Latest / Houselights: A Film Director Podcast / Tomorrowland (2015) - Brad Bird | Houselights #142

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Tomorrowland (2015) - Brad Bird | Houselights #142 · Houselights: A Film Director Podcast

0:03
Welcome to the nerd polity. Hello, and welcome back to house Lights,
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the show on the Nerd Party that examines the work of directors, whether it's
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their entire career, segments of their career, different highlights from their career,
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and so on and so forth. And welcome back to a specific section of
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house Lights where we are delighted to look at the entire career of Brad Bird,
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which we are designating the Birdhouse. And I am John Mills and I'm
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proud to be co hosting this episode where we examine Brad Bird's film Tomorrowland with
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my dear friends Darren Moser and Tristan Riddell. Darren, are you ready to
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join us on a if A journey of imagination where we go back and find
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out that maybe Walt Disney wasn't too far off about that big bright world of
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Tomorrow for at least half the film. Yeah, that's that is half of
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that movie. No, it's I mean I showed you guys a picture.
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I have a Tomorrowland pin. You know, this was right up my alley,
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you know when it came out in twenty fifteen. Gosh, what is
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that almost ten years ago? Eight to ten but yeah, this is going
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to be I don't think I've watched it a lot since then. I owned
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it on Blu Ray, But it's gonna be an interesting dive into the geopolitical
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landscape of the of the teens. Well, goodness knows, Disney isn't making
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it any easier to revisit Tomorrowland by not having it on Disney Plus, even
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though it's a Disney movie released with Disney ip by a Disney director about Disney
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things. Why would you have that on your service? Doesn't make sense?
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Tristan, how do you feel about that? Did it make it more difficult
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to encounter Tomorrowland for your first time? I was so confused because when we
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were talking about, you know, watching Tomorrowland last week amongst ourselves, we're
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like, yeah, okay, like, I mean, obvious, obviously this
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is on this is on Disney Plus. I mean why why wouldn't it be?
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Because this is so hardcore Disney. And then we all looked it up
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and we all just kind of had this blank look on our faces, like
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okay, so we had to go out and find it. Yeah, it's
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insanity that like, because like you said, John, it's it's based off
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of an early concept of EPCOT. I think you can even see some you
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know, disney Land or World attractions in the background at certain points. And
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well, yeah, they even use a song from um what it's Carousella Progress.
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Is at it, Darren? Keep me honest. There it's called Carousella
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Progress, very big beautiful Tomorrow. Yeah. Yeah, and uh, and
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you're even in this it's a small world. You're in that ride, Yes,
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yes, you're in. It's like I'm expected to see like Howard Stark
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walking by right, chilling at the World's Fair. I mean that's what it
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feels like, right. It's baffling to me and Darren, I think you
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you were talking about this. I don't remember whether it was on Mike or
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off Mike where after Mission Impossible, Ghost Protocol Tomorrowland is really sort of the
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blank check movie for Brad Bird. He's a guest like I don't have any
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documentation of like, but I actually in reading it, I think he was
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brought in onto an existing project, So this may not have been blank check.
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This was in the works for a long time, like so far,
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as far back as in I don't know if this is the first utterance,
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but this was one big utterance was in two thousand and eight. This was
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originally going to be starring The Rock. Oh wow, wouldn't that have been
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such a different type of movie? That very different? So yeah, he
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this this was seven years later it gets made. That's a that's a long
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time to be in purgatory. So this very much wasn't brad Bird's baby or
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big idea. But I mean, I'm sure he definitely clung to it because
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it very much feels like Bradbird. Like, this feels like a Bradbird concept
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and movie. He turned down The Force Awakens for this. See, I
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want to peel this. I want to peel this apart specifically because there are
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a lot of Star Wars references just in this film alone, and it's very
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obvious that Bradbird is a Star Wars fan. Trust, and I'll throw it
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to you. This is your first time looking at it. Was there anything
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about this where you go back in your brain now and you look at it
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and you say, I understand what it would have attracted Bradbird to this project
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instead of working on The Force Awakens. Is there anything that jumps out at
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you where you say, that's why Bradbird would have taken this, well,
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I feel I think I read this, so I don't think I can really
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give a conjecture answer because I feel like I know the answer. It was
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because it's original. It's an original piece with a huge budget, and even
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though he's huge Star Wars fan, it was it was kind of the sense
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of, well, I'd rather work on an original idea and also just go
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see Star Wars. I think that was kind of the thing where like it's
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you know, like, as as Star Wars fans, we would of course
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jump at the chance of working on a Star Wars film, but at the
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same time we're being robbed of of seeing it for the first time. I
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mean, but yeah, I think that's what he said in an interview that
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he was looking forward to seeing Force Awakens as a Star Wars fan, but
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he wanted to work on something that was original. And I buy that.
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I mean, you say, like, we love Star Wars and we'd love
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to work on it, But honestly, I think there's a there's got to
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be part of a component of the shoes you're filling becoming a director of a
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Star Wars movie. Like everybody says that, like, oh yeah, I'd
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love to make my own Star Wars movie. But like if Kathleen Kennedy shows
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up with a one hundred and fifty million dollar check, like and now,
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all of a sudden, you have to make a Star Wars movie like that
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is very imposing, And especially with the Force Awakens, it's like and you're
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now starting the next saga of the franchise, Like that is a huge ask.
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So I could see turning down for many reasons, and that one hundred
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and fifty million dollars is not something that you can just do whatever you want
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with. You very much have to do what the producers want you to do.
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True, But Darren, let me ask you this, as you revisit
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this movie with the first time in a while, and you look at the
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camera work, you look at the storytelling style, do you see Brad Bird
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showing you anything that would have lent itself to a Star Wars movie. Do
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you see anything? Do you look at this and you say, yeah,
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this would have been a good fit for Star Wars. This would have been
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a good person to bring in to bring the l because you know, because
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jj Abrams came in obviously, we saw how that went. We know his
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visual language. It looked and felt like a JJ Abrams movie. Comparing the
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visual language of the two. Does this feel like a director whose visual language
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would have even worked in Star Wars? Now, I think brad Bird could
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totally have done a Star Wars movie. I think it's it's hard to compare
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to this movie because I think the core of this movie comes from a quote
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from brad Bird where he says, I started to wonder about why people aren't
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as optimistic about the future as they were in the fifties, sixties, and
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seventies. I mean that statement right there, that is this movie. That
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is why this movie. That is the entire plot, and part of it
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is mcguffin, and part of it is you know other. But so it's
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hard for me to compare this movie to Star Wars in that regard because I
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feel that message this movie, this is a message movie. Star Wars isn't
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a message movie. So it's core Like Okay, granted, like yeah,
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there are some messages, but I'm just saying, like, not like this
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message. This is like over hitting you over the head with that message.
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But that's how it feels like to me. I would agree, there's a
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hitting you over the head with it sort of thing. And Tristan as somebody
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coming to it for the first time. Do you feel that it hits you
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over the head or do you think that bird is a capable messenger for the
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story or did you feel at some point like, Okay, I got it,
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I got the point, and let's let's move it along here. Oh,
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it wasn't subtle at all. It very much hit you over the head.
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I don't think I was bothered by it because it's also within my own
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belief system, and so I would probably am biased towards that, where if
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it was a message movie that was against my belief system, I probably would
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be a little bit more eye rolly, you know what I'm saying. But
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it's definitely was there. It's definitely was not subtle. It definitely hits you
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over the head. But I wasn't too terribly bothered by it. I was
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actually a little perplexed because at the beginning, the second beginning, um,
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when they are in present day and what's her name is in class? What?
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What? What? What is? What is her name? It's okay,
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what's her name? Protagonists? I totally get that, right, that
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Casey Casey Newton. So when Casey's in class and she's going through the you
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know, the veritable doom scrolling of class where you know, they're saying about
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how everything's turning to crap and everybody's going to die and everything like that.
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Um, they showed it as a negative. I was kind of like,
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we shouldn't. I wish I was learning about this in class. I wish
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they talked about this in school. We never talked about this in school.
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See that that in and of itself is so strange to me, um,
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because you know, I guess it varies by district sort of thing. Like
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I'm very like. I was like, yeah, that's that's what classes were
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like for me. And I'm obviously I'm older than than you guys. I
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would argue that some of that persistent pessimism is why gen X turned out out
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with the Big Old whatever as our our rallying cry. Um, you know
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SFW guys, that's that's where we were. But and and as a as
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a millennial who was a little bit more on the verge of you know,
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social outcry, and gen Z just ran with it. Um. It was
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surprising to me because I didn't I didn't learn about any of this crap.
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We didn't learn about global warming. We barely learned about any wars that were
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going on. It wasn't until nine to eleven happened that we learned about what
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was going on in the in the Middle East, and and it was just
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like, you know, they were they were showing all of this as a
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negative, and I'm just like, this just sounds like a well informed student.
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Well, I think that there is something. Yeah, let me talk
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it to you, Darren, I mean it does. Does Tristan have a
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point or I personally looked at the way that the teachers were portrayed as um
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how the movie intended, which was they weren't delivering any ideas of okay,
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kids, so let's let's get out there and fix it. It was very
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much just like life sucks and we're all going to die. It's inevitable.
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Yeah. Right, So, so do you think that they overdid that part?
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Are you? Are you team Tristan on that one or are you team
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bird with with good old Brad as he's directing the film. No, I
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mean I get I see Tristan's point of and I think that is to each
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of our own education. Yeah, I remember not learning as much about those
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issues. I remember when an Inconvenient Truth came out by Al Gore, Like
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that was the kind of the first real big public Hey, let's kind of
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talk about this versus like the ozone, like repairing the ozone. That's the
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that's as deep as our environmental education went before that. But yeah, it
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And what's his name with like the bowling for column guying, Oh yeah,
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Michael Moore. Michael Moore. Yeah, that was a big splash. Yeah.
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So just like the rise of the documentaries about these issues and like being
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and you kind of had like popular documentarians, like not since Ken Burns as
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we really had like a household name, but they were a documentarian. So
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for me, it comes down to it's like this part of the message of
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this movie. And because honestly, when like obviously we're doing bread Birds,
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so we gotta watch this movie. And but there's a part of me that
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was kind of dreading going back to this well because I remember like loving parts
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of it, loving the nineteen sixties stuff, loving the futurism stuff, loving
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all of that, and then it felt like there's this big kind of black
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spot of you know, yeah, the whole nobody's doing anything, there's no
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hope, and they're just wallowing it Like Frank's wallowing in it for the majority
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of the movie. He's, you know, super depressed. And it was
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just I wanted a story like that was entirely in that prequel piece, you
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know. I wanted to see Frank and I wanted to spend time in Tomorrowland.
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It's the name of the movie, and we're you know, barely there.
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That was really shocking to me as a first time viewer. I was
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like, this is called Tomorrowland, right, do you know the name on
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the poster? Do you know we got a commercial for it? And then
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that's it. I'm gonna I'm gonna come at that at what you are both
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talking about there from from two angles the first one and it will let's shelve
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this part of it is there's a name on this that strikes fear sometimes in
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the heart of people who enjoy their franchises and or long running series or reboots,
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Damon Lindeloff. It's a name that people have learned to be a little
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skittish about. It can be a hit and miss when his name is on
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a project in terms of reception from the crowd. But Darren, I'm going
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to turn it on its head here. I get what you're both saying about
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wanting to spend more time in Tomorrowland. I agree, except for the fact
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that I especially revisiting it this time. I think that it contributes to a
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phrase that we love to throw around every so often, protagonist confusion. Who's
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the main character of this story is Frank until it isn't? And I think
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that the Clooney reveal is way more effective if you pick up with Casey and
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have nothing but mystery until Frank shows up, and then you can tell historian
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flashback. That would be what I would propose if I were sitting in the
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booth with somebody and I watched this a rough cut for the first time,
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I would say, this is what you gotta do. This is what's going
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to get everybody's going to get on board. Do you agree we've been with
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Frank's POV up until that point. But if we had started with Casey's POV
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until she meets Frank and then we get his info dump in a slightly different
15:01
manner or something, or maybe it's like a version of the you know what
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do they call it? The the hologram where you you know? But it
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was he had co opted it to show like more of his point of view
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or something like that. And I was also I was super confused by the
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framing because when we get to Casey waking up and going down to breakfast,
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I assumed that George Clooney was going to be the one sitting there, not
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Tim McGraw. And there's also the framing, the framing of the framing the
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very very beginning of the movie, which is this whole like, well,
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I'm going to tell this story which and it was stupid. It was so
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terrible, terrible opening. It was terrible, And then you have your characters
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speak over each other and they're like, well, you're doing it wrong,
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and I'm like, what is going on? I have this locked off shot
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of George Clooney and someone's talking at am off screen like what is It was
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terrible and it's also adr and it's bad adr because their lips do not match
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up with what's what's what's saying? Well, I would say a little bit.
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I would say also the sound quality is like you you can always tell
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to a certain extent when it's a booth versus native audio, and that's all.
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That's a constant push and pull. But I think it really jumps out
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in that scene because the audio even you know, speaking to that point tress
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and is it feels like, wait, am I watching a video of something?
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Am I watching people actually talking? Because the audio is telling me I'm
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watching a video, and then the visuals look like I'm watching a video.
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And then at the end when we come back to it, it's him talking
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to a crowd, and I'm like, so it's not even internally consistent basically
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in terms of its presentation. I mean, the crowd is made of robots,
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and so it's kind of the camera peel v of the robots, but
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it's I'm not going to defend it. It was not a good idea and
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no reason for it to be there. And so I think you wind up
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with a situation where there's another movie that came out very recently where the first
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twenty to twenty five minutes of it was in a specific flashback, if you
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will, and then it suddenly shifts over and the character is much older and
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everybody I've spoken to, and because I had the same reaction everybody I've spoken
17:27
to, it was like that was so jarring because I was in it and
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I was there and I was like, Okay, this is the story,
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this is what I'm doing. Is wait, everything just changed and I just
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don't know the answer, and I wasn't motivated to really look it up.
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But it really feels like that opening and or opening and ending the framing device
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feels like something that was tacked on in a last minute effort to try to
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make it more understandable to people as to what was going on. It feels
17:57
like it's in test screening and they're like, oh, this isn't working.
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People aren't getting what we want them to get. So let's put George,
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or put George in front of a green screen, will take the background plate
18:11
of the door, and we'll have him do this vo I mean you could
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shoot. You could shoot that entire thing in like a day, super easy.
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I actually took it the opposite way, where it was just like this
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had to have been somebody's idea from the beginning, before they even wrote,
18:29
before they even put pen to paper, and they're just like, this is
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how I'm gonna start it, this is gonna how I'm gonna end it,
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and it's gonna be great, And then when they actually do it and it's
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garbage. They don't let go of it. That gars I have nothing to
18:41
back that up, but that could very well be the case. And it's
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like, it's one of those things, where was it just that Disney was
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so distracted from trying to get that Star Wars franchise where he started that somebody
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wasn't sitting in the room saying you gotta cut that opening. You got it,
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just just start with the girl. And they're opening itself. Like again,
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if we had just started with nineteen sixty four, Frank, that's a
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great opening. It's like hopeful and you got this kid, and yeah,
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it's going to be jarring when your protagonist totally shifts and it jumps several decades.
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But the fact that instead we get a ticking clock in the world is
19:19
doomed like from the get go, from like the first thirty seconds, and
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I'm like, well, that's great. You know what's really interesting to me
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is if I jump forward and I get rid of all of that stuff before
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we introduce Casey's story and really introduce her as the protagonist. When we get
19:41
to her, the beginning of her story is so similar, in my view
19:48
to how we're introduced to Sam Flynn in tron Legacy. She's riding a motorcycle.
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She's creating hip you know, environmatage. I've got a message. What
20:00
happened to everything? I'm like, it's almost as if somebody read the script
20:04
for Tron Legacy and they were like, yeah, our character should do that
20:07
too. And it really hit me at this point because I love Tron Legacy.
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I think Tron Legacy is a freaking masterpiece. And everybody come at me,
20:17
bro, I don't care what you think. And it just seems so
20:21
interesting me to me that it's so similar too, Like was there just something
20:25
in the water at Disney where they were like yeah, yeah, yeah,
20:27
we gotta have them in leather with a helmet doing a cool thing. And
20:33
she'll have drones. He's doing bass jumping, they're on motorcycles. They're trying
20:37
to like get people to care about stuff. And it's like, it's so
20:41
weird. How that did that jump out at you? Tristan Well, I
20:45
know that her brother even said like identify yourself. Yeah, oh my gosh,
20:51
you're right. Yeah, which is which is straight? Which is straight
20:53
from Tron? Yeah? I know it's it can be a somewhat common phrase,
20:57
but like coming from any film. Yeah, you know, specifically brad
21:02
Bird. You know that had to have come from Tron. So, yeah,
21:04
that that landed pretty hard with me, Like I'm right there with you.
21:08
I'm I'm with you, guys with the with the framing device is horrible
21:14
and it's a huge shift once we get to Casey and I was watching this
21:18
and I even wasn't entirely sure with what she was doing at first because we
21:22
were so in the dark. I was like, does she not like NASA?
21:27
Like yeah, right, you know, like is she's sabotaging NASA?
21:33
Like she has the NASA capp. I thought this was like she needed like
21:37
a best friend who was like doing it with her or something that they're like
21:42
talking as they're doing. Yeah, so you know what's going like her friend
21:48
from school or something that is like going along for the ride. I don't
21:52
know something or honestly, I don't even think you needed it, because the
21:56
exposition could have come from Tim McGraw where he said, like, where were
22:00
you last night? You know we talked about this, you know, like
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you know, like he pulled up the paper or something like that, and
22:07
it shows like and she's or she's coming in late, and he cares a
22:10
lot of Yeah, the fact that he basically explained the last five minutes of
22:15
what we just saw it like, either don't have him explain it and trust
22:19
your audience, or don't show it and just have the exposition to cover it.
22:23
And on top of that, I was super I had to rewind it
22:27
twice to figure out what the hell was going on because of Athena's character getting
22:33
the DNA and printing it on the pen, right, I thought that was
22:37
casey hmm. I like, what's who is this and why is she doing?
22:41
Because we have a brown haired, you know, young looking white girl
22:47
in the dark wearing a baseball and another brown haired, you know, white
22:52
girl, yeah, you know, you know, wearing a baseball cap.
22:53
So like when she like when the pen when she was at the cops getting
22:59
her stuff and she said that pens not mine, I was like, what
23:02
are you talking about? You you had it like two minutes ago, you
23:04
know. Well, and they purposely don't. They're not showing Athena in bright
23:10
light because there's that reveal where you do finally see her in light and it's
23:14
supposed to be like she has an age, Like what is going on?
23:18
Like, you know, was that a surprise at all, Tristan, because
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obviously she's this character we saw in the sixties who now looks identical well now
23:26
that I know, because they rewound it twice and I was just like,
23:27
oh, it's it's Athena. It's the girl from the beginning. She must
23:30
be ageless or a robot, right, And I think that's another problem with
23:34
the framing device, because I think that the revelation that she's a robot is
23:37
more interesting if it's a surprise, you know, when she shows up,
23:41
or even a surprise to the protagonists instead of just the audience. It's sort
23:45
of the Terminator too. Problem of they spoiled that Arnold was the good guy
23:52
before the movie was released, but if you look at if you look at
23:56
the movie movie, they don't frame it like he's the good guy to tell
24:00
until he shoots the T two from the hallway with the roses. Yeah,
24:03
speaking of terminator, like when Athena was on though the windshield and then she
24:07
punches through yeah, yeah, or yeah, or even when she's just chasing,
24:11
she's faster than two. That's that's impressive. That's impressive. Um.
24:17
Yeah, it's just I want I want to say I want to say something,
24:19
I okay, go for it. So you know we're talking about like
24:23
being in the dark and having certain surprises for the audience. We were in
24:29
the dark way too much for this film as an audience member. There's there
24:34
was so much going on, and the protagonist didn't one of the protagonists didn't
24:38
know what was going in case he didn't know what was going on. We
24:41
didn't know what was going on. And I still doesn't know what's going on
24:45
for a long time, and I started to not care. YEP, Like
24:49
as I was watching, I was like, you know what, I have
24:52
stopped giving a crap because you're not leading me in. I'm not like,
24:57
you're not making me hip to what's going on. And we didn't even get
25:03
the plot revealed to us until an hour and forty five minutes in YEP,
25:11
that's insane. It's worth in that though it's not only the plot. It's
25:17
okay, so she's the protagonist, which means she her choices should be driving
25:22
the plot, but she is a passenger until she gets to the monitor and
25:29
like the third act when she's actually like driving the disco ball, you know,
25:34
like that moment is when shell Mouse or whatever, the ball, mouse
25:38
whatever, until until then, she she's kind of everything's happening to her.
25:44
She has no agency until that moment, and we're and we're sliding in a
25:48
third at that moment, like way too much of the movie have passed.
25:53
Now we're we're sort of, I think justifiably pointing out a lot of flaws
25:57
with a lot of flaws with the movie. And I'll actually, I'll say
26:04
really quick before we go to the next point, that I took my daughters
26:08
I only had two daughters at the time to go see this film Oka,
26:12
and they were they enjoyed it. I had a less enthusiastic reaction, but
26:21
being a good dad, I was kind of like, I'm glad you loved
26:22
it, honey, you know, at which they've learned over time as code
26:26
for good for you. That's great. But I actually offered my oldest daughter
26:34
the opportunity to rewatch it with me, and I got to tell you that
26:38
the wisdom of children sometimes. She looked at me and she said, I
26:42
don't want to, And I said why she goes because for the longest time,
26:45
this was my favorite movie and I don't want to watch it again and
26:49
find out that it isn't, she goes. She says, I would rather
26:53
hold on to my memories of it. And I was like, that sounds
26:57
like my child. That really sounds like a kid who paid attention to us
27:02
before about wanting to watch some movies. It's like I watch Took. Yeah,
27:08
nice, very nice, very nice. But I do want to look
27:12
at some of the more positive aspects of the film, okay, Um,
27:18
I want us to find them. I want us to come together with them.
27:21
I think I want us to really really, let's work hard, guys,
27:26
let's love for I love the music in this movie. It's I bought
27:30
the soundtrack to this. It it's energetic, it like it gets you going,
27:37
all of the just the the you know, like it's just you know,
27:42
kind of has um. Actually, now I think about it, of
27:45
course it's quino, but um that makes me think of enter enterprising young man.
27:52
The main sounds my favorite piece from all the kild thousand and nine.
27:56
Um but yeah, so very similar in the staccato nous of the of the
28:00
main themes and stuff. So I love the music for this. Every track
28:04
is and the end credits the Christian like the ending, the music is kind
28:10
of carrying the ending as like the big crescendo, Like whether or not the
28:11
message is landing is besides the point, but the music is on par for
28:17
that scene. I will say that even though some of the camera work,
28:21
and this is what's interesting to me is I think that Claudio Miranda does a
28:26
really good job on the whole with this. I think that it's not perfect,
28:32
but I think that there are definitely things that are really nice to look
28:36
at that happen here. And there are some really good, you know moments
28:41
as well, with blending you know effects with live action and everything like that.
28:48
As I watch this, what I see, in all honesty is a
28:52
director who would have probably had more success with this film if Disney would have
28:57
sucked it up and then stead of treating animation, which used to be their
29:03
bread and butter, with the disdain that they seem to now, I think
29:07
that Brad Byrd would have made this a terrific animated film. There were so
29:14
many things about this where I looked at it and I said, this is
29:17
the guy who made Iron Giant, and especially with like the Eiffel Tower going
29:22
up, and if I were watching this and it were animated, I think
29:27
everybody would have friggin loved this film, but live action, there are certain
29:33
things I'll point to when Frank goes over and he's falling and the rocket pack
29:38
and he has to grab the rocket pack and he has to turn it on
29:41
live action. I'm sitting there, I'm like, oh, come on,
29:45
yeah, I animated a suspension of disbelief for that he's falling a long time,
29:49
But animated, I would have been on board. Was a charming secret
29:53
a million times with bugs Bunny like jump or somebody jumping out with that like
29:57
that is a cartoon moment. M hm. And so I think that this
30:03
is an animated movie that is unfortunately a victim of being forced to be live
30:07
action. No, I know this is kind of a side note, but
30:11
I want to mention this before we move on because Claudio Miranda, like,
30:15
I want to talk about his history real quick, because he shot he shot
30:22
some amazing stuff here because okay, so he's he's the guy responsible for he
30:27
photographed The Curious Case of Benjamin Button yep tron Legacy Life of pie Ye Oblivion,
30:36
which is a massively underrated film in my opinion, but hey, and
30:41
and I mean like it's done a lot of shorts and everything like that.
30:44
But also and lately he did top Gun Maverick in Spiderhead. So one of
30:51
one of my favorite things about Tomorrowland it's definitely how it was shot, Like
30:55
you can really tell that this was shot by somebody who knows what they're doing,
31:02
and you could tell that Bradbird really relied on him because you can feel
31:06
that touch. Specifically from I think from Oblivion and tron Legacy. I don't
31:12
see Benjamin Button that much, but obviously it's completely different genres, but uh,
31:18
you can you can feel that clean style, even though in Tomorrowland it's
31:23
how do I put it? Like with Oblivion, even though it's post apocalyptic,
31:29
it's extremely clean, and tron Legacy, by its very nature is very
31:33
clean, and Tomorrowland is surprisingly clean too, even though we've deal with being
31:40
in a swamp or like being in an old um, you know, like
31:44
the Blast from the Past shop and Paris. Yeah, I think but there
31:52
but but yeah, I think that there's a crispness to the picture. Your
31:56
eye can always see what's happening, because that's that's something I know that Tristan,
32:00
you you've harped on a lot. Is sometimes movies are shot dark and
32:04
or they're shot in a certain way to get a mood, and you're like,
32:06
what what's happening? This is muddy? I don't I can't see what's
32:08
going on right slow down the even the opening, yeah, like where she's
32:15
you know, sabotaging the the at the shuttle site, Like there's not a
32:20
lot of light there. It's like industrial lights. Like any modern movie,
32:22
it would just be black and you wouldn't see anything. It would be muddy.
32:28
Yep. But I feel that the or it almost kind of feels like
32:32
once HD went from ten eighty to like four K and everything just got so
32:37
much clearer, Like we thought it was HD, but now it's like actual
32:42
HD. But I what I love about the visuals is it's a really like
32:50
it actually held up really well for CGI and effects from twenty fifteen, you
32:55
know it. I think Brad knew where to lean on CGI and where to
33:02
do things practically, like all the Tomorrowland stuff from the beginning, all of
33:07
the you know, you know that all of the nineteen sixty five stuff has
33:12
to have tons of like ecset extensions and extra stuff to make it look like
33:15
the World's fair. But it blends perfectly, like I don't ever feel like,
33:20
oh well, there's the wall or there's the part that's not real.
33:23
So I think that is you know, as we often try to talk about
33:29
what do we see of the director, and I think I look at someone
33:32
who did Mission Impossible. I look at someone who knows how to blend these
33:37
animated and real worlds. Like the visual effects overall really hold up still for
33:44
a movie from that era. Now, see, that's something I want to
33:47
hit on there, because you're you know, you mentioned his history and everything,
33:52
Tristan. We just watched Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol. Now we watched Tomorrowland.
34:00
I say, I see Tomorrowland. I see a lot in common with
34:04
U with Iron Giant. Do you see the director of Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol
34:09
in here anywhere? Not? Really, I'm with you. I see more
34:15
Iron Giant than I do Mission Possible with this one, I think. And
34:19
you know, we talked a lot about how Ghost Protocol kind of solidified the
34:24
new direction that was modern day Mission Impossible, where JJ kind of started leaning
34:30
into it, but Bradbird with Ghost Protocol nailed it down. And I don't
34:37
see that here, And I think I think because of what you said.
34:43
I see way more even Incredibles and Iron Giant in this than I do Mission
34:49
Possible. Like Mission Impossible feels like how do I put this? Like it
34:55
when we when we reviewed it, we're like, oh, this is hard
34:59
to talk about where we see brad Byrd because this is his first live action
35:02
film, So how can we really say you know, this was this is
35:07
him here, this is him there? But we can say that with tomorrow
35:13
Land, We're like, oh no, this we can see this year.
35:15
We can see this year. We can see that there and this there and
35:19
that's there. With Mister Impossible, it's like, now that's a cruise film
35:22
with those same producers, it's like the Cruise as a producer, these other
35:27
producers who have worked on I don't think Wagner did goes protocol, but you
35:30
know, you're just like, no, this is like he's coming in.
35:32
He's the he's the worker, he's the fantastic project manager and I'm not saying
35:37
that derogatorially, and like he's able to get it done, He's able to
35:42
motivate the people, he's able to get it creatively done and work it.
35:45
But you don't really see him that that much and but with tomorrow Land,
35:52
we're seeing more of his previous stuff, and I think that's what makes this
35:58
a really interesting film to watch. In all honesty, is you do have
36:04
that in terms of the project manager role. Just to hit on that is,
36:08
I will never forget that. I love the Halloween series through good and
36:15
bad, and Halloween Too is a movie that's not particularly good and by a
36:21
lot of accounts was sort of taken away at the last minute from the director
36:24
Rick Rosenthal I think his name was. But I remember seeing a making of
36:28
documentary many years later where somebody said, well, well, you know,
36:32
is this your movie? And they were obviously meaning it to be contentious,
36:37
and he had a very philosophical view where he said, hey, listen,
36:39
he goes, I make a movie, but the producers want a certain movie,
36:45
and the writers want a certain movie, and I might want a certain
36:49
movie, he goes, but the producers are the ones that they're making the
36:52
movie, and they're going to release the movie that they want. Like I'm
36:57
paraphrasing the hell out of it right here. But it was an in prediably
37:00
philosophical sort of thing for a director to say. That's why, Yeah,
37:05
the director does not get an Oscar when it wins Best Picture, right,
37:09
is because it's the producers making the movie. Like, if the director's not
37:14
producing it, then he's not going to get home. He's not going to
37:16
he or she is not going to take home the statue. And I think,
37:20
what and this is going to be a very big overstatement, And Darren,
37:22
I want to know if you agree with this or not. I think
37:25
one of the things that's frustrating about Tomorrow's Sad Bredbird did produce Tomorrowland as well,
37:31
but that's that that's sort of where I'm going right with Tomorrowland. I
37:37
do feel that ownership that he has here, and part of what makes this
37:42
frustrating is this way more than ghost Protocol, feels like he has ownership of
37:47
what's going on here, but he doesn't have the you know, he turned
37:54
down Star Wars. He doesn't have the George Lucas seat where I remember an
38:00
interview with Rick McCallum. Actually I remember he said this at Star Wars celebration
38:04
one where somebody was asking what it's like to be the producer. Goes he
38:07
describes the role of a producer and he says, of course, George is
38:10
the executive producer so he could always overrule me. And this feels like a
38:16
movie that needed the director to be sitting in that in that executive producer chair.
38:22
Darren, do you think this movie turns out differently if Bird is sitting
38:27
in that big chair saying, no, this is the movie that's coming out.
38:31
Do you think that this is a victim of too many people sitting around
38:35
that table. I think the answer is yes to both. I think it
38:44
definitely feels like there are a lot of different people pulling at the direction of
38:49
this movie. Like I can see I mean, there's three people on the
38:52
production credits, like I could see them all like, oh, and you
38:57
have this, you know, not formula, but you have someone who really
39:00
likes the nineteen sixties bits, and someone who really likes the message bits,
39:05
and someone who really likes the female protagonists, and she's you know, leading
39:08
us by the hand, and it's all going to come together. And it
39:12
feels like that. It feels like I wouldn't go as far as to say
39:15
by committee. I think that's a little harsh for this movie. It's it's
39:20
definitely got vibes of that. But but then to answer the other question,
39:25
which I think is true as well of is this brad Birds movie. And
39:30
again this is just speculation, but I feel like from that quote, like
39:36
I read, I feel like the core story of why don't we believe in
39:42
the future like we did in the sixties, Like that is this story.
39:45
So I think even if he did have a bigger seat at the table,
39:50
I think he would have I don't think the movie would have changed that much
39:53
because I feel like that is the strongest element that won out over the other
39:58
voices. Whether that is the best thing for movie, I don't know.
40:00
That's maybe on personal preference, but uh, I mean it's sounding like we're
40:06
enjoying the other parts of the movie a little more than just that message.
40:10
But I feel like, yeah, if he was an executive producer, I
40:15
think we would have still gotten this movie, maybe with a little more message
40:21
in it than we got, which we still got a lot. So another
40:25
aspect of this film is that there is an unexpected um brutality in how people
40:36
are dispatched. The people that get killed, Oh yeah, try to just
40:40
stricking a front of people, like straight up yeah, disintegrate yeah, which
40:45
yeah, they're gone, they're gone. They're they're like, they're not going
40:49
home to their families. They're not their kids out there. Their kids are
40:52
growing up childless. And even on top of that, you use such a
40:58
great words on the brute reality of how they took out the androids. Holy
41:05
crap, Like I had to double check what this was rated. Because Casey
41:09
takes a baseball bat to a humanoid robot. She takes a baseball bat to
41:15
their head and smashes it in and it just gets smushed and smushed and smushed,
41:22
and we see it gets smushed like five times before we see circuits come
41:24
out. And even though we see circuits come out, this is a humanoid
41:30
body getting bashed in the skull and we see that routinely throughout the movie.
41:37
This is an incredibly violent film for being Disney and PG and hoping for trying
41:45
to be optimistic. So let me ask you this question, does that speak
41:47
again? Would that violence play differently as an animated film? Would it have
41:53
seemed as brutal if it were an animated film. No, And I think
41:58
that they could probably could have exagg durated like the It's like I think in
42:01
an animated film. Again, this is complete conjecture, But in an animated
42:06
film, if Casey took a bat to one of their heads. I think
42:09
you would immediately see circuits like it would the uppercut and the head goes up
42:15
ten feet and wires and servos are at the bottom, like it overexaggerated on
42:19
it telescopes up and comes back down. It's semi comedic where it's like drop
42:23
and you're like, this is more Inspector Gadget vibe than anything. Yeah,
42:29
yes, but it was so it was just I was taking it back,
42:36
like watching this and I'm not you know, like I know that we joke
42:38
that I'm delicate, but I wasn't looking for an excuse to to not like
42:45
the violence of this movie. Or it was just surprising. It was just
42:47
absolutely surprising. And I could see people taking their kids to this film,
42:52
you know, like seeing the ad campaign in the in the marketing, you're
42:54
like, oh, it's ready PG, because I'm sure it's just because it's
42:57
live action, and then seeing the like seeing people like humans straight up die
43:00
and get disintegrated and seeing human form being you know, like beaten to death
43:06
with baseball bats. I could see people walking out. I can say that
43:14
we all know that I'm nowhere near as delicate as you and and you take
43:17
pride in your kid's desensitivity. Yes, I I scarred my children as every
43:22
possible turn. We all know this, this is well documented. But I
43:28
almost wonder if the it's just the absence of blood that got them to skate
43:35
by on that because absolutely, and it also has a celebration of things act
43:42
like pseudohuman like they're overtly smiley, they're all like gorgeous models, like everybody
43:47
looks like a like they're advertising and Armani suit, which is on purpose.
43:52
So I think that tweaks the knob a tiny bit as well of like,
43:57
this is not a human, this is a like superhuman. It's it's not
44:00
supposed to be real. Allow me to ask this question though, because this
44:05
is a movie that definitely leans into a stereotype of nerd culture. When we
44:12
meet Keegan, Michael Key and Catherine Hahn who were wasted, did that land
44:16
with you guys or was that too over the top? I was surprised at
44:22
how they were wasted, but then I had to look up twenty fifteen.
44:24
I was like, oh, Catherine Han was nowhere near as big as she
44:27
is today. And but Keegan, you know, like he was on Key
44:30
and Peel at this time. Yeah. So see, I didn't know Key
44:34
and Peel at the time I watched this movie, so I didn't know.
44:36
I didn't recognize who that was until I watched at this time. I'm like,
44:38
oh, that's that's him. But yeah, I so in that regard,
44:43
first time watching, I had know they were just people. I didn't
44:46
realize who they were supposed to be at all. But in terms of their
44:52
portrayal of you know, quote unquote nerd culture, the nerd shop, this
44:55
is a store that the three of us would have if we were visiting.
44:59
Non to script ten walked up to the set of The Big Bang Theory basically
45:02
is where they shot. That's what I'm asking, is my my high watermark
45:07
for um posers in the nerd culture is Big Bang Theory. Was this a
45:14
poser moment or did this feel like a genuine love moment, a wink and
45:19
a nod to those of us that truly love the culture. I didn't.
45:22
I took it as a wink in a nod because we know that brad Bird
45:27
is a nerd, and we know that Lindeloff is a nerd um and this
45:30
is a this is a movie that is talking about utopia. This is a
45:35
movie that is talking about invention and science. Like this is a nerdy movie
45:38
and sort of have you know, like Star Wars in there, like in
45:42
the shop and Tron and m Simpsons and you know, like R two D
45:46
two and things like that. Like it. It felt like a wink and
45:49
a nod. Like I didn't see it as poser culture. I felt like
45:52
it was just a nerdy shop and it was a chance to put in East
45:54
rags. It was too clean as somebody who again that's a gen xer who
46:00
went through these shots in their original form. It was too clean, way
46:04
too I think that I would that there was no comic books that was that
46:07
was a bit of a stretch, huge problem. Yeah. See what I
46:14
what kind of surprised me was that both of them were androids. I think
46:16
it would have been way funnier if, like, because we saw him acting
46:22
more human, I guess with uh with Key coming out and having like talking
46:25
about the door and like I gotta present. I think it had been funnier
46:30
if he was human. And I guess Ursula is the name of the other
46:32
store owner, if she was the you know, the animatronic and he had
46:37
no idea and he gets like knocked out or something or I guess disintegrated because
46:42
that's what we do, but with a baseball bat. But it would have
46:45
been funnier for him to be like like, wait, you're like so she's
46:49
all creepy about the pin, but he's all like, why are you It's
46:52
just a pin, Like we got a bunch of collectibles right over there.
46:55
Like, I think that would have been way funnier. I agree with you.
46:59
I think that's a great idea that you could have brought to a story
47:00
conference, Darren. Is the idea that like he could have been like I
47:04
had a crush on you, and she were like, yeah, I didn't
47:07
have to worry about it because twelve years in the store and never once did
47:12
what do you think I never went out with you because I'm not human or
47:15
or you know, it's like you didn't piece together that we worked eight hour
47:17
shifts and I never went to the bathroom, like the problems. You've never
47:22
seen me eat rightly? When's the last time you saw me blink? You
47:28
know? Yes? I think something that really took me out of it was
47:30
in that scene when the like there was an explosion Okay, it's crazy.
47:36
They don't know if they're dead. They don't know. They say that they
47:38
hope that they went to lunch and everything like that. Then a cop just
47:43
walks in, oh man, this whole sequence and then takes out a skull
47:46
with his bare hands and he's like, what's this And I was like,
47:50
well, it kind of looks like a skull with meat on it. Yes,
47:54
that's true. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. I think it just
48:00
really comes down to, Yeah, I was taken it back too, when
48:02
the animatronics come up and he's like, you know, as soon as they
48:07
get resistance and they're like, oh, well obviously you've seen too much boom
48:10
boom, and they're and like you said, they're just they're not knocked out.
48:15
I mean, the good guys got the tune and fork to knock out
48:16
humans, but the bad guys just vaporize you. I'm like, this is
48:21
oh my gosh, it's rough. Yeah. It really for some reason that
48:27
when the guy vaporized the policeman, that was the moment where like it was
48:34
really jarring this time because it was so casual and I get what they're going
48:39
for, but at the same time, it was see okay, I mean
48:45
we keep to change it. Like he holds them up with the gun kind
48:51
of like back off, and then in a so you don't follow us,
48:54
vaporizes their car and then gets in their car and drives away, and the
48:59
cops are all like and all this left are like the four tires, and
49:01
the cops are like, well, we would chase you, but something make
49:05
it funny like something like that. But they that's not what they do at
49:07
all. Yeah, be inventive, like have a gun that you know,
49:12
like his sonic based and like blows him away or something like that, or
49:15
even just for fun, even though it would be a Men in Black reference,
49:19
like wipe their memory sort of thing. I was like, yeah,
49:22
they've only got fifty eight days left. Anyway, they have that that they
49:27
have that technology, they've used it before. Yeah, yeah, that's right.
49:30
Yeah. Hugh Laurie, who I guess was the antagonist, I like
49:34
said like, oh yeah, we didn't even bother with, you know,
49:37
like convincing him that this was a weather balloon or something like that. I
49:39
want to talk about Hugh Laurie. Okay, so he's the antagonist. He's
49:45
the bad guy. Apparently he deserved to get smushed, because that's what I'm
49:51
saying, Like I'm I'm oh sarcastic, He's he's the level of benevolence of
49:58
like a principle at a school. Well that's the thing. So like nod
50:02
your science experiment. Like he's not threatening, he's not. But at the
50:07
end, he like they said, like he so the signal is going out
50:12
and saying like is putting doom in people's brains, right, because he's saying,
50:16
you guys are going towards armageddon, and so you need to see where
50:21
you're stepping. And so that's why I'm doing this. And so even if
50:25
that was ill founded or like ill advised, I should say like they're saying,
50:30
he's the antagonist. He's the bad guy, like the movie almost laid
50:36
Armageddon on his feet, even though he didn't mean to do it. Yeah,
50:40
Like he doesn't deserve the end that he gets. He deserves a change
50:44
of heart moment. Yeah, he says, I was wrong. You're right,
50:50
we should be embracing the future. I made the mistake. I didn't
50:54
know I made the mistake. If I made a mistake, everybody's making a
50:59
mistake. And if you know, if I can change and you can change
51:01
the Rocky four end. Okay, let's just always go back to that one,
51:06
And that would have nailed the point of the picture home way more than
51:09
it was. That the point was to change hearts and minds, not crush
51:14
people and vaporize them. Because the entire time that I'm watching this, and
51:19
then when we get to the end, like when I okay, so,
51:21
like when when Casey goes through the basically virtual reality commercial and it's it's post
51:27
George Clooney as a young person, I'm thinking like, okay, so there's
51:30
this other dimension where all these smart people are inventing all these crazy things that
51:36
the world, like the rest of humanity, don't get to benefit from.
51:39
And then we go to the end of the movie where the evil Hugh Lauree
51:43
is dead, and then they start tomorrow Land back up again, and so
51:46
they're taking and stealing our best minds from Earth and taking them to Tomorrowland to
51:55
continue to develop cool ideas that the human race does not get to ben a
52:00
fit from. How is this averting? Armageddon credits role with that point,
52:07
and everybody walks out with a music swell and a happy feeling. Here's here's
52:13
something I want to hit on is one of the people credited with editing this
52:20
film is Walter Murch, who is a legendary edit legend, legend absolute walks
52:28
on water sort of legend. The guy put together three different three four how
52:34
many different cuts of Apocalypse Now and all of them are five star films,
52:37
like anyone, anyone who's even edited their own kids' soccer game admires Walter Murch.
52:44
He's the guy. Is the guy is a literal genius who happened to
52:49
decide to edit film. He's a literal genius. But this movie does not
53:00
seem to benefit from his genius. And I want to ask Tristan, as
53:07
somebody who works in this field, do you see moments of brilliance in the
53:13
editing of this film or do you see making the best with what you have?
53:19
This makes me wonder. This film makes me wonder because there are sequences
53:22
that are very well edited. Because Craig Wood is no slouch either, Like
53:28
the guy edited some of the Pirates movies, Guardians of the Galaxy. You
53:32
know, like he you know, he's done a lot of stuff for Disney,
53:37
and I mean this guy knows like both people know what they're doing like
53:40
even though Merch is the legend, Craig Wood is no slouch. So the
53:45
sequences are very well edited. Everything is put together really well. Like I
53:49
would be intimidated as hell to be co editing a picture with Walter Merch.
53:53
It makes you wonder, It makes you wonder why, why did that happen?
53:58
How is it cut up? Who did what? Did Walter Merch do
54:01
a cut? And then like did Craig Wood have to do some the reshoots?
54:07
You know, but did like because of you know, guild rules,
54:10
did they have to give him co credit? You know? Like it makes
54:14
you wonder how they split the duties because it's like Craig Wood totally could have
54:19
done this by himself. Walter Merch totally could have done this by himself.
54:22
So what's the point of having two? It makes you wonder? And so
54:25
I think when you have two really good editors and this is a well edited
54:30
piece scene to seeing the stuff that doesn't make sense, the stuff that's disorganized
54:37
and all put around, makes you feel like, okay, so the producers,
54:40
may the editors do this because if you have if you have somebody like
54:45
Walter Murch on your side, and you have like say, you know,
54:47
like he has a relationship like he does with Francis Ford Coppola. Is it
54:52
is two people working together to make something brilliant. This does not feel like
54:59
that. This movie feel like something put together by committee. Well in my
55:02
opinion. I mean, I'm just reading right now about in the filming,
55:06
and it talks about in post production a number of scenes featuring actress Judy Greer,
55:10
who was the mother her late mother, A lot of them were cut
55:15
to improve runtime, so she was just removed to that one little cameo of
55:21
like you know, when she's young. And there's another actor who portrayed Casey's
55:27
living uncle, Anthony, who had his role entirely removed. So I mean,
55:34
what I think from that again just assumption is these are characters that obviously
55:37
contributed to the plot. And when you cut like an entire uncle out,
55:44
like mate I was talking earlier about, like hit her needing a friend to
55:49
talk to. An uncle totally sounds like someone who's on her inner circle,
55:53
who shall share about what she's up to or what she's going but we get
55:57
like none of that. So I don't know, that's crazy. It makes
56:00
me feel again, this is complete and pure conjecture that makes me feel like
56:07
Walter Merch cut that movie. He cut that movie and then he said I'm
56:13
done. Yeah, And then and then they said like, oh, we
56:15
need to we need to recut everything and take stuff out. And that's when
56:17
he goes, no, thanks, I got other stuff to do. And
56:21
then because Craig Wood has worked with Disney for so long, They're like,
56:25
Okay, we need someone we can rely on what I tell them to do.
56:29
Yeah, yeah, Craig Wood will do what we need him to do.
56:30
And so they brought him on and then he recut it down to what
56:34
it is. Now that's my guest, but it isn't educated one run time
56:37
maybe story at it. You know, yeah, it sounds like I mean
56:42
again, just cutting out an uncle for runtime. It makes sense if like
56:45
I had noticed that there was an uncle like and then when I when I
56:50
when I saw Judy Greer in that shot, I was just like, oh,
56:52
cool, she's in this. No she's not. Nope, no,
56:55
not anymore. So I almost wonder if this is a film that would benefit
57:01
from an extended cut, and as we are rounding third, will let that
57:07
be our springboard into our ratings Darren, Before we get there is this a
57:14
movie where you say to yourself, I want to see more of it because
57:17
I feel like this sings if I see more on the screen, or do
57:23
you look at it and say no, the problem is it should be thirty
57:27
minutes shorter and then I'm not frustrated at the end of it. There's many
57:34
problems with this movie, and I think we've covered a lot of them.
57:37
Honestly, I think your idea, John, of it being animated makes the
57:40
most sense. Also because I think there are some foundational story issues with this
57:49
movie, like protagonist confusion, you know, jumping around in different times,
57:54
the overall message. How strong do you push that message across? Because at
58:00
the end, if you just upset your audience, they're not or like you
58:04
were saying, stuff's happening to the main character quote unquote for so long that
58:09
we stopped caring, and I feel like in an animated movie, again it's
58:15
just conjecture. But like, I think a lot of those issues would be
58:19
fixed or fleshed out before you ever start animating, because you cannot go into
58:23
the animation process half cocked and like, oh we got a story, We'll
58:28
keep writing pages as we animate, Like no you've storyboarded it out, you've
58:32
figured out, oh yeah, this doesn't make sense or this, and it's
58:37
a totally different beast though when you're doing a live action, not to say
58:40
they didn't make plans, not to say they didn't storeboard or anything like that,
58:43
but it's a different beast. So I think if this had been an
58:47
animated movie, you fix a lot of the violence issues, or you would
58:52
take them in a completely different way. You could easily spend more time in
58:59
the sixties because it's not as expensive to draw sixties as it is to you
59:02
know, live actions. It costs just as much to draw sixties as it
59:06
does draw twenty fifteen. And yeah, it also at the end of the
59:12
day again it's Tomorrowland. Tomorrowland is about optimism and this great, big,
59:17
beautiful tomorrow. And that week I felt maybe not as much first time watching
59:24
this. First time, I think I enjoyed it a lot more. But
59:28
rewatching this, like I said, I had trepidation because it feels like you
59:31
get side punched, like you're expecting this one thing, be it the message
59:38
or the morals, and I don't know it just at the end, you
59:43
get this bad taste in your mouth. That's how how I kind of felt.
59:47
And again, like I would have watched an entire movie set in the
59:52
sixties, and I had even make it two movies like lead it up to
59:59
his being booted out and you're like, Oh, what's going to happen and
1:00:01
then you time jump to the eighties or something like that, Like, I
1:00:05
don't know, something something interesting, Oh, an interesting comparison. It just
1:00:10
made me think of because in a way this movie is is kind of trying
1:00:17
to do an alternate future, like it's the sixties, but it's not the
1:00:22
sixties. You know, there's a secret group that's making futuristic stuff, but
1:00:27
that's not our future or our past. But it also is like that,
1:00:30
it's it's it's making me think of for all Mankind Great a great TV show,
1:00:37
which is kind of an alternative version of our history based off of the
1:00:42
Russians get to the Moon first, and it changes for major courses of our
1:00:47
events, and you know, we put a lot into space travel, so
1:00:51
we're still doing it, but it does it in a way that is way
1:00:55
more like there's still problems, there's still issues, we're still human, but
1:01:00
there's still that spark of humanity and optimism in that show. I feel like
1:01:07
that dies in this movie. I do not have it by the end.
1:01:10
And maybe that's because I'm watching this in twenty twenty three and thinking, boy,
1:01:15
we're ready eve back in twenty fifteen, because we're still We're still there.
1:01:20
That's definitely a small part of it. But yeah, I want to
1:01:23
see the animated the animated version of this movie. Well, what we usually
1:01:31
do trisan as we usually let the person who saw it first go last.
1:01:36
So I'll go ahead and start it this time. Will I will go ahead
1:01:39
and start this ball rolling in terms of our ratings as we go into things,
1:01:45
and I will say that I have a really hard time giving this a
1:01:52
rating because this is a movie. And this goes back to the first time
1:01:54
I watched it. I wanted to love it so bad. I wanted to
1:02:01
like this movie. I saw what brad Bird was going for, I saw
1:02:07
what they were saying, even though it beat me over the head, and
1:02:12
I said, yeah, and my daughters enjoyed it, and I was like,
1:02:15
Okay, I'll get on board. But man, there are enough structural
1:02:23
and execution problems with this that I just have to be honest with myself that
1:02:32
we speak in conjecture sometimes. But while I still don't understand why Disney Plus
1:02:39
doesn't freaking have this on their service, I kind of understand why Disney Plus
1:02:45
doesn't have this on their service because they don't want to remind people that they
1:02:50
released it. And I think that we see with the failure commercially of Tomorrowland,
1:02:58
which costs I think with marketing costs like three hundred million and then the
1:03:02
two hundred or something like that. I have the numbers in front of you.
1:03:06
It has a budget. It has a production budget of one hundred and
1:03:08
ninety millions, so that's not including marketing, advertising, or marketing or anything
1:03:14
like that. So a production budget of one hundred and ninety million worldwide,
1:03:17
it made two hundred and nine million. That is an epic failure, especially
1:03:22
for a Disney film. And on top of that, thirteen percent of it
1:03:27
of its production budget went to George Clooney. He took home twenty five million
1:03:31
for this picture. It was the biggest paid date to date. He should
1:03:36
be ashamed of himself for doing that, because the way that you do it
1:03:39
is you take points on the net profit, because if you believe in the
1:03:44
project, then you're going to make money. No, I say he should
1:03:46
have been ashamed because anybody could have played that role and they could have saved
1:03:51
twenty five million dollars. That's also true. No one saw that Bird could
1:03:59
played it. He could, he could have done it. Ed to mode
1:04:00
and been like, well, let's just make me frank, Like seriously,
1:04:03
not a single person watched this because George Clinney was in it. I agree,
1:04:10
and I will go ahead and I will give my rating of out of
1:04:15
a possible five, this is a two. I don't think I'm ever going
1:04:18
to revisit this. I didn't hate the movie, but at the same time,
1:04:24
I understand now why the only reason I ever revisited it was for podcast
1:04:29
homework. So Darren will now kick it over to you, and where do
1:04:32
you rate this film? Yeah, I mean I definitely would have rated it.
1:04:38
I rated it higher in my mind when I first saw it again,
1:04:42
I wanted to love this movie. I was hyped for this movie. I
1:04:45
remember going to Disneyland. They had a little kiosk near Space Mountain that had
1:04:49
like props from it and it was still kind of in the mystery phase where
1:04:55
like this kind of had a marketing was kind of a matre, like we
1:05:00
can't show you what it is, you have to see it for yourselves kind
1:05:02
of vibe, which because again we're like, is it in the sixties?
1:05:05
Is it in modern time? And then you see a trailer and you're like,
1:05:09
is it you know, an inconvenient truth, like what is going on?
1:05:14
What is the vibe you're going for? Disney plus that awesome like intro
1:05:17
we got or the Disney Castle is the Tomorrowland Castle, which was really cool.
1:05:25
But yeah, watching this later, maybe again just because it's like,
1:05:30
if this is how we felt in twenty fifteen, like we sure really haven't
1:05:33
done much better in the intervening years. So I'm also going to give it
1:05:39
a two. It's just it's just disappointing and really what it could have been.
1:05:45
I mean, usually we can kind of see the writing on the wall
1:05:46
when we start coming up with better ideas on the fly. It's all hindsight,
1:05:51
and I totally get that, and we're not in the director's chair or
1:05:54
the producer's chair, but and I also don't know if they knew how to
1:05:59
market this movie, like how it was all over the place, like you
1:06:01
didn't know what to expect. And I think if you don't know what to
1:06:05
expect by the time you sit down, you're really not gonna fully enjoy it.
1:06:11
I think the optimist sixties dreamer was disappointed, and I think the modern
1:06:19
did Tomorrowland viewer. I don't know who who they were servicing it, just
1:06:27
it didn't quite pan out. I've written, you know, Smallworld with my
1:06:30
pen many times. Nothing's happened, guys, nothing's happened. Well, that's
1:06:34
a bummer. It's so disappointed. So Tristan, this is one of those
1:06:40
rare times where Darren and I are lining up. I can't wait to hear
1:06:45
as a first time viewer of this why you gave it a five. I've
1:06:51
been very open during this entire during this entire podcast, like I have not
1:06:56
hid my feelings whatsoever. Not only I didn't watched this movie until it was
1:07:01
homework because the marketing, like like Darren, like you were saying that the
1:07:08
marketing was so mysterious that I was just like, I don't even know what
1:07:10
this movie is. Why am I going to go see it if I have
1:07:12
no idea what it is? And so I didn't. I didn't see it,
1:07:15
and then it wasn't on any service and I didn't feel like renting it
1:07:18
when I came out because no one talked about it. No one talked about
1:07:24
it after it came out, and that's when I didn't even know that the
1:07:26
critics panned it. I was just like, Oh, this came out and
1:07:29
no one talked about it, so I'm not going to go see it,
1:07:30
and I never did. And then when I saw this, like usually,
1:07:34
you know, my wife Sarah will will watch house Lights movies with me,
1:07:41
and I said, I was like, I'm not going to make you watch
1:07:43
this one. She's like thank you because she hadn't heard anything about it either.
1:07:46
And as I'm watching it, not only did I not just not only
1:07:51
did I not enjoy this film, I actively disliked it. I was watching.
1:07:57
The entire time I was watching, it was just like this is such
1:07:59
a stupid decision, Like why did they do that? Like, oh,
1:08:03
this is it's just so much style over substance, so much style over substance.
1:08:09
And also like right off the bat, like the with what I talked
1:08:12
about, like with the kids in class and you know, and like learning
1:08:15
about to stoopy and everything like that. Like I am getting way more jaded
1:08:18
as I get older, like the every every single year that passes, I
1:08:23
get more and more jaded, where I'm just like, it doesn't matter.
1:08:25
We're not going to invent anything new. We're all gonna die in fire and
1:08:29
it's fine. We're gonna suffocate to death. Like I'm not, I'm not
1:08:32
even joking. Like I talked to my therapist about it. I was just
1:08:34
like, I threw away a recyclable and I was just like, should I
1:08:39
take an out of the garbage. No, because we're all gonna burn by
1:08:41
fire. But regardless, that could have you know, peppered this movie on
1:08:47
me a little bit. But I've been very, very very open about my
1:08:51
criticism of it. I'm giving it a generous too. So this is too
1:08:55
across the board for tomorrow Land because to me, two and a half is
1:09:00
mediocre, but two is bad. This is a bad movie. Just as
1:09:05
we exit, I will say that the last time that all three of us
1:09:09
lined up was also when we gave universal twos, and that was for the
1:09:14
Never Ending Story from Wolfgang Peterson of the eighties. Last time we lined up
1:09:20
on twos, we did line up on fours with Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol.
1:09:25
But yes, oh my gosh, you're right, we did so at the
1:09:30
very least. You know what, I'm I messed up because I'm spinning the
1:09:34
thing and I guess also all fours, but yeah, you know, listen,
1:09:41
all right, look with all five. Sorry, I'm sorry. Did
1:09:45
you make your point? You made your point? All right, you made
1:09:47
your point. Don't don't feed the wrong wolf here, Darren. Come on,
1:09:50
you know that was the message of the movie. Oh I get it
1:09:56
now. It's two point five. Come on now, yes, exactly,
1:10:00
exactly. If one person gives it so much as point one more, we
1:10:04
are all saved. And speaking of saved, we are going to revisit well,
1:10:10
I mean, this is my first time visiting it. We are going
1:10:12
to close out our time in the Birdhouse with brad Byrd trying to pull out
1:10:19
of this this low point in his career where it was received poorly by both
1:10:27
audiences and critics, with his return to animation in Pixar with his sequel Incredibles
1:10:34
Too. Right here on, Houselights, join the Revolution, Join the nerd Party.