Latest / Houselights: A Film Director Podcast / Leviathan (1989) - George P. Cosmatos | Houselights #198

Transcript

Leviathan (1989) - George P. Cosmatos | Houselights #198 · Houselights: A Film Director Podcast

0:03
Speaker 1: Welcome to the ned Palty.
0:20
Speaker 2: Welcome back to House Lights, our director discussion show here
0:23
Speaker 2: on the Nerd Party Network. We're continuing in the House
0:26
Speaker 2: of Cosmotose as we discuss the nineteen eighties works of
0:29
Speaker 2: George P. Cosmotose. Today we dive down to Shack seven
0:34
Speaker 2: on the ocean floor in nineteen eighty nine's Levia Thin.
0:37
Speaker 2: I'm Darren Robomoser and I'm joined again tonight by my
0:41
Speaker 2: friend divers John six Pack Mills, Yes, you got the
0:45
Speaker 2: six pack, And unfortunately our other diver, Tristan Doc Riddell.
0:52
Speaker 2: There's something about his past. We don't really mention it,
0:54
Speaker 2: but we're just he's unable to join us. We'll say
0:59
Speaker 2: this take him out of contention.
1:00
Speaker 3: And usually I'm okay with being the a hole of
1:03
Speaker 3: the crew, but I never.
1:06
Speaker 2: Trust Doc made some bad choices six Pack.
1:10
Speaker 3: I don't know if I want to be six pack.
1:12
Speaker 3: This time, I gonna be honest with you. I'm even
1:14
Speaker 3: six Pack crossed a couple of lines and even I'm
1:17
Speaker 3: not comfortable with And trust me, kids, that's saying something like,
1:21
Speaker 3: you know, I don't like six pack too much.
1:24
Speaker 2: You know, Well, it's always fun to see Daniel Stern
1:27
Speaker 2: in a non home alone role as it's like, oh look, hey,
1:30
Speaker 2: look I know that guy. All right, well, you can
1:34
Speaker 2: give yourself whatever rock Jocken, you know, slaying Totin nickname
1:40
Speaker 2: that you want or in true fashion, has to be
1:42
Speaker 2: given to you by your teammates. But yes, but we
1:46
Speaker 2: are talking about Leviah than this one I've seen before
1:50
Speaker 2: because being a huge Rubble Coop fan, I was like,
1:53
Speaker 2: what a movie with Peter Weller in it? Sign me up?
1:56
Speaker 2: And was promptly then it's not Rubble Coop bye by far.
2:01
Speaker 2: It's not even Robert Coop two or three, the one
2:04
Speaker 2: oh with the kids.
2:06
Speaker 3: Yeah, wow, okay, and the jet pack and the jet
2:09
Speaker 3: pack that's what.
2:12
Speaker 2: The family one. Okay, that's it's fine.
2:15
Speaker 3: Not the cartoon. You don't think the robo cop cartoon.
2:19
Speaker 2: Get me started on the cartoon.
2:21
Speaker 3: John, there was it? Cannon is the big question.
2:23
Speaker 2: All I'm gonna say about the cartoon is there's a
2:26
Speaker 2: scene where he deploys like a life raft from his belt.
2:31
Speaker 2: His partner's sitting there, and then his bicep literally opens
2:35
Speaker 2: up and a Martini slides out like Inspector Gadget style.
2:39
Speaker 2: It's so bad. I don't know how you make that.
2:42
Speaker 3: But I think you and I have different definitions of bad,
2:45
Speaker 3: so I'm curious so bad it's good? Well, okay, there
2:48
Speaker 3: you go, because I was gonna say, with the different
2:50
Speaker 3: definitions of bad, it'll be interesting to see how this
2:52
Speaker 3: conversation goes. No to tip my hand on the final
2:56
Speaker 3: rating on that one.
2:57
Speaker 2: Well, John, let me start not by asking you when
3:01
Speaker 2: you first saw Leviathan, but when did you first watch
3:04
Speaker 2: this movie called nineteen age? Who's the thing? Because it's
3:07
Speaker 2: gonna rely heavily on our discussion.
3:10
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's it's pretty similar. It's pretty similar. I
3:14
Speaker 3: gotta be honest. It's it feels like a straight ripoff
3:17
Speaker 3: in a lot of ways, like just straight up ripoff,
3:21
Speaker 3: but without the fever dream intense creativity of John Carpenter
3:28
Speaker 3: during tension most active phase. Yeah yeah, yeah, score, tension, editing, lighting,
3:35
Speaker 3: you know, a whole bunch of stuff. But like, but
3:38
Speaker 3: the thing is like it's written by two people who
3:42
Speaker 3: have like just an absolutely incredible filmography of scriptwriting, David
3:47
Speaker 3: Webb Peoples and Jeb Stewart. Okay, like Jeb Stewart wrote
3:51
Speaker 3: Die Hard, right and Legitive, those are two pretty good movies.
3:56
Speaker 2: Blade Run Unforgiven, twelve Monkeys.
3:58
Speaker 3: Oh my gos right, yeah, yeah, David web Peoples, Yeah,
4:01
Speaker 3: Blade Run Around Forgiving twelve Monkeys. You know, people took
4:05
Speaker 3: notice of those movies. They know the guy, so you
4:08
Speaker 3: take those two people like I look at this movie,
4:12
Speaker 3: and I.
4:13
Speaker 2: Mean Stan Winston score by Jerry Goldsmith, it's hit, it's
4:18
Speaker 2: checking all the boxes John, But I don't.
4:22
Speaker 3: I don't like it's this is a fascinating movie on
4:25
Speaker 3: so many levels because I'm expecting a script that really sings,
4:30
Speaker 3: and this final product, I gotta ask you, okay, we
4:34
Speaker 3: like with those writers, do you see anything in this
4:38
Speaker 3: that says from the you know, the Oscar nominated writer
4:42
Speaker 3: David web Peoples and the you know, the guy who
4:46
Speaker 3: wrote Diehard in the Fugitive, Like, in all seriousness, is
4:51
Speaker 3: there anything about this where you look at it and
4:53
Speaker 3: you're like, yeah, that source material really seems super strong,
4:57
Speaker 3: that really seems like a movie that's you know, No.
4:59
Speaker 2: I can't. I mean, I think it's the reason I
5:03
Speaker 2: asked you when you saw the thing, because it is
5:06
Speaker 2: so carbon copy. It is to the fact that when
5:10
Speaker 2: the creature took the blood, I'm like, why because in
5:14
Speaker 2: the thing they took the blood because there's literally no
5:16
Speaker 2: reason for that at all, and I don't feel threatened
5:21
Speaker 2: by that, Like, yeah, they're at the bottom of the ocean,
5:24
Speaker 2: but they're kind of like within escape range versus in Antarctica,
5:29
Speaker 2: and if you run out of your blood, Sally, you're screwed.
5:33
Speaker 2: So it just it's like someone watched the thing and
5:38
Speaker 2: didn't take note of all the things that actually made
5:43
Speaker 2: it good. That the tension, like like one of the
5:48
Speaker 2: biggest thing about the thing is who is the thing
5:53
Speaker 2: that that is literally the whole point of It's like
5:55
Speaker 2: they're hiding in plain sight, whereas in this one, anytime
5:59
Speaker 2: someone get bit or I just write them off. I
6:02
Speaker 2: mean when you know, when uh, you know, Hector, when
6:06
Speaker 2: Hector Alonso got scratched, I'm like, well, that's knowing you, buddy,
6:10
Speaker 2: because you're you're dead. I know you're dead. It's just
6:13
Speaker 2: a matter of time.
6:15
Speaker 3: But I will give them credit that, you know, in
6:18
Speaker 3: terms of because this is a director focused podcast, at
6:22
Speaker 3: least they had the raw materials to assemble things in
6:26
Speaker 3: the correct order so that he looked progressively worse as
6:29
Speaker 3: time went on, so they there's at least there's a
6:33
Speaker 3: semblance of thought behind that. There's not a continuity gap
6:36
Speaker 3: on that. So you have a director who's conscious of
6:40
Speaker 3: those sorts of things and saying, Okay, in this scene,
6:42
Speaker 3: you have to look this way because this scene occurs
6:45
Speaker 3: after that scene, but before this scene. And I know
6:48
Speaker 3: that seems like a really stupid sort of thing to
6:51
Speaker 3: point out, but in all honesty, you know, I think
6:56
Speaker 3: what we're coming to a conclusion with because is and
7:01
Speaker 3: we've openly acknowledged this since First Blood Part two, is
7:05
Speaker 3: he's a manager. He is, as I've said, which everybody
7:10
Speaker 3: took as a sort of insult before, but I meant
7:13
Speaker 3: as a compliment. A director is essentially a program a
7:16
Speaker 3: project manager. He's ors she is on set and they say, Okay,
7:23
Speaker 3: I know what this is, I know what this is,
7:25
Speaker 3: I know where this needs to fit in. I need
7:28
Speaker 3: you to set up this shot, and I need to
7:30
Speaker 3: know that you get this thing. Conversely, and I want
7:34
Speaker 3: to ask you this, like, do you think that what
7:37
Speaker 3: we've seen here with these three movies is Cousmatos is
7:41
Speaker 3: a director who doesn't have on set inspiration. He shows
7:46
Speaker 3: up just like a program manager, and he's not being
7:50
Speaker 3: an artist about it. He's saying, I need X, Y,
7:53
Speaker 3: and Z, and that's precisely what you're going to give me.
7:56
Speaker 3: And then we're done for the day and I'm going
7:58
Speaker 3: to go and I'm going to drink some wine and
8:00
Speaker 3: go to sleep.
8:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like the difference between formulation and inspiration, like
8:05
Speaker 2: he yeah, And you know, to the positive, I like
8:09
Speaker 2: what you said because he it does establish rules and
8:14
Speaker 2: stick to them. And I've said that many times and
8:16
Speaker 2: many other movies when they don't do that, I really
8:19
Speaker 2: hate it when it's like, oh, yeah, but gravity doesn't
8:22
Speaker 2: really matter in this scene, but it's like, no, that's
8:25
Speaker 2: you're on a spaceship that literally is a key player
8:27
Speaker 2: of the story, or to that effect. So, uh, you
8:32
Speaker 2: know we're gonna overlook decompression because you know, we hand
8:35
Speaker 2: way of it away. It's twenty forty seven, I think,
8:37
Speaker 2: is when this is set. So is it twenty forty
8:39
Speaker 2: seven or is there twenty twenty twenty seven? You're right,
8:41
Speaker 2: we're almost caught it to it is.
8:43
Speaker 3: Okay. Well, I'm glad you say that because I have
8:46
Speaker 3: to ask. I found that out when I did the
8:49
Speaker 3: research on it. It is nothing in this movie.
8:52
Speaker 2: No, No, there's nothing in the movie. Yeah, I read
8:54
Speaker 2: it too. I didn't see it.
8:55
Speaker 3: The hell did they expect me to pick up that
8:57
Speaker 3: it was twenty twenty seven.
8:58
Speaker 2: I barely picked up that off the coast of Florida
9:01
Speaker 2: that I almost didn't know where. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I knew.
9:06
Speaker 3: There was a storm, but off the Oh, come on,
9:09
Speaker 3: like in all seriousness, as that's just nuts. I don't
9:14
Speaker 3: know my sense of place and I don't know. And
9:16
Speaker 3: the thing is, those are things you can fix in post.
9:20
Speaker 3: Those are things that you can literally fix in post
9:22
Speaker 3: and say, oh, we should have an ADR line here
9:25
Speaker 3: where we say, oh, it sucks being down here in
9:27
Speaker 3: the waters under Florida. We never hit these sorts of
9:29
Speaker 3: storm problems off the coast of You know what.
9:32
Speaker 2: A line I think there is about Florida. But I
9:37
Speaker 2: am not shocked that it, you know, was missed.
9:40
Speaker 3: They'll put it down. Yeah, I will completely u cop
9:45
Speaker 3: to the fact that I had trouble paying attention through
9:47
Speaker 3: the entire movie because I I wasn't very vested in
9:53
Speaker 3: these characters.
9:54
Speaker 2: Yeah. So when we had chatted before, you had said
10:00
Speaker 2: that obviously there are parallels to the thing, but you
10:03
Speaker 2: also mentioned alien as a lot of parallels and The
10:06
Speaker 2: Working Man the Union. Do you feel like Leviathan hit
10:12
Speaker 2: the mark like Alien did? Or was it like, you know,
10:17
Speaker 2: a season one episode of a TV show where the
10:21
Speaker 2: characters haven't quite fit in the groove yet, and it's
10:26
Speaker 2: like the first you know what you know that vibe
10:28
Speaker 2: you get?
10:28
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, oh yeah, I know exactly what you're saying.
10:31
Speaker 3: And I love the way you're putting it, because that
10:33
Speaker 3: is a very That's a great way to put it.
10:36
Speaker 3: I like the way that you put that. I would
10:39
Speaker 3: insult it even another step further by saying that the
10:44
Speaker 3: vibe I cut really was back in the early days
10:48
Speaker 3: when camcorders were a new thing and my friends and
10:52
Speaker 3: I would make our own versions of movies. Oh that's
10:56
Speaker 3: really where I see these characters. Okay, it's like oh no,
10:58
Speaker 3: wait no, yeah, yeah, I'm gonna be that guy, but like,
11:01
Speaker 3: oh no, but uh, in this scene, I'm gonna seriously
11:06
Speaker 3: sexually harass another member of the crew, and and and
11:09
Speaker 3: nobody's gonna get that. We didn't have any girls making
11:12
Speaker 3: the movies with us at the time, so it would
11:14
Speaker 3: have been, you know, tough to pull that one off
11:16
Speaker 3: with that particular group of friends. But you know, yeah,
11:21
Speaker 3: there you go, like seriously, like these characters feel so
11:26
Speaker 3: slap dash that I, you know, I struggle to think
11:33
Speaker 3: of what could have been done to save them, because
11:36
Speaker 3: obviously these these actors are performing what's on the page.
11:42
Speaker 2: Right, They're doing with what they're given, and they're not
11:45
Speaker 2: given much.
11:47
Speaker 3: But do you think that's a condemnation of Kuzmato's because
11:51
Speaker 3: he's just making sure the lines are being spoken and
11:54
Speaker 3: not doing the on set rewrites that movies are so
11:58
Speaker 3: famous for.
11:59
Speaker 2: No, And I mean he didn't write it. Obviously, there's
12:04
Speaker 2: an intent in direction of how you know, we've all
12:08
Speaker 2: seen scenes written or scenes acted in different ways based
12:13
Speaker 2: on the direction, and so obviously there's a there's a factor.
12:15
Speaker 2: So yeah, I don't want to. I think it comes
12:20
Speaker 2: down to what you said about Cosmetose being a manager
12:26
Speaker 2: and like here, you know, insert it sounds really mean.
12:30
Speaker 2: I don't mean it as mean as it's sounding, but
12:32
Speaker 2: it's like, you know, insert script output movie. You know,
12:35
Speaker 2: it's okay, here's the movie, here's the script, here's the characters,
12:39
Speaker 2: and he can do it, and he can and and
12:42
Speaker 2: you're gonna get your minimum viable product. But you know,
12:47
Speaker 2: like we've seen all of these actors in other things
12:53
Speaker 2: pull magic out of the air. And I've seen Peter
12:57
Speaker 2: Weller act more with between his nose and his mouth
13:03
Speaker 2: than he did with his whole face in this movie.
13:07
Speaker 2: And we and we kind of started to get there.
13:10
Speaker 2: Like I liked where he kind of suited up and
13:13
Speaker 2: helped his crew out in the later act, Like that
13:16
Speaker 2: was kind of as that little character development. But yeah,
13:19
Speaker 2: besides that, really all the other you know, characters, they
13:25
Speaker 2: just were just on the page. Nothing breathed, breathed any
13:30
Speaker 2: life into them.
13:32
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know. And the thing is even inserting the
13:36
Speaker 3: moments where they're communicating with the surface and bringing in
13:42
Speaker 3: that actress who so obviously I mean therefore I well, no,
13:47
Speaker 3: but like the piercing blue eyes corporate head, Oh that
13:53
Speaker 3: we see her, Yeah, you only see her on screen.
13:57
Speaker 3: I gotta ask you, technologically, do you think that it's
14:00
Speaker 3: I didn't see this in years past. I can't possibly
14:05
Speaker 3: be the only person watching that scene and saying he's
14:08
Speaker 3: staring at the screen, where the hell is the camera
14:12
Speaker 3: is the camera behind the screen.
14:13
Speaker 2: He didn't even think about that for two seconds. And
14:16
Speaker 2: the fact that there we never we never saw a
14:20
Speaker 2: reverse shot or we're in her office and he's on
14:22
Speaker 2: the monitor like we ever saw that, so I don't
14:25
Speaker 2: know what she's looking at, like a wide shot of
14:27
Speaker 2: the room. But now you're you're asking the good questions,
14:31
Speaker 2: which means they shouldn't.
14:32
Speaker 3: Be asked, John right, And it's it's one of those
14:36
Speaker 3: things where those those transmissions like interrupt the flow of
14:40
Speaker 3: the story such as it is, and it's I don't know,
14:44
Speaker 3: I don't know, like what do they add? What does
14:47
Speaker 3: it add when somebody just like pops in suddenly and
14:50
Speaker 3: they're just there and it's like, you know, like what
14:54
Speaker 3: purpose does that serve. It's almost as if somebody just
14:58
Speaker 3: calls in in the middle of something and oh, oh, oh,
15:04
Speaker 3: hey look at that.
15:05
Speaker 2: Oh there you go. Hey, hey, Drsted. I totally I
15:09
Speaker 2: thought you were dead. I literally thought you were dead.
15:13
Speaker 4: I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. For some reason, I
15:15
Speaker 4: don't know why. It took you guys only like ten
15:18
Speaker 4: seconds to go two miles up. It took me a
15:21
Speaker 4: lot longer to go two miles to the.
15:24
Speaker 2: Did your screen have the little your suit have the
15:27
Speaker 2: flashing handling decompression light because mine did, and I was fine.
15:33
Speaker 4: Skull and crossballs for some reason it was screwed.
15:36
Speaker 2: I'm sorry.
15:37
Speaker 3: See, that's just that's something we got to have to
15:38
Speaker 3: We have to discuss that with uy Ux team. We
15:41
Speaker 3: don't think that that works anymore. That's not necessarily a
15:43
Speaker 3: good thing that you want to show somebody while like.
15:47
Speaker 4: If you want to keep somebody calm, sculling cross bo
15:51
Speaker 4: means alive and kicking.
15:52
Speaker 2: It's all good, guys.
15:54
Speaker 4: No, it's kind of like in gravity when he says,
15:56
Speaker 4: he's like, listen, you're sipping wine, you're not gulping beer.
15:59
Speaker 4: If you want that to happen, don't put the skull
16:02
Speaker 4: and cross.
16:04
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, you know it's it's putting. It's putting a
16:07
Speaker 3: sign up there that says panic, and then in really
16:09
Speaker 3: tiny letters above it, don't.
16:12
Speaker 2: If this light turns off, what what do you say? Right?
16:19
Speaker 3: All right, So here we go. Here's the here's the hero,
16:21
Speaker 3: Tristan Riddell riding in to save us, even though we
16:24
Speaker 3: launched the bubbles already.
16:26
Speaker 2: I don't know how he got in here.
16:27
Speaker 4: But that's all right, right, No, I mean, I mean,
16:30
Speaker 4: all of a sudden, we're surrounded by sharks, and then
16:34
Speaker 4: we're surrounded by the bad guy, and then I'm the
16:38
Speaker 4: anti Ernie Hudson here. Okay.
16:40
Speaker 2: I thought he was gonna make it, guys, I really did.
16:43
Speaker 2: He made it.
16:45
Speaker 3: So mean, it's so unnecessary. I was actually as much
16:50
Speaker 3: as I was disinvested. Is that a word?
16:53
Speaker 2: It is?
16:53
Speaker 3: Not invested in? Yeah, I just got to use it
16:56
Speaker 3: in two other sources for five years, so much as
16:59
Speaker 3: I would not invested in the movie. When they did
17:02
Speaker 3: Ernie Hudson Dirty at the end like that, I was
17:05
Speaker 3: actually pissed. I was actually angry because I was like, oh,
17:09
Speaker 3: you gotta be kidding me, Like you can't do like
17:12
Speaker 3: he's even on the water, come on, like he had
17:15
Speaker 3: his character growth.
17:16
Speaker 2: I remember the whole time he's like I hate waves
17:18
Speaker 2: and then at the end he's like, forget it, I
17:20
Speaker 2: love waves. Just get me out of here. Yeah.
17:23
Speaker 4: And he even had that nice moment with like you
17:26
Speaker 4: know when he when he brought the puzzle back to Dehusush.
17:29
Speaker 2: He held the door. He's the stand up guy, he apologized.
17:35
Speaker 4: I think when when the shark showed up, that's when
17:37
Speaker 4: I was just like, okay, all right, nothing matters.
17:43
Speaker 2: You've made it through a lot of the movie before
17:45
Speaker 2: you hit nothing matters.
17:47
Speaker 4: I did actually I made it through a while before
17:49
Speaker 4: I hit nothing matters. What's actually funny is that we
17:52
Speaker 4: get to the ascensions, Like I got to the ascension
17:54
Speaker 4: scene with what's her name and not now.
18:01
Speaker 3: It's Willie Willie Willy when Elizabeth Willie williams yes.
18:05
Speaker 4: Yeah, when when Willy goes up like I actually my
18:08
Speaker 4: wife comes in and says like, hey, we got to
18:10
Speaker 4: go pick up my eldest. I was like, oh, okay,
18:13
Speaker 4: this is I mean, I'm sure I'm like two seconds
18:15
Speaker 4: away from the credits rolling anyway, and so I turned
18:18
Speaker 4: it off and then I was like, I'll just watch
18:21
Speaker 4: it later, and then I turn it back on, thinking
18:23
Speaker 4: I'm just going to see like Peter Weller pop up
18:25
Speaker 4: and Ernie Hudson in there, they're all hugging, and then
18:27
Speaker 4: they'll get picked up and then credits will roll. I
18:29
Speaker 4: had no idea I was gonna get sharks. I know
18:35
Speaker 4: I was going to get Peter Weller, then sharks, then
18:39
Speaker 4: the helicopter on the water, like they don't on the water, yeah,
18:44
Speaker 4: like they don't, and then and then the monster and
18:49
Speaker 4: a grenade, Ernie Hudson dying. Then they get onto the helicopter.
18:53
Speaker 4: They get to a rig he punches Meg Foster a
18:57
Speaker 4: woman square in the jaw than the credits role.
19:01
Speaker 2: Yep, yep.
19:02
Speaker 4: There was a lot to pack in.
19:03
Speaker 2: There was a lot.
19:05
Speaker 3: It's like a short film in and of itself. It's
19:07
Speaker 3: like it's like an epilogue. It's sort of like everything
19:11
Speaker 3: that came before then was the movie, and then at
19:13
Speaker 3: the end it was like, oh, ps, this happened too.
19:18
Speaker 3: You're like, oh, that was that feels like that could
19:21
Speaker 3: have been more.
19:22
Speaker 4: This was like a Marvel's after credits scene.
19:25
Speaker 2: No, yeah, the ending.
19:27
Speaker 4: Maybe a bit more than that.
19:28
Speaker 2: Actually, no, no, that's giving Yeah, it's yeah, not as
19:32
Speaker 2: good as marvel after credit we'll give it that, so
19:35
Speaker 2: also true. All right, Well, circling back to to you, Tristan.
19:39
Speaker 2: You know, this was the first time that John had
19:42
Speaker 2: watched this, and I believe you've seen it as well,
19:46
Speaker 2: but more importantly, you've seen the thing, right.
19:49
Speaker 4: No, no, I have not seen this before. I've never
19:51
Speaker 4: seen this before.
19:52
Speaker 2: No, no, but I'm saying you, but you have seen the thing.
19:55
Speaker 4: I saw the beginning of the thing. I pretty much know. Okay, okay,
20:00
Speaker 4: most of it. It's been spoiled over all these decades,
20:03
Speaker 4: So like I owe Darren money.
20:05
Speaker 3: I owe Darren money because I he said, I.
20:09
Speaker 2: Said, I didn't think you're seeing it. I don't think
20:11
Speaker 2: you have seen the thing.
20:12
Speaker 3: And my response was, Oh, come on, everybody's seen the thing,
20:15
Speaker 3: so I stand corrected.
20:19
Speaker 2: Seven years ago.
20:20
Speaker 4: I think I started it, like and I started it
20:23
Speaker 4: and we're like, this is disgusting, and we turned it off.
20:27
Speaker 2: All right. Well, if you see the thing, or even
20:31
Speaker 2: moments of it, it heavily influences this movie, like.
20:36
Speaker 4: Dear God, so this is alien meets the Thing with
20:40
Speaker 4: a sprinkle of abyss.
20:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's a that is the elevator pitch. You
20:46
Speaker 2: just gave us the elevator pitch for this movie because
20:49
Speaker 2: it is so blatant and so where the thing. I
20:54
Speaker 2: know you haven't seen most of it, but horror in
20:57
Speaker 2: general creating a sense of tension. Did you have any
21:02
Speaker 2: tension in this movie at all for any of these characters?
21:07
Speaker 4: No, because we it's I clocked it and we didn't
21:14
Speaker 4: have our first monster kill until the hour mark in
21:17
Speaker 4: a ninety minute movie. True, and so by the time
21:21
Speaker 4: you get to the monster kill, you want somebody to die.
21:26
Speaker 4: Like also true. I think that's the problem is like,
21:30
Speaker 4: please take somebody.
21:31
Speaker 2: We know the.
21:34
Speaker 4: We know the hr problem that is six pack was
21:38
Speaker 4: going to die first. We all knew that was going
21:39
Speaker 4: to happen.
21:41
Speaker 3: Okay, Look, and I also want to say that even
21:45
Speaker 3: though you know, discussions about about different things and everything
21:49
Speaker 3: can be fraught, even back then, six packs is actions
21:55
Speaker 3: I don't understand, like like he would have been kicked
21:58
Speaker 3: out of every.
21:59
Speaker 4: This was nineteen eighty nine, not nineteen fifty nine.
22:03
Speaker 3: Yeah right, okay, yes, exactly.
22:05
Speaker 2: Yeah. How did they put up with six pack?
22:07
Speaker 4: That is the question, right, I mean I would have
22:11
Speaker 4: believed it if like Willie or or or Bowman murdered
22:16
Speaker 4: him right before he got sick.
22:19
Speaker 2: Oh no, accidentally sabotaged your suit and you imploded into
22:22
Speaker 2: your helmet. It looks cool, like I think we would
22:25
Speaker 2: all have been fine with that.
22:27
Speaker 3: But but we we were talking about like you know,
22:30
Speaker 3: the script is David Webb, Peoples and Jeb Stewart. You
22:33
Speaker 3: expect more. And it's like it would have been so
22:36
Speaker 3: easy to insert something where somebody says, why is he's
22:41
Speaker 3: still here and somebody's like, he's one of two people
22:44
Speaker 3: who can do right.
22:46
Speaker 2: He's the nephew of Blue Eye Lady or something he's got.
22:50
Speaker 4: Family, Yeah, like nepotism or specialty, something.
22:55
Speaker 3: Something so incredibly unique, right that he's untouchable and he
23:00
Speaker 3: abuses that privilege like a you know, the only programmer
23:04
Speaker 3: who can keep your network running or something like that.
23:09
Speaker 2: Where they're like it was something like, well, he worked
23:12
Speaker 2: his way through shacks one through six and now it's
23:14
Speaker 2: shacks Tevin's turn. Like that would be hilarious. You know,
23:17
Speaker 2: it's like, oh my gosh, this guy's getting bounced around
23:20
Speaker 2: and it's hard because they're they're going for that alien
23:24
Speaker 2: worker trucker diver motiva they are.
23:29
Speaker 3: I know, I know it's subtle, but it's but the
23:32
Speaker 3: it's not subtle at all.
23:34
Speaker 2: But the problem is us as humans know you're on
23:38
Speaker 2: the bottom of the ocean. That takes a certain competency
23:42
Speaker 2: Like that is not a driving a truck. You know,
23:46
Speaker 2: nothing against truck drivers, but it's not like, you know,
23:48
Speaker 2: a simple task. So yeah, it pushes against our again nothing,
23:56
Speaker 2: I'm not helping myself all that to say, we know
23:59
Speaker 2: that dive is difficult and dangerous and I would not
24:03
Speaker 2: trust myself around six pack in that environment. Nobody would.
24:07
Speaker 2: So it just wouldn't it.
24:09
Speaker 4: Beyond trust as a geologist or a scuba diver to
24:14
Speaker 4: pull you know, like a like run an eighteen wheeler
24:17
Speaker 4: either like that that's the thing. It's just like it's
24:20
Speaker 4: like it's it's it's different skill sets. Absolutely, yes, yeah, So.
24:24
Speaker 2: All that to say, they try to make it like
24:27
Speaker 2: you know, oh, it's just a working class. It's like, yeah,
24:30
Speaker 2: in a highly dangerous, highly specialized technical field. Yes they
24:35
Speaker 2: are workers, but you know it.
24:36
Speaker 4: Just well, if you look at I'm trying to think,
24:41
Speaker 4: like if you look at the Abyss, everybody got along
24:45
Speaker 4: except for you know when the Marines came in.
24:49
Speaker 2: And there was the and there's the lindsay you know,
24:51
Speaker 2: ex wife conflict, but not like they couldn't work together.
24:56
Speaker 4: There's just right drama. Yeah, there's drama there, but also
24:59
Speaker 4: you know, part of the crew knew how to work together.
25:02
Speaker 4: And that's the thing. Like if you're going in for
25:04
Speaker 4: a ninety day rotation and you have substantial investment in
25:10
Speaker 4: this mining operation, these people have to get a long
25:15
Speaker 4: because there's no evacuation. Like they made it really clear
25:18
Speaker 4: that like that was a last ditch effort, like you
25:20
Speaker 4: can't just rotate out like this guy's an ass and
25:23
Speaker 4: so he needs to go. It's like no, you're he's
25:25
Speaker 4: gonna leave on the ninetieth day, right, And so you
25:28
Speaker 4: think that they would try to figure out certain the.
25:32
Speaker 2: Fact that they kept Doc around, who's kind of checked out,
25:35
Speaker 2: like he was playing golf. I kind of like that
25:38
Speaker 2: s but he actually made him a kind of interesting character, like, oh,
25:40
Speaker 2: he's lost it and then he kind of unlost it
25:44
Speaker 2: for like the second half of the movie, but.
25:47
Speaker 4: He sacrifices everybody.
25:49
Speaker 3: I almost I got a sense almost of what they
25:54
Speaker 3: were going for with Doc, which was he's a guy
25:57
Speaker 3: who's at the end of his career and he's literally
26:00
Speaker 3: just riding it out. He doesn't give a care because
26:03
Speaker 3: he's going to retire at the end of this. He's
26:06
Speaker 3: done it, doesn't he.
26:08
Speaker 2: Did something somewhere that missed up royally and they said that,
26:14
Speaker 2: but like like.
26:18
Speaker 3: Right, he's just like, you know what, it's over after
26:20
Speaker 3: this anyway, Like they put me here so that I
26:22
Speaker 3: could ride out the rest of it and then once
26:24
Speaker 3: I'm done here, I'm home.
26:26
Speaker 2: Whatever.
26:27
Speaker 3: It's fine, I've been doing this for thirty years. I'm done.
26:30
Speaker 3: Who cares? But Krena doesn't appear to have gotten that
26:36
Speaker 3: note Krenna is still playing a very earnest character, a
26:41
Speaker 3: very like he suddenly comes alive at a certain point
26:46
Speaker 3: where he almost feels more like he should be in
26:49
Speaker 3: First Blood part two, where he suddenly cares about everybody
26:53
Speaker 3: that's you know, what's what's going on, and then of
26:56
Speaker 3: course screws them, bunching all of the bubbles. But it's like,
27:02
Speaker 3: even that is such a mess because they've clearly established
27:09
Speaker 3: they know who is infected, Like, right, you reference the thing.
27:14
Speaker 3: The scary part about the thing was you didn't know
27:17
Speaker 3: who the monster was in this. It was clearly defined.
27:23
Speaker 3: Were you touched or scratched or harmed in some way
27:25
Speaker 3: or did you drink? You're fine?
27:27
Speaker 2: Right?
27:28
Speaker 3: If no, you're fine?
27:30
Speaker 4: Okay okay, okay, okay, okay. Ok I'm going to use
27:34
Speaker 4: that as a jumping off point, please, because I don't
27:39
Speaker 4: think it was well defined, particularly because there was so
27:45
Speaker 4: many Like while I was watching it, I was just like,
27:47
Speaker 4: what set of rules are they using? Because so you know,
27:53
Speaker 4: you have Daniel, so you have six Pack and Bowman
27:58
Speaker 4: who drank the vodka they got infected, but then they
28:04
Speaker 4: weren't quite sure how it transmitted, so they had Beck
28:08
Speaker 4: put on the mask and walk through the literal swinging door. Yes, true, true,
28:18
Speaker 4: no lock no lock, no, no hermetic seal, no nothing,
28:22
Speaker 4: but put this mask on and check them out and
28:24
Speaker 4: everything like that. But then so you have Bowman who
28:27
Speaker 4: kills herself without talking to anybody saying, hey, maybe if
28:31
Speaker 4: we caught it early in me, is there something that.
28:34
Speaker 2: Could be done? Right, she did see the patches forming
28:38
Speaker 2: and that was enough for her to but you're right,
28:40
Speaker 2: there was no communication.
28:42
Speaker 4: She got out her jump to conclusions Matt and tried
28:46
Speaker 4: to figure it out and then slashed her wrists. And okay,
28:50
Speaker 4: so that I get that, those I get, although at
28:52
Speaker 4: the same time, all right, So, so how did Bowman's
28:57
Speaker 4: body get absorbed.
29:00
Speaker 2: Into what happened? Because there it is fast, but there
29:05
Speaker 2: you hear glass breaking, and I think what happened is
29:09
Speaker 2: her body like reanimated for a moment and like threw
29:12
Speaker 2: itself on top of him. And then they and that's
29:16
Speaker 2: implied like it's off camera, but you hear that they
29:19
Speaker 2: all rush in and then she's on him and I
29:21
Speaker 2: and there is sounds that imply that something like that happened.
29:25
Speaker 2: But it's very quick.
29:27
Speaker 4: Okay that I will buy I totally. I totally will
29:29
Speaker 4: get that. But then we have like then so like
29:35
Speaker 4: like it disconnects and we have the leg flopping around
29:39
Speaker 4: and it grows into something else, and so we're like, okay,
29:43
Speaker 4: so that's that's the thing, and it attacks to Jesus,
29:49
Speaker 4: but like like it it.
29:51
Speaker 2: Kind of embeds itself.
29:52
Speaker 4: It sports himself into him, and then we're like, okay,
29:55
Speaker 4: so so is is is the is the monster or
30:00
Speaker 4: just that original leg mixed with DeJesus? And then it
30:05
Speaker 4: gets the hector Alexander like so it scratches like before
30:11
Speaker 4: it gets to Jesus, it scratches Aleixando, and we're like, okay,
30:14
Speaker 4: we all know that he's gone. But all of a
30:17
Speaker 4: sudden it turns into alien almost literally like with the
30:21
Speaker 4: chest bursters coming out, and then all of a sudden
30:23
Speaker 4: he has a mouth on his hand and that, and
30:26
Speaker 4: then you have then you have then you have Doc
30:29
Speaker 4: who also does like this weird chess thing, but we
30:31
Speaker 4: don't see the monster around him anywhere, and so we're like, okay,
30:36
Speaker 4: so is it a chest burster or is it a rash?
30:39
Speaker 2: You know? Like what what that genet? Is it manipulation?
30:42
Speaker 3: So I guess we should bring in. We mentioned alien,
30:45
Speaker 3: we mentioned the thing. I guess we'll mention Prometheus then,
30:50
Speaker 3: So this prefigure is Prometheus with the whole idea of
30:54
Speaker 3: why is it doing what it does with different people
30:56
Speaker 3: in different ways, because because it just does.
31:00
Speaker 2: I mean it at at a minimum, it is like
31:03
Speaker 2: if you come in contact, like physically with somebody or
31:06
Speaker 2: are bitten, then I think the problem is they never
31:10
Speaker 2: show the merging. They never show it like walking in
31:15
Speaker 2: up to like the doc obviously is sad because he
31:17
Speaker 2: knows he's got it, and then he obviously sabotages the
31:22
Speaker 2: water system, but then we don't see him moving over
31:24
Speaker 2: to the blob getting like embraced and then merging into it,
31:27
Speaker 2: like we never had that and we kind of needed it.
31:32
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, the thing is even script or direction
31:35
Speaker 3: what what however you want, whoever's door you want to
31:39
Speaker 3: lay this blame on. You fix that by having multiple
31:44
Speaker 3: creatures loose and each one is a conglomeration and you're like, oh,
31:48
Speaker 3: I thought I just killed this thing. Oh it's different,
31:52
Speaker 3: and then you like kill them and then they merge
31:54
Speaker 3: together and you're like, oh crap, I just made it worse.
31:57
Speaker 4: Yeah, than it becomes like some king or something.
32:00
Speaker 3: Right exactly, and it's like that's something that's solved at
32:03
Speaker 3: the script stage, which is why again this really feels
32:06
Speaker 3: like people's and Stuart were just like how much money, Yeah, okay, sure,
32:12
Speaker 3: or the.
32:13
Speaker 2: Creature coming back, you change some names, Like I totally
32:16
Speaker 2: expected it to somehow right find its way back in
32:20
Speaker 2: and remerge, like if they had played up the merging
32:23
Speaker 2: more of like this thing can that's the problem, is it.
32:27
Speaker 2: It Once it gets you, then you're attracted to it,
32:30
Speaker 2: and and it you know, you want to become the
32:32
Speaker 2: blood like the blob you know, right.
32:35
Speaker 3: Well, but like a viewport scene where somebody who's been
32:37
Speaker 3: infected like touches one of the viewports and then you
32:39
Speaker 3: see the original creature come up and like touch the
32:41
Speaker 3: other side right to like just to imply that like, oh,
32:45
Speaker 3: they're trying to reassemble like Devastator and it's Transformers reference
32:49
Speaker 3: kids and it just like you know, have that sort
32:52
Speaker 3: of thing going on, like and so they're they're like,
32:55
Speaker 3: we got to keep it separate, and we've got to
32:57
Speaker 3: kill each piece and then at the ends of them
32:59
Speaker 3: come together, right exactly. But then like they all come
33:02
Speaker 3: together and then and then like you've immediately Aha, I'm
33:08
Speaker 3: just frustrated. I'm even more frustrated now because I'm like this,
33:12
Speaker 3: this would have been that would have been a pretty
33:13
Speaker 3: interesting movie. This was not well and sorry.
33:17
Speaker 2: And in reading you know about Cosmetose working with Stan
33:22
Speaker 2: Winston and company. I mean he's specifically saying to Stan,
33:26
Speaker 2: I don't know what I'm doing, just shoot it however
33:29
Speaker 2: you want and you think would work, which on one hand,
33:33
Speaker 2: I kind of get like, if you don't know what
33:35
Speaker 2: you're doing, but you could do worse than putting your
33:38
Speaker 2: faith in Stan Winston. But you also still need to
33:41
Speaker 2: kind of carry the director's vision of the plot. But
33:45
Speaker 2: I digress.
33:46
Speaker 4: This vision the house of Cosmotose is a winding road
33:52
Speaker 4: of I mean like you walk into the house and
33:56
Speaker 4: you always that vestival over there. Why is there a
33:58
Speaker 4: hallway there? Doesn't makes sense. It's it's almost like the
34:04
Speaker 4: mc escher of houses where you want, like the kitchen's
34:10
Speaker 4: on the right, and all of a sudden you're in
34:11
Speaker 4: the toilet. You know, It's just that's the house of Cosmotos.
34:16
Speaker 4: There's no vision he is, I don't I don't know
34:18
Speaker 4: how he kept getting work.
34:20
Speaker 3: I mean, well, I This is where I'm going to
34:24
Speaker 3: come in and quasi defend him. Okay, we the three
34:29
Speaker 3: of us have all grown up in this producer director
34:32
Speaker 3: era where Lucas yes that they they know the value
34:39
Speaker 3: of I have an idea, I need to be the
34:41
Speaker 3: producer and or executive producer to make sure said idea
34:45
Speaker 3: is expressed. Scorsese all of these these awe tours, they
34:50
Speaker 3: understand how it works. I have to answer to myself
34:52
Speaker 3: because if I answer to somebody else, I have to
34:55
Speaker 3: do their thing. And Tristan I would say that Leviathan
35:00
Speaker 3: it finally, Really I've always understood and I've always gone
35:03
Speaker 3: along with what you said, but I'm really really getting
35:06
Speaker 3: it with Leviathan. Of there's a reason the producers are
35:11
Speaker 3: the ones that accept the awards. And I think what
35:14
Speaker 3: you have here is Cosmetose is an old school director
35:20
Speaker 3: in the new school auteur era. What he did worked
35:26
Speaker 3: twenty years before nineteen eighty. You know, in the sixties,
35:29
Speaker 3: this is exactly what directors were supposed to do. You
35:32
Speaker 3: show up and you make my damn movie, and you
35:35
Speaker 3: do not deviate from anything. And I'm gonna be on
35:37
Speaker 3: set and I'm going to tell you what to do
35:40
Speaker 3: and Cosmetos, Yep, you got it, boss, that's what I'm
35:42
Speaker 3: gonna do. You give me the script. I'm gonna make
35:44
Speaker 3: sure we get these shots. You flash forward we're used
35:48
Speaker 3: to and in nineteen eighty nine, in and of itself,
35:50
Speaker 3: you have Tim Burton with Batman, you have James Cameron
35:53
Speaker 3: with The Abyss. Just those two movies alone are an
35:56
Speaker 3: example of directors who were like, hold on, my vision's
36:01
Speaker 3: going to be up on that screen, and the production
36:03
Speaker 3: team he's working with at the very least says, you
36:06
Speaker 3: got it. That's fine, We're an agreement as to what's
36:09
Speaker 3: going on. Cosmetos is just old school. He's just okay,
36:13
Speaker 3: thank you for the script. I'm going to show up
36:15
Speaker 3: on set. I'm going to make sure I get all
36:16
Speaker 3: of these lines, and then I'll put together an assembly
36:19
Speaker 3: cut and then you guys can just do what you
36:21
Speaker 3: will afterward.
36:23
Speaker 4: I think that's really apt. I think that's really spot honest.
36:25
Speaker 4: He's an old school director who is in the he's
36:29
Speaker 4: in the wrong decade, or at least he's in the
36:32
Speaker 4: wrong you know, five year windows are yeah era, Yeah,
36:35
Speaker 4: that's the word I was looking for.
36:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, because you're entering in the time of you're going
36:40
Speaker 2: from the the producing time when not that there weren't
36:47
Speaker 2: stand out directors, but you were less likely to know
36:49
Speaker 2: the name of your director, and you're moving into the Spielberg,
36:53
Speaker 2: Lucas things like that, where oh, I'm going to go
36:57
Speaker 2: see this because director directed it and I like the
37:02
Speaker 2: movies that they make, and it's just yeah, it did.
37:07
Speaker 4: That's that's something that I definitely, I mean, I'm sure
37:09
Speaker 4: that there's people who are going to argue with me.
37:11
Speaker 4: I'm sure there's gonna people people who are going to
37:13
Speaker 4: tell me that, like, oh what about Hitchcock. Well, okay, yes,
37:15
Speaker 4: there's an exception to every rule. But I think in
37:18
Speaker 4: the nineties specifically, I got I saw a much more
37:24
Speaker 4: a much more public appreciation of a director's work where
37:31
Speaker 4: you're just like, oh, that's a so and so film,
37:33
Speaker 4: I'm going to go see that. I mean, like I said,
37:36
Speaker 4: of course, there's exceptions to the rule. I mean, you
37:38
Speaker 4: look at this, like you look at the craziness that
37:40
Speaker 4: was the seventies that gave us Francis Ford, Coppola, Spielberg
37:45
Speaker 4: and s Corsees and everything like that, like of course,
37:47
Speaker 4: you know, like we got some amazing movies from them
37:50
Speaker 4: during that time. I'm talking about public perception, not not
37:54
Speaker 4: industry perception. Public Joe Joe. You know, I feel like
38:02
Speaker 4: in the nineties they started advertising it more and more
38:05
Speaker 4: like this is a so and so picture. Pay attention,
38:09
Speaker 4: it's coming out next summer.
38:12
Speaker 2: Right, which is like in the past where we've said,
38:15
Speaker 2: like I remember with McTiernan where I was like, oh
38:17
Speaker 2: my gosh, I didn't realize he did all of these
38:19
Speaker 2: because we weren't quite in that era yet, or he
38:22
Speaker 2: just didn't get that same treatment. It's probably more the case,
38:27
Speaker 2: and you know, now access to more information. I mean, yeah,
38:31
Speaker 2: before Internet, I mean, obviously you could find the information,
38:34
Speaker 2: but if you wanted to know all the films that
38:36
Speaker 2: McTiernan did, like that was harder to figure out.
38:41
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, I mean you had to be sort of
38:44
Speaker 3: a Cameron or a Burton, right, because a Tim Burton
38:47
Speaker 3: movie you could sit down, you could look at it
38:48
Speaker 3: and you could say, oh, wow, okay, I get that right,
38:51
Speaker 3: that I see what's at work here. But it's it's
38:55
Speaker 3: I think one of those things where I still struggle
39:01
Speaker 3: with there's something lacking with Cosmatos in the sense that
39:09
Speaker 3: sure I could not tell you off the top of
39:12
Speaker 3: my brain who directed the original Willy Wonka, but I
39:17
Speaker 3: can say that I can look at that movie and
39:20
Speaker 3: see a director exerting influence on the way things are
39:26
Speaker 3: done and the way he collaborated with cast as opposed
39:31
Speaker 3: to this doesn't look like it matters who was behind
39:35
Speaker 3: that camera. They just needed somebody who was efficient and
39:39
Speaker 3: could get the job done. And I could pull Cosmatos
39:41
Speaker 3: out of any of these three movity in there. Everybody's
39:46
Speaker 3: gonna get those shots. Alex Thompson, the cinematographer, matters more
39:51
Speaker 3: than Cosmatos does. And it's a shame in the sense
39:56
Speaker 3: that he just threw up his hands and said, I
39:59
Speaker 3: don't know what I'm doing, and Stan Winston, you direct
40:01
Speaker 3: all of the creature stuff, because I think there is
40:04
Speaker 3: actually there are actually moments where there are some actually
40:08
Speaker 3: interesting shots happening, and it's very obviously not the second
40:13
Speaker 3: unit doing them. And it would have been nice for
40:16
Speaker 3: Cosmatos to say, hey, Stan, you get to direct the shots,
40:21
Speaker 3: but me and Alex we're gonna sit on the side
40:24
Speaker 3: and make sure at least that you're picking the right
40:26
Speaker 3: lenses and lighting to make sure that this looks like
40:30
Speaker 3: the rest of the movie as opposed to just letting
40:33
Speaker 3: you shoot it the way you need to shoot it
40:35
Speaker 3: to make sure we get our monster shot and we're done.
40:39
Speaker 2: Yeah. Now it's I mean, at the end of the day,
40:42
Speaker 2: it's a blockbuster rental, it's a in and out. Everyone's
40:46
Speaker 2: getting a paychecks. It's almost only noteworthy because there were
40:51
Speaker 2: so many dang underwater movies in nineteen eighty nine, Like
40:55
Speaker 2: there are at least like five, Like there's so many
40:58
Speaker 2: for some reason that all came out in that year. Now,
41:01
Speaker 2: this one also did a lot of what's dry for wet?
41:04
Speaker 2: You know, where you are in a smoke filled soundstage,
41:07
Speaker 2: and they did, you know, a decent job in those shots,
41:11
Speaker 2: Like it didn't look like the ABYSS.
41:13
Speaker 4: I thought it was pretty good. Yeah, look you could
41:15
Speaker 4: tell it wasn't the ABYSS, but I thought for what
41:18
Speaker 4: it was for dry for wet and everything like that.
41:21
Speaker 4: Even the like the the idea that they put the
41:24
Speaker 4: the with the like an air the bellows, yeah, like.
41:31
Speaker 2: On the on the on the they put bellows in
41:34
Speaker 2: the shoes, as you know, that's what it's called. Yeah,
41:36
Speaker 2: it would kick up dust and look like it was
41:39
Speaker 2: walking underwater.
41:41
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that that's that's fantastic. I mean, like
41:44
Speaker 4: that kind of attention to detail is really cool. The
41:46
Speaker 4: Winston stuff, of course, was interesting and well made, and
41:52
Speaker 4: it's funny like when you do you know, like I
41:54
Speaker 4: looked up this movie and I tried to learn some
41:56
Speaker 4: behind the scenes stuff. Ninety five percent of the behind
41:59
Speaker 4: the scenes stuff is all about the creature effects.
42:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're right. Even the implosion of the shack was
42:08
Speaker 2: well done, like it was a Again, this is eighty nine,
42:12
Speaker 2: so there's not a lot of CG. There's not a lot,
42:15
Speaker 2: you know, out there at this moment, so it's all
42:19
Speaker 2: practical and so the effects are definitely good. The suits
42:23
Speaker 2: look good. I like the dive suits. They they were
42:26
Speaker 2: a decent you know design. But there was no plot
42:32
Speaker 2: to glue it all together, you know, just that that
42:35
Speaker 2: I was interested.
42:36
Speaker 3: In, and I felt, honestly, I felt bad for Ernie
42:41
Speaker 3: Hudson because Ernie Hudson showed up to work. He did,
42:46
Speaker 3: he really showed up to work. And I think that
42:48
Speaker 3: Ernie Hudson. I always loved Winston as a ghostbuster, and
42:55
Speaker 3: I loved him in The Crow.
42:56
Speaker 2: There's a steady paycheck. I'm will go to the bottom
42:58
Speaker 2: of the ocean, yeah, and dig up silver.
43:01
Speaker 3: But I think he's he is actually an actor who
43:05
Speaker 3: has a natural on screen presence, and he's one of
43:10
Speaker 3: those guys that just never had He's always been I
43:13
Speaker 3: think hampered by being in a movie like Leviathan, where
43:16
Speaker 3: it's like his career has been solid and he has
43:21
Speaker 3: been memorable. But like I see him in Leviathan and
43:24
Speaker 3: I'm like, man, you should have been in a different
43:27
Speaker 3: movie this year that would have gotten more play, you know.
43:30
Speaker 3: But I mean, he was in Ghostbusters too, so you know,
43:34
Speaker 3: he was in that blockbuster in nineteen eighty nine at
43:39
Speaker 3: the very least. But you know, like he's the only one.
43:43
Speaker 3: I mean, I love actor olt Elizondo. I think he's great,
43:47
Speaker 3: and I'm actually always I think it's Ilebocker is how
43:53
Speaker 3: you pronounced her name, Lisa Eilbacher, who the one who
43:56
Speaker 3: plays bo. I like her, you know, I whenever I
44:02
Speaker 3: see her on screen, I'm like, oh, okay, cool, Like
44:04
Speaker 3: she's a good supporting actress. But it's just one of
44:07
Speaker 3: those things where it's like I just maybe maybe I'm
44:12
Speaker 3: just drawing attention to Hudson, because I think they really
44:14
Speaker 3: did him dirty at the end of the movie, like
44:16
Speaker 3: I'm like, I'm legitimately believe that I've knocked this movie
44:21
Speaker 3: down in my final ratings because I was so annoyed
44:25
Speaker 3: with what they did at the end, Like it really
44:27
Speaker 3: bothered me.
44:28
Speaker 4: And it bothered me too because like as they were ascending,
44:33
Speaker 4: I was like, oh, I was like, that's pretty because
44:35
Speaker 4: like I wasn't sure if Weller was gonna make it
44:37
Speaker 4: or not. I was like, oh, that's pretty cool. Like
44:40
Speaker 4: Weller didn't make it, he sacrificed himself, but yet Hudson
44:44
Speaker 4: and Pays made it. I was like, that's a pretty
44:46
Speaker 4: unique ending. And then they all three of them made
44:49
Speaker 4: it up. And I was like, oh, cool, Okay, so
44:51
Speaker 4: we got the you know, we got the pretty much
44:53
Speaker 4: the we got the three important people.
44:55
Speaker 2: You know.
44:55
Speaker 4: That's cool, Like those are the three most likable characters.
44:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, the hero, the woman, and the black guy. Yeah. Check.
45:03
Speaker 4: And then I was like, they didn't they didn't they
45:05
Speaker 4: didn't kill the black guy.
45:06
Speaker 3: Awesome.
45:07
Speaker 4: And then they killed the black guy at the last minute,
45:11
Speaker 4: at the not even the eleventh hour. We're talking about
45:13
Speaker 4: eleven fifty nine is when they killed the black guy.
45:17
Speaker 4: And You're like what the hell.
45:19
Speaker 2: And they did it in such a way like you
45:21
Speaker 2: almost could have edited it to be that way, Like
45:25
Speaker 2: you could have almost picked the shots where he wasn't
45:28
Speaker 2: in the wide shot above the water and found a
45:30
Speaker 2: couple of shots of him struggling to get to the
45:33
Speaker 2: surface and just not show him on the oil rig,
45:37
Speaker 2: like it almost could have been made differently and then
45:40
Speaker 2: changed in the edit on how sloppy that sequence went down.
45:45
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah. I mean I'm glad you mentioned the
45:47
Speaker 3: edit because the way the ending comes together quote unquote,
45:54
Speaker 3: it doesn't come to end. It's just like, okay, we
45:58
Speaker 3: got like sixty seconds, guys, let's just chop it up. Okay,
46:01
Speaker 3: let's just get it out the door here. And that's why,
46:05
Speaker 3: like it screams to me, like this feels more like
46:08
Speaker 3: a cannon film that I would expect than anything else.
46:11
Speaker 3: And it just because it's just that last five minutes
46:14
Speaker 3: in particular, it's just like just just assemble it, just
46:17
Speaker 3: get it done. Like it felt like they were running
46:19
Speaker 3: out of budget and it was like locally, we just
46:21
Speaker 3: got to wrap this up, just just get it done,
46:23
Speaker 3: get it out the.
46:23
Speaker 4: Door, which is crazy to me because this was a
46:28
Speaker 4: ninety minute movie, and for the first hour almost nothing happens.
46:35
Speaker 4: This is a monster flick, This is an underwater monster flick.
46:39
Speaker 4: And like I said earlier, the monster doesn't make its
46:41
Speaker 4: first kill until the hour mark. You made the wrong movie.
46:46
Speaker 4: If that's the case.
46:48
Speaker 2: Well, if you're gonna do that, you know, again, not
46:52
Speaker 2: to parallel everything to the thing, but you need to
46:56
Speaker 2: do some serious establishment of your characters, make us care
47:01
Speaker 2: about all of them, or have less characters, have it
47:04
Speaker 2: be like a skeleton crew of four people, I mean
47:07
Speaker 2: less to kill. But they didn't do that either, so
47:10
Speaker 2: we ended up not caring about all the characters really
47:14
Speaker 2: like just starting to kind of click with them, and
47:17
Speaker 2: then oh, the movie's practically done, and here's the monster,
47:20
Speaker 2: and then we're and it's over, like it just.
47:23
Speaker 4: Yeah, if this was a two hour film or a
47:24
Speaker 4: two to twenty film, I could totally believe that the
47:28
Speaker 4: monster wouldn't make its first kill until the hour mark.
47:31
Speaker 4: But not in a ninety minute film, not even nine minutes.
47:35
Speaker 3: Yeah, like you said, there's not a lot of behind
47:37
Speaker 3: the scenes stuff, but it really feels like they knew
47:40
Speaker 3: they had a stinker and they just cut it down
47:43
Speaker 3: to the bone to say Okay, let's just get this.
47:48
Speaker 2: Out as many people want to watch it.
47:50
Speaker 3: As many showings as possible, and yes, March a March
47:55
Speaker 3: release date in nineteen eighty nine was basically just saying, eh, fine,
48:01
Speaker 3: just release mean and we'll eat the tax loss.
48:04
Speaker 2: It's fine. It was a twenty one million budget, which
48:06
Speaker 2: is a chunk for eighty nine. Like, that's not Batman money,
48:11
Speaker 2: but that's nothing.
48:12
Speaker 3: No, Batman cost a little more than ten million more.
48:17
Speaker 3: And Batman had one hell of a budget behind it.
48:21
Speaker 3: So like, you know, they had Jack Nicholson, so you're
48:24
Speaker 3: paying for Nicholson in and of himself, and you have
48:26
Speaker 3: all of those effects in Batman and the suit and
48:30
Speaker 3: all of the special effects and all of the practical
48:32
Speaker 3: stuff and all of those sorts of things. So this
48:35
Speaker 3: should have looked a lot better than it did.
48:39
Speaker 2: It really should have. Yeah, Batman would think was almost
48:41
Speaker 2: fifty like not quite fifty mili.
48:44
Speaker 3: That would include that would have included the marketing, I think,
48:48
Speaker 3: because I'm pretty sure the production budget was like around
48:51
Speaker 3: thirty two thirty three million for Batman in eighty nine, But.
48:56
Speaker 2: This only made nineteen million overall, which is not even
49:00
Speaker 2: its production budget. So it did not it was.
49:03
Speaker 3: Crazy, including its Italian box office.
49:06
Speaker 2: Well, yes, of course I'm including the Italian box office. John.
49:09
Speaker 4: But that's the thing is that, like, okay, so we're
49:11
Speaker 4: talking about like special effects and creature effects and everything
49:13
Speaker 4: like that. So if you get stan Winston.
49:14
Speaker 2: Your effects spoke effects.
49:17
Speaker 4: Yeah, Like, if you get stan Winston creature effects, you
49:20
Speaker 4: don't need to cut it like Jaws.
49:24
Speaker 2: Right right where you don't see the monster.
49:27
Speaker 4: That's the thing is that, like, okay, so Alien didn't
49:30
Speaker 4: do that. You saw you saw the creature like of course,
49:34
Speaker 4: like it teased here and there, but then you eventually
49:36
Speaker 4: saw it, and you.
49:38
Speaker 2: Saw it so much where you thought you saw it everywhere.
49:41
Speaker 2: You thought it was in the walls and the ceiling
49:43
Speaker 2: and everywhere.
49:44
Speaker 4: And in Jaws, we all know the story behind Jaws
49:47
Speaker 4: about how it was saved in the edit because they
49:49
Speaker 4: couldn't get the damn thing to work, and so the
49:52
Speaker 4: tension came from not seeing it. This is not one
49:55
Speaker 4: of those times, but yet they treated it that way.
49:58
Speaker 4: So if you have all of this budget going towards Winston,
50:01
Speaker 4: because it sounds like Winston basically ran the show on
50:05
Speaker 4: second second unit, excuse me, second unit, and also some
50:10
Speaker 4: first unit. Yeah, like he's they clearly have this budget
50:14
Speaker 4: going towards it. He clearly made something that works, so
50:18
Speaker 4: why cut around it? And it just I think it
50:21
Speaker 4: that caused a lot of story problems is because there's
50:25
Speaker 4: so much that we didn't see that so much as
50:27
Speaker 4: left to our imagination, not in the frightening way where
50:30
Speaker 4: our imagination is scarier than the reality. It's so much
50:34
Speaker 4: as left to our imagination. Is Oh, I guess I
50:36
Speaker 4: have to connect the dots in my own mind, right.
50:40
Speaker 2: No, very very true. All right, Well, we've kicked this
50:44
Speaker 2: can and I just heard that we're going to implode
50:48
Speaker 2: in five minutes. So it's time for Lance Reddick and
50:53
Speaker 2: then final thoughts. So John, honestly you got your pick. Really,
50:58
Speaker 2: anyone who would you replace on the good Ship Shack
51:02
Speaker 2: seven with our friend Lance?
51:05
Speaker 3: You know what, what the hell, Let's make him doc. Okay,
51:09
Speaker 3: let's replace Krenna. Let's make let's make him doc and
51:13
Speaker 3: see what happens there, Because I honestly think I have
51:18
Speaker 3: nothing to back this up, but the vibe I get
51:20
Speaker 3: is that Krenna was there as a favor to Casmatos.
51:23
Speaker 3: Did kind of feel like that, you know it was like, Richard,
51:27
Speaker 3: I need your help on this one. We've worked together before,
51:30
Speaker 3: I can get you a paycheck. And Krenna's like, yeah, sure,
51:33
Speaker 3: I'm free, Sure it's good.
51:35
Speaker 2: All right, all right, So he's the doc. He's playing golf.
51:38
Speaker 2: In the beginning, he's not quite there, and then he
51:41
Speaker 2: sacrifices himself and makes some judgment calls that he shouldn't
51:45
Speaker 2: be making. All right, Tristan, who on our Motley Crewe
51:49
Speaker 2: is going to be Lance.
51:52
Speaker 4: I think he would make a good cob Hector Elizondo
51:56
Speaker 4: because I feel like it would have been really cool
52:00
Speaker 4: to hear Reddick spout off union rules and like a
52:05
Speaker 4: really like like in a really dry way, like you
52:10
Speaker 4: can't tell us what to do because of X, Y
52:11
Speaker 4: and Z, but boom, you know, like I could just
52:14
Speaker 4: see him deliver those lines like I know.
52:16
Speaker 2: You're not a collected way making us do overtime without
52:19
Speaker 2: filling out a five sections see paperwork? Are you boss?
52:23
Speaker 2: And yeah, yeah for me us again, I'm gonna say
52:31
Speaker 2: beck like, I know I'm the big Peter Weller RoboCop fan.
52:36
Speaker 2: But there was nothing special about this performance, really like it.
52:42
Speaker 4: I don't think there was much to the character there was.
52:44
Speaker 4: You know, I don't even think it's necessarily Weller's fault,
52:48
Speaker 4: and I'm not the biggest Weller fan, but there's just
52:51
Speaker 4: no meat on the bone of that character.
52:54
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, we've talked about movies before. We've said, man,
52:59
Speaker 2: if they had given that actor something, they would have
53:02
Speaker 2: gotten something in return. But they didn't give him anything.
53:05
Speaker 2: And that is very true I think in this movie
53:07
Speaker 2: where there's just a lot of mid so all right,
53:13
Speaker 2: so we have our lance. Who could he be? He
53:15
Speaker 2: could be anyone, just like the thing, I mean, the
53:18
Speaker 2: Leviathan Monster. So, Tristan, has your rating shifted at all
53:26
Speaker 2: since this discussion?
53:28
Speaker 4: I don't want to go first. I don't want to
53:30
Speaker 4: go first. I want to hear it.
53:31
Speaker 2: I don't want to you came last, you go first?
53:33
Speaker 4: Oh fine, you suck, all right, Okay, okay, okay, all right,
53:38
Speaker 4: so commit and believe I'm gonna commit my Okay. So
53:41
Speaker 4: I teased my rating to you guys before we started
53:43
Speaker 4: recording because I wasn't I didn't think I was going
53:46
Speaker 4: to be able to record, and so I told you
53:48
Speaker 4: what it was so you could tell the people. So
53:52
Speaker 4: I think my rating has stayed the same I've been
53:54
Speaker 4: giving this two stars. This is a half star more
53:58
Speaker 4: than I gave Cobra, because Ebrah made no sense to me,
54:02
Speaker 4: just zero. It was just it felt like it was
54:05
Speaker 4: written by AI and you could have jumped the scenes
54:08
Speaker 4: together and it would have made the same amount of sense.
54:10
Speaker 4: This one, at least has a linear storytelling fashion where
54:14
Speaker 4: you can tell what's going on. You know, it's Alien
54:18
Speaker 4: meets the thing with the sprinkle of the abyss. I
54:22
Speaker 4: understand that. Like we got the big bad corporate people,
54:25
Speaker 4: and then we got the truckers, not in space, but
54:28
Speaker 4: the truckers underneath the water, and all of a sudden
54:32
Speaker 4: there's a monster that can infect you and kill you.
54:36
Speaker 4: It can merge. Almost everybody dies, makes sense motivations there.
54:42
Speaker 4: Everybody wants to get paid, nobody wants to die, so
54:45
Speaker 4: that in itself is better than Cobra. To me, Cobra
54:48
Speaker 4: pissed me off while I was watching it. This one
54:50
Speaker 4: didn't piss me off. I was just kind of like,
54:52
Speaker 4: this isn't very good, Like this is a low budget Alien.
54:56
Speaker 4: And even when my wife walked in towards the end,
54:58
Speaker 4: when Weller and Hudson has the flamethrowers, She's like, what
55:04
Speaker 4: is this And I was like, it's a low budget alien.
55:06
Speaker 4: She's like, yeah, that's what I thought. So that's that's
55:11
Speaker 4: all it is. To me, it's a low budget alien.
55:13
Speaker 4: Two stars. It's a bad film. Like that's what I
55:17
Speaker 4: get like too, like one and a half has Walmart been?
55:20
Speaker 4: One star? Is like how did this even get made?
55:23
Speaker 4: So to me this is two films. It's a bad star.
55:26
Speaker 4: I mean two it's a bad movie, but it's at
55:29
Speaker 4: least coherent, Like the special effects are good and so
55:32
Speaker 4: that bumps it up a little bit more like there's
55:35
Speaker 4: no actors that I think did a terrible job. I
55:38
Speaker 4: think everybody you know, I think John, I think you're
55:40
Speaker 4: absolutely right. I think Hudson showed up to work and
55:42
Speaker 4: you could really tell that he was into it and
55:44
Speaker 4: he he was a professional. But I don't think there
55:47
Speaker 4: was really any too many weink weak links personally. So
55:52
Speaker 4: two stars not a good film?
55:56
Speaker 2: All right? Well, John, again, this being the first time
56:00
Speaker 2: you watch this, I know you've been waiting eagerly to
56:04
Speaker 2: share your rating on this. How many stars? How many one?
56:10
Speaker 3: But it's one star? Ooh ooh done straight to the pot.
56:14
Speaker 3: And the thing is I will respond to Tristan's eloquent
56:18
Speaker 3: takedown of Cobra to say that with Cobra, it's a
56:22
Speaker 3: bad movie. I gave that one two stars. I give
56:24
Speaker 3: this one one star because Cobra, yeah, part of its
56:29
Speaker 3: nostalgia moss to a flame sort of action. But at
56:32
Speaker 3: the very least with Cobra, I can mock it for
56:37
Speaker 3: what just a stupid like it's a parody of itself
56:41
Speaker 3: sort of thing. Like it would have worked better if
56:44
Speaker 3: they had tried to make it a parody, but Stallone
56:47
Speaker 3: was too high on his own supply to do that
56:50
Speaker 3: sort of thing. They could have been super meta with
56:53
Speaker 3: it and gotten away with it. And there are still
56:55
Speaker 3: things where I can watch Cobra like a riff tracks
56:59
Speaker 3: and just have fun with it and make merciless fun
57:02
Speaker 3: at the expense of everybody involved. Leviathan was a joyless
57:06
Speaker 3: exercise and I was bored through most of it. I
57:12
Speaker 3: paid attention to Ernie Hudson. But there's just like from
57:17
Speaker 3: the very beginning when Peter Weller is trying to talk
57:22
Speaker 3: them through the oxygen thing, and I'm sitting there and
57:25
Speaker 3: I'm saying, okay, like I get what you're trying to do.
57:29
Speaker 3: Here to establish the characters. But this really isn't working,
57:33
Speaker 3: and I just it never got me. I never was invested.
57:37
Speaker 3: And frankly, handing the reins over to Winston to shoot
57:40
Speaker 3: things I think was a tremendous mistake because there are
57:44
Speaker 3: certain things where Yes, Winston, and by his own admission
57:48
Speaker 3: he said, well, well I knew how to shoot our
57:50
Speaker 3: creature so it would look a certain way. You did.
57:54
Speaker 3: That's true. You did not know how to shoot things
57:57
Speaker 3: so that I gave a damn about what was happening
58:01
Speaker 3: in the scene. You put together an effects reel. That's
58:04
Speaker 3: what you do. And so I will throw that on
58:07
Speaker 3: Cosmatos and say, you are the project manager. You're supposed
58:14
Speaker 3: to be there making sure things come together correctly. You
58:18
Speaker 3: just wanted a day off. You wanted to walk away
58:21
Speaker 3: because you weren't interested in knowing how that worked. Not cool,
58:25
Speaker 3: That's not what you do. So yeah, it's one star
58:30
Speaker 3: dead and buried. I will never watch this thing again.
58:33
Speaker 2: Yeah. When I watched this again out of curiosity, this
58:37
Speaker 2: was on the blockbuster list. You know you'd see it
58:41
Speaker 2: in the horror section. You know it's got a decent cover.
58:45
Speaker 2: But to be a long time to actually see it,
58:50
Speaker 2: and honestly, I probably would not have watched it again
58:53
Speaker 2: except for this podcast and the joy of discussing it
58:57
Speaker 2: because it is the kind that it's so transper parent
59:00
Speaker 2: and it's it's not parody, but it's just photocopying of
59:06
Speaker 2: better material that I knew that would be an interesting
59:09
Speaker 2: discussion U And yeah, I'm I'm also going to give
59:12
Speaker 2: it a one star, and that one star is purely
59:15
Speaker 2: for what they achieved without CGI. The special effects are
59:20
Speaker 2: the best part of this.
59:24
Speaker 4: Because the plot is not is not there and that
59:27
Speaker 4: you guys made me give it the highest rating.
59:31
Speaker 3: I love that you gave it the highest rating because
59:34
Speaker 3: you're the curmudgeon and this is your This is what
59:38
Speaker 3: you get, is what you get for not being here.
59:40
Speaker 3: You would have given it one star had you been
59:42
Speaker 3: here from the beginning, Tristan, but you weren't, so you
59:44
Speaker 3: wind up giving it two stars.
59:46
Speaker 4: So they deserve that.
59:48
Speaker 2: I know, I know what I'm gonna get you for Christmas.
59:50
Speaker 2: Trustan your favorite movie Levia thin from LTE and Katie.
59:55
Speaker 2: Now if you could find this cash no anyway. Yes,
1:00:00
Speaker 2: So I did enjoy this conversation that even with the
1:00:03
Speaker 2: worst of movies, It is always a fun time picking
1:00:07
Speaker 2: it apart, analyzing it, sitting back and being like, what
1:00:11
Speaker 2: what was that? But I don't think that's going to
1:00:14
Speaker 2: be the case next week, as we end the House
1:00:16
Speaker 2: of Cosmotose, jumping to nineteen ninety three with Tombstone here
1:00:23
Speaker 2: on House sits.
1:00:24
Speaker 1: Join the Revolution, Join the net Party,