Latest / Houselights: A Film Director Podcast / Godzilla (1998) - Roland Emmerich | Houselights #189

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Godzilla (1998) - Roland Emmerich | Houselights #189 · Houselights: A Film Director Podcast

0:03
Speaker 1: Welcome to the net party.
0:20
Speaker 2: Hello, everybody home, and welcome to House Lights, House of Emeric,
0:23
Speaker 2: Roland Emerick. And tonight we were talking about nineteen ninety
0:26
Speaker 2: eight's Godzilla and this is the end of our Roland
0:31
Speaker 2: Emeric House and it has been quite the journey. Everybody's
0:36
Speaker 2: looking at me. Did we actually decide we were going
0:37
Speaker 2: to do Patriot?
0:39
Speaker 3: Yep, we put it on.
0:40
Speaker 1: The list, but we could also we could also leave
0:43
Speaker 1: it as a surprise at the end. You could open
0:46
Speaker 1: like that and then at the end we're like.
0:47
Speaker 3: You know what, let's not go out to the end
0:49
Speaker 3: of the nineties. Yeah, you could just say it's the AAUS.
0:52
Speaker 3: We wrap up the nineties with nineteen ninety eight's Godzilla. Okay,
0:55
Speaker 3: all right, other Godzilla since then?
0:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, but yeah, well I'll say, like wrap up the
0:59
Speaker 2: nine and then like somehow we'll somebody bring up the Patriot,
1:04
Speaker 2: like John bring up the Patriot or something like that,
1:06
Speaker 2: and then I'll say, you know what, we need to
1:08
Speaker 2: watch that We're going to extend this.
1:10
Speaker 1: Okay, Okay, yeah, third.
1:12
Speaker 3: Time it's the Charm.
1:15
Speaker 2: Hello everybody at home and welcome to House Lights, House
1:18
Speaker 2: of Emeric, Roland Emeric, and we are rounding out the
1:22
Speaker 2: nineties of Emrick with Godzilla from nineteen ninety eight. This
1:27
Speaker 2: was written by his usual producing and writing partner Dean
1:30
Speaker 2: Devlin himself and also Ted Elliott, and it is starring
1:34
Speaker 2: Matthew Broderick, Jean Reno, and Maria Pettillo or Patillo however
1:39
Speaker 2: you want to pronounce it. And this really has been
1:44
Speaker 2: a journey through the nineties of Emeric. We've had ups,
1:47
Speaker 2: we've had downs, a lot of downs, maybe some spirals,
1:52
Speaker 2: but some fun times and sharing in those fun times
1:56
Speaker 2: as they do every single week, is Darren Moser and
2:01
Speaker 2: John Mills. John, I want to know right off the bat,
2:05
Speaker 2: when did you see this movie? Did you buy into
2:09
Speaker 2: the hype? Did size really matter when you went to
2:14
Speaker 2: the theater and saw this.
2:15
Speaker 1: First and foremost, I want to be clear that I've
2:17
Speaker 1: hated that tagline since it came out. It was such
2:21
Speaker 1: such an eye rolling tagline where it was like, okay, guys,
2:24
Speaker 1: all right. I was not particularly stoked for Godzilla, but
2:30
Speaker 1: it was just like the campaign for Independence Day. We
2:34
Speaker 1: were all going to go see it, and we were
2:37
Speaker 1: all going to go we were all going to see it.
2:38
Speaker 1: This is Independence Day was a huge hit. It was
2:41
Speaker 1: a water cooler movie. Of course, everybody, like everybody bought
2:44
Speaker 1: into it at different degrees. You were either going because
2:47
Speaker 1: you're like, Okay, let's see what this is, or there
2:49
Speaker 1: were people that were like, Oh, my gosh, this is
2:50
Speaker 1: going to be so cool. I remember a couple of
2:53
Speaker 1: clips that were in the trailers where everybody's like, oh,
2:56
Speaker 1: that's cool. I remember I don't remember whether it was
2:59
Speaker 1: a in a teaser. I think it was in a
3:01
Speaker 1: teaser of Hank's area almost getting smushed and then having
3:05
Speaker 1: that laugh, and it was like, I mean, Simpsons fans
3:08
Speaker 1: like myself were like, hey, Henazarrea is in it. That's awesome.
3:12
Speaker 1: But you know, it was intriguing. Yeah, everybody wanted to
3:14
Speaker 1: see this movie at first.
3:17
Speaker 2: At first, the second week fifty nine percentage downward spiral
3:22
Speaker 2: showed that not everybody wanted to. But I mean, we
3:27
Speaker 2: can't act like this was a flump because it quadrupled
3:29
Speaker 2: its budget. I mean it it didn't. It went under expectation,
3:34
Speaker 2: like it didn't meet expectations, I should say, but it
3:37
Speaker 2: still made money. But critically it was panned a crazy amount.
3:45
Speaker 1: I think it didn't do too well in the States though,
3:48
Speaker 1: like this is one where it really like maybe globally,
3:52
Speaker 1: you know, you can look back and you can say, oh,
3:54
Speaker 1: this did well with his budget, but I know in
3:56
Speaker 1: the States, I think it didn't even make its money
3:58
Speaker 1: back in the States, or it was real cool.
4:00
Speaker 2: It aimed for one forty domestically and it made one
4:03
Speaker 2: thirty four.
4:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it costs like one thirty to make. So
4:07
Speaker 1: in the nineties before you know, global box office was
4:10
Speaker 1: considered a metris.
4:11
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, money, money is still green, you know, wherever
4:14
Speaker 2: it comes in.
4:15
Speaker 1: Money is still green. But there's still like, especially at
4:19
Speaker 1: the time, that that like that was a huge miss
4:22
Speaker 1: at the time, like massive, massive miss.
4:25
Speaker 2: Yes, but when you count in all the dollars, That's
4:28
Speaker 2: what I'm saying.
4:30
Speaker 1: I'm just I'm just I'm just saying. I'm just saying,
4:33
Speaker 1: there's a reason that this this movie had a certain
4:36
Speaker 1: amount of stink on it in Hollywood for a while.
4:39
Speaker 2: Oh it definitely did. It definitely did. And the thing
4:42
Speaker 2: is is in nineteen ninety seven leading into ninety eight,
4:47
Speaker 2: the hype machine was unparalleled, like this was. I mean,
4:53
Speaker 2: I think some Sony exec was saying, this is going
4:56
Speaker 2: to be the year of Godzilla and that actually made
5:00
Speaker 2: it into their marketing material. I mean, this is something
5:03
Speaker 2: that you study in school, the marketing that happened for Godzilla,
5:08
Speaker 2: and I really want, I really want to talk about that, Darren.
5:11
Speaker 2: Do you remember the marketing push for Godzilla in ninety eight,
5:15
Speaker 2: late ninety seven and ninety eight.
5:16
Speaker 3: I do a little bit. I do remember that. I
5:19
Speaker 3: did see it in theaters. Yeah, it just I always
5:22
Speaker 3: liked the color of the marketing, the greens and the oranges,
5:27
Speaker 3: like either the giant eye or the giant foot, you
5:30
Speaker 3: know that's in Manhattan. I always felt that it did
5:34
Speaker 3: a very good sense of marketing. Whether that paid off
5:38
Speaker 3: in the movie that we'll get to, we'll get to that.
5:40
Speaker 3: I'm trying to remember if they did any sort of
5:43
Speaker 3: like crazy stunt like a giant I might be remembering
5:47
Speaker 3: that for another movie, but like a giant something squishing
5:50
Speaker 3: things in the middle of a town square. I feel
5:54
Speaker 3: like that was not in ninety eight.
5:56
Speaker 2: Eight, But I don't remember that. But one thing that
5:59
Speaker 2: was really big at the time, I should say for them,
6:03
Speaker 2: like this was Emmerick and Devlen's idea is that they
6:07
Speaker 2: made their company partners sign a contract that they were
6:11
Speaker 2: not going to display Godzilla, all the image of Godzilla
6:17
Speaker 2: in any of the marketing materials until the movie came out.
6:20
Speaker 3: Yes, I remember it as like a hype build, which
6:23
Speaker 3: is not a bad idea.
6:25
Speaker 2: It it's you. Yeah, that's the thing though. It's kind
6:28
Speaker 2: of interesting when you look at it because it added
6:32
Speaker 2: to the mystery of it, and from a marketing perspective,
6:36
Speaker 2: like the marketing managers I think her name was Dana
6:41
Speaker 2: Pleasance or pleasant or Precious, something something like that. I
6:43
Speaker 2: think her name was Dana Pressure, uh, Precious. She was
6:46
Speaker 2: a VP of of the marketing team, and it was
6:50
Speaker 2: her idea to say, like, okay, we can't show the monster.
6:54
Speaker 2: What we're going to do is we're going to take
6:55
Speaker 2: out bus ads and we're going to have ads that say,
6:59
Speaker 2: like his foot is as wide as this bus, and
7:04
Speaker 2: they're going to be like huge billboards on skyscrapers where
7:08
Speaker 2: it's like he's two times taller than this building, and
7:11
Speaker 2: so you would see that all over urban areas and
7:13
Speaker 2: like that kind of so it added to the mystique
7:16
Speaker 2: and the interest of it. But the thing is where
7:19
Speaker 2: that backfired was in merchandizing, yep, where after the movie
7:26
Speaker 2: came out. Yeah, That's the thing is that, like they
7:29
Speaker 2: couldn't unveil the merchandising until after the movie came out,
7:32
Speaker 2: so all that hype, all that build up, you couldn't
7:36
Speaker 2: have kids buying merchandise and buying toys and everything like
7:38
Speaker 2: that because the movie came out and the hype was over,
7:40
Speaker 2: because word of mouth kind of killed the interest. Yes,
7:43
Speaker 2: and so it's a really fascinating marting perspective. And John,
7:47
Speaker 2: I want to know your opinion. Do you think this
7:51
Speaker 2: was the beginning of marketing innovation or kind of the
7:54
Speaker 2: beginning of the end when it comes to marketing a
7:58
Speaker 2: movie and integration, synergy and everything like that.
8:01
Speaker 1: No, I think this was another piece of the emeric Devlin,
8:08
Speaker 1: you know, history pointing the way for how it was
8:11
Speaker 1: going to go. The saturation the toy angle is really
8:15
Speaker 1: interesting because I think you see later that they refuse
8:21
Speaker 1: to do that that basically the toys are on the
8:23
Speaker 1: shelves right away and they're not going to be coy
8:25
Speaker 1: about it until Baby Yoda with the Mandalorian True, which
8:30
Speaker 1: was a huge gamble and paid off that time. Like,
8:33
Speaker 1: I think what they were going for was what we
8:36
Speaker 1: got with Baby Yoda, which was the reveal was going
8:39
Speaker 1: to happen and all of us, no matter our age,
8:41
Speaker 1: We're going to go out and say, I gotta get
8:43
Speaker 1: me a Godzilla toy. That's going to be so cool.
8:47
Speaker 1: And they anticipated that rush for it, and instead they
8:50
Speaker 1: didn't because nobody loved Godzilla. And I mean, honestly, I
8:55
Speaker 1: think that they figured they figured it out. They knew
9:00
Speaker 1: that they could have done it. The problem is that
9:04
Speaker 1: the product wasn't strong enough. I'll you know what, I'll
9:07
Speaker 1: the marketing team did their job, and they did it
9:11
Speaker 1: really well, and they did it really smart, and they
9:13
Speaker 1: did innovate. The problem was that the product could not
9:17
Speaker 1: support their efforts. You can market the living hell out
9:21
Speaker 1: of a new restaurant chain or a hotel, or a
9:25
Speaker 1: car or anything like that, but once it hits the market,
9:29
Speaker 1: if your marketing got a whole bunch of people in
9:31
Speaker 1: the door, like you said, nowadays, we take it for
9:34
Speaker 1: granted that there's going to be a sixty to seventy
9:36
Speaker 1: three percent drop off between weekend one and weekend two
9:39
Speaker 1: because it's so front loaded. Because every multiplex with twenty
9:42
Speaker 1: screens is playing the new movie on eighteen of them,
9:45
Speaker 1: so you're counting on getting it all on that first weekend.
9:48
Speaker 1: But with this the drop off was still a little
9:51
Speaker 1: bit steep, and I think for the time it was
9:53
Speaker 1: very marked, and that's why the marketing did its job,
9:57
Speaker 1: but it couldn't sustain, Like you can't mark at something
10:00
Speaker 1: people don't like, Like at a certain point people will
10:03
Speaker 1: stop new coke happens, right, And it's just it's one
10:07
Speaker 1: of those things where I think the mar I mean, honestly,
10:09
Speaker 1: I think the marketing team probably got thrown under the
10:12
Speaker 1: bus and deserved more praise for what they did, considering
10:17
Speaker 1: the fact that what they were marketing was one of
10:18
Speaker 1: the biggest hunks a junk of the nineteen nineties. Oh
10:21
Speaker 1: spoilers for my later review.
10:24
Speaker 3: Well, I think one way to look at it as
10:26
Speaker 3: well is so this came out May twentieth of nineteen
10:30
Speaker 3: ninety eight. The DVD and vhs came out in the
10:34
Speaker 3: beginning of November, which for the time for late nineties,
10:38
Speaker 3: like that's pretty quick. Like it got faster and faster
10:43
Speaker 3: as the years went by, but I still remember late
10:46
Speaker 3: nineties like there was still a bit of a span
10:49
Speaker 3: because you wanted to get the money in the theaters as
10:52
Speaker 3: long as possible and then you'd you know, wud go
10:53
Speaker 3: to cable and other things before dropping on home video.
10:57
Speaker 3: So that feels fast for what I remember in that
11:01
Speaker 3: in that decade, And I mean I was trying to
11:05
Speaker 3: look when the cartoon came about, because that also takes
11:09
Speaker 3: time to produce. You know, you want to hopefully capitalize
11:12
Speaker 3: on whatever marketing you've done. But I think you really
11:15
Speaker 3: just summarized that, John, you can market something to the
11:19
Speaker 3: hilt and if the end, at the end of the day,
11:21
Speaker 3: if the product doesn't support it, it's gonna bubble out
11:24
Speaker 3: and fizzle out.
11:26
Speaker 1: And that's kind of what happened.
11:28
Speaker 2: Mm hmmm, yeah, this is this is I'm really glad
11:32
Speaker 2: that you put it that way, John, because Roland Emerick
11:36
Speaker 2: kind of he first denied that the movie did poorly,
11:41
Speaker 2: saying like, oh, well, you know, we're making money internationally.
11:45
Speaker 2: You know, the critics are too harsh on it. And
11:47
Speaker 2: then once we got some distance from it from the
11:50
Speaker 2: release date and the critics panning it and everything like that,
11:54
Speaker 2: he started blaming the marketing. He started saying they overhyped it.
11:59
Speaker 2: He hated that tagline, saying that like there was too much,
12:03
Speaker 2: not enough to live up to, and it was just
12:07
Speaker 2: it was kind of a bad look. And then like
12:09
Speaker 2: even Dean Devlin, he started saying like people were criticizing
12:13
Speaker 2: the plot, the plot or lack thereof, and he kind
12:17
Speaker 2: of had like a Quippi remark, saying like, oh, what
12:19
Speaker 2: like the Originals had that much plot?
12:21
Speaker 1: Oh that's always that's always such a bad look. I hate,
12:26
Speaker 1: such a hate it when somebody tries to defend something
12:29
Speaker 1: that's a big old wet fart of a product or
12:31
Speaker 1: a movie and they're just like, oh, yeah, well, well
12:34
Speaker 1: this other thing wasn't great. It's like, that's not the
12:37
Speaker 1: defense that you think it is. It's really not like
12:40
Speaker 1: this big shield that you can use. And on top
12:43
Speaker 1: of that, I think that the worst part of it
12:47
Speaker 1: for me is that I will I will come across
12:50
Speaker 1: and say it like Independence Day, we all, you know,
12:54
Speaker 1: had a time with all of that sort of stuff.
12:56
Speaker 1: But in all honesty, if you were looking at Roland
13:00
Speaker 1: Emeric of the nineteen nineties, it's a rough go guys.
13:04
Speaker 1: It's kind of tough. I mean, especially in the light
13:06
Speaker 1: of Godzilla. I think that what you have here is
13:10
Speaker 1: you have a big hit with Independence Day. It's still
13:14
Speaker 1: puzzling to me why we didn't get Independence Day two,
13:18
Speaker 1: the revenge right after Independence Day. I mean, that's the
13:21
Speaker 1: old Hollywood play is to say, oh, we need a sequel,
13:24
Speaker 1: and we need it fast.
13:25
Speaker 3: Here are the aliens in the big city. That's where
13:28
Speaker 3: we got to go. Oh wait, we did that already.
13:30
Speaker 3: We just told the cities.
13:31
Speaker 1: But but I mean, you know, the thing is, that's
13:34
Speaker 1: why we got Matrix two and three as quick as
13:37
Speaker 1: we did is because it was like, oh, okay, guys,
13:39
Speaker 1: we got it. This is a huge hit. We got
13:41
Speaker 1: to do this now. And I think that is the
13:45
Speaker 1: most puzzling thing because we always talk about the blank
13:47
Speaker 1: check movie. I don't understand why, you know.
13:51
Speaker 3: I mean, it doesn't sound like this was his blank
13:53
Speaker 3: check movie, like you didn't really want to do.
13:55
Speaker 1: It, which is which makes it even more puzzling. Why
13:59
Speaker 1: wouldn't you come out of Independence Day and just say
14:01
Speaker 1: I'm going to do whatever the hell I want to
14:03
Speaker 1: and take as long as I want to. I mean,
14:05
Speaker 1: he had every right to James Cameron it up and
14:08
Speaker 1: this make his big old dream project.
14:10
Speaker 3: This kind of feels like one more round of Hey,
14:13
Speaker 3: you owe us one more film, and then we give
14:16
Speaker 3: you your blank check. Maybe I don't know, I'm speculating. Yeah,
14:21
Speaker 3: in interviews, you know, Devlin has said his two big
14:24
Speaker 3: flaws in this movie. I like how we're being super positive,
14:28
Speaker 3: but his two big flaws were not committing to whether
14:32
Speaker 3: Godzilla was a hero or a villain and keeping it
14:35
Speaker 3: just like an animal that's surviving. And yeah, I felt
14:39
Speaker 3: that it was very like, how am I supposed to
14:41
Speaker 3: feel about this character. Am I supposed to feel sad
14:44
Speaker 3: that he dies? Am I supposed to feel happy that
14:46
Speaker 3: he survives through so long? And the second one was
14:50
Speaker 3: that they didn't really reveal the gist of the characters
14:55
Speaker 3: the humans until like the middle of the movie, so
14:59
Speaker 3: you've already kind of made up your mind whether or
15:01
Speaker 3: not you like these characters or not by the time
15:03
Speaker 3: they're actually telling you anything of substance. And I'm like, yeah,
15:06
Speaker 3: those are two major problems with this movie.
15:10
Speaker 1: I think that the Godzilla as a force of nature
15:15
Speaker 1: thing makes perfect sense, and I think that's a pretty
15:18
Speaker 1: consistent thing about Godzilla, Like that's sort of like in
15:22
Speaker 1: the DNA of this particular monster series, is Godzilla is
15:28
Speaker 1: a byproduct of people messing with things that maybe they shouldn't,
15:32
Speaker 1: And you know, it's a classic sort of like nineteen
15:35
Speaker 1: fifties vibe of like, oh, atomic energy and everything, but
15:38
Speaker 1: what what hath God wrought? We are all doomed now
15:41
Speaker 1: because of our hubris and thinking that we can control
15:44
Speaker 1: the universe, and Godzilla is sort of Nature's revenge for
15:47
Speaker 1: us being a bunch of douches about everything. But like
15:50
Speaker 1: it would be interesting. I mean, I think that the
15:55
Speaker 1: big problem, and I think you have a point there.
15:58
Speaker 1: Darren is like, Oh, he's just a force of need. Sure,
16:00
Speaker 1: he's just this way, and it's an animal trying to
16:03
Speaker 1: survive and pro create, Okay, But then at the end
16:06
Speaker 1: it pulls the rug out from underneath you and very
16:09
Speaker 1: definitely slaps you in the face with aren't you sad?
16:12
Speaker 1: Godzilla is dead? And I still remember the first time
16:15
Speaker 1: I saw it, I was like, you can't do that.
16:17
Speaker 1: Like at the last second, it's like, and aren't you sad?
16:20
Speaker 3: Now?
16:21
Speaker 1: I'm like, I don't know if I'm supposed to be sad?
16:23
Speaker 1: What are you doing to me right here? That sort
16:25
Speaker 1: of thing I was.
16:26
Speaker 2: I was just talking to a friend of mine about that.
16:29
Speaker 2: I was just talking about how, like what we had
16:32
Speaker 2: no sympathy for this, for this character, even though it
16:35
Speaker 2: was a monster, but yet at the very end, you're
16:39
Speaker 2: sitting there and you're like, what am I supposed.
16:41
Speaker 1: To feel right now?
16:42
Speaker 2: How am I supposed to feel? And it's so utterly
16:45
Speaker 2: confusing and it's disconnecting, And honestly, there's a few times
16:50
Speaker 2: when you feel that way with almost every character where
16:55
Speaker 2: you're like, Okay, so you have the the wanna bee
16:58
Speaker 2: reporter who steal fuel's top secret government files and screws
17:03
Speaker 2: over her former boyfriend and sweetheart, and then we're all
17:08
Speaker 2: just supposed to go, oh, people make mistakes. I did
17:10
Speaker 2: it for my career, and and then you have then
17:14
Speaker 2: you have the French guy, and you're like, you're not
17:18
Speaker 2: quite I'm not saying he was a villain, but you're
17:21
Speaker 2: not quite. You don't understand his motivations, and so you're
17:24
Speaker 2: not quite sure where to go with him, or what
17:26
Speaker 2: to feel or what to do, and so he's just
17:28
Speaker 2: kind of there to advance the plot and be mysterious
17:32
Speaker 2: at this I don't know, I'm not articululating it very well,
17:34
Speaker 2: but there were so many, so many moments there was
17:36
Speaker 2: no characters where I'm just like, yeah, this is my guy,
17:38
Speaker 2: this is my girl.
17:39
Speaker 1: Like I yeah, it's okay if you don't articulate it
17:42
Speaker 1: very well, because neither did they Tristan, It's okay. This
17:45
Speaker 1: movie is sort of that, that's its hallmark up to
17:49
Speaker 1: and including like Hank Azaria is like I guess he's
17:52
Speaker 1: comic relief. That seems to be the memo that Azaria
17:55
Speaker 1: was given. But his character, I'm like, what is the point?
18:00
Speaker 1: What why? Like there there are too many characters actually
18:04
Speaker 1: in this movie. I think way way too much character blow.
18:07
Speaker 3: Well, and you know, let's let's focus on Matthew broderc.
18:11
Speaker 3: Then let's pick one character supposed to be the lead.
18:14
Speaker 3: And I was say sharing before, like he's just very meh,
18:20
Speaker 3: Like he doesn't get really mad or really sad or
18:24
Speaker 3: really upset. It's just kind of that almost Fairs Bueller
18:28
Speaker 3: type of delivery across the entire thing. And I kept
18:33
Speaker 3: picturing like, oh my gosh, what would this look like
18:38
Speaker 3: if you just had like a different actor there who
18:41
Speaker 3: was like really upset. It made me think of the
18:45
Speaker 3: scene where they're feeding it and they get all the
18:47
Speaker 3: fish together and he has his encounter. He's like up
18:51
Speaker 3: close encounter, and there's that moment right before the military
18:54
Speaker 3: starts shooting like we all know they're going to, and
18:58
Speaker 3: once they start shooting, he kind of doesn't do anything
19:02
Speaker 3: like that should have been the moment of like stop, stop,
19:06
Speaker 3: like he's just an animal. You booby trapped the watering hole.
19:10
Speaker 3: You know how low that is to camp out at
19:13
Speaker 3: the watering hole and shoot the endangered animal. But no,
19:17
Speaker 3: we didn't get anything like that. It was I never
19:20
Speaker 3: knew if I was supposed to want Godzilla dead or not,
19:23
Speaker 3: because the main character didn't didn't know either. Yeah, it
19:27
Speaker 3: just it. I kept thinking of Jeff Goldbloom, and while
19:33
Speaker 3: he gives some speeches in Independence Day, I just feel
19:37
Speaker 3: like if he was delivering some of these lines in
19:40
Speaker 3: some of these moments, I would feel I would feel like, oh,
19:43
Speaker 3: you're mad about this, or oh you're really upset that
19:47
Speaker 3: you know your ex girlfriend screwed you over. And I
19:51
Speaker 3: could just picture his lines, even the same lines, just oh.
19:54
Speaker 2: You're so you're so right, especially with his ex girlfriend
19:58
Speaker 2: screwing him over. I can absolutely say gold Bloom just
20:02
Speaker 2: lose it, yeah, and with righteous indignation. And I think
20:07
Speaker 2: it's really funny that you bring up Goldblum. Obviously you
20:09
Speaker 2: bring up Goldman because of you know, the previous movie
20:12
Speaker 2: that we saw, yeah, with Independence Day, but also I
20:16
Speaker 2: mean this movie was coming after a Jurassic Park two
20:22
Speaker 2: starring Jeff Goldbloom, and it had a very snarky trailer.
20:26
Speaker 2: The first trailer, Oh, it costs six it costs six
20:30
Speaker 2: hundred thousand dollars, didn't have any movie footage in it.
20:34
Speaker 2: It was a teacher taking as his class to a
20:37
Speaker 2: museum to see a Trannosaurus Rex skeleton, and then Godzilla
20:41
Speaker 2: just puts his foot through the ceiling of the museum
20:43
Speaker 2: and squashes the Tranosaurus Rex. And you're like, oh, that's
20:47
Speaker 2: not subtle at all.
20:48
Speaker 3: What they're like, we're gonna take Jurassic Parks lunch and
20:52
Speaker 3: eat it basically.
20:53
Speaker 2: Which yeah, which they didn't do. And then actually, John
21:00
Speaker 2: and You'll like, this is that I think. I don't
21:02
Speaker 2: know if this was a fan poster or if the
21:05
Speaker 2: marketing team actually did this for The Phantom Menace, but
21:09
Speaker 2: they put out a poster that said plot like the
21:12
Speaker 2: size of your plot does matter or something like that.
21:17
Speaker 3: It's like a fan poster.
21:18
Speaker 1: It definitely feels like a fan poster that that's not
21:21
Speaker 1: disciplined enough for Howard Rothman in nineteen nineties lucasfilm. In
21:24
Speaker 1: all honesty, Yeah, that's what I thought. That's what I thought. Yeah, yeah,
21:30
Speaker 1: I mean I think that that is at its core, Darren,
21:35
Speaker 1: is that Broderick lacks the charisma that you need in
21:40
Speaker 1: this role. Is it Broderick's fault?
21:43
Speaker 3: No?
21:43
Speaker 1: I again, I know I say this ad nauseum. It
21:46
Speaker 1: was a director's job to tell him what to do.
21:48
Speaker 1: An actor will do what the director tells him he
21:50
Speaker 1: needs him to do, right. We don't expect everybody to
21:52
Speaker 1: be Daniel day Lewis where you know, you know, oh,
21:56
Speaker 1: I have to play a survivalists and so he goes
21:58
Speaker 1: off the grid for six years and learns how to
22:00
Speaker 1: skin a bear and turn it into a hang glider
22:04
Speaker 1: or something like that. Like Matthew Brodderck showed up and
22:08
Speaker 1: he did what was asked, which was apparently, I don't know,
22:11
Speaker 1: just say the line. And the thing that makes me
22:14
Speaker 1: feel bad is I think that it's very obvious that
22:18
Speaker 1: Azaria sees this as a huge break. He's been toiling
22:21
Speaker 1: on the Simpsons for years. By this point. He's the
22:26
Speaker 1: bird Cage was shortly before this, wasn't it, And that
22:28
Speaker 1: was sort of the was that before, Yeah, that was
22:31
Speaker 1: shortly before this. His star is on the rise. This
22:34
Speaker 1: is the big break. This is in all honesty, and
22:36
Speaker 1: I use this example all the time. This is Chris
22:39
Speaker 1: O'Donnell agreeing to be Robin. You think it's going to
22:41
Speaker 1: be the best move of your career. This is going
22:44
Speaker 1: to be the greatest thing ever. And in no way
22:47
Speaker 1: will it hang like an albatross across around your neck
22:49
Speaker 1: for the rest of your life until years later you
22:52
Speaker 1: can finally get things back on track because people stop
22:54
Speaker 1: thinking of you as that guy in that movie I
22:56
Speaker 1: don't like and I think that, I mean, Broderick really
23:02
Speaker 1: is just obviously struggling in this And I made jokes
23:06
Speaker 1: to Tristan and you know about Broderick running even running,
23:10
Speaker 1: Like if I'm so disconnected with the movie that I
23:13
Speaker 1: notice that his run, I'm like, I would have done
23:16
Speaker 1: a couple more takes and been like, well, that's not
23:18
Speaker 1: quite how a grown person runs, Matthew. Maybe we'll move
23:23
Speaker 1: our arms a little bit differently. Maybe maybe pretend so like,
23:27
Speaker 1: dress up somebody in a big scary costume and actually
23:29
Speaker 1: chase Matthew Broderick through the set, have him run like
23:32
Speaker 1: there's something actually after him. And I know that's a
23:35
Speaker 1: really weird thing to quibble with, but that's how disconnected
23:38
Speaker 1: I become with this movie is when they start running around,
23:41
Speaker 1: I'm like, what has he ever run before in his
23:44
Speaker 1: life for any reason?
23:45
Speaker 3: I'm through all the backyards.
23:48
Speaker 2: I know all the backyards and the trampoline, so we
23:51
Speaker 2: know he can do it. But that's apparently there was.
23:53
Speaker 2: This was years and years and years and years and
23:55
Speaker 2: years later when Matthew Broderick was in an interview and
23:58
Speaker 2: he was talking about Godzilla. He says, he's like, yeah,
24:01
Speaker 2: I really like the movie. I think it's a lot
24:03
Speaker 2: of fun and I liked doing it. Could it have
24:06
Speaker 2: been better if they cast somebody else?
24:07
Speaker 3: Probably?
24:08
Speaker 2: And he was just like super humble about it. And
24:10
Speaker 2: it was kind of refreshing to hear that thing.
24:12
Speaker 3: Kind of a good way to take it, Like, you know,
24:14
Speaker 3: it's not your best work, but if you had a
24:16
Speaker 3: good time, talk about the positives, don't smash on it.
24:19
Speaker 3: That's totally fine.
24:21
Speaker 1: Now.
24:21
Speaker 2: In contrast, and Kazaria was much more in line with
24:27
Speaker 2: what John was talking about in twenty eighteen. I'm reading
24:31
Speaker 2: a quote here. In twenty eighteen, Azaria expressed his disappointment
24:35
Speaker 2: with working on Gonzilla Godzilla, citing its failure to boost
24:38
Speaker 2: his career profile as intended, and noting that he fell
24:41
Speaker 2: six several times while shooting in rainy exteriors for five months.
24:45
Speaker 2: He went on to declare that Godzilla became the poster
24:48
Speaker 2: child for everything wrong with Hollywood in terms of budget
24:51
Speaker 2: and marketing, adding that the advertisements looked better than the
24:54
Speaker 2: film itself.
24:56
Speaker 3: He's not wrong.
24:58
Speaker 2: I don't know what else can be said. I mean,
25:00
Speaker 2: like next up on house Slits.
25:02
Speaker 1: I don't know, but see that this is something that
25:04
Speaker 1: I always struggle with. I would prefer, in all honesty,
25:07
Speaker 1: an actor to take the Matthew Broderick line and say,
25:11
Speaker 1: you know what, I had a good time. They paid me.
25:14
Speaker 1: I dried my eyes with giant stacks of cash that they,
25:17
Speaker 1: you know, delivered to my house. Somehow I coped, and
25:22
Speaker 1: I like, I don't like somebody coming back and saying,
25:25
Speaker 1: oh yeah, It's like I want somebody to say, you know,
25:29
Speaker 1: be the the one who is humble enough, like you said, Tristan,
25:34
Speaker 1: to be like, yeah, it could have been better. I'll
25:37
Speaker 1: take whatever blame you want to throw at me. Don't
25:39
Speaker 1: don't blame those guys like that that I think is
25:41
Speaker 1: the right position to take. I don't care how many
25:44
Speaker 1: years have passed. And in all honesty, that quote really
25:47
Speaker 1: sounds like A Zaria was more upset with the fact
25:50
Speaker 1: that it didn't serve his purposes like he intended. And
25:53
Speaker 1: it's like, that's just a little bit of sour grapes,
25:55
Speaker 1: because as much as I'm making fun of it, you
25:57
Speaker 1: know a minute ago, it is one of those things
26:00
Speaker 1: where it's like you never know what's going to hit
26:02
Speaker 1: and what isn't, and you never know a whole bunch
26:06
Speaker 1: of different things. I mean, I think what's interesting is
26:08
Speaker 1: I don't remember because Godzilla in ninety eight, it is before.
26:13
Speaker 3: Before Mystery Men he did the following year. Yeah, I'm
26:16
Speaker 3: looking well, And that's what I'm trying to think of,
26:18
Speaker 3: is like we've all seen those stories of oh, I
26:23
Speaker 3: cast so and so in this movie and they're great
26:25
Speaker 3: in it, and they're like the reason I thought of
26:27
Speaker 3: them is I saw them in this B movie Trash
26:29
Speaker 3: three years earlier, and I liked their performance.
26:32
Speaker 1: You know that.
26:33
Speaker 3: You hear that story all the time. So I don't know,
26:35
Speaker 3: maybe someone who is deciding they're like, oh, well, Hany Kazaria.
26:39
Speaker 3: He was going for it, like his guy was out there,
26:42
Speaker 3: he's running. He like, that's a person that I can
26:45
Speaker 3: mold into the blue rajah for mystery men or you know,
26:49
Speaker 3: I don't know something else. While we may not be
26:52
Speaker 3: able to see the direct connection, it's not like it
26:55
Speaker 3: goes into the void.
26:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think that was in saying, is
27:00
Speaker 1: Godzilla in a sense though escaped what really could have
27:05
Speaker 1: happened to it by being just a little bit too
27:07
Speaker 1: early for message boards to really be on fire? I do.
27:12
Speaker 1: I think if Godzilla comes out a year or two later,
27:15
Speaker 1: the savagery with no no bounds, like the big breaking
27:19
Speaker 1: point was ninety nine Phantom Menace obviously like that lit
27:23
Speaker 1: the fan base. People think reactions to stuff now are bad,
27:28
Speaker 1: trust me, it was awful back then too, like the
27:32
Speaker 1: early adopters of like the early trolls and posters and
27:36
Speaker 1: everything that is not to excuse anybody today, etc. Usual
27:40
Speaker 1: disclaimers and everything like that. But I think in a sense,
27:42
Speaker 1: the people who were in Godzilla were lucky that they
27:45
Speaker 1: weren't ready to set them on fire metaphorically speaking quite yet,
27:52
Speaker 1: I think in a slightly different environment, Hank's Area's life
27:56
Speaker 1: is a lot more difficult, you know, for a couple
27:59
Speaker 1: of years after word, although maybe not even a Zaria,
28:02
Speaker 1: I think Broaderick's life would have been. People would have
28:04
Speaker 1: come after him pretty hard. And in a way that
28:08
Speaker 1: makes that makes Godzilla feel like a bygone piece of
28:14
Speaker 1: a you know, a piece of a bygone time where
28:18
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, back when we could just hate a movie,
28:21
Speaker 1: not go to it afterward and move on, as opposed
28:25
Speaker 1: to spend decades talking about how we didn't like a movie.
28:30
Speaker 2: Right, So sorry not to be confused with what we're
28:34
Speaker 2: doing right now, because we're not spending decades talking about it.
28:38
Speaker 2: We're talking about it decades later. Very two, very different things.
28:43
Speaker 1: Folks, very very different, very different, very different things.
28:46
Speaker 2: Yes, Like I'm not starting a Twitter handle or a
28:49
Speaker 2: YouTube channel devoted to how much I hate Godzilla.
28:53
Speaker 1: Lots of red arrows in those screenshots too, right, right,
28:55
Speaker 1: I have lots of red arrows.
28:57
Speaker 2: Things you might not have noticed.
29:00
Speaker 3: The ending explained.
29:03
Speaker 2: When the means that there might be another one.
29:07
Speaker 3: Well, and you know, like you were saying in the marketing,
29:10
Speaker 3: not showing Godzilla, I was trying to think of the
29:12
Speaker 3: beginning of the movie where they also aren't showing him
29:16
Speaker 3: on purpose to build the tension. You know, you have
29:19
Speaker 3: the trawler scene where they're getting dragged under, you have
29:22
Speaker 3: the even the fishermen at the very end, you have
29:26
Speaker 3: the footprints. It's been a long time since I watched
29:30
Speaker 3: this movie, probably maybe two thousand, two thousand and one.
29:33
Speaker 3: That's why the last time I physically watched it, I'm
29:37
Speaker 3: not saying that I remembered everything, but it was so predictable.
29:41
Speaker 3: The dialogue, like you know, there's like there's your sample
29:45
Speaker 3: and it's like where where is it?
29:46
Speaker 1: I don't see it?
29:47
Speaker 3: And I'm like, dude, like I could have written that.
29:49
Speaker 3: It was like a lot of the dialogue was very predictable,
29:53
Speaker 3: very easy to tell. And gosh, it's hard for me
29:57
Speaker 3: to fairly judge this movie because we live in a
30:01
Speaker 3: post Pacific Rim world where Pacific Rim just like ate
30:05
Speaker 3: this movie's lunch and did every single thing this movie
30:09
Speaker 3: tried to do a million times better. You you know,
30:13
Speaker 3: you want to be out up a force of nature.
30:15
Speaker 3: Talk about a Kaiju that's just recklessly destroying the Eastern
30:20
Speaker 3: Seaboard that's probably eight times larger than this mini Godzilla.
30:26
Speaker 3: You know, just the steaks that are involved, the Who's
30:29
Speaker 3: on good, Who's on bad? How you know the clock?
30:32
Speaker 3: I mean, I would love talking about that movie for
30:35
Speaker 3: another hour, but it, yeah, none of that we got
30:39
Speaker 3: in in nineteen nine where the world wasn't.
30:41
Speaker 1: Ready Well no, you mentioned the design of the Kaiju
30:46
Speaker 1: in Pacific Rim, also a very affectionate favorite of mine
30:50
Speaker 1: as well. Love love dragging my wife to go see
30:53
Speaker 1: that in the theater and being like, yeah, it wasn't
30:54
Speaker 1: that great. I love Pacific Rim. What what did you
30:57
Speaker 1: guys think of the design of Godzilla?
31:00
Speaker 3: Small? Like it? The only good thing about the size
31:05
Speaker 3: is I could understand him disappearing and hiding like any
31:08
Speaker 3: of the other Godzillas we've seen, like which are the
31:10
Speaker 3: size of a city block. I could never buy that
31:12
Speaker 3: he disappeared into the city even this, it's like, oh,
31:17
Speaker 3: he's down in the sewers. I'm like, what mammoth sewers are.
31:21
Speaker 1: You talking about?
31:22
Speaker 3: But I don't know it. It's it's very lizard. It's
31:27
Speaker 3: what skinny Hollywood Godzilla. It's it's not my favorite design.
31:32
Speaker 3: I'm not a not a Godzilla.
31:36
Speaker 2: Skinny skinny Godzilla Hollywood. I like that, Like that's the
31:40
Speaker 2: that was in pic Godzilla.
31:43
Speaker 1: Well, I you know what, I don't think it's even
31:44
Speaker 1: so much. The skinniness is like he's too human. I
31:48
Speaker 1: liked it.
31:48
Speaker 2: I think that was one thing I did like. I
31:51
Speaker 2: like that I like that he was he was because
31:53
Speaker 2: I never was. I'm not a Godzilla fan. I've never
31:56
Speaker 2: been a Godzilla fan. And that's probably why I like
31:58
Speaker 2: that design is because I feel like one of the
32:00
Speaker 2: reasons why they didn't go, you know, all out in
32:04
Speaker 2: the marketing showing him is that, you know, Devlin and
32:07
Speaker 2: Emeric knew that, like hardcore fans of the original films
32:11
Speaker 2: would not accept that design, and he was right, and
32:13
Speaker 2: so he had to wait until opening day.
32:16
Speaker 1: Me I liked it.
32:17
Speaker 2: I liked that it was kind of like raptorlike, but
32:20
Speaker 2: I liked that it was Raptor like until it became
32:23
Speaker 2: a Jurassic Park and movie in the third act.
32:27
Speaker 1: I see, I didn't take Godzilla as Raptor like. Godzilla
32:32
Speaker 1: literally looked like early MOCAP to me in terms of
32:37
Speaker 1: the way he moved. Godzilla didn't move like an animal
32:42
Speaker 1: so much as yes, I know, I know everybody, well,
32:46
Speaker 1: the original Godzilla was a person in a rubber suit.
32:48
Speaker 1: No kidding, oh gosh, but I'm saying, like, you have
32:52
Speaker 1: your opportunity here, you're at that breaking point of fully
32:56
Speaker 1: committing to your giant cg dinosaur thing. Make it move
33:02
Speaker 1: more like a non human creature. And I think that's
33:05
Speaker 1: probably why the design gets under my skin. With how
33:08
Speaker 1: human the legs in the arms look. It looks like
33:10
Speaker 1: a human crouching as opposed to a lizard or a raptor.
33:15
Speaker 1: Like you're saying, like, it just doesn't move the right way,
33:19
Speaker 1: and I think that is probably what makes the design
33:23
Speaker 1: not work for me. I think I would have probably
33:26
Speaker 1: liked them to tweak the design to make it more natural,
33:30
Speaker 1: more dinosaur like. Even I guess I also didn't really
33:34
Speaker 1: care for the jawline. The jaw line was just odd
33:38
Speaker 1: to me. It wasn't a crocodile ish with like a really.
33:41
Speaker 2: Really long yeah. But I read Clone Wars Beard, I
33:46
Speaker 2: read that that's so funny because I really liked I
33:49
Speaker 2: really liked the jaw like that was one of my
33:51
Speaker 2: favorite things about it. And I read that the designer
33:55
Speaker 2: was a fan of Sheer Khan from The Jungle Book
33:58
Speaker 2: and that's where he got his inspiration from.
34:01
Speaker 1: Look, I'm just saying it just doesn't work for me.
34:03
Speaker 1: It just doesn't. I don't know, like it's just there,
34:06
Speaker 1: there are too many things that come together. I think conceptually,
34:10
Speaker 1: I get what he went for, and it's like as
34:11
Speaker 1: a stationary picture it works, but as a moving creature
34:16
Speaker 1: just doesn't play well for me.
34:17
Speaker 2: So, Darren, you're kind of our music officionado. You're the
34:22
Speaker 2: one who notices the music.
34:23
Speaker 3: The most, sure notice or don't notice?
34:27
Speaker 2: What what do you think about this one? I mean, like,
34:29
Speaker 2: you know, obviously Stargate was a hit. Independence Day was
34:32
Speaker 2: fun when it comes to music. What did you think
34:34
Speaker 2: of Arnold's performance in this one?
34:37
Speaker 3: Okay, so to confirm this is the same musical produced
34:41
Speaker 3: by as those are the two movies. A. Yeah, it
34:48
Speaker 3: nothing really stood out to me. It Like, honestly, since
34:53
Speaker 3: we watched Independence Day last week, I've been playing that
34:57
Speaker 3: main fanfare that like kicks on when you start credits
35:01
Speaker 3: continuously in my head, Like I love that track, Like
35:04
Speaker 3: it's the where you know where the crup duster is going? Right,
35:10
Speaker 3: We're not talking about the card he's in a jet plane.
35:12
Speaker 3: I knew that it's right where Like the finale of
35:15
Speaker 3: the movie is taking place, and that like here I come,
35:17
Speaker 3: mister president, I'm packing and like the you know, the
35:20
Speaker 3: fanfares building and you care about the ending. Yeah, I
35:25
Speaker 3: don't know it. Nothing really stuck out as oh there's
35:29
Speaker 3: mystery here, or oh there's tension here, or oh there's
35:33
Speaker 3: an unstoppable force, or even oh there's love between these
35:37
Speaker 3: two characters. Nothing there was. I mean there was music
35:41
Speaker 3: and and it accent accentuated things, but maybe there was
35:44
Speaker 3: nothing to build on, and maybe that's why it didn't.
35:47
Speaker 3: It kind of just dried out. Like I can't think
35:50
Speaker 3: of a love theme or even a military give us
35:54
Speaker 3: some some you know, a little bit of bugle and
35:57
Speaker 3: some snare drum when the military rolls up. Everybody he
36:00
Speaker 3: does it? Just do that, and you would have at
36:03
Speaker 3: least a little bit of like patriotism, you know, attacking
36:07
Speaker 3: the monster. I just yeah, I didn't really get anything
36:10
Speaker 3: from it.
36:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm kind of the same, John. Do you have
36:14
Speaker 2: anything to add to that.
36:16
Speaker 1: Or you can't recall a single thing from the score.
36:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, either can I Man, I'm trying really hard here, folks.
36:23
Speaker 2: I'm trying.
36:25
Speaker 1: It's okay, it's okay, you know what, we can accept
36:28
Speaker 1: that even the supposedly comedic shoehorned nagging wife plot line
36:34
Speaker 1: that they put in for Hank Azaria's character, we can
36:37
Speaker 1: agree that that's even terrible. So even down in the
36:40
Speaker 1: minutia of the movie, I will say that the one
36:44
Speaker 1: area where I will give it any sort of credit
36:48
Speaker 1: is I will give as area credit because he is
36:50
Speaker 1: going as hard as he can to make an impression here,
36:54
Speaker 1: and he's doing a caricature, but at least he's trying
36:58
Speaker 1: to make it like a memorable case dericature. And I
37:01
Speaker 1: think gen Renu's hamming it up too. At some point
37:03
Speaker 1: in the movie, I think about the halfway point, it's
37:06
Speaker 1: almost as if gen Renaud suddenly reread the script and
37:09
Speaker 1: was like, oh, oh okay, oh I know how to
37:14
Speaker 1: do this one. And so it's like they're really, you know,
37:18
Speaker 1: they're they're like threat level clown in terms of like
37:21
Speaker 1: how hard they go into like you know, for instance,
37:23
Speaker 1: with the imitating Elvis's accent scene, I got I get
37:28
Speaker 1: a kick out of it, and even now it's like
37:30
Speaker 1: Elvish movies and it's like, Okay, that's cute, you know,
37:35
Speaker 1: So I'll give them credit for that. I even though
37:37
Speaker 1: I can't recall the music. I think that the opening credits,
37:39
Speaker 1: like that sort of montage of showing the atomic tests
37:43
Speaker 1: and the lizards and the eggs, and I'm like, I
37:45
Speaker 1: remember seeing it for the first time. I think this
37:47
Speaker 1: might only be the second time I've ever seen this,
37:49
Speaker 1: honestly looking at and being like, that's a pretty intriguing opening. Yeah, okay,
37:54
Speaker 1: I like that, Like that's sort of that's got that vibe,
37:56
Speaker 1: sort of like nineteen fifty sci fi feel of like, oh,
38:00
Speaker 1: atomic testing, what is it doing? Ooh, you're showing me
38:03
Speaker 1: all of these lizards were exposed? Could this be Godzilla's
38:06
Speaker 1: origin story? And then the movie happens and I lose
38:10
Speaker 1: all interest.
38:11
Speaker 2: So it's interesting because when they I can't remember who
38:14
Speaker 2: they pitched the movie to first. It might have been Columbia,
38:19
Speaker 2: I can't remember. It doesn't matter who. But the first
38:21
Speaker 2: people production studio that they pitched it to, they said, no,
38:25
Speaker 2: we're going to pass because there's a huge possibility of camp.
38:29
Speaker 2: I feel like this movie would have done better if
38:33
Speaker 2: it went into a full hog into camp, like if
38:37
Speaker 2: they leaned into it, like have the crazy special effects,
38:41
Speaker 2: like the.
38:41
Speaker 3: Crazy actually a worm guy leading our attack against the
38:44
Speaker 3: Godzilla Monster. I don't know, but he volunteered for the job.
38:49
Speaker 3: You know.
38:50
Speaker 1: Although keep in mind, Hollywood would have been by this
38:53
Speaker 1: point would have been burned by the camp of this
38:57
Speaker 1: where the superhero genre went with the Phantom in the
39:01
Speaker 1: Shadow and Batman Forever and Batman and rum and and.
39:04
Speaker 2: Like you know, So if it had leaves the od
39:08
Speaker 2: the four movies of those.
39:11
Speaker 1: If it had embraced that, it would have been seen
39:15
Speaker 1: as part of a trend. Maybe, but maybe I think
39:18
Speaker 1: you're right, maybe it would have gotten it some forgiveness
39:21
Speaker 1: because it would have felt like, oh, they're doing this
39:24
Speaker 1: on per Okay, this is fun, right, But I don't think.
39:27
Speaker 1: I don't think you make I don't think you make
39:31
Speaker 1: three hundred million domestic fun out of that. That's a
39:34
Speaker 1: I made.
39:35
Speaker 2: No, that's a cult classic. That's a cult classic that
39:37
Speaker 2: you make back through DVD sales, which it did surprisingly
39:42
Speaker 2: well in vhs and DVD sales.
39:45
Speaker 3: And I could see that where people were like, I'm
39:47
Speaker 3: not going to go see it in theaters, but I'll
39:49
Speaker 3: rent it and you know, have some popcorn at home.
39:52
Speaker 1: I mean, I was one of the broken people in
39:53
Speaker 1: the late nineties that if I missed something in the theater.
39:56
Speaker 1: I wouldn't rent the thing, I would buy it because
39:58
Speaker 1: I didn't want whatever somebody else had done into a
40:00
Speaker 1: videotape or disc to touch my player. So so you
40:04
Speaker 1: know there were what I didn't. You know, those are
40:08
Speaker 1: that sensitive expensive equipment.
40:10
Speaker 2: You can clean the heads with a Q tip of
40:12
Speaker 2: some alcohol man.
40:14
Speaker 1: Listen, listens, but you have to clean them less frequently
40:17
Speaker 1: if everything you get is just pristine out of the package.
40:20
Speaker 1: My brother, Come on.
40:21
Speaker 2: Clean your heads, folks. Well that's that's the message for today.
40:25
Speaker 1: Yes, clean your streaming heads. It's very important to clean
40:28
Speaker 1: the streaming heads.
40:29
Speaker 2: You know what I'm calling this one. I'm going to
40:32
Speaker 2: Lance Reddick territory where it would so I actually I'm
40:36
Speaker 2: going to go first on lance Reddick. This one was
40:38
Speaker 2: a little hard because as I was I was always
40:40
Speaker 2: watching this, I was like, obviously, lance Reddick would make
40:43
Speaker 2: a better lead because I think I think Broderick, even
40:48
Speaker 2: though I have a soft spot for Broaderick, I think
40:50
Speaker 2: he was miscast.
40:52
Speaker 1: Uh.
40:53
Speaker 2: I think he I think personally my lance retic pick.
40:57
Speaker 2: For those of you who have never listened to an episode,
40:59
Speaker 2: we like taking the actor Lance Reddick and seeing where
41:03
Speaker 2: we would cast him. It doesn't matter what year it
41:05
Speaker 2: came out. We could use any age of Lance Reddick
41:07
Speaker 2: and see where he could improve the film. Even though
41:10
Speaker 2: I liked Jean Reno's performance, I think he would have
41:14
Speaker 2: made a really great French spy. So that that's my pick. Darren,
41:19
Speaker 2: What are you picking for Lance Reddick?
41:21
Speaker 1: Yeah?
41:22
Speaker 3: I picked Colonel Hicks, which is played by your and
41:28
Speaker 3: my favorite father of a child of both. Now I'm
41:31
Speaker 3: just kidding, but no, he was played by Kevin Dunn
41:35
Speaker 3: and who did a decent job. Again, I never felt
41:39
Speaker 3: he was actually angry about the situation, just kind of And.
41:43
Speaker 2: Then they tried to shoehorn some sort of weird paternal
41:48
Speaker 2: you know, like pat on the back thing with Sergeant O'Neil, Like,
41:51
Speaker 2: where the hell did that come from?
41:54
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I mean I picked him up obviously just
41:57
Speaker 3: seeing that. I also recognized the great Glenn Moore Shower,
42:03
Speaker 3: who is your friend of mine, the agent of Agents.
42:07
Speaker 3: We see him everywhere. He was in twenty four he
42:10
Speaker 3: was in Transformers.
42:11
Speaker 1: He's on the Transformers ride. There you go. You've got
42:16
Speaker 1: to get the all Spark to safety on the one
42:18
Speaker 1: and only ride I've ever been on. That uses slow motion.
42:21
Speaker 1: I don't know how it works, but it doesn't.
42:26
Speaker 3: But yeah, so all that to say, I think, yeah,
42:29
Speaker 3: it's like a mid level role. I mean, it has
42:32
Speaker 3: quite a bit of screen time, but I don't feel
42:35
Speaker 3: like I think it could be elevated by a Lance
42:38
Speaker 3: Reddick take.
42:39
Speaker 1: So that's that's my vote, mister Miller. I The thing is,
42:43
Speaker 1: I love that. I think that I like I had
42:48
Speaker 1: that in my head as well, both of those and
42:51
Speaker 1: all of the reasoning. I was right there with you guys,
42:55
Speaker 1: and it's it's it's tough because I also really struggled
43:02
Speaker 1: with it. But I actually wound up replacing Doug Savant,
43:05
Speaker 1: who played Sergeant O'Neil, with Lance Reddick because I think
43:09
Speaker 1: that role Savant's a little lost. I don't think he's
43:13
Speaker 1: being given clear enough direction. But that feels like a
43:17
Speaker 1: Lance Reddick role, the type of on the ground military
43:21
Speaker 1: commander who's listening to the lead, who's trying to make
43:25
Speaker 1: a difference and is trying to find that balance between
43:28
Speaker 1: reason and hit the orders that he's being given. I
43:32
Speaker 1: think he could have elevated that role because quite frankly,
43:35
Speaker 1: I think no matter where you put Lance Reddick in
43:37
Speaker 1: this movie ain't nothing gonna save it, and so I
43:41
Speaker 1: would have put him there in that role.
43:43
Speaker 3: Which is funny because Lance Reddick is in this movie.
43:46
Speaker 3: I think that's one of his earlier creditation. I think
43:49
Speaker 3: he's military grunt three in the background of some shot.
43:53
Speaker 3: I couldn't find him, but he is. He is there.
43:57
Speaker 3: But I think we recast him in much better roles.
44:02
Speaker 2: I honestly had no idea. I really had no idea.
44:04
Speaker 2: That's hilarious. All right, Okay, so here comes the star writing.
44:12
Speaker 2: I mean, I can't think of we said, like, out
44:15
Speaker 2: of ninety nine things that we hated, maybe we said
44:18
Speaker 2: one thing that we liked. And I'm looking at my
44:20
Speaker 2: previous ratings of through Through through Emeric and I just
44:29
Speaker 2: I'm gonna go first here. Okay, So I gave Universal
44:32
Speaker 2: Soldier two stars, and Universal Soldier has such little redeeming value,
44:39
Speaker 2: if any Like with Godzilla, at least I can say, like, oh,
44:42
Speaker 2: at least the action sequences are entertaining somewhat, you know,
44:47
Speaker 2: at least I'm seeing a monster destroy some buildings, So
44:50
Speaker 2: that is giving it an extra half star over Universal Soldier,
44:54
Speaker 2: but just barely. So I'm going to say two and
44:56
Speaker 2: a half, John, where are you landing on this?
44:58
Speaker 1: Oh, you're very generous, because I consider this worse than
45:01
Speaker 1: Universal Soldier. Universal Soldier at least has Jean Claude van
45:06
Speaker 1: Dam trying to act, and you know, all those sorts
45:09
Speaker 1: of things where I'm like, and it has a great
45:11
Speaker 1: opening stunt sequence, which is you know, icker watch that again,
45:17
Speaker 1: and you know it has that nostalgic value for me.
45:20
Speaker 1: But Godzilla barely ekes out a one from me. And
45:24
Speaker 1: it ekes out that one just because of the aforementioned
45:27
Speaker 1: Asaria and Renault and that opening credit sequence, but the
45:32
Speaker 1: rest of it, right down to p Puff Diddy Daddy
45:37
Speaker 1: abusing the riff from Kashmir by led Zeppelin, I mean, yeah,
45:44
Speaker 1: one star.
45:45
Speaker 3: Well, in my final thoughts, I was trying to remember
45:50
Speaker 3: because this Hank We've talked more about Hankasaria than probably
45:53
Speaker 3: any other character in this movie.
45:54
Speaker 1: But I'm okay with that.
45:56
Speaker 3: I was trying to remember, like what this performance reminded
45:59
Speaker 3: me of, and I finally clicked on it. It's his
46:04
Speaker 3: his performance in I Just Lost It America's Sweetheart in
46:09
Speaker 3: two thousand and one. So he plays like the boy
46:13
Speaker 3: the boyfriend Hector Gonzalez that's like this exact Like I
46:18
Speaker 3: could swear it's the same guy, but like dialed up
46:20
Speaker 3: to an eleven, very similar in that in that vibe.
46:24
Speaker 1: Don't see that at all? What are you talking about?
46:28
Speaker 1: I don't see that in the least all.
46:30
Speaker 3: Right, Well, if that's true, maybe, and maybe then then
46:38
Speaker 3: maybe I'll say that them seeing him go for it
46:42
Speaker 3: in this movie cast him in that. I'm gonna believe
46:45
Speaker 3: that some casting director was dragged to Godzilla by their
46:49
Speaker 3: you know, teenage son and discovered the greatness of Hanka's area. Enough,
46:54
Speaker 3: Hank's area, I'm gonna give it a two. I was
46:58
Speaker 3: I knew we were gonna dip down a bit from
47:00
Speaker 3: Independence Day. How could you not? It went a little
47:03
Speaker 3: farther down than I was expecting. But I could not
47:07
Speaker 3: remember this movie because it had been decades since I
47:10
Speaker 3: watched it. And yeah, it'll probably be a couple more
47:13
Speaker 3: until I watch it again.
47:15
Speaker 1: Well, I'll go so far as to say I've never
47:16
Speaker 1: watched this movie again in my life. I'm done. This
47:19
Speaker 1: is it. I Okay.
47:20
Speaker 2: While we were talking about this, like it makes me
47:23
Speaker 2: so sad that this is where we're ending, because like,
47:26
Speaker 2: as we were talking about music, and in shot selection
47:31
Speaker 2: and acting. Emrick is ending in the nineties on such
47:34
Speaker 2: a horrible note. And like, even Darren, you were talking
47:38
Speaker 2: about like throw me a patriotic theme or something like that,
47:41
Speaker 2: Like if you want a patriotic theme, like there's one
47:44
Speaker 2: place that you can go, and that's The Patriot. And
47:47
Speaker 2: I wish that, Like even though he was making this
47:49
Speaker 2: in ninety nine, it wasn't released until two thousand and
47:52
Speaker 2: so I wish that movie was wrapping this one up.
47:55
Speaker 3: I mean, I look at it as it's still in
47:57
Speaker 3: the same millennium because technically two thousand and one is
48:00
Speaker 3: the beginning of the Lenear.
48:01
Speaker 1: That's that's true, so we're staying technically, yeah, technically the
48:06
Speaker 1: Patriots in the same decades. So i'd say, I mean,
48:09
Speaker 1: I haven't watched The Patriot in years. I I I
48:13
Speaker 1: would love to revisit it because I don't have a
48:16
Speaker 1: fond memory of it, but I know that others do.
48:19
Speaker 1: And I feel like I'm overdue for giving it a
48:21
Speaker 1: fair shake, but they're giving another chance to win my heart.
48:24
Speaker 2: Darren, have you seen it?
48:26
Speaker 3: I have, but probably only when it came out. I
48:28
Speaker 3: haven't seen it since, so I don't remember it.
48:30
Speaker 2: Oh geez, this is a movie. This is a Redill
48:34
Speaker 2: family favorite, like this is this is this is what
48:37
Speaker 2: I love to rewatch. Like this isn't just a movie
48:39
Speaker 2: that I like, I liked. I like this is one
48:41
Speaker 2: where I like pop it in and go like yeah,
48:43
Speaker 2: like it's time to watch The Patriot. Okay, well screw it.
48:46
Speaker 1: Let's let's do that.
48:47
Speaker 2: Okay, so we're not ending, and we're giving Emeric one
48:49
Speaker 2: last shot to win Emeric nineties plus one plus one.
48:55
Speaker 2: I see what you did there, all right, So the
48:57
Speaker 2: the House of Emrick gets a stay of execute for
49:01
Speaker 2: one more week. Thank you everyone for listening. Mike sure
49:05
Speaker 2: to soon and next week as we talk about The
49:06
Speaker 2: Patriot starring Mel Gibson and came out in two thousand
49:11
Speaker 2: and Just as a reminder, we are asking everyone who
49:17
Speaker 2: listens to our show and likes our show to go
49:20
Speaker 2: to Apple Podcasts and give us a rating. If you
49:22
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49:24
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49:27
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