Latest / Houselights: A Film Director Podcast / The Iron Giant (1999) - Brad Bird | Houselights #137

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The Iron Giant (1999) - Brad Bird | Houselights #137 · Houselights: A Film Director Podcast

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Welcome to the nerd Polity. Welcome back to Houselights, our director discussion show
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here on the Nerd Party Network. We're starting a new house, the Bird
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House, covering Bradbird's directed works, starting with the nineteen ninety nine animated film
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The Iron Giant. I'm Darren Moser, and I'm joined again by my friends.
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He works for the government, Tristan Riddell and the Misunderstood junk artist John
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Mills, Gentleman. Set your nostalgia back to nineteen fifty seven or nineteen ninety
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nine as we discussed Brad's Bird's first film, The Iron Giant, and I
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had to look up where this was produced by, because this is not Disney,
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this is not you know, Pixarar. It's got a little bit of
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CG, a little bit of two D, but this was a Warner Brothers,
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one of Warner Brothers pictures. After a quest for Camelot failed miserably,
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this was their response film. But first off, I want to start with,
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is this your guy's first time watching this movie? Is this a cult
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classic in your house? Tristan? What about you? How how did this
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one hit your radar? Yes? This was my This was my absolute first
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time watching this. If this feels a little bit like a missing frame,
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which everyone should listen to at the nerdpody dot com. This movie kind of
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slipped through the cracks. I've seen so many clips from it. This is
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the type of movie that really exists in pop culture. Even though it didn't
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make a lot of money, it is classic for sure. Yeah, it's
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definitely a cult classic because I think when I watched Ready Player one and the
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Irang Giant was so prominently featured in the trailer's Eye movie that I was kind
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of like, man, I really need to see that, Like I feel
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like that is that's something that's missing. Yeah, I was missing it,
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just I don't know why. I just I did. I wasn't avoiding it
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on purpose. I just never got around to it. And as I was
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watching this, it's funny that you talked about, Oh it wasn't Disney,
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it's not Pixars, you know. As I was watching it, I was
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like, this is one of those movies that feels delightfully on Disney, Like
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it doesn't feel like a Disney film, And I really like that. I
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feel like some people might disagree with me, judging by the by their facial
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expressions, and I can't wait to hear that he thought, Rebuttal, I
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didn't know the Iron Giant's eyes could roll back in their head, but they
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did. John No, I Uh, first and foremost, thank you for
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recognizing that there's no way I'd work for the government and junk artists is basically
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my calling, and I will say that really worked my art is part getting
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ready for each of these shows is deciding what random care chacter to assign each
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of you two. But I'm glad you enjoy it. Yeah, you got
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that one right. Uh. It's funny you mentioned missing frames, because that
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was why I saw this film because I had not seen it. And Sean
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Eastridge, you know, a long time friend and everything. You know,
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I appear on there every so often, and he's like, oh, we
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should do The Iron Giant. I was like, oh, you know what,
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Like you said, Tristan, I've been meaning to get to it.
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Movie had the bad misfortune of being one of two prominent choices for me to
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see on my birthday that year, and so the sixth Cents one out and
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the sixth Sense one out for everybody that year. And so I as I
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watch it, though I wonder sometimes is that was this just always destined to
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become a cult classic. Because I understand what you're saying, Tristan about this
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not feeling very Disney, But to me, it feels Disney during that time
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period where it was driving Don Bluth out. Disney in the early eighties was
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doing some really interesting stuff. You had the Black Cauldron. This feels a
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lot like Black Cauldron. This feels a lot like that time period where Disney
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was starting to get there and then there was as yet but they're we're being
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more innovative, right, but they hit this, you know, they have
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the change in leadership and the board, Black Cauldron and Don Bluth are victims
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or not victims with casualties of that. I think this feels like a movie
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where Disney was headed until it decided to scrap all of that and then go
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back to just, you know, stealing the classics and reinventing them to have
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massive box office success. And so this feels Disney without feeling it's not classic
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era Disney. It's not reinvention the Little Mermaid era, Beauty and the Beast
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Disney renaissance, but it's it's it's that Disney that I think is ensconced in
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my brain as the Disney that never was. But I always thought it was
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like it looked because I because I came up during that Tron and Black Hole
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and Black Cauldron time period, and those were sort of my first Disney experiences
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that I can really recall. And so this this, to me, feels
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like the type of Disney it should have been, if that makes sense.
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And the animation even very much looks like a Don Bluth era. It sort
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of film. It feels like Secret of Nim you know. And granted it
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doesn't have stuff like that tail tale, like glowy eye, like the eyes
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grow, but not in a Don Bluth way. We all know what we're
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talking about. Like there's always something that's like, you know, the core
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of the sun is behind that lit object and it is piercing the veil,
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yes, but you know, and so it is it occupies that odd thing.
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It's It's one of those things where I really wish I had seen it
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in nineteen ninety nine, because I think that where I was in my life,
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this movie would have spoken to me in a completely different sort of way.
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Um, and I think I probably would have reacted to it very positively.
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Back then well I did catch it in nineteen ninety nine. I mean,
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it's a it's a giant robot movie. Young Darren love robots, so
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this I can't imagine a scenario where young didn't see this movie. Shock.
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I know you're all surprised, like I have robots in this own room.
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But anyway, yeah, I caught this for sure. I mean, man,
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ninety nine we got episode one. There's a lot like nine was a
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kicking year. It was Sense Yeah, episode one, Iron Giant Fight Club.
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Yeah, And based on the number of times I had to sit through
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the trailer because of the number of times I saw episode one, Anna and
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the King, which I never saw. So okay, was it Anna in
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the is that animated or is that? No? That was The King and
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I got it okay, yeah, yeah, it was The King and I
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redux with um Ah Jess. It was Jodie Foster and I forget the actual
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fat Yeah that's it. Oh. Also, I just I just googled it
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real quick. Geeze. So movies that came out in ninety nine. Ten
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things I hit about you, The Insider, The Green Mile, She's all
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that, Cruel Intentions, Virgin Suicides, The Mummy, American High Stigmata,
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Girl Interrupted, Nodding, Hill Off the s Eyes Wide Shut, Double Jeopardy,
7:34
Talented, Mister Ridley by Centennial Man, Three Kings, Boys Don't Cry,
7:38
Magnolia, American Beauty, Man in the Moon, Any Given Sunday,
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Blasts from the Past, Never Been Kissed, Thomas Crown Affair remake, Message
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in a Bottle, eight millimeter Hanting, October Sky sixth Cents, Stuart Little
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Payback, World is not Enough good Lord, Yeah, requests and noting,
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Yeah, Calexy not knocking American Beauty, but like all of the American Beauty
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one best Picture, I know, I'm sleepy, hollow. Sorry, it's
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still going. Yeah, and I keep saying it often sound like a website.
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Blair Witch. Oh gosh, I remember that God that was kind of
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the first like found footage phenomenon kind of movie. Yeah, the first,
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yeah, yeah, but it wasn't as charming as a movie about a found
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robot. That's the because when you because bring Back John, thank you,
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because you go through that list, right, And a lot of those movies
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were more financially successful than the Iron Giant, many of them. But the
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Iron Giant is that cultural touchstone that keeps being referenced, and this is this
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is one of those things where while I was watching it this time, I'm
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still trying to crack the code. Not because I think it doesn't deserve it,
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not because I didn't like it, not because of any reason like that,
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but I watch it every time and I think to myself, what is
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the lightning in a bottle here? What is it that really hits everybody?
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I'm open to ideas because so about the production, and you know, there's
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some interesting things going on in this movie. One you have, you know,
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this combination of art styles where it's a two D animated movie in a
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post toy story world. So already you're kind of like this is the era
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where Disney's leveling all of their two D animation. It's gone, like they're
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like, we are not doing that anymore. You know this this year they
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had Fantasia two thousand, which did not do very well. It was kind
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of their last push on that. But they're mirroring that, or not mirroring,
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but they're combining that, merging with the what we would see now as
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a staple of using CG for like vehicles and the Iron Giant, and now
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like animation television that's like every like every like Simpson's Family Guy, all of
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that. All of their vehicles are all CG with that cell shading wrapper that
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makes it look too d so that way they can do that complex mechanical motion
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but not have to draw it like crazy. So I would say this one
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is kind of pioneering in that regard because you have a CG animated giant,
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but again, he is not It doesn't look like you know, Powerings of
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the movie and you plopped in a very shiny chrome maybe ninety nine, I
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don't remember when that was. I think a little earlier. But one thing
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I really liked about that is that with the Iron Giant, the character,
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not the movie, but the character of the Iron Giant being completely CG.
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I love that they created a program to make the lines that were used to
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outline the Iron Giant off kilter and wobbly, not personal, that not exactly,
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not perfect, in order to make it have that hand drawn look.
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And I think it's a phenomenal success in terms of blending CG with live action
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because there's many times when it sticks out like a sore thumb, and many
11:13
movies and TV shows and everything like that. But this one was really really
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as close as seamless as you can get. I read they also animated him
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on two's to also give it a bit meaning like they did twelve frames of
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animation for him instead of they could have output, you know, twenty four
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on they could have done on ones because the program could have done that,
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but that would have had a very different look. So I think on two's
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helped it kind of match well because you're having to match all the other characters
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and how they're animated. Otherwise it would look like I'm holding this for an
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object in my hand that is glitching like the Spider verse and not acting like
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the hand that's holding it, and that wouldn't work. So yeah, so
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you have the you know, the technical aspects. I was. It's interesting
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story wise because this was based off of a book called The Iron Man.
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It's not two thousand and eight, Guys ninety nine or a little earlier.
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But but I hadn't realized that in the script writing and in the development.
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Two characters that were not in the book but we're in this movie are Kent,
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Mannagley and Dean, and I cannot imagine this story without Kent and Dean,
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like they are personifications of you know, not just the fifties g man
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and you know, kind of beatneck artist, but like I kind of don't
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want to watch a movie without them. There they are, So they're such
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fun parts of this movie. Well, I haven't read the book, but
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I've heard that it's the movie barely resembles the book. Well I could see
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that, So I think that's part of the reason. I think the writer
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was like I got paid, I don't care yay, like just it doesn't
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matter apply a relative of Sylvia Plath. And the entire reason why he wrote
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the novel was to kind of have an emotional message about class suicide to his
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family members. And I always thought that was incredibly interesting and which I'm not
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rewarding that very well. But Brad Byrd himself wrote like it did this movie
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as a how do I phrase this? It was what I've heard is that
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his sister was killed by her husband because of gun violence, and he did
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this movie as a kind of a way to process that, whereas, like,
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what if there was a gun who didn't want to be a gun And
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that's what this movie is about. And so the novel was written from a
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source of pain and the movie itself was written from a source of pain,
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which I find very interesting. Well, I mean that's you know, the
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source of so much great art is people processing those things and you know,
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producing beauty from you know, difficult sources of circumstances. That's just you know,
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I lawed it obviously because it's you know, that's taking something negative and
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making it into a positive, not just for yourself but for other people,
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and you know, basically making it a very you know, inaccessible thing.
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But at the same time, I think that what makes a movie like this
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work is that it's not pigeonholed into just that in turn, like that's the
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sort of thing you can get to. I think a kid can watch this
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and they're not necessarily going to process that deep of a meaning to it,
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but it will resonate with them on a certain level so that when they come
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back to it as adults, those sorts of reads work. And that,
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I mean, that's another thing. And this is where I know I'm going
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to come across maybe sounding a bit like a jerk. I don't know,
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because I while I watched at this time, also thought of another director who
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makes a lot of homage to Steven Spielberg era, Steven Spielberg's golden era,
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the eighties, JJ Abrams and I thought of Super eight, and I look
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at Super eight, and then I look at The Iron Giant, And with
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the Iron Giant, I see a much more successful expression of somebody who was
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sort of like soaking in that Spielberg school of filmmaking where ets about something super
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deep, but when your kid, it's just a movie about an alien that
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a kid is friends with. Raiders is a definitely a lot of that et
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vibe of meets an alien friend, right. And it's interesting because I think
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that it would make an incredibly interesting double bill to watch The Iron Giant and
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Super eight, because I think that the two of them you would see so
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much of where it overlaps Apps and so much of where Bird makes it work
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cleaner and makes it, you know, sticks the landing much more effectively in
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terms of, you know, the complete story. Because I think that this
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is something where what is so incredibly evocative is it feels like I'm watching an
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eighties movie. And I'm not saying that in a pejorative or dismissive way.
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Now, this captures that feeling of being a kid in the eighties and seeing
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one of those movies and saying, wow, it's It's what I imagine my
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dad felt when he watched Raiders of a Lost Arc and was like, wow,
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it's the old cereals again. I used to watch these on Saturday morning
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when I could, you know, get out to the theater and stuff like
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that, you know, or on Saturday mornings when I was watching you know,
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Western Shorts or Bananza or like there's that sort of thing where it's evocative,
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and this is evocative without being ready player one or supreat about it.
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No, I definitely hear that. Go ahead, Risen, that's oh.
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I was just gonna say, I think that's really interesting, John, And
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I didn't think that while I was watching it, but after you said that,
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going back in my head, that totally makes sense. Well, because
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it's not a I mean, it's set in the fifties, but this isn't
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like a fifties movie. I think, like you said, John, it's
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heart is in a Spielbergian eighties you know, Kid in his Pet Alien,
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you know, type of flick. And yeah, we get. Let's let's
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talk a bit about the characters, because there are a lot of really fun
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characters in this movie, I mean Hogarth Man. They are painting him like
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again, just the name. You're like, why why did you? Why
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did your parents give you this name? This is a I know it's another
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era, but you have Hogarth. You have an amazing you know, voice
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cast in this movie. But again, i'd say my favorite character, just
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for his betrayal is is Kent Mansley by Christopher McDonald, who is just chewing,
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chewing the scenery every take. I love the montage as he's like pesturing
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Hogarth. He's like, hey, slicker sport buddy champ and it's just and
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he's got a chin for days. It's just uh. I love that character.
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Like McDonald, I'm glad that you mentioned Christopher McDonald because he's one of
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those actors that never achieved like a certain level of fame. Didn't he didn't
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he the performances, he has a couple of key performances, like he's in
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a Happy Gilmore. He's fantastic in that. He's absolutely fantastic in that shooter
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may even right and that one. Yeah, and you you look through the
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other people that were considered for this role, and you know Timi Lee Jones,
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Okay, I could see that Alec Baldwin, I could totally hear his
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voice there. Um, you know, I'm not going to go through like
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the whole list that Wikipedia speculates was under liberation, the entire list that would
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be crazy on a Pokevin Spacey James was, Denis Hopper, Malcolm mcdoal,
19:06
Patrick McGowan, and Patrick Stewart all considered, strangely enough, Burt Reynolds,
19:11
which doesn't make any sense whatsoever. But like, the great thing about McDonald
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is he is able to give it a vocal quality that is memorable, that
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is familiar because his voice is very it's it's distinctive without being signature. Like
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I can hear Patrick Stewart right, if I hear Alec Baldwin, I'm like,
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oh, that's Alec Baldwin doing a voice. Chrispher McDonald's the character.
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He has a voice that's bordering on utility voice, but he is so good
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at using it that it really really comes through. And voice acting is a
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very difficult job and for you know, it's a lot of credit to him.
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It's a lot of credit to Bird for nailing this, because I would
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say that if Kent Mansley doesn't work, this whole movie falls apart. Oh
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totally. If you don't, if you don't have this driving, you know,
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quasi villain character, I don't think the whole I don't think it comes
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together the way that it does. He Christopher McDonald is one of those character
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actors that I wish wrote which I think we can all agree. I wish
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that he rose a little bit above character actor's status, which maybe he did
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a little bit among film buff circles, Like like everybody knows Chris McDonald's name,
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and like when we when we see him, we recognize him as film
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buffs and TV buffs and everything like that. But there's so many times like
20:41
when you he's kind of known for doing the goofier stuff, like when people
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like when your casual fans sees him, they think about those crappy American pie
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remakes, um, you know, like they think about him in like the
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these really weird like stuff from North or fat Actress or you know, like
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you know, like he does this a lot of B stuff, B movie
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b you know, like the straight to dvdast crap. But every single time
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I've seen him do a dramatic role, he knocks it out of the park.
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He is a phenomenal dramatic actor. And I like, my favorite performance
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of his is in Yesterday's Enterprise and Star Trek the Next Generation Please that so
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well and out of time all this stuff. Everybody else on screen, including
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Patrick Stewart, is just ketch playing catch up. He in my opinion,
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he steals that episode. He is so friggin good and he did just a
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absolutely fantastic performance in this And I think I'm with you John, Like if
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he doesn't, if he can't sell this, then this movie falls apart.
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No, And I mean it's interesting, Like obviously he's not the protagonist,
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he's not the main character, but he is like the lynchpin. He really,
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he really is in this in this story, uh you know. And
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then again there's other I love. I could totally recognize, you know,
22:14
John Mahoney's Fraser Frasier's dad voice as the general, like perfect casting. There,
22:19
just has that military brass nailed down. But we also get and very
22:27
early in his career pre Pitch Black, Pit, pre Fast and Furious,
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this is Vin Diesel as the Giant and you know, pre Groot, and
22:40
we have another another role where he is not speaking a ton But again you
22:45
have to hit those emotions in that voice performance, because you need to connect
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with this character that has expressive eyes but is still limited by how they're kind
23:00
of portraying on screen. But yeah, that gruff, robotic gravel of a
23:08
voice that's also kind of talking like a child, it's a really interesting you
23:15
know, you could probably count the number of lines he's got on two hands,
23:18
but overall it comes across. I think that totaled eighty three words,
23:25
not including like groans and yells and things like that. Right. The funniest
23:29
thing being that Arnold Schwarzenegger in Terminator two. I think he had something around
23:36
like some absurdly low number of words as well. So somebody would point it
23:41
at a vocal performance, were like, oh, yeah, we had like
23:42
eighty something words. It's like, yeah, if you totally like Arnold's entire
23:47
dialogue in a two and a half hour film was you know, like a
23:49
minute, so you know that he was. Dwarzer was considered for Kent Man
24:00
and John Travulture for Dean mccopen. But ooh, okay, I could see
24:04
Travolta doing that. I could totally see that work. Yeah, I could
24:07
see Travolta. I can't see Schwartzenegger because no, like this guy is so
24:12
anti Red Menace and you're casting Schwartzenegger's voice like that doesn't fit, Like is
24:18
he a secret double agent? He's like this giant you know Russian. That's
24:22
just like, yes, I am American, you know, you know,
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I don't I don't buy that. Yeah, that wouldn't have that that that
24:30
feels like something where it's like the the studio was like, hey, we
24:33
could get Schwartzenegger for something like this, and then like cooler heads are like,
24:36
I don't know, guys that yeah, you think about it for two
24:38
seconds and they're like yeah, no, well never mind the fact that the
24:41
budget immediately would have doubled. So you know, although actually ninety nine Schwarzenegger
24:48
was he wasn't quite the box office draw that he had been. So um
24:53
but yeah, I mean, just as an added note about Vin Diesel is
24:57
like he he had a small part in saving Private Ryan in ninety eight,
25:02
he's here in The Iron Giant, and then two thousand he has breakthrough with
25:07
Boiler Room and Pitch Black and then The Fast and the Furious right after that,
25:11
like they caught him right before she just the right time to afford him.
25:17
They wait one year to make this movie. Vin Diesel is not the
25:19
voice of the Iron Giant, and I think it's charming that he still will
25:26
make reference to being the Iron Giant and how much he enjoys being associated with
25:30
it. So I gave him credit for that. Well, and if you
25:33
think about as an animated movie, he was probably recorded in like ninety six
25:38
or ninety seven, you know, because they record that so early in the
25:41
production timeline, so they really could afford him because he was nowhere near Fast
25:47
and the Furious and Pitch Black and all of that. But yeah, yeah,
25:52
well, I mean I think that says something though about the about the
25:56
film, in the fact that its actors enjoyed their performance and enjoyed the result.
26:02
Like you know, there's definitely some movies that we know out there where
26:06
the actors are like, yeah, my name's on it, but I don't
26:08
I'm never going to talk about it, or I'm never gonna reference it,
26:11
or you know, please don't bring I need I needed the money. I
26:15
needed a house, so I said yes. But yeah, well, and
26:19
then you know, some of the the overall themes in this again it's I
26:25
like you said, John in it kind of being this dual level Spielberg Child's
26:32
movie where you know, you're talking about you know, you are who you
26:37
choose to be, you know, don't choose to be a gun, you
26:41
know, talking about Superman, you're talking about the where is it? But
26:48
just you're having these other levels to this character in an eighty seven minute movie,
26:55
Like they don't have a lot of time to get these themes across,
26:59
but they do somehow. Um, Tristan, what do you feel with like
27:03
the pacing of this is it? Like there's I don't know if there's too
27:07
much to cut because it it goes like I said, there's not a lot
27:11
of time and then boom we're at the finale. Yeah, it goes at
27:15
a clip and it's I think just ninety minutes eighty summer running. Yeah,
27:22
it's less than ninety minutes. I think technically not a film, right,
27:25
is it ninety? The threshold? No, the threshold is something like eighty,
27:29
isn't it. It's I can't remember it's a film. Then you think,
27:33
yeah, it's lower than you think. I'll have to look it up
27:36
when I'm not talking, But yeah, I think there's not much to cut.
27:41
But at the same time, there's not a lot of meat on the
27:47
bone. In my opinion, I feel like there is. It's it's it's
27:53
ninety minutes, and I feel like it was a stretch to get this story
27:59
to ninety minutes. In my opinion, I feel like there was there was.
28:02
I don't feel like there was any stretched scenes. I don't feel like
28:04
there was any unnecessary scenes. But I feel like if you added one more
28:10
scene it would have been too much, because I feel like the story is
28:14
there. It's like, it's the it's the et story. You know,
28:17
it's you know, somebody crash landed. I'm hiding him and then I get
28:22
found out he's not a threat to us, and he saves us. You
28:26
know. It's just I feel like with that in mind, there there wasn't
28:32
too much more that they could add in to tell this story. So I
28:34
feel like it was very utilitarian. It was just like tell this, tell
28:40
this, tell this, tell this, tell this, and then move forward.
28:44
And so I guess I'm I'm saying I'm not knocking it. It's just
28:48
I feel like this was the appropriate length for this movie. Yeah, where
28:52
even though it goes at a clip and it's eighty seven minutes. If it
28:56
was eighty eight minutes, it would have been too long. I agree,
29:00
And that's why I'm not inclined, you know, for you know, they
29:03
have the signature edition, and it's like the signature edition, this was stuff
29:07
that wasn't even finished, and they basically found an excuse to go in and
29:11
add onto it. And I think that the theatrical version is it just stick
29:17
with it, that's it. And I think that you're absolutely right, Tristan.
29:22
It is. It's very lean storytelling, and I think that's a reason
29:30
why it keeps its reputation and why people go back to it, is it
29:36
asks just the right amount of time from you because it's not making any pretensions
29:42
that this scene needed to be bigger and more dramatic. It's aware of its
29:48
scale and it doesn't get out over its skis basically yeah. Well, and
29:52
it makes sense too story wise, where the giant arrives like it's only a
29:59
matter of days really, that the boys not trying to hide him for like
30:03
a month in a cave somewhere, like it's very practical. It's very like,
30:07
okay, oh, you hide him in the junkyard. That makes sense.
30:10
He's still a giant robot and people can still see him, and there's
30:14
someone actively hunting him, so of course they're going to find him within a
30:18
couple of days. So it it. It doesn't treat the audience like they're
30:22
stupid and say like, oh well, there's no giant stretches of the imagination.
30:29
As far as how the humans act, I would say, you know,
30:32
they they act, you know, paranoid when they should be paranoid,
30:34
and they act you know, they're They're different kinds of character. You know,
30:37
Dean is the cool, you know, eventually father figure and you have
30:42
you know, Kent is the raving gman bureaucrat that wants to, you know,
30:48
go up a notch. And it's funny. We haven't talked a lot
30:52
about Hogarth because I don't know. Hogarth is almost just kind of there to
31:02
kind of push the Giant story along in a way, like Hogarth doesn't have
31:07
My dad went to ward, he never came home. Like I don't know
31:11
a lot about Hogarth. He doesn't seem to be bullied really that much,
31:15
Like we don't even see him in school. I was about to equate him
31:18
to Elliott, but at the same time, I feel like we knew more
31:22
about Elliott than we did with Hogarth. I think that's a function of the
31:27
fact that Hogarth is it's Hogarth and his mom, whereas Elliott has a larger
31:34
family circle, family and friends circle around him. And that is why,
31:38
you know more is there's more people for him to interact with, whereas this
31:42
is the story of a very lonely child. He barely he's barely ever in
31:47
the same shot as his mom to talk to her and to have any development.
31:51
And I mean, Jeffer, Yeah, that in and of itself,
31:56
I think works to the movie's advantage, honestly, because the child's, you
32:01
know, Hogarth's loneliness makes it so believable why he'd be so desperate for a
32:07
friend that a giant robot wouldn't be terrifying to him, but would be an
32:14
opportunity to make some sort of bond. This would be a this would be
32:19
a character who's looking for that? Now, John, you were a latch
32:24
key kid, yes, growing up? I was so with that in mind.
32:30
You know, do you feel like you connect to these kind of characters
32:32
more often than not? Or does it is it not really a factor when
32:36
you watch these movies or did you dream of the Iron Giant? Did you
32:38
dream of et Did you dream of that happening or does it? Was it
32:42
just a situation? You know? I mean, honestly I dreamed of having
32:45
a lightsaber and flying around the Millennium Falcon, But yeah, you know,
32:49
I mean it's like, um, yeah, yeah, you'd be sitting there
32:53
and sometimes you get tired of, you know, watching TV and stuff like
32:57
that. It's like, oh, man, wouldn't it be cool if so,
33:00
you know, hey you go out exploring. If I but I was
33:04
not Hogarth because if I had encountered a giant robot, I probably would not
33:07
have been like, hey, let's have it. I would have run home
33:09
and be like, you know, I'd have asked my older brother to protect
33:14
me, although he probably would have gotten himself eaten by going out and trying
33:17
to be a tough guy with the robot. So well, I do like
33:22
how Hogarth meets the Giant in the fact that he is scared of him initially
33:27
like it's a giant robot, but then he sees him in peril and he
33:30
sees him, you know, hurt, and so he acts and interjects himself
33:37
and thus forms that friendship bond. And and then you know, twenty five
33:42
minutes later the moves over like boom boom boom when we go really fast.
33:45
But yeah, now it's yeah. Who Garth is an interesting character in it's
33:51
like, again, nothing wrong with the character, but he just feels like
33:53
this kind of template. I don't want to go so far as to say
33:59
like placeholder, but like he is. I feel like the giant is driving
34:02
the story more than he is, Like he's almost not even the main character
34:07
as far as he's very reactionary. But maybe maybe that's too harsh. It's
34:13
hard, it's hard to say. I think that in all honesty, in
34:19
terms of you know, symbolism and function, I think that the one of
34:24
the more interesting characters is actually Dean because he's I think he is a really
34:34
interesting character to have because the beats are not really that sort of movement is
34:39
not really understood anymore people Like you could have a hippie in a movie and
34:45
everybody understands hipie, everybody understands disco guy, but the beats remain this sort
34:50
of like enigmatic thing. And I think that having him as a more beatnick
34:54
sort is really interesting because you can they really were that sort of like first
35:00
disaffected postmodern movement in American culture, you know, post war sort of thing
35:07
of like trying to deconstruct meaning. And um, yeah, but but I
35:15
think, you know, I mean, as a huge fan of the Beats,
35:17
you know, Cassidy carouag Ginsburg, all that type of thing, I
35:22
really enjoy the fact that we have a character that expresses that, you know,
35:28
um, sort of alienation that just your average person in a you know,
35:34
in a town like that would feel, you know, who didn't want
35:37
to fit the norm quote unquote as it were. And then you know,
35:40
you have the added layer of like Hogarth with you know, the single mom
35:43
sort of thing that's a that's a weird thing too. No, that's true.
35:47
Um, well, let's talk a second about the music. So this
35:52
was Michael Caman and my lord, I feel like I should know more about
35:58
Michael Cayman because I started looking at their filmography and this guy, I mean,
36:06
there's my turn to do the list. So we got Brazil, Edge
36:09
of Darkness, Highlander, lethal Weapon, die Hard, we have License to
36:17
Kill, lethal Weapon two die or two, Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves.
36:23
It just and goes on and on and on, and I'm like dang,
36:27
mister Holland's opus, you know, Jack one hundred one Dalmatians the Avengers
36:32
from nineteen ninety eight, not the other one, you know, x men.
36:37
And I was looking and I'm like, oh, my gosh, it's
36:39
like on and on and on, and then it hits two thousand and four,
36:42
and then it stops, and I'm like, oh, so he probably
36:45
passed away, because no one this prolific would just stop in two thousand and
36:50
four. And unfortunately it looks like he had MS and did pass in that
36:55
year. But my gosh, well, I don't. It surprised me because
37:00
I feel like, kind of like McTiernan when it was like, I know
37:04
all these works, I just never associate them under this single name. And
37:08
I really enjoyed the you know, the music in this it was you know,
37:15
it was orchestral. You know, it was just fun and playful.
37:20
You have the serious moments, you know, with the the deer and the
37:23
and the gun. You know, you have great sound effects, you know
37:27
where he's going all MetalMan and crazy, but it's also kind of capturing this
37:34
nineteen fifties summer vibe. You know. It's a it's a really interesting musical
37:38
piece chosen. What do you think about the music by by Michael Caman.
37:45
I'm actually a big fan of Michael Caman. I think he's underrated. I
37:49
think he gets often overlooked and when lists are made, he's often forgotten.
37:55
And I think that's a damn shame you mentioned Jack on that even though it
38:00
was a god aful movie, Good Lord. That was a piece of steaming
38:06
garbage that I for some reason liked as a kid and then watched as as
38:09
an adult and had no idea why I liked it. The music itself was
38:15
inventive and unique and childlike, much like the character. And I feel like
38:22
he has this capacity to connect with the material in a way that not many
38:29
composers do. I mean, like the composers, they can, they can
38:31
sell you on a feeling. They can they do what the director tells them
38:35
to do. That you know, it's very serviceable, serviceable. But with
38:40
this, with Cayman and The ironge Giant and so much of his other works,
38:45
you can tell he got it, he really understood because he has to
38:50
go back and forth, up and down sideways diagonal with the emotional beats of
38:55
this film, because we go from funny to serious, to sardonic, to
39:04
frenetic to slow, you know, in the in a heartbeat, and he
39:07
has to match that. And I honestly, I think the music is one
39:12
of the best things about this piece, about this movie. And I don't
39:15
often say that. Most of the time, I think so many scores are
39:20
just there. This one really intertwined. I agree with that. Yeah,
39:25
I think this is one of Cayman's better works in terms of a score.
39:29
And that's the thing about how prolific he was is there are scores of his
39:34
where I'm kind of like, ah, But then there are other scores of
39:37
his this or die Hard where I'm like I hear a couple of notes and
39:40
I'm like, yeah, yeah, yep, that's that's the score. That's
39:43
the score. That sort of thing. I mean again, like you know,
39:47
saying in the same breath, mister Holland opis and like Robin Hood they
39:51
use that in their movie intro for like the studio reel for like a decade,
39:57
like everybody heard that and you just get jazz and energized. All right.
40:02
So as we're as we're kind of round and third on this, I
40:05
want to make sure we take a moment too. It's gonna be a little
40:08
tricky because this is the first directed piece by Bradbird, so it's our kind
40:14
of initial point of comparison. But it's also animated and animated movies. I
40:17
mean, obviously the director plays an important role, but it is a different
40:23
kind of team effort than like a live action movie, where you could say
40:29
like, oh, I could totally see that cinematographer came in and really put
40:32
their mark on it, like that's not I don't I don't feel like that
40:37
kind of is the same vibe we get with animated films. And so from
40:40
reading about Bradbird and about this picture, you know, they it said that
40:45
he was two of the points that he really injected in it was heavily storyboarding
40:52
ahead of time and just really you're on a budget, so you really got
40:55
to make sure you're making exactly what you need and more. But also he
41:01
said that he for animating, did it a little differently than Disneywood, Whereas
41:10
he would have the the not old timers, but the experienced animators pair up
41:15
with the younger animators to kind of like balance back and forth with certain scenes,
41:21
but they would have people animate by scene and sequence rather than by character,
41:27
except for the Giant because of the technical you know, the of the
41:30
cg character. But so you didn't have a person who only drew Dean and
41:36
they drew Dean throughout, you know, the entire picture. You would have
41:38
people. And I think that kind of makes sense though where you have this
41:43
movie, which is this you know, all of these sequences and pictures,
41:45
and you could have someone who is like, I'm gonna animate like I've never
41:51
animated before, for the jumping in the swimming hole scene, like that is
41:55
I'm going to focus on it for a month and knock it out, and
41:58
it's going to be playful, and it's going to have all these beats and
42:00
and that's how we're going to do it. And I think that, you
42:04
know, seemed to have been the right aspect or the right direction for this
42:07
movie. Like I think that works and comes across you know, again it's
42:13
our single point of comparison so far, but any anything that come across to
42:19
either of you in the visuals or the story pacing, or I guess the
42:23
direct ability of this film that makes that that you want to kind of pin
42:28
to Brad Bird. I think with just a thousand apologies, John, Oh,
42:34
no, I apology. I apologize. Good Sarah, please after you,
42:37
I insist, thank you, thank you. Um well, with just
42:40
a little bit of behind the scene knowledge, it was interesting to find out
42:44
that Bradbird himself animated the espresso scene because it was so crazy. I like
42:50
that and I love I love that scene, and finding that out makes me
42:54
like this, this was so hard to animate. He's like, I gotta
42:58
do this myself. I don't think it was a sense of ego. It
43:01
was I can't do this to anybody else, like I wrote this, I
43:06
can't ask anyone else to do something I wouldn't do myself. And exactly,
43:09
and so I think with this as the start of our journey of Brad Bird
43:19
the Birdhouse, which honestly, like John makes this joke last week about calling
43:24
it the bird house, but think about it from the opposite perspective, where
43:28
if we always call it the house of Peterson, the House of Fincher,
43:30
or the house of Nolan, but to call it the house of bird sounds
43:35
pretentious because wait, the house of bird? You mean a bird house?
43:40
Like, no, shut up, it's the house of bird. Bird is
43:45
the word. I think with this beginning our journey into the House of Bird,
43:51
the bird House. That's a key figure right there of Brad Bird is
43:57
the type of director where it's just like, I'm going to animate this action
44:00
myself because this is the most difficult and I don't wish this on anybody else
44:04
but myself. That in itself is the sign of a great director who knows
44:10
how to work with people and manage time and make sure that everybody's doing the
44:15
best that they can do. And he's not going to point at some schlub,
44:20
but say, you get to do this scene while I sit in my
44:22
ivory ivory tower. So he's willing to get his hands dirty. And so
44:27
I'm looking forward to see in the Trenches director. It feels like, yeah,
44:31
what about you, John Well. I think that the what I will
44:36
look for going forward is the sense of process. I'm going to be looking
44:45
for somebody who has a keen sense for process because of that tidbit that you
44:51
mentioned where he paired up somebody who was an old school animator with somebody who
44:55
was a newer animator. Because I always think of a disgus and I had
45:00
with somebody one time where I was talking about effects and how it would be
45:07
whove a lot of people who work in the strictly computer era who came up
45:15
and they strictly computer effects era to have them have to go through the process
45:19
of old school like ten commandments, layering the film and putting it through the
45:24
optical compositor or sort of thing, so that they can sit there and say,
45:28
oh, just you know whatever, they get a sense for like,
45:30
oh, I have to think of each step clearly through. I remember that
45:36
five minute section of film that I did, and how precise I like teaching
45:39
the precision. I think I think he winds up in that instance, not
45:44
just getting a better, more cohesive and more successful, you know, animation
45:52
style through the whole thing, but he winds up in a way making it
45:58
a very success full mentorships in situation where he has become a good leader in
46:05
setting up this experience, no matter how financially successful it is. I guarantee
46:10
you everybody who worked on it remembered it because they're going to old timer's learned
46:14
something new and the new kids learned the sense of process it comes from,
46:20
and how mindful they had to be about putting things together. And I think
46:24
that's probably why the animation for the whole thing works so well. And that
46:30
says to me that we're going to be watching a director who has a really
46:32
keen sense for how important it is to have the right process set up,
46:37
and does that work to his advantage does it worked to his detriment. I
46:40
think that probably we're going to find pluses and minuses along the way for somebody
46:45
who's that focused on process. Now, I think you're right. I think
46:51
what i'd read about the pairing was he's like, if you don't do that,
46:54
you overwork you know, your seasoned animators because you know they could handle
47:00
anything, and you underwork your you know, new guys who never become the
47:05
seasoned animators because they don't get anything, like you know. It's like,
47:07
oh, I want to hire you for this job, but you need experience,
47:10
but you can't be hired to do the job because you have no experience.
47:13
And yeah, no, I'm really interested. Again, I'm really excited
47:19
about The Birdhouse because it's only six films, and it's been a while since
47:27
we've actually covered all of the directed works of one director and not only had
47:31
to do a slice for a decade or some sort of different aspect of it.
47:37
So it's I think we're going to kind of be holding each one of
47:40
these very close to the magnifying glass because there's so few. So, you
47:46
know, I think we're going to be pleasantly surprised with how well overall his
47:52
career goes. But it all started back here with The Iron Giant. So
47:57
John, we're going to start with you having seen this semi recently with missing
48:01
frames. But what how many how many Hogarth Hughes h is are you going
48:10
to give the Iron Giant? Well, I'm going to stick with the same
48:15
rating I had the first time I watched it, which is a four and
48:17
a half, So I guess four capital H is in a lowercase H.
48:22
And the reason for that is that while this is a really technically proficient and
48:30
enjoyable and revisitable film to speak to something Tristan was talking about earlier, it's
48:36
on the verge of absolute mastery and greatness, but it doesn't it doesn't quite
48:44
get there. This isn't This isn't you know, Beauty and the Beast back
48:50
in ninety one, or Spider Verse or something that just transcends not there.
48:53
It's I'll always revisit this, I will always love it. But it doesn't
49:00
hack that same wallop that's something like across the Spider Verse does where it's like
49:05
that, you know, the first time, you know, the first time
49:07
viewing that like it blew my mind where I was like, my god,
49:10
how did you keep all of this straight and keep it all together and keep
49:15
it flowing this? I look at this a very straightforward story, very cleanly
49:21
and distinctly drawn characters, both literally and story wise, and I think that
49:28
it's it's a movie I treasure. It's a movie I enjoy. It's a
49:30
movie I'll I'll rewatch on occasion, but it's not the stone cold classic category.
49:36
So I wind up at a four and a half with it. Oh,
49:38
very strong, very strong. What about you, Tristan having seen it
49:42
only super recently, and is this something you you know you would probably put
49:47
before your children, you know, your your child first and say like,
49:52
oh, come and watch this with daddy or when they're a little older.
49:54
I'm sure, But how does this just rank as the starting point for Bradbird
50:00
I personally, while there was a lot of great components, like the music,
50:07
the animation, the acting. While the story is good, it doesn't,
50:15
like I said, like if it was eighty eight minutes. It would
50:16
be too long. I feel like I'm leaning a little bit more towards the
50:24
audience of nineteen ninety nine that I am of the audience of today, Like
50:30
I didn't grow up on this one. I didn't have the nostalgia of this
50:31
one. This one, I feel like, is a movie that is not
50:36
greater than the some of its parts, where like if you feel, if
50:38
you look at every single aspect of it, it's really well done, but
50:42
something lacked the cohesion. Cohesion for me, something just wasn't clicking. Like
50:49
I wasn't on the edge of my seat, I wasn't super engaged. It
50:52
just felt very color by numbers for me in certain aspects. And maybe I'm
50:59
judging this too harshly. Maybe I'm not going back to nineteen ninety nine in
51:04
my brain and thinking like, oh man, like I really wish I saw
51:08
this in ninety nine, because if I did, I feel like I would
51:12
be a little bit more favorable towards it. This one. I give a
51:15
very competent and very good three and a half. I think is this is
51:21
a three and a half that is nothing to sneeze at. This is not
51:24
a bad three and a half. This is very good three and a half
51:28
where all the parts are great, but something just doesn't. It didn't stick
51:32
the landing for me. And that's what I have to say about that.
51:37
No, very fair, very fair. Yeah. I mean, even being
51:40
the one who watched this when it came out, I don't feel like this
51:45
suffers from some sort of nostalgia lens. I think it is. It's the
51:50
Iron Giants. It's like you've seen it or you haven't. You know,
51:53
I enjoyed watching it again. You know, I could watch this once a
51:58
year and be perfectly content enjoying it, and like if my kids are like,
52:01
oh hey, let's watch this, I would sit down and watch it
52:04
again and wouldn't be like, you know, once was enough. I'm good,
52:08
you know. But yeah, it is not like a Galaxy Quest or
52:12
something where I'm like, oh stop everything Iron Giant is on. Time to
52:17
park my butt and see you know, this movie again. But but every
52:22
time I'm reminded by, you know, the things I love about the characters,
52:25
the performances are are there's there's humor and there's wit, but there's still
52:31
you know, like when we were talking about Bradbird's you know, sister,
52:36
Like I would almost go out and say that that dear scene is her,
52:42
you know, getting getting like that's a representation of his sister being shot and
52:47
you and using that into the don't be a gun and being who you choose
52:52
to be. And uh, you know, I would not be surprised if
52:55
if he was drawing a Pails. I'm just speculating, but yeah, I
53:02
haven't you know, dug into the behind the scenes as much as this viewing.
53:06
But so I'm giving Iron Giant a solid four. I'm splitting the difference
53:10
right between you two. It's a It's a good film, I really As
53:16
as we look into you know, Brad Bird's filmography, you can see why
53:22
this one did well enough, even though it wasn't the box office success that
53:28
people wanted it to be. You could see the aspects where people were like,
53:32
I want, I'm going to give Brad another chance, and we're going
53:36
to put him on this property and see what happens and that and you know,
53:40
and then his career is just gonna explode and take off from there.
53:45
So next week, as we continue in the Birdhouse, we're going to jump
53:51
forward to two thousand and seven. Sorry, And next week with The Birdhouse.
53:57
We're going to jump forward to two thousand and four with The Incredibles.
54:00
So you want to talk about a movie where Bradbird is all over it?
54:06
This one? I mean, I think that was the warm up and this
54:08
is the pitch. Here on Houselights, Join the Revolution, Join the Nerd Party.