as bleak But it still very It has a very fatalistic look At where we are as a society And I think Right

[01:13:58] Lindelof just needed to cheer up a little bit Before he wrote this optimistic movie Sure But I also I feel like not to keep on harping on this Oh God But He's harping on something I'm gonna harp Oh boy Marsha Lucas No, I think at this point

[01:14:13] I mean Marsha Lucas is her son's wife, Star Wars Yeah But I think at this point The thing that would make the movie feel cathartic Is if you were able to change that person's mind Rather than it turning into a fight To destroy the technology Sure

[01:14:29] Destroying the technology is just kind of like Okay well now it's just any third act In a moment I think if the guy in there Wasn't such a bummer If it was Clooney If you had the prologue where you knew I think your point is interesting

[01:14:42] It's a good pitch Because I think it should be about What I think this movie is trying to get at And maybe the only justification for Casey being that young Is that it's the gulf between When you were a child And you think anything is possible

[01:14:55] And when you're an adult And you come up against And you think nothing is possible Right Like really You think nothing is possible This is the way of the world You start a movie essentially with Two stories that seem the same A little boy in the 60s

[01:15:08] And a girl in the 2010s Your pitch is good Thank you Although I do think Disney would have Bulked at it obviously But yes your pitch is good But instead the movie's idea is No a mind was changed Athena's mind Sure In the 60s That's the movie's pitch

[01:15:25] Right That literally is it right She's like you may have sort of lost hope And they may have lost hope But you changed my mind And that's why I kept up my My mission Right In this incredibly long monologue She had the impact Right I don't know

[01:15:42] I just feel I feel like Casey and Frank are redundancies Like I feel like it has to be about One of the two of them I get your point You know what I'm saying But even them being united It's kind of like What's the key when they're united

[01:15:52] Once they team up with Frank though It's like They're cute What's Frank getting her that Athena wasn't Cute Yeah It's just so weird Like by the time Clooney enters You're like Oh right George Clooney He's the guy above the title on this movie

[01:16:05] It is a little surprising that George Clooney Is in this movie Like he doesn't Yeah He's not in it that much All considerate Once he's in it He's really in it the whole time Right Like I'm sure he worked hard In this movie Like you know

[01:16:17] It's not like And he's in a lot of set pieces Exactly Yeah I think For a more minor fix Like if you just had that Athena stuff Sing a little more And spread it out a little more Yeah Rather than when she's dying She's like Before I die

[01:16:32] I have to tell you something Talks for eight minutes You know what I mean Like then maybe it would hit a little harder But that's another like Lindelof thing where it's like Hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand And he's like Oh shit Here it is You know like

[01:16:45] He like hands you a briefcase full of papers You know You have to read this really fast Right I feel like it's equivalent to like When I would not write my school papers And I would be like Hey I had a printer problem But like I'm telling you

[01:16:56] This is my take And I would talk about how good that paper was And by the time I handed it in They were like This is not good enough to justify The fact that it's five weeks late You know And the Lindelof structure of like

[01:17:06] And there are a lot of things I love about Lindelof But this is certainly Everyone agrees That if he has a problem It is this He keeps on promising So much delayed satisfaction That by the point you get there You never feel fully satisfied

[01:17:20] Because your expectations have gotten Yeah he like So high Wait till you read my will That's so good You're gonna love my will Oh that's gonna blow your mind Right Like even if it's exactly What you wanted it to be At this point you've also spent hours

[01:17:33] Going like But it could be this or that Or that and to have it only be One thing is disappointing And there's a lot of this Like a character starts explaining something And then they're cut off And you wait 20 minutes For another character to pick it up Yep

[01:17:44] Which is frustrating I think that stuff I think it should have been more upfront With what Tomorrowland is How it's created all that sort of stuff I think it does need that Jurassic Park video What do you think about Athena's death scene

[01:17:55] In which George Clooney is asked to cry Over his lost love A 10 year old girl Finally admitting that she loves him back And he made her more human I think that scene would work If he was a bad guy Maybe I mean that's I think it actually

[01:18:08] Because then it's like He's a fucking guy who couldn't get over this Alright you've made your pitch My god I'm just talking about the scene I really admire the audacity Of the scene I think Athena's kind of good I do too Yeah We gotta talk about this

[01:18:22] And you're gonna hate it Uh oh We gotta talk about the captain Uh the captain Colin Traveron Oh we do We do I forgot that I called him the captain Alright Ben is leaving the studio I'm going to go pee Okay go pee

[01:18:35] We gotta talk about the captain Because this is where the captain Rises to power He's too good a filmmaker though He's too good Brad Bird has turned down Star Wars Right Candy Candy goes Is there no way you can do it Yeah He wouldn't come out until maybe

[01:18:52] Because this movie came out the same year As Force Awakening Right can you push it back This and that And he said I got half an idea Uh huh What if I was working on Tomorrowland And I had someone working as a surrogate

[01:19:03] To run through pre-production on Star Wars And then I came over to Star Wars And he was my surrogate On post-production on Tomorrowland Sure And for a week or two They attempt to do that Wow With a guy that Brad Bird says Reminds me of me

[01:19:19] At that age This is if I had to bet someone was the next Brad Bird It would be The captain himself calling for a room Even though I don't like Safety Knock Guaranteed You can see why a director like Brad Bird

[01:19:29] Or anyone who came up in the sort of Ampli-era Would look at that movie and be like Oh this guy's on the right track And he also When you read interviews with him We all like to shun on that movie now And I never liked it

[01:19:39] Plenty of people like the movie Yes 100% Right but you and I were right At the time and everyone else Of course we're smart And we're the smartest of them all And we're a big special boy It's actually insane how big Special and smart we are I'm 5'6 So

[01:19:54] I feel like he also Is really good at impersonating The kind of strong minded, hyper-passionate Filmmaker that Brad Bird is When he talks about film Yeah okay sure Yes yes yeah He's like good on a panel Right Or at least was

[01:20:09] I feel like people are sort of sick of his shit Right so they pretty quickly realize This isn't gonna work But Kathy Kendi is so impressed with this That she goes to her husband Frank Marshall Nudges him in bed And goes hey you know that new Jurassic

[01:20:19] Park movie you're looking for Well listen to this Uh huh And holds up the phone to Colin Traver Right She kept Brad Bird on the phone Through having sex with Frank Marshall Yes I mean I wouldn't say they're having sex They're making love You're good boy

[01:20:34] They're you know They've been together for decades at this point It's love more than sex Where was I gonna go with this? I have no idea There's a reason I had to invoke the captain You wanted to invoke the captain I don't know why You worked on Tomorrowland?

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[01:22:54] Yeah, well you were like David, we've gotta do it We've gotta talk about the captain We're talking about the captain But I mean, but surely you had a reason I did have a reason And now remember it Let's talk about something else Fucking idiot The embarrassment to society

[01:23:09] That's alright And we're back The movie's Finale set piece involves some robots fighting Yeah, oh I know exactly what I was gonna say Okay, here we go Here's the fundamental difference Between the captain and Brad Bird Sure Holland Trevorrow would come up with a scene like this

[01:23:27] George Clooney crying as he holds The robot ten year old before he uses her As a bomb to explode the device that he made That makes humanity want to kill themselves He would go, what's the most fucked up crazy thing

[01:23:39] That you wouldn't expect to see in a movie like this Yeah Brad Bird follows a plot to its logical end point Even if that end point is insane Sure And doesn't back down from it So on one hand it's not like this is a crazy left turn

[01:23:52] For the movie because the whole movie's been building up to it But you also go, jeez how did they design a movie That builds up to this Like how did he follow a movie to this end point And go like, yeah we shouldn't look at the beginning again

[01:24:04] This makes sense that this is how the film ends Uh huh But I do think Clooney, as I said before we start recording We've served these traffic cones pretty well as performer He's really This scene should be very uncomfortable

[01:24:16] It should be and he's really, yeah he's really invested in this scene And I think he saws that it's more about him saying goodbye to The resentment he's held onto since childhood Rather than literally a robot that he wants to fuck

[01:24:28] He's also an actor who is famously good at acting opposite children He did it for years on E.R. where he played a pediatrician He knows from child actors Suburbicon which is a movie I do not like Has a terrific kid performance in it Good kid bad part

[01:24:42] Uh yeah, I mean it's just like what I mean the kid is just on the Coen brothers part of the movie Which is the better part Sure And he's just a good kid Like he's just, he can turn on like the fear right away

[01:24:53] Like he's good, he's like a talented kid Good kid bad part Uh yeah I'm trying to think of, I don't think any of his other movies have kids in them That he directed, you know But uh Uh, Leatherhead babies? Have you ever seen Leatherhead babies?

[01:25:04] That was more of a series, I mean that's an animated series I don't know if he was directing the vocal performances Yeah maybe he was Leatherhead babies is fun So then they blow up the antenna Yes and then we get this lovely coda Of them being like

[01:25:18] Back at the, talking to the camera Right And being like so it's a year later and the world never ended And we are working on getting Tomorrowland And opening up to the people And they open the doors and they invite the great thinkers

[01:25:32] Or the, you see this fucking Benetton ad Of like every single like a cool guitarist I'm a fucking sap I'm sentimental as shit This thing works for me so hard This ending gives me fucking goosebumps It's good although I have questions Like can anyone come to Tomorrowland?

[01:25:49] Is it still a closed place? Like that's my only question They're giving They're opening the doors but they're still inviting people So is it like Is it still Grant's Gulch? I don't think it is Okay Because I think that's the fundamental difference in this

[01:26:03] What I've been trying to parse of how I think Brad Bird is misread Is that he believes in exceptionalism But exceptionalism set the exceptional people Can make things better for others It's Gulch, isn't it? It's not Grant's Gulch I haven't read Atlas Shrug It's Gulch's Gulch, sorry

[01:26:19] Because it's John Gulch Who is John Gulch? That's what Atlas Shrug is about I don't know who is John Gulch He's Christopher Paloa In those movies I think that's his delineation is Let exceptional people be exceptional So they can help the others The reason why he hates Nix

[01:26:37] Is that Nix thinks they haven't earned it They don't deserve it Absolutely They made their own bed And I think Brad Bird does believe If you have that kind of power Even if people don't know what's good for them It's on you to help them

[01:26:49] What do you think of Nix's death? I mean It's a very 90s action movie It's like, oh, Bollocks before he dies You know how you know this movie's expensive? It's very Eddie-Izard in The Avengers Not the Marvel one Yes You know how you know this movie's expensive?

[01:27:04] That they actually went to the Bahamas For that two second gag Where they fall through the portal Damn Like flew the entire Above the line crew And cast out to the Bahamas To do that two shots on the beach If that They shot in Vancouver, Florida

[01:27:20] And the Bahamas Okay But this ending You know Where I guess the idea is I think they want to make it a place Where everyone can come But I think they also want to just rebuild it First Sure Yeah Yeah, I mean they see her letting her family

[01:27:40] And Tim McGraw gets to come Right When you say Tim McGraw, you know You think family We have so many questions About what is happening with this movie Yes That it sort of makes me want to shut down Sure To do the Athena thing Yeah

[01:27:54] I'm like at a point where I'm just like I don't know I do think it's interesting how long An exposition of how heavy this movie is And how much it struggles to set up Some of its big concepts Yeah And it's also a movie about

[01:28:07] That's so heavily inspired by Epcot Yes Not the theme park But the planned city That Walt Disney Yes Was like I mean Can I talk about it for five minutes? Please Fucking nuts Like do you know about it? You know he buys all this land in Florida

[01:28:22] Through like dummy corporations He doesn't do it like regular Right You know it's like he sort of secretly designs This like planned community And what were those purchases? What was the name that those purchases Were made on there? The Florida project Thank you And

[01:28:36] Yeah, he works with Sean Baker And he's first He's going to do this movie about like No, whatever It's Fran Mooney Yeah exactly No and it's like In the last year of his life essentially Walt Disney's like theme park Theme park's right up in the corner Who cares?

[01:28:52] Yeah it's the money maker Theme city I'm going to build a city It's a circle The people live on the outside The roads are all underground There's monorails everywhere Everyone No one is allowed to own property Everyone rents I own the property

[01:29:06] Because then I can swap in and out stuff Like when the futuristic shit comes And no one can like You know like He's like building like a panopticon For everyone to live in And he's like And it's going to happen He dies of lung cancer And Disney's like

[01:29:21] Um Fox and the Hound Want to put that money into Fox and the Hound instead They're literally like We love Walt's vision And passion for the future We all love Walt's here So we decided to make Epcot Which is like a sort of

[01:29:36] Future-eat theme park with a big sphere Yeah And I do think it's funny That the evil machine in this Looks like that fucking sphere at Epcot Yes I don't know if that's intentional or not I don't know either But um

[01:29:47] That is like the notion this movie is fighting Is a sense of a future we lost Right? Because that was the 50s and 60s Or the point in time where there's a lot of sort of Gazing and going like What's it gonna be like? Yeah And people today

[01:30:02] You always hear the complain like Why did we get the future people said We were gonna have like 50, 60 years ago And you look around us In terms of technology We pretty much have it Everything we don't No jet packs though Which because you can't regulate that

[01:30:13] I've always said We're not gonna have flying cars And we're not gonna have jet packs Because that's a nightmare Sure But it's not that that technology doesn't exist Jet packs No one wants to open that Pandora's box Right? The thing we've missed out on

[01:30:24] Is that feeling of the utopian future Sure Not just having that technology But somehow that kind of leveling out Human civilization It's always been a lie Like it's a 100% Future that's bland and homogenous And it's a future that keeps Undesirable people out 100% Like so much of Disney's concept

[01:30:41] Of Epcot was like I hate how all the cities have slums My city won't have a slum Because it'll be illegal to have a slum Walt Disney, you know like I want to make the perfect city Jet packs Moving walkways Zero Jews It's the city of the future

[01:30:56] Really? 100% Which is like the difficult stuff This movie's dealing with There's no better example of that Where he was like Cars are disgusting You do need cars to bring in They're the Jews of the road You do need cars to bring in goods

[01:31:09] So it has to happen underground Where no one can see Like you know He just buries the things he doesn't want Like you know to spoil his perfect vision Of the future First of all, Cars Wow Mater Second of all Wow

[01:31:21] That is also how the theme parks run Where it's like The employees are going to walk in tunnels underground So we don't have to see them taking poops Right because it's a magic world And right exactly You should never think of this place as being run

[01:31:31] You can't see the strings But like there's no way for that to function Without creating an underclass That doesn't get any of the benefits Of this future world And right and that's what Epcot was going to be Is like well that's what the underclass can live Perfect

[01:31:42] Can't own it And the reason why this idea is so preposterous too Is that cities exist with an infrastructure That's already built And his idea is that lock it all down Redo it correctly Right exactly Like it's so impractical New York City listen

[01:32:00] Hey the subway system is ancient The design of a lot of the Manhattan and Brooklyn Doesn't make any sense Because it was made when people were Horse and buggies But that doesn't mean you can knock it all over And reset it

[01:32:14] That's why I think this movie has to be And it's sort of The conflict if you will Is not them defeating a villain It's an intellectual debate about what is possible Did you have some kind of pitch on how to change the movie? Yeah

[01:32:29] You make Ric flag the lead character I just think it's interesting that It's tapping into so much of what you're talking about The retrofuturism And that's it's squidgy stuff You know it's not easy to grapple with that stuff There's a hook there that is interesting

[01:32:43] And is also unique Which is why I think Disney greenlit it so fast Which is like what happened to the future of yesterday And why did we stop thinking that good things were going to happen And when it's singing I'm so into it And it is it

[01:32:55] Like a lot of the time Right but it kind of can't get out of its own way And it can't really untangle its own thoughts Right and it has this sort of like Reactionary streak that a lot of birds movies do Yeah That is Really interesting Yeah

[01:33:10] And he makes passionate arguments But then when you think about them you're like Wait wait a second Do I actually like think this is on the level Like I don't know Yeah I want the movie to be that debate though No for sure

[01:33:19] Like I don't want to have an answer I want it to be like And the ending should be very clearly KCA is opening the doors up to everyone Because the only way we're going to save the world Is if Here's a blank slate Here's a new city

[01:33:31] Let's lead with the people who are innovators Right Whether they be street musicians Or mailmen No that's the thing Elephant studyers My question is right We're not seeing the scene where they're like We don't have enough immortality shakes for everyone

[01:33:43] So I guess we have to decide who gets one Like you know like Is that happening? My pitch is Is that Not my pitch but my read What I want to believe they're doing at the end Because I don't want to be fatalistic about this ending That's fine

[01:33:55] Is that they're like We're going to go in waves We're going to start with guys studying elephants And then we'll move our way down the chart But I just think that montage of all the pins Just like gets me It's good It's a bit benettonic

[01:34:06] And it feels a little super bowl commercial too Where it's like At the end it ends up being a coke ad They all end up drinking Budweiser It does make you feel okay about humanity For like 30 seconds Yeah But that's sort of the weird thing about this movie

[01:34:17] Like he's very angry about the fact That people aren't happy Like it's an angry movie about Like why are you optimistic And it's like stop yelling at me And the whole movie's people getting grumpy About the fact that we're not positive

[01:34:30] And everyone in this movie is so fucking grumpy Yeah Even yeah Everyone's grumpy And the crazy is the original cut Casey was even grumpier And then they were like Oh she should be a little optimistic And it's like There's a fucking promise in your movie So Tomorrowland Yeah

[01:34:48] We're going to play the box office game I give it a gentleman's B plus Me too I like so much of what it's doing Me too I love it visually And it has some stunning sequences It's a great failure But I can't It's one of those great failures

[01:34:58] But I cannot Right every time I rewatch it This is I think Well maybe this is only my second viewing of it I think I'd call like half of it on HBO I'm like Right no no there are problems You know what I mean

[01:35:09] Cause you can sort of inflate it in your head And like I want to believe it just works It is A.O. Scott and his review was like This is the most frustrating kind of failure Because it is

[01:35:18] Yes A.O. Scott's review of this is really on point Yeah You should read it But it's just like This is really smart people With really interesting ideas At the top of their craft Who cannot make it connect And A.O. Scott is kind of

[01:35:30] Like he had written A very definitive review of Ratatouille I felt like helped people realize You know not film critic people But Brad Bird is a very serious artist Like a serious American artist Which for ever it was just like I feel like

[01:35:47] Even at the time of Ratatouille So the general public it was like That's Pixar Pixar is a machine It doesn't matter who's directing these things And he was trying to really like Start the Brad Bird Autor narrative Which also helped because he had one pre-pixar movie

[01:36:01] Which the other Pixar guys didn't have Mission possible is part of a bigger franchise And that's not like his script He doesn't have the same kind of stamp on it This felt like I think to us To like hardcore bird heads

[01:36:13] Like this is the chance for Brad Bird to show I'm a big serious filmmaker With like a fun piece of pop entertainment But something that is my story Live action you can't discount it And it's so frustrating to see him like Fucking strike out

[01:36:29] And then have to go back and do Incredibles 2 I hope Incredibles 2 is great I'm excited that Incredibles 2 exists I hope our next episode is the most positive one We've done yet And I hope he gets to do another live action movie After this

[01:36:41] We've done some pretty positive episodes in this movie series Because guess what Good filmmaker Thumbs up Alright this movie came out Memorial Day weekend 2015 May 22nd Yeah Four day weekend Tomorrowland opens to $42 million I think they said they wanted like 70 And anything below 50 was a disaster

[01:36:59] It cost like we said 200 It ends up grossing 93 Domestic 209 Worldwide Not good No good for that They lost $150 million Exactly They lost like half of that Essentially Yeah Number two Is a film that was a sequel And while the original movie had done well

[01:37:20] It was kind of one of those Austin Powers situations Where the second movie Pitch Perfect Down Exploded Right One of Two movies like Austin Powers That out grosses the original in its first weekend Which has made $125 million in two weeks Pitch Perfect 2 Yeah

[01:37:36] And three did okay I think across 100 But nothing like two Right Yeah I mean I can't blame them For going for three But it's also like Maybe this isn't a franchise Maybe you got really lucky on the timing With the second one Last Call Pitches Last Call Pitches

[01:37:52] They shouldn't release it Christmas That's my that's my They should release it on August Really dumb It was always a summer franchise Three Yeah It wasn't always a summer franchise The first one was in September No one talked about going No everybody

[01:38:03] I think he really fucked that up I think we should start over That was such a disaster That's also I'm gonna get a lot of heat on mine for that Saying Pitch Perfect was a summer franchise Ben No you know what

[01:38:12] Cause like I wasn't gonna call him on it I was like Like do you think the sponsors Are gonna like put up with this Kind of shotty content It's also it's a little hashtag problematic Kind of is I had backlash cultures so Rampant right now

[01:38:22] I don't want to be on Do you want to apologize Do you want to apologize Yeah okay so I'd like to formally apologize For saying to all my pitches I'd like to apologize for saying that Pitch Perfect was always a summer franchise

[01:38:32] In fact all three of them have come out In different seasons The first one came out in the fall Second one came out in the summer Yeah And the third film came out in the winter Last Call Pitches The third film Yeah number three at the box office

[01:38:46] Is One of the great movies of the year It's called Mad Max Fury Road That's right My favorite film of that year Which I think ended up kind of being What people thought Tomorrowland Was gonna be I think it's a Somewhat surprise success Hurts tomorrow 100% For sure

[01:39:03] But also it was That was the one where people were like We can't get our hopes up too high for that Right That's gonna disappoint in some way And then exceed all expectations And Tomorrowland were like Expectations cannot be high enough Brad Bird landed And he didn't

[01:39:15] Is he gonna do another Mad Max Cause there's all those Like there's all this like fighting There's a lawsuit over profit He's also an old man He said he wants to do another movie A smaller film before he does another Mad Max But also hasn't come anywhere close

[01:39:29] Seemingly to picking another film Yeah I hope he does it before we lose him I do think he'll do another one But it'll be like 10 years from now Just kind of like, you know It'll take him forever Right I mean that's also that movie

[01:39:41] As wonderful as it is Everyone involved was like Yeah that was the most Trying experience of my life Making that that was horrifying Like I hate everything about it I was certain the movie was gonna be bad I didn't like doing it

[01:39:52] And then I saw it and I was like Oh I guess that was all worth it Like all those months of toil Like in like And he said The desert in like Malawi or whatever I did a very bad job explaining Myself to other people

[01:40:04] Like I had the whole movie figured out And I couldn't figure out how to translate it Into words And then you see it And you're like oh great He had it all figured out Number four at the box office Is maybe the highest grosser Of 2015

[01:40:16] I will know though because they were Star Wars Furious seven Nope Highest grosser 27 I guess Furious 7 is above it too Avengers Age of Ultron That's right Okay It's about two robots debating the future of humanity And I mean it falls into the Tomorrowland category

[01:40:30] For me where it's like a movie Where I like all the ideas I enjoy watching tomorrow Some of the execution is bad I enjoy watching Tomorrowland more Interesting I haven't seen Age of Ultron in a while I rewatched it recently I think it's okay

[01:40:43] I think it's pretty good It's definitely interesting Number five Yeah Is a remake It's opening this weekend By the way All these movies made a ton of money Tomorrowland 42 Pitch Perfect 238 In its second weekend Mad Max Fury Road 31 In its second weekend Avengers 28 In its fourth weekend

[01:40:59] And this movie You were about to say it 26 in its opening weekend 26 in its opening weekend And this is a movie that doesn't exist Okay I don't remember it It probably stars an Oscar winner Considering it's a movie That's a movie that doesn't exist Okay

[01:41:10] I don't remember it It probably stars an Oscar winner Considering that we're recording this month's later Interesting Sure Like, even though this movie I think was seen as a bit of a flop And the title starts with Yeah Okay, what genre? It's a remake Horror

[01:41:27] What? I'm sorry, what? Horror It's a horror remake That's right Stars an Oscar winner I mean, I think he's an Oscar winner Now When this episode is released Oh, oh, oh, oh The film is called Pulture Guys Pulture Guys The remake that no one asked for

[01:41:46] Starring Sam Rockwell And also starring the boy who plays Young Me on the Tick Oh, really? Playing a character named Griffin Wow His mom was Could never get over that coincidence Wow Brought it up a lot A lot You know, he played Griffin and Pulture Guys

[01:42:02] Dude, the funny thing is I loved having that conversation with her Six times Number six is a movie We swore we were going to see and never did Oh, hot pursuit Yeah, you've got Number seven was the box office cessation of the ear Far from the Madden Crowd

[01:42:20] Number seven was just one of those Franchise films Far from the Madden Crowd Furious sevens up there If you want to get far from the Madden Crowd Avoid a theater playing that film Because they were running rampant That crowd was wild It was the Madden crowd

[01:42:33] They were madding Another film that's very tonally similar To Far from the Madden Crowd Paul Blark, Molokarp 2 There is one joke In the Paul Blark Molokarp 2 trailer That is so good What is it? That I sometimes rewatch the trailer And it still makes me laugh out loud

[01:42:51] Haven't seen the first one, won't see it Haven't seen the second one, won't see it Paul Blark's got his like legion He's united the five He's united the other Molokaps, right? Sure So like face off against I think it's Neil McDonough Is like the villain Uh-huh In two

[01:43:06] Uh-huh And he's like You're gonna stop me, you alone He's like, no, me and my army You know, he's got his like Molokaps behind him Uh-huh And he points back And one of the Molokaps is wearing a cape Uh-huh And he goes like

[01:43:18] Wait a second, is that guy wearing a cape? And Paul Blark goes Why are you wearing a cape? And he goes I was getting a haircut when you called Alright, that's pretty funny That's a good show That's pretty funny That's good He was so He answered the call

[01:43:32] So quickly He didn't take Just a mock up He ran out of a barbarian A million company points Yeah 50 cape points What else is in the top 10? Oh, well we already closed it We basically sell all the top 10 guys We close the book Uh, yeah That's it

[01:44:04] Merchandise spotlight Sure You could buy a toy of the The pins, certainly Well, no, but you could I saw an action figure for the little secret agent robot Yeah, right So I thought about before Jack something But there's the line of what they call reaction figures

[01:44:18] Which are like modern action figures that are meant to look like 70s Like Star Wars primitive action figures Great And they did a line of those There we go Which I thought was kind of clever Because it was sort of like Yeah

[01:44:31] Looking backwards and looking forwards at the same time Right But no one bought them I mean, no one wants an action figure of George Clooney We're wearing like a decent flannel Yeah, this is not like a film where people have dynamic like costumes No, the robot looks cool

[01:44:46] What do you think of the score? I like the score I love it I think it's Giaquina going having a lot of fun The end credits, sweet, I listen to a lot Oh, it's great He's doing exactly what Bird wants from him Yeah

[01:45:02] And I think he's sitting out of the park Yeah No, I love the score I think the score is one of the most successful elements of the movie I think the film is beautifully shot Yeah It's a great blue gray, I gotta say this

[01:45:11] You know, it's a movie It's like a bad object Like it's one of those movies that I understand What doesn't work about it But I find myself so drawn to it Even though I'm frustrated while watching it Yeah Okay I wish he knocked out of the park

[01:45:25] But I question whether it was totally possible Though I think my graphics are pretty smart Yeah, no, I think your graphics is interesting But I also get why they would be too afraid to do it But it's also like It's weird to get scared at that point Well

[01:45:39] This whole premise is so scary It is Well, that's what's crazy about this movie Right So that's our episode on Tomorrowland I think it was a good app I think it was too We're recording this in February I think I was just talking with Ben

[01:45:51] I know we have Incredibles 2 next week That's why I was gonna say that was my point Right now we're in February The trailer for Incredibles 2 The first one just came out Right And it's crazy to think That in the time you're listening to this

[01:46:02] We'll be geared up to see it I might have already gone to the press screen Ding! Your meal is done Open the oven Uh-huh Here's a film that's called Incredibles 2 Um, for sure Um, I just also think And I was talking with Ben about this

[01:46:17] I liked doing the Bigelow mini series a lot Yeah I liked doing the Um, Verhoeven mini series a lot Brooksie Brooks was great But more thinking of Bigelow and Verhoeven Especially Verhoeven You know those are movies where we can't just be like And that's great Awesome

[01:46:31] And we can't just think about things Yeah And tiptoe around some things Yeah And confront some things Yeah Redbird has a little of that But it is also just like, you know I like it when the robot's big It's nice to be loving stuff Mm-hmm

[01:46:43] And it's weird to think about I mean, not to wrap so far Because it's like, uh, you know We're recording this now Yeah, but we'll, right We'll have one more bird app Right Should we say, no We should wait for that one

[01:46:54] To say what our next mini series is Yes Yeah Yeah Cool There may not be a Palaklanser in between Sure Who knows what it is Uh, there may not be a Palaklanser in between Maybe that should be No Well, the way we have it structured

[01:47:09] They're probably, I guess we could do one We have a quasi-Palaklanser coming up soon Which is the Hotel Transylvania Episode we have inexplicably planned Blah, blah, blah, motherfuckers In which I'm going to have to watch Two of those And into a third in theaters Ah, I don't know

[01:47:26] Griffie right in my mouth Half of one Can I just maybe skip it? Maybe a Wikipedia Get ready to zing Get ready to zing And you'll get that once you'll have seen The Hotel Transylvania movies, blah, blah, blah Alright Should we Shoot him in the face

[01:47:41] You're gonna love them An optimism Look at the screen just pinged I started talking about the Hotel Transylvania The screen just flickered The lights all turned out 99% I'm rocking the light switch right now Alright We're done Thank you all for listening Tune in next week for the Incredibles 2

[01:48:01] I'm so excited That we'll actually get to see the Incredibles 2 Pumped A thing I thought might never happen Agreed I genuinely thought it would never happen Got to hang out with my old pal Violet Incredible Right Lover One of my favorite Friends One of my best friends

[01:48:16] Thank you for listening Please remember to Rate, review, subscribe Thanks to And For Gudo For our social media Thanks to Lean Monk Garmin For our theme song Thanks to Joe Bowen And Pat Reynolds For our artwork Go to BlankiesDirect.com Some real nerdy shit And as always

[01:48:33] Last call pictures Last call pictures We just have to double it Keep it in and double it