Latest / The Kulturecast / "I intend to enjoy the time I have left, and I suggest you do the same."

Transcript

"I intend to enjoy the time I have left, and I suggest you do the same." · The Kulturecast

0:04
Speaker 1: Weiry way, so which one of you is next? You
0:50
found some way to stop death and survive, to break
0:53
the cycle.
0:54
Speaker 2: There are only two ways by killing. If you take
0:58
a life you get the high matters and had laughter,
1:05
or you have to die. What no good luck.
1:10
Speaker 3: Final Destination Bloodlines Theaters makes sense. So we were talking
1:14
about it the other day, Ryan, And by the other day,
1:16
I mean, like, I think within twenty four hours this
1:19
conversation happening, that Final Destination for all of the feelings
1:25
that people have towards other franchises that probably overstayed their
1:29
welcome and one of the ones that we didn't mention
1:31
in our off recording conversations that I think probably over
1:35
it did the thing it did the thing where it
1:37
overstayd it's welcome but then came back. I think Final
1:41
Destination and Saw and Hell Raiser are all kind of
1:46
like and I think probably more Final Destination and Saw,
1:48
just given when they were coming out, are kind of
1:51
in the same camp of like people misremember Final Destination
1:56
movies being bad when yes, all but one of them
2:00
are good. Actually is the issue because again, like to
2:05
think of something like Saw, A lot of the Saw
2:08
movies aren't great, like and and I love all the
2:11
Saw movies, but some of them aren't great. Like you know, again, objectively,
2:18
I think you and I can agree like it it
2:20
it hurts me to say it, but like some of
2:22
those Saw movies ain't great, like the one where Donni
2:25
Wolberg is standing on an ice piece of ice. The
2:28
whole movie is the one that I tend to think
2:30
of when I would think of like the bad One.
2:32
Also can't help but mention spiral in there as well.
2:36
And and oh, just Jigsaw counts, though no Jigsaw fucking counts.
2:42
Speaker 4: Man, I'm trying to defend my boy, if you But
2:46
here's the thing.
2:46
Speaker 3: Here's the thing. I love the Saw franchise as much
2:49
as I love Final Destination, but Saw has more indefensible
2:54
moments than Final Destination does. I will go back to
2:57
how's this Saw three D? Pretty bad? It's And I
3:04
love the one with Peter Outerbridge, which is a later
3:07
Saw movie, the one where it's the guy going through
3:09
all the tests with the people from his office. Like
3:13
that one is up there for me for my favorite sauce.
3:15
So like later Saws or have the opportunity to be good.
3:18
Speaker 4: But Saw three D the best tehip z.
3:23
Speaker 3: I think that's what I'm saying, Like Saw came back,
3:26
Like you know, that's the thing that like Final Destination
3:29
didn't need to come back, because Final Destination has pretty
3:31
much been good this whole time, other than one of them.
3:35
And even then, like, it's not that that one's per
3:41
se bad, it's just not as good as the other ones. Uh.
3:45
And we'll talk about that when we get to it.
3:47
I don't want to, I don't want to give it
3:48
away as to which one it is, but it's I
3:50
think universally considered to be the least quality Final Destination
3:56
of the of the six films. Absolutely literally, I don't
4:01
I think it's I think it's heads and tails lower
4:04
than everything else. Even the second worst in the franchise
4:09
is still like could be considered to be someone's favorite
4:13
Final Destination movie. I'm not sure anyone is considering that one,
4:16
the one that we're kind of, the one that I'm
4:18
alluded to.
4:19
Speaker 4: There's a wide gap between the top five and the
4:21
worst one.
4:22
Speaker 3: Yeah, really like almost like a sea even Moses parting
4:26
the Red Sea as it were. But we aren't here
4:30
to talk about Final Destination holistically, but we will be
4:34
talking about it holistically, because I think it's almost hard
4:38
not to given that a Final Destination movie hasn't come
4:41
out since I started this show. So this is the
4:44
first one. So this is the first opportunity that I've
4:48
ever had really to talk about this franchise directly other
4:51
than I mean, I think I've probably talked about it
4:54
in other times, like when The X Files has come
4:56
up on the Colchak Show, because I know we talked
4:59
about kind of this franchise got its start. But there's
5:03
a franchise that you and I both clearly resonate with.
5:06
This is something that you and I kind of agreed
5:08
that we should talk about. It was something that you
5:11
floated and I was like, yeah, let's do that. So
5:13
on this episode of the Culture Cast, I am still
5:17
your host, Chris Dashue, and I'm joined by my good
5:19
friend all the way from Disconnected, your friend and mine,
5:23
Ryan Verel.
5:25
Speaker 4: Hey, what's going on?
5:27
Speaker 3: And we're here if you can't tell, if you can't guess,
5:31
to talk about Final Destination bloodlines. But also we're gonna
5:36
just talk about Final Destination the franchise as a whole,
5:40
because like I said, we really haven't ever had a
5:42
chance to talk about it, but the initial segue is
5:47
to talk about Final Destination Bloodlines, I guess. But let's,
5:51
you know what, let's let's actually kind of remove ourselves
5:53
a little bit. Ryan your kind of initial feelings, interactions,
5:58
thoughts on just Final Destination is a franchise. I'm very
6:01
curious because I've kind of given away a little bit
6:04
of my thoughts, but I think you know you might
6:06
have similar different I'm very curious your thoughts on this
6:09
the franchise as a whole.
6:11
Speaker 4: Sure, I have seen the first three films on this
6:15
franchise many, many times. I've always loved the first one,
6:20
loved the second one, like the third one pretty well,
6:24
although it had cooled for me a little bit, so
6:26
I waited a bit to see Part four. Saw Part four,
6:32
and then stepped away for a long time. The the
6:35
Part five came out, the film got decent reviews, but
6:39
I was still trepidacious, so I still waited and then
6:42
watched that one significantly later than when it came out,
6:46
and then was like, oh, they got me on back
6:47
in and this is great. And then Bloodlines got announced
6:50
and it was just so much later than that fifth
6:53
installment that it was like.
6:54
Speaker 3: Well, fourteen years, dude.
6:57
Speaker 4: Do we need to go back to the Well? I
7:00
saw it in theaters this year and fucking loved it,
7:04
So I'm all in on this train. I love this franchise.
7:08
I think it's such a unique way to frame telling
7:12
this sort of story and the you know, you and
7:15
I have consistently talked about consistent lore for some of
7:18
these franchises on some of our various shows, and the
7:22
lore for this one is pretty damn consistent, Like they
7:26
build things properly, they tell a story, and yeah, there
7:29
are some things that they've retconned.
7:31
Speaker 3: But they've done it in such a unique.
7:33
Speaker 4: Logical, fun way that I can't fault them for any
7:36
of that.
7:38
Speaker 3: Well, and I also think, to your point, we can't
7:41
fault them for it because we live in a world
7:43
where we've seen so many movies that are just the
7:48
same thing over and over again, and nobody's trying to
7:50
do anything interesting. And Final Destination is like consistently trying
7:56
to do something interesting and trying to subvert expectations. And
8:01
I mean the framing device of having this premonition more
8:05
or less open every single movie, I think, I mean,
8:08
that's you know, you can play with that scenario as
8:13
much as you like, and this in this movie does
8:14
a fair amount of that. But the franchise as a
8:16
whole has done that, and I think that's so much
8:20
more interesting than what so many of those you know, again,
8:23
like not to bemoan or belabor the point, but like
8:26
some of those Saw movies were just like, we're just
8:28
doing the same thing again, and it's like why, Like yeah,
8:34
and you know, here's the other thing. Final Destination only
8:36
has six movies. To your point, we have a movie
8:39
come out from you know, two thousand to then two
8:43
thousand and three to two thousand and six, two thousand
8:46
and nine, twenty eleven, and then fourteen years, which the
8:51
thing that's crazy to me about the franchise as a whole,
8:55
fourteen years in between two movies, one of which was
8:59
not a fail. It wasn't like the movie was, you know,
9:02
an immense failure bombed, nobody went and saw it, and
9:06
the franchise went and crawled, you know, with its tail
9:09
between its legs, back to the hole it came out of.
9:11
Movie costs forty million dollars, one hundred and sixty million
9:16
dollars take you know, it's four x the budget and
9:21
even if they spent fifty million dollars on advertising, which
9:23
we know they didn't because it's a fucking horror movie.
9:27
That's a fair amount of money. So Final Destination five
9:31
similarly to something I talked about recently with Tron Legacy,
9:34
like people misremember tron Legacy as a failure. Tron Legacy
9:38
made a shitload of money, like a shitload of money.
9:41
Tron Airey's is a failure. Final Destination five. I don't
9:45
know why there was no motivation to make a sequel
9:47
to a successful movie. That tends to be the thing
9:50
that Hollywood does is they beat successful shit into the ground.
9:55
And Final Destination five was a success. I saw it
9:59
in theaters when it came out. I love Final Destination five.
10:03
Final Destination five is my favorite Final Destination which is
10:07
fucking wild, I know. I mean again I mentioned before,
10:12
I'm pretty sure it saw the Saw six with Peter Outerbridge.
10:16
I think that's right.
10:18
Speaker 4: That's the one, uh Health Lampoon's the Health Insurance.
10:21
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, that one. That's my favorite Saw other than
10:24
like again, like I can concede the first one is
10:26
the best one, but my favorite one is the sixth one.
10:29
I think probably Final Destination one is the best one,
10:33
but five is my favorite one, like without a doubt,
10:37
Like I love the cast, I love the conceit, I
10:39
love the fucking ending. The twist. Ending is so well
10:45
done and so unexpected, and it's one of those like
10:49
it was one of those moments where I was sitting
10:50
in the theater and I was just like, Wow, that's
10:54
pretty fucking great. Like it it cinema. Yeah, it reminded
10:58
me of how I felt at the end of Split.
11:01
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's that's one of the only like of the
11:04
last twenty years that's it's not necessarily a twist. It's
11:07
more like of a expanding of the horizons.
11:10
Speaker 3: Yeah, And you know, was similarly with Final Destination, like
11:14
they you know, like Glass kind of RETCNS a little
11:17
bit of what Split does, and Final Destination Bloodlines kind
11:21
of RETCNS Final Destination five and all the other Final
11:28
Destination movies as well. Right, I mean that's my perception
11:32
of things, is like Final Destination Bloodlines is a resetting
11:37
of the franchise, but not entirely, because there's still some
11:43
things that we have to like still acknowledge. But Bloodlines
11:48
in a lot of ways is like we want to
11:50
have our cake and eat it too. It's a legacy sequel,
11:53
but we want to close some doors completely and leave
11:58
other doors open. And you didn't even know that these
12:02
doors could be opened, because these doors weren't even there
12:04
to begin with, which I think is is so fun
12:08
because again, like we've already alluded to, with some of
12:10
these other franchises, like some of these other franchises couldn't
12:13
give a singular fuck about doing anything different than just
12:16
the same thing over and over again. Like man, some
12:20
of those uh, some of those Nightmare and elm Street movies,
12:23
some of the like some of those back to Back,
12:25
the Dream Child and uh god, Freddy's Dead. Yeah, Like
12:32
those movies are both bad, like back to Back, not
12:35
great movies. Some of those Friday the Thirteenth movies, some
12:38
of the Saw movies, most of those hell Raiser movies,
12:41
Like they are not doing anything other than what got
12:45
them there. And Final Destination in a lot of ways,
12:47
like as a franchise has never been concerned with doing
12:53
the same thing over and over again, other than like these,
12:56
the conceit of you're living in a world where death
12:59
is Rube Goldber again, you know, for me, Final destination
13:05
has always been a franchise of if you know how
13:09
to ratchet up the tension in a scene. There is
13:12
few franchises as good as Final Destination at getting that
13:16
like tension, building and building and building and building and
13:20
then taking a right turn at the last moment, which
13:23
I think is Final Destination's real, Like that's their raison
13:26
detra is like it's going down that path and then
13:29
at the last second just kicking you in the side
13:31
of the fucking head. And this franchise does it better
13:34
than any other franchise really does. And that's again because
13:37
of what the conceit of what the fucking franchise is.
13:40
It's it's death and you're not supposed to you know,
13:42
get it could be coming from anywhere at any point,
13:46
and this franchise does such a good job with that.
13:49
And it's it like you said, like with the lore
13:53
of it all. Like I love that this franchise concerns
13:55
itself with staying true to the PREMI which is death
14:01
doesn't care at all, right, and death will come for
14:05
you in the end period period.
14:09
Speaker 4: I love that even in the marketing they have started
14:12
to do this as well, because the big scene that
14:15
they used for bloodlines. Leading up to this was the
14:17
scene in the bar where the guy is standing up
14:21
on the stool, the fan is above him, stuff starts
14:23
to catch on fire. There's like nineteen ways that he
14:26
could die. And as you watch the film, you're like, oh, yeah,
14:29
this is in the trailer. He's gonna die super quick.
14:32
The dude lives, like he walks away from that scene.
14:35
And when you were leading into that movie, I know
14:38
I did. At least I felt like a little like,
14:40
oh man, I really wish they didn't show us a
14:42
death scene. And then you watch the movie you're like,
14:44
damn it, I got swerved again. They're so good at
14:47
this because the tension is here and you know it's
14:49
coming because you saw the trailer.
14:50
Speaker 3: But then the dude lives.
14:52
Speaker 4: He's in more scenes of the film. It's great.
14:55
Speaker 3: And you know to your point, like you know they've
14:58
been doing that in you know, as far back as
15:02
Final Destination One. I mean with Sean William Scott's death
15:06
in that movie. Yep, you know that literally comes from
15:08
the complete other direction, Like you you see that it's there,
15:13
but you don't see how it happens, like until it happens, uh,
15:18
And you know what's crazy as Sean Williams Scott was
15:20
in this franchise, him and Devin Salwa.
15:24
Speaker 4: Yep, and Devin sala has been in multiple movies.
15:27
Speaker 3: Now, yeah, that's true. So let's let's talk a little
15:31
bit about Bloodline. So I would say, but we are
15:34
gonna spoil the movie obviously because I think already well,
15:38
I mean, yeah, yes, yeah, But also I think at
15:42
this point, like if you watch Final Destination, like do
15:44
you expect that anybody's gonna survive by the end of it?
15:47
Like have you seen this fucking franchise, Like like it's
15:50
it's a franchise, where like that's kind of the point
15:52
in a lot of ways is like yes, yes, but
15:55
and I think Bloodlines unfortunately, in my opinion, like maybe
15:58
the one thing about this movie I don't like is
16:00
the way it handles the ending, which these movies all
16:03
have kind of done similar things in the ending. I
16:06
think this movie was the first opportunity to do something
16:09
different and they didn't take that opportunity. But we will
16:11
be spoiling the movie. But to your point, like these
16:14
movies are kind of hard to not spoil because the
16:16
horror movie and if you see the trailer you're like,
16:18
half these people are gonna be dead in the first
16:20
hour of a goddam well, not.
16:22
Speaker 4: Only is it just a horror movie, it's a horror
16:24
movie that the reason to watch is kind of about
16:27
the deaths. So for us to discuss this film, we
16:30
have to discuss the kills.
16:31
Speaker 3: It's like, I mean, in a lot of ways, like
16:33
it is fair to compare it to Saw, because again,
16:36
it's doing the same thing as Saw. You're watching Saw
16:39
to see people in traps and not necessarily surviving those traps.
16:46
You want to see people get If you're watching Saw
16:49
and you're being honest with why you're watching Saw, you
16:52
want to see people get eviscerated. That's why you're watching Saw,
16:56
because you want to see people survive the traps and
16:58
not survive the traps. You know, I think of you know,
17:01
I've been watching a lot of dexter. I think of
17:03
Julie Ben's in that Saw movie where she doesn't die
17:06
at the end, but her hand is literally split vertically
17:09
up to her elbow and it is fucking disgusting, And
17:13
it's like, those kinds of things are why I watch
17:16
these movies to see weird creative gore or death scenes,
17:21
but like not in a way that like doesn't suit
17:24
the narrative, like the Final Destination and Saw for the
17:26
most part, and Saw I think has its issues, like
17:29
the death and the gore always suits the narrative, and
17:32
Final Destination is the same way. But to your point, like,
17:34
this is a horror movie if you expect any of
17:36
these characters to make it to the end, like you
17:38
have not watched this franchise at all. So all that
17:43
to say, I think we both agree, without spoiling anything else,
17:46
check out Final Destination Bloodlines, even if you haven't seen
17:50
any of the other Final Destination movies. This movie does
17:53
a good job at getting you up to speed as
17:56
to what you can expect. And again, I think it's
17:59
kind of hard to have existed in the world for
18:01
this long and not know what Final Destination's about, at
18:03
least like the base premise, So I would say check
18:07
it out. I'm assuming you would agree.
18:10
Speaker 4: Not only that, like I kind of throwing what you
18:12
just said on its head. I kind of think every
18:15
single one of these movies, even the bad one, are
18:18
all worthy enough to be like standalone films. You can
18:21
watch them without having seen any of the other ones.
18:23
And jump in. The hardest part though, is like you know,
18:27
with shitty Marvel movies, you're not going to get all
18:29
the references and the lore necessarily, but it's not going
18:33
to make it a bad movie. It's still there's enough
18:35
story there to make it stand on its own.
18:37
Speaker 3: Yeah. Final Destination is not a serialized franchise like it's
18:42
Most of the movies are standalone. Again, the premise is
18:44
kind of always the same. But well, I guess the
18:48
second movie is the one that has the most carry through.
18:52
The second and the fifth movie have the most carried
18:55
through in terms of like the lower especially because the
18:58
second and the fifth movie back directly into the first movie. Yeah,
19:05
I will say, though, you know, I think you know,
19:07
to talk about Bloodlines specifically in the twists of it
19:11
all and the kind of the spoilers, I think Bloodlines
19:14
is a hell of an entry into a franchise that
19:17
has been kind of sitting dormant for a while. I
19:19
don't know why, because again, it's not like the fifth
19:22
movie bombed. The sixth movie did not bomb. The sixth
19:26
movie was a rather successful little horror movie that came
19:30
out earlier this year, fifty million dollar budget three hundred
19:34
million dollar take. Pretty good for a horror movie, especially
19:37
one that you know, relies on effects, because you know,
19:41
the the directors of the movie went out of their way,
19:46
Zaklopovsky and Adamstein, to do a lot of this in
19:48
camera with practical effects. And I appreciate that as well,
19:53
because I think, you know, CGI looks bad has become
19:55
a phrase that we say a lot nowadays, and even
19:59
about this movie. Yeah, yeah, there's CGI in this movie
20:02
that doesn't look great. But a lot of the CGI
20:05
in this movie, you know, is not needed because a
20:08
lot of it's done practically, and some of the more
20:11
surprising things are actually done practically. But all that to say,
20:15
I think that this is a probably top three final
20:24
destination movies.
20:25
Speaker 4: For me, oh easily.
20:26
Speaker 2: Yeah.
20:27
Speaker 3: Yeah. And it has I think one of the best
20:30
set pieces of the franchise with the space needle. I
20:36
think it's a proper amount of tension. It's a proper
20:39
amount of Mister Rex as well, which I think is
20:41
again with this franchise. That's the other big thing is
20:43
the Mister Rex. But this I think is a worthy
20:47
entry into the franchise, a worthy entry into closing the
20:52
door on parts of the franchise that needed to have
20:53
the door closed on them, specifically the Tony Todd stuff,
20:57
given the he's no longer with us of it all,
21:00
but also like I think we need to move away
21:02
from him, and you know, again, like franchises exist and
21:07
can't evolve and don't have to stay fucking stuck. Why
21:09
are we making Jurassic Park about a fucking park with
21:12
dinosaurs every fucking time do something else? Final Destination is
21:16
clearly taking it upon itself to be like we're not
21:18
gonna do any more Tony Todd's stuff. If there's any
21:20
more Final Destination movies, it's seemingly going to be. And
21:24
I think it's really clever. A Lucky Penny killing people,
21:27
which I'm super on board with, Like if that's the
21:30
framing device, it's kind of uh it again, like turns
21:34
the premise on its head, right, like you know, lucky
21:38
Penny unlucky Penny, you know, to talk about the nope
21:41
of it all, like are there such things as like
21:43
a you know, a bad miracle Final destination in a
21:47
lot of ways like kind of answers that question, like,
21:50
you know, a Penny gets stuck in a train track
21:52
and this is what happens like it's unlucky or it's lucky.
21:55
I mean, there is such thing as bad luck like
21:57
that exists.
21:59
Speaker 4: And it's been that way since the first and second film.
22:02
I mean even the second film. The guy that gets
22:05
the uh the fire escape flatter through his eye, he
22:09
just won a lottery right before that. So yeah, it all,
22:12
it all kind of comes full circle.
22:15
Speaker 3: What what I don't understand and what's never been answered,
22:18
And this is the direction they should go, is where
22:21
are the premonitions coming from? It's never been answered why
22:27
they're having premonitions, because it wouldn't make any sense if
22:30
the premonitions are coming from death, because death, if death
22:33
is being given agency, death is going after the people
22:38
that are evading him. So where the premonitions coming from?
22:42
Because people keep having these premonitions? Where where does that
22:45
is that?
22:46
Speaker 2: Like?
22:46
Speaker 3: Is that some separate entity onto itself? Is that just
22:50
the universe of fighting back against like the overwhelming odds
22:56
of death? Like it's never been answered, but all these
22:58
characters keep having premonition and even I mean in this
23:01
movie they even go as far as to like explain
23:04
like how the people are connected within the premonitions that
23:09
they've been having, but it's never been answered, why are
23:12
the people having premonitions?
23:15
Speaker 4: I hope they never answer that. That's the kind of
23:17
thing that I can't stand in a lot of these
23:19
modern movies. We don't need that exposition. Just keep it
23:22
a mystery.
23:22
Speaker 3: I mean, I agree with you. But at the same time,
23:25
they could do something interesting with it. It would be
23:28
a subversion of the formula that they've already like done
23:31
over and over again. What if subversion, Well, well, the
23:35
thing is like again, like I perceive that they could
23:38
do something interesting with it because I trust the filmmakers
23:42
at this point to do something different than what you
23:46
or I would be expecting, like take it and give
23:49
it some sort of again, don't even explain it, but
23:52
have the characters questioning it and have some sort of
23:56
like I don't know, have them having a premonition about
23:58
something happening, and then they prevent that one thing from happening,
24:02
but something else happens. It's like, what was the premonition
24:05
even for like again, like all the movies, I know,
24:08
we've kind of already seen that, but I'm saying, like,
24:10
further nail home that point because again, like it's one
24:14
of the things that this franchise is kind of not
24:16
really discussed in any substantive way, but it's so concerned
24:20
with like the death of it all, you know what
24:22
I mean, Like the Tony Todd of it all always
24:24
is like never hammered that point home at this point
24:27
so many times that they had just addressed in this
24:30
movie and like put it to bed.
24:31
Speaker 4: Finally, I kind of disagree entirely with everything you just said.
24:36
The Tony Todd thing. He's played a character in most
24:39
of the movies, not all of the movies, but he's
24:41
not even like a huge thing. It's one quick scene
24:44
in the films. It's one discussion. But what you're saying
24:48
about the premonition and where it came from in them
24:50
questioning it, that literally happens in every single film right
24:54
after the premonition. It doesn't last for the length of
24:56
the film or last you know, where they're asking where
25:00
it originated for that character to get it, but they're
25:03
they're questioning the validity of it, the truth of it,
25:06
the why why are you seeing things and we're not
25:09
seeing things? That that does get discussed in multiple of
25:12
these films.
25:13
Speaker 3: No, No, I know that I understand that it does.
25:16
But I guess my point is a different one. Like
25:18
we have these characters going like, Okay, I have a premonition,
25:21
I've seen the thing happen. I'm now struggling with people
25:25
believing me. But again, like there is this thread here
25:29
of all these people keep having these premonitions. That's what
25:32
I'm curious about, Like cause again like disparate people keep
25:35
having premonitions. Bloodline Bloodlines has this again, So my perception
25:41
of what happens in Bloodlines, and correct me if I'm
25:43
wrong here, based on what the movie is laying out,
25:46
Everything that has happened in all these final destination movies
25:49
stems from what happens at the beginning of this movie.
25:51
Speaker 4: Yes, from what we know. Yes, I mean in the
25:54
next film they could always say, well, this was just
25:56
a part of the chain and it started earlier.
25:58
Speaker 3: I fully expect the next movie is going to retcon
26:01
the ending of this movie entirely. I feel like the
26:05
speak to speak to the premonition of it all. I
26:07
would not be surprised if the next movie opens with
26:10
like and then she woke up. Like I'm not saying
26:13
they haven't. I hope not. I hope not too. But
26:16
I also have issues with the ending of this movie
26:18
kind of just doing the same thing and not again
26:22
like this movie has some interesting things that are introduced
26:25
that they could have done, because once again, Tony Todd
26:28
goes two ways to get out of this. You can
26:31
essentially die and be brought back to life, or you
26:34
can kill someone. Did you not think they were gonna
26:37
have them kill the turtle? No, Well, they keep alluding
26:42
to the turtle being missing, and I was convinced that
26:45
they were just gonna, like, because turtles live for like
26:47
one hundred years, someone's gonna be like, why just kill
26:49
the turtle and get the hundred years of the turtle again?
26:53
Because this because this franchise is so good at doing misdirects,
26:56
they kept introducing the turtle, and I was like, why
26:59
do you have the turtle this movie? Over and over again.
27:01
They even have a shot of the turtle at the
27:03
end of the movie as the in the final like
27:06
three minutes of the movie, it opens with the shot
27:08
of the turtle, Like they keep hammering the point home
27:11
with this turtle, So I was like, is the turtle
27:12
gonna factor into the finale of this movie in some capacity?
27:17
Speaker 4: His name was Paco Paco the Turtle.
27:22
Speaker 3: But you know, like again like I I I almost
27:25
to your point, Like like I I'm almost kind of
27:28
not interested anymore in like, don't explain what Death is doing.
27:34
You're gonna have to have loare of some other kind
27:36
in this franchise moving forward, and like the Tony Todd
27:41
law of it all, like you can't mind that anymore.
27:44
My point with what I was getting at is like
27:46
I'm curious where the lore is going to come from
27:49
moving forward, because there will be law in this franchise.
27:53
That's not a question, like it's just a matter of
27:56
what is going to be the next thing that the
27:58
lore is mining. Because this movie, all this movie was
28:02
really doing, and I think you would agree, is just
28:04
reintroducing people that have never seen these movies to the
28:07
rules of this franchise that have been more or less
28:10
established up into this point. Like that whole scene with
28:13
the Iris character in the cabin is just more or
28:17
less giving you and a primo as to what this
28:20
franchise is kind of is all about. And what if
28:24
you haven't seen anything up into this point, what has
28:26
happened and how those things have happened, and how Death
28:29
operates is exposition dumped in like in this scene. That again,
28:33
one of the stumbling blocks of this movie is that scene,
28:36
because it's just it grinds the whole movie to a hale.
28:38
Speaker 4: This is the Experts and this franchise. That happens in
28:41
every film of this franchise, every single film.
28:44
Speaker 3: And it's not great every time they do it, like.
28:48
Speaker 4: But it's hard to Yes, it's not great for us
28:52
that have been there since day one. However, it's what
28:54
allows each of the films to be a standalone film
28:56
where anybody can go to the theater and enjoy it.
28:58
So I get it. And this is this is one
29:01
of those rare franchises like Halloween. You can't start watching
29:05
Halloween at Halloween four. It doesn't work like that. It's
29:09
you're not gonna understand half of what's happened before that,
29:12
You're not going to understand the whole Lorist Roade story
29:15
any of that. It's there's too many like ongoing things,
29:18
same with Friday the Thirteenth st especially true with hell Raiser.
29:22
But I mean so many of these things even like
29:25
Texas Chainsaw.
29:25
Speaker 3: Mask, I mean, Nightmare on Elm Streets even is really
29:28
bad as well, like Night Maria exactly.
29:29
Speaker 4: It's pretty ongrowing you.
29:31
Speaker 3: Realize, yeah, I mean, yeah, yeah, the the non series.
29:37
I mean, the thing that's fun is that you know
29:39
to your point, Like Final Destination has that scene in
29:42
every movie, but I think this one is probably to
29:47
a different point. This is probably the longest one in
29:50
all of them. The other ones. It's like it's like
29:53
two lines like death is coming to kill you. You evaded
29:56
death and it's coming after you. This movie is like
29:58
The Dead the Dead. It's like Bang at Home over
30:00
and over again. This one is probably just the worst
30:03
offender in terms of the exposition, but it is again
30:06
the longest time that it's been since the last movie
30:09
came out. You don't have to educate your audience when
30:11
you're giving them a movie every three years, like which
30:14
was the case before it was you know, two thousand,
30:17
two thousand and three, two thousand and six, two thousand
30:20
and nine, twenty eleven, Like, you're not given the audience
30:23
any time to breathe, so we don't have to exposition
30:25
beat the shit out of them this movie. It's like
30:28
there are kids that are fifteen years old now that
30:31
were born the year the last movie came out.
30:35
Speaker 4: That saw this in theaters.
30:37
Speaker 3: Yeah, like and it's and yeah exactly, and it's like
30:42
that is an understandable expectation in this movie. Does it
30:46
slow this movie down? Does it get in the way
30:48
of what this movie is doing? Yes? Is do we,
30:52
as people who have seen these movies, who have been
30:54
part of this franchisees audience since day one, understand why
30:57
they're doing it. Yes, But that doesn't mean I can't
31:00
acknowledge the fact that it grinds the movies momentum to
31:03
a fucking halt.
31:05
Speaker 4: It sure does every time.
31:06
Speaker 3: Yeah, and this one again is the worst one because
31:08
it's the longest one by like probably double or triple
31:12
and really has it twice even in this movie. It's
31:15
like we get the Tony Todd exposition and we get
31:17
the Iris Campbell exposition as well.
31:20
Speaker 4: The reality is for them to keep building the lore
31:23
like this, I kind of think in every movie it
31:26
has to keep getting longer because you have more and
31:29
more and more to retcon every single time. So now
31:33
it's yeah, it's like a I don't know, like season
31:37
five of Lost, let's do a recap of the first
31:39
four seasons for the season premiere and then season six
31:42
oh god, that recaps can be even longer.
31:44
Speaker 3: Right, A reasonable expectation is if they're doing the good
31:48
job with the show, they're closing some doors opening others,
31:52
which means, you know, yeah, to your point, the exposition
31:56
outlay is always going to be a little bit more,
31:59
and again, comparatively to some of the other franchises that
32:03
we've even just talked about, kind of you know, barely,
32:06
like Jesus, like this, this one's not having to do
32:09
like oh and Freddy Krueger is a son of a
32:11
thousand maniacs and he's been killed like four times, and
32:14
it's like, explain all this shit every time, Like this
32:17
movie's like, no death is coming after you. You had
32:19
a premonition and you evaded death. Okay, Like there's nothing
32:24
I mean, really, it's that's you could explain less. You could.
32:31
I mean, it's almost for the Friday night audience that
32:35
they explain as much as they do, because they could
32:38
explain a lot less. This premise fucking explains itself, like
32:41
it really does, like the rules that they've set. Okay,
32:46
but yeah, so let's let's talk you know again, we've
32:49
talked kind of about the some of the less successful
32:51
things about the movie already, but let's talk about something
32:54
successful for a moment. The death scenes or kills in
32:59
this movie. The ones that work really work well? Which
33:08
ones work for you? I'm curious because I don't think
33:11
they all work. I think the ones that work really work,
33:15
But I'm curious where we differ on the ones that
33:17
work and the ones that don't work.
33:19
Speaker 4: And we're we're getting rid of the entire sky Space
33:22
needle portion, right because obviously, like the opening sequence for
33:27
any of these movies has to work very well or
33:29
the movie fails immediately. And I don't think any of
33:32
them fail, even though the one that's a bad movie,
33:35
that one fails because of how they expand from that point.
33:40
Speaker 3: That one being the NASCAR one.
33:42
Speaker 4: Yes, I think the opening of that is exciting and
33:47
like relative enough for a lot of people where you
33:49
could imagine like going to an event and having that
33:52
unfold where something goes terribly wrong and it's brutal. That's
33:56
where the CGI starts to get like unbearably awful, but
34:00
it's still the opening works.
34:02
Speaker 3: It's being hit by CGI tire.
34:05
Speaker 4: Yes, and just eviscerating. But yeah, Act two and three
34:08
the are where that movie falls apart from me, So yeah,
34:11
and bloodlines. The whole space needle thing pretty much works
34:14
for me. I don't think there's anything a part of
34:16
that that is egregiously bad. As far as the one
34:20
that works, I am fairly happy with the trash truck death.
34:27
I think that there's a lot of Mister Rex leading
34:31
up to that and like understanding of how they're going
34:33
to pull this off, and then the practical effects that
34:36
they used in that scene are fucking incredible. So I
34:40
was very happy with that. And then the other one
34:41
that really really made me happy in this movie is
34:44
the MRI machine. The Mister Rex with the Candy Machine
34:48
all leading into that was just stupendously done, properly, like
34:51
well thought out, like logical reasoned well. Tons of tension,
34:57
like paranormal activity levels of tension with the sound in
35:00
that scene, specifically from the MRI machine. But yeah, those
35:04
are my two favorite by far in this in this film.
35:11
Speaker 3: I agree with both of those entirely. I would say,
35:16
to add further to what you were saying about the
35:19
trash truck scene, the practical effect that they use of
35:23
the kind of the collapsible thousand rods of the you know,
35:27
the the toy that we all had as a kid,
35:29
where you put your hand on it and then the
35:31
little pins drop onto your hand and you can make
35:33
the impression on the other side. I mean, that's essentially
35:35
what they were doing with the trash truck because as
35:37
a practical effect, which is so surprising and so impressive
35:42
and so again like well thought out. But I think
35:45
the thing for me that works about that scene is
35:47
like that scene traffics in that scene works the best
35:51
if you were a fan of the franchise, because it
35:53
knows what your expectations are and the fact that it's
35:56
taking place out of focus in the background is the
35:59
bits it for me is the best killed. It's probably
36:02
the best kill in the entire franchise for me, because
36:04
I'm just like, because I'm just like, you know what,
36:06
you knew exactly what we were thinking was going to happen,
36:09
and then it just happens in the background, and you
36:12
do it with such you you do it with I
36:17
think the word I would use is you're so confident
36:19
in doing it that even that your confidence in doing
36:22
it is not even lost on the people who have
36:24
not been here this whole time. And that's why I
36:26
say I think it's like I and and like the
36:28
fact that it's just like they say, what's going to happen,
36:31
and it's delayed and delayed and delayed and delayed, and
36:34
then the thing happens while they're talking about it not happening,
36:38
and there and and then we also have more misdirects
36:41
on top of that. It's I yeah, I don't say
36:46
I don't say this hyperbolically because I've been thinking about
36:48
it for the last day and like day, like, I
36:50
think it is the best kill in the franchise right
36:54
now because I think like it does everything that you
36:58
would want. And then it also so has they just
37:00
like the care free nature of like and we're just
37:02
gonna have it out of focus, so fuck it, who cares?
37:05
Speaker 4: I uhh. When this came out, I was talking to
37:08
somebody about it and I called it audaciously subtle. It's
37:11
like they are so just fucking look at what we're
37:15
about to pull off on you, and then they do
37:17
it in the background, unfocused, your eyes are elsewhere, and
37:21
then you start to notice that it's happening. You're like,
37:23
no way they're doing this. It happens and you're like, well, fuck,
37:26
they got me.
37:27
Speaker 3: This is perfect and her going into that trash can
37:30
and then it just it's just like everything about it,
37:32
like it's just it. And again, like the thing about
37:34
final destination ultimately, like yes, it's horrific, but it is
37:37
so comical, like it is there is a comical, like
37:42
darkly comedic nature to like watching people getting like eviscerated
37:46
and again murdered in ways that if not for the
37:49
fact that these people all and again are sharing a
37:52
folly ado like you know, madness of two or you know,
37:56
group hysteria. Cause again, these people can't prove what's going on.
38:01
I think that's the thing that like I love about
38:02
this franchise is there's no proof of any of this,
38:07
Like you essentially have crazy people outwardly going and saying
38:12
like I could see the future, bad things are gonna happen,
38:15
Like people say that all the time, broken clocks are
38:18
right twice a day, so someone is bound to be
38:21
right eventually. Like and that's the thing I love about
38:24
this franchise is like for all intentsive purposes, these people
38:27
are just dying in like horrible accidents. Yes, we know
38:30
as the audience that death is death is machinations are
38:34
are are a thing, and they're going through you know,
38:37
they're going through the order of Kills in the way
38:41
that we were seen in the Premonition, So like, there
38:43
is something else going on here. But if you were
38:46
to live in this universe, you would just be like,
38:49
these people are fucking nuts, Like what the fuck is
38:51
going on? You realize again, then that's what I love
38:54
about this franchise is there are a lot of layers
38:57
as to what's going on here that you can interpret.
39:00
This is just like these people are just mentally unwell, Like, yep,
39:03
they're just nuts. But we know again it's the Marney
39:07
Miller paranoids with proof, like we know that's not the case.
39:09
We've been here, We've seen all these movies and we've
39:12
seen all these people dying to death. Death's kind of
39:15
like machinations, as it were. Everybody dies to death in
39:19
the end, but not necessarily to getting smashed by a
39:22
pane of glass while chasing pigeons like that kid in
39:25
the Is that the second movie? Yeah, Yeah, that's fun death. Yeah,
39:30
that is a fun death. I mean, And that's the
39:32
thing with the MRI scene. For me, the MRI scene,
39:37
I think what I was so impressed by is we
39:39
get a visual callback to the poster for Final Destination five. Yeah,
39:45
what an oddly specific fucking thing, but I I mean,
39:50
I appreciate it as someone who again appreciates a good
39:53
you know, using the language of film the way it's
39:56
meant to be used, which is a visual fucking language.
39:59
To have the visual representation of the poster for the
40:04
fifth film being made on screen as a character is
40:07
being ripped in half by an MRI machine, it's pretty impressive.
40:12
Speaker 4: Well, and not to jump out of bloodlines and just
40:15
to cover the franchise again. But one thing I've always
40:18
loved is these films all pride themselves on not just
40:24
callbacks or references, but like layering it on thick that
40:28
this all stems from something. I mean, even like the
40:35
I'll bring it the one up again. The guy that
40:38
gets killed by the fire escape in the second film,
40:42
he won a lottery, he's at home. Stuff is catched
40:47
on fire. But there's messages spelled out in the fridge
40:50
magnets and the company ease of Some of the things
40:53
have something to do with the film. There are callbacks
40:56
to when Sean William Scott gets killed. The number on
40:59
the train was the flight number from the very beginning
41:02
of the movie. So yes, it's all quote, just callbacks
41:06
and references, but it's this full, like, fully realized, fully
41:11
throated argument of note like this, this is the lore
41:14
of the film. It all stems from this event, and
41:17
we're gonna not necessarily beat you over the head with it,
41:19
but subtly everything comes back to that.
41:24
Speaker 3: I would say Bloodlines is the first one that doesn't
41:28
do that because of the way, because the framing device
41:32
is different, right, because we have a flashback premonition. We
41:37
don't see the characters dying in a premonition like all
41:42
the characters we see in the movie. We just see
41:44
them dying. We know that there's an order that they're
41:46
going to die in. But see, that's the thing that
41:49
Bloodlines does differently than the other ones have. We see
41:52
a bunch of people not dying at the big We
41:54
actually don't even see a bunch of people not die
41:56
at the beginning of the movie. We see everybody die,
41:59
and then later in the movie we understand how she
42:03
went about preventing what we saw happening from happening. But
42:08
unlike all the other movies in the franchise, which show
42:11
the characters that we're seeing throughout the movie dying. We
42:14
don't see any of these characters die ahead of time, right,
42:17
think about it, like, that's a first for the franchise,
42:20
and I am impressed because that is again a bucking
42:25
of the pattern and framing device that we become so
42:29
kind of used to, similar to the Saw movies, like, Oh,
42:32
it's gonna be a person going from trap to trap
42:34
to trap to seeing these things and they'll have to
42:37
interact with them. Like this movie's like, no, you're not
42:38
gonna see how the characters, like you said, are all
42:41
gonna die ahead of time, so that there could be
42:43
some sort of no, we're not gonna see that, like
42:45
we're gonna know that there's an order, but then that
42:47
order kind of gets stay fucked with that as well
42:49
a little bit. Like So, I'm impressed by this movie's
42:53
ability to just like operate within the franchise but outside
42:57
of the franchise at the same time without making it
43:00
feel like, I don't know, without making it feel like
43:04
it doesn't work. Like this all still works, It all
43:07
still feels tonally the same.
43:11
Speaker 4: Yeah, it doesn't feel like a shitty legacy sequel like
43:14
they're all starting to feel like it doesn't feel cliche,
43:17
it doesn't feel drawn out. It still feels if anything,
43:21
this is maybe the most fresh feeling of the sequel
43:26
so far. And what's hilarious is we're saying this on
43:29
the day that the Scream seven trailer was dropped, and
43:32
I am just not happy.
43:36
Speaker 3: Lock are you talking about? Is that real?
43:38
Speaker 4: Yes, it's real. Maybe I should not have said that
43:41
it's you, so I assume that you would have seen.
43:43
Speaker 3: It by now. I was in therapy before we started talking,
43:46
so no.
43:47
Speaker 4: Well you may need more therapy after this. No, these
43:51
Gree seven trailer is out, the poster is out. It
43:54
is legacy sequel through and through, Like we are seeing
43:58
that they're going the route of oh, we're after Sydney
44:02
and her daughter. Oh dear, oh no man, so that
44:07
it's the same cliche thing that we've seen in so
44:10
many of these sequels, I mean, and it's scream like.
44:14
I hope that they subvert that, even in a way,
44:17
but I don't have a ton of confidence in Scream
44:19
seven anymore. And I think Bloodlines kind of set the
44:24
pace this year for what a great Legacy sequel could
44:27
be because I at this point I'm speaking out of
44:32
one side of my mouth as I try to think
44:33
of another one, but I feel like, to me, this
44:36
is the most successful legacy sequel that I've seen yet.
44:41
Speaker 3: In terms of horror in general, probably in general. So
44:47
funny enough, I would actually say Tron Legacy was a
44:50
very good legacy sequel, like and I think it still
44:54
stands as like one of the better legacy sequels. It
44:56
integrates the original movie in a way that feels fresh
45:01
and new, but still staying true to the original movie,
45:04
but also again adding something new to the equation and
45:08
taking it in a direction you wouldn't expect, I would
45:10
say in terms of like coincidentally, yeah, I would agree
45:14
with you. I think this is as good as Tron
45:16
Legacy is, if not better, And I think that this
45:19
is the best horror legacy sequel I've seen. Let's qualify that.
45:24
I would say Tron Legacy is still probably my favorite
45:26
legacy sequel. I mean again, and there are a lot
45:30
of legacy sequels out there. I mean I would put
45:32
I would put this above Scream five, like really like
45:37
I think Scream five just just pretty much just Scream
45:40
all over again. Absolute For as much as I love
45:43
Scream five. I think this does more than Scream five does.
45:46
I think the only thing that this movie misses is
45:48
the ending. I think this movie had an opportunity to
45:51
do something unique with the ending. Uh And I think
45:55
there are a couple different directions that could have gone.
45:57
And I think that this movie just missed it because
45:59
they want to do the thing that they've done all
46:02
the other times, which is, you know, and everybody dies.
46:08
The way they set this movie up, we could have
46:10
had the Stephanie Reyes, you know, the main character of
46:15
the movie, that Caitlin Santawana her character. We could have
46:19
had her sacrificing herself for her brother so that it
46:23
therefore does end and there and we get a we
46:26
do get a resetting of the of the kind of
46:28
the bloodline as it were, and and he can go
46:31
on and live his life. This movie just goes, now,
46:33
fuck that, We're just gonna kill him again, because that's
46:36
what this franchise does. And loll. The log truck from
46:39
the second movie, which for a lot of us is
46:42
the most iconic thing from this franchise is.
46:45
Speaker 4: The logs for an entire generation.
46:47
Speaker 3: Yeah, look, I've driven behind one of those log trucks
46:50
one time in my life, and all I could think was,
46:52
if that log comes flying back, we're gonna die, like
46:54
in Final Destination. So I know why they did what
46:57
they did at the end of the movie, but they
46:59
should have what's the term, restrained themselves just to Tad
47:05
and done something a little bit more thoughtful and different,
47:08
because they did so much throughout the movie that was
47:12
so different and unique to that changed kind of the
47:15
scope of the franchise. And instead of doing that, the
47:20
movie just did the thing again, the same thing it's
47:25
done before, and kill everybody else, right, And there were
47:29
so many different directions that they could have gone, and
47:31
they just I don't know. I just it bums me
47:34
out because I'm curious your thoughts on the ending. I
47:36
felt like the ending was the weakest point of the
47:38
entire movie.
47:40
Speaker 4: I mean, at this point, I expected it, so it
47:44
wasn't a disappointment to me necessarily. And this is you know,
47:47
like I was just talking about, with the whole visual
47:49
cues and references and all that stuff, the ending throws
47:53
a lot in there, like the music is a cue
47:57
on this, the dresses that the characters were wearing in
47:59
that last is the cue. The train is a visual
48:02
queue that's a reference to something else. All of this
48:05
these final last twenty five seconds of the film.
48:08
Speaker 3: From the beginning of the movie.
48:11
Speaker 4: Yes, it but the train. Look at you gotta look
48:14
at the way that the train's coloring are it matches
48:16
their dresses and everything. Yeah, it's just even such a wonderful.
48:20
Speaker 3: Together see car drive by at the end of the movie,
48:22
like yep, yeah, which I I know, I know it's
48:26
a call back to the beginning of the movie, but
48:28
it almost feels like a callback to Nimar and Elm Street.
48:35
Speaker 4: Anyway.
48:35
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean the end of that.
48:37
Speaker 4: So yeah, it's it might right, it might be the weakest,
48:42
but it's or it might be the weakest part of
48:44
the film, but it's it's not. I don't think it's bad.
48:48
That's what I'm getting. Like, I don't think it's weak.
48:50
It's just the weakest, and I think that it's uh
48:55
like overall this to me, I think this has surpassed
48:59
what I have before, and this might genuinely be the best,
49:03
like capital be best film of the series, not just
49:06
like my favorite, like the actual best put together film
49:10
in the entire series. I definitely don't think it's the
49:12
first one A long time ago. I thought that, and
49:15
even then the second one surpassed that one for me
49:18
as far as not just favorite, but literally best because
49:21
of what they had to start rewriting for that one
49:23
and now this one. I mean, the magic of making
49:27
Tony Todd's character central to the plot of all of
49:30
these films from the very beginning, yet doing it in
49:34
the sixth film in a way that makes sense is brilliant.
49:40
Speaker 3: It doesn't feel as ham fisted as I figured it
49:42
would be, not at all. But and you know, it
49:46
is interesting that we do get kind of the Tony
49:48
Todd has been here the whole time of it all,
49:51
which I mean he has been, but now we get
49:53
an explanation as to why. And even though to your
49:56
point from before, did we really need an explanation as
49:59
to why, No, but it works nonetheless.
50:03
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's the thing.
50:05
Speaker 3: That's the thing with the ending of this movie. It's
50:06
like the movie has taken so much time out of
50:09
its busy schedule to talk about these interesting ideas of
50:13
where this franchise could go and how we can have
50:16
these bloodline situations like you know handled because again, we
50:20
have characters in this movie introduced that don't even die. Yeah,
50:24
you know, Stephanie's dad doesn't die. Stephanie's female cousin and
50:29
her female cousin's mom don't die. They they literally survived
50:33
the movie, not every And again what's interesting is that
50:37
is again bucking the trend of these movies from before,
50:40
because the expectation is, like we said, they're gonna show
50:43
us people they're gonna survive, and then they're gonna die,
50:47
Like in the Premonition, they die, and then they're gonna
50:49
survive and then they're gonna die again in a different way.
50:51
They're like a handful of characters in the movie that
50:53
don't die, that are not even in any danger of dying. However,
50:58
we get the guy getting to coil through his head
51:00
and it's death is messy, like why did he die?
51:03
He died as kind of collateral damage, I mean, which
51:06
which is an interesting aspect of this that I hope
51:09
is kind of mind further because that's another that's a
51:12
death that we haven't seen before in this franchise. Someone
51:16
dying who shouldn't have died and is only dying because
51:19
they were in the way of a coil flying through
51:21
the air.
51:23
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's it's definitely some lore that could be expanded.
51:28
Speaker 3: I just yeah, I I just wish the end. I
51:31
just wish the ending had been more well thought out, because,
51:33
like we've already talked about like so much, this whole
51:35
movie is well thought out. The whole movie is like
51:38
really like they if they thought through every scenario that
51:44
they have put themselves in and and and done a
51:47
good job at either leaning into expectations or subverting expectations entirely.
51:53
And the ending just feels so much like what we've
51:58
seen before. And what's again, what's so surprising is this
52:01
movie is not really concerned with what we've seen before
52:04
inasmuch as other than just like you are gonna see
52:08
one thing you've seen before and then everything else is
52:10
kind of very different. You'll get that opening scene, but
52:14
the opening scene effectively has no bearing on anything throughout
52:17
the movie, which is such a smart twist on the
52:20
narrative format of the movie. And I think to your point,
52:23
that's why it makes a franchise that when I heard
52:27
this movie was coming out, I was worried it was
52:29
just gonna be fucking tired at this point, because, like
52:32
we are, you're just gonna do the same thing. You
52:33
have the opening, and then the characters are gonna die,
52:35
and then they're gonna come back, and then they're not
52:37
gonna be dead, and they're gonna die in creative ways.
52:39
Like how in twenty twenty five does anybody give a
52:42
shit about this premise? And now I see how you
52:46
can make us give a shit. But you gotta commit
52:51
to the bit, and you gotta commit to the bit
52:54
all the way, and you gotta have the character at
52:57
the end who has all who has been given all
53:00
this agency throughout the movie. She should have been given
53:03
the opportunity to make a decision because here's the thing.
53:09
Her grandmother made a choice to inflict pain on people
53:15
by accident, right Like she prevented all these people from dying,
53:19
but all these other people ended up having to die
53:21
because of it, all these other people, and we see
53:24
it like we see this kind of like you know,
53:27
chart of all these people that have died because you know,
53:29
they were survived at the space Needle when they shouldn't have.
53:34
Stephanie Reyes or you know, Caitlin Sintowana's character at the
53:38
end of the movie could have said I'm not gonna
53:40
do what my grandmother did, and I'm just gonna let
53:42
this thing happen. I'm not gonna prevent it, because in
53:46
allowing it to happen, that also ends all of this.
53:49
You know, Tony Todd's character says, when you guys all die,
53:54
I die too, then like I am able to die.
53:57
So those two characters at the end the movie had
54:00
to die for him to die, I guess. But you
54:03
didn't have to introduce that component into it. I just
54:06
think again, like, there's there's opportunities here to show a
54:12
character who is grappling with the emotional baggage of like,
54:18
you know, being crazy and having a family, you know,
54:20
not having family members who have been around you know,
54:22
the Jamie Lee Curtis and Halloween of it all of
54:25
like I'm gonna go live in a cabin and protect
54:28
myself from some unseen force. In Halloween, it's Michael. In
54:32
this movie, it's death. Like this movie does even that
54:35
better than Halloween did in terms of like she's crazy
54:39
maybe but maybe not right. I wish that they had
54:44
incorporated that decision that she makes in that scene into
54:48
the end of the movie and having the Caitlin Santowana
54:52
character make a choice to prevent the further suffering of people. Yes,
54:57
it would. It would have been a really interesting ending
54:59
that the movie. Instead, they were just like logs, we
55:04
got this. As you know, if this movie hadn't held
55:09
itself to such a high standard, I wouldn't hold it
55:13
to such a high standard. But it did so much
55:16
to change the complexity of this franchise that I'm surprised
55:19
that whendn't given the opportunity to take it to the
55:23
fullest extent, they decided to stop five feet from the end.
55:28
Speaker 4: It's just like, well, and to be fair, and I'm
55:32
not like defending the choice of the ending necessarily, But
55:36
for all we know, those that wrote this film, maybe
55:39
they had an idea for the next one because they
55:41
are already working on another one one because they knew
55:43
this was going to be great, And maybe some of
55:45
that will come back in the next film.
55:47
Speaker 2: Who knows.
55:47
Speaker 3: I mean, I mean again, like I kind of joked about,
55:50
I wouldn't be surprised that the next movie opens with
55:52
and she wakes up and it as a firminition. But
55:55
then it robs this movie of the component that they introduced,
55:59
which is Tony Todd's character dies when all of this
56:04
bloodline of characters die.
56:08
Speaker 4: To a point.
56:08
Speaker 3: Yeah, IgE, I mean again, like I you know, you
56:12
have to if we if we're gonna address Tony Todd
56:15
and have him be part of this franchise in a
56:16
substantive way, don't immediately retcon it in the next movie. Please,
56:22
because then all the please because then all the emotional
56:25
things that you've done in this movie that did work
56:27
with Tony Todd, you know, obviously being very sick at
56:29
the time they filmed this movie with cancer, and you know,
56:33
you know, the kind of the subtext of this is
56:36
his last movie role, like all of that, Like you're
56:39
you're gonna rob this movie of all that if you
56:41
just have that. That's why I don't think it. That's
56:43
why I don't think that's how the next movie would open.
56:45
I think the next movie is going to do something
56:49
completely different, which I kind of here for at this.
56:52
Speaker 4: Point, very excited for it.
56:53
Speaker 3: Yeah.
56:54
Speaker 4: And and the Tony Todd thing, I think we we
56:57
absolutely should mention how how empathetic to him and his
57:02
family and his legacy and horror it was that they
57:05
gave him the amount of time that they did in
57:07
Part six, Because it's not just a farewell to this
57:10
franchise like it. To me, his little monologue felt like
57:14
he was speaking to me as a fan of horror,
57:17
and that is such a meaningful way to send a
57:23
legend off.
57:25
Speaker 3: Well, and to your point of him being a legend,
57:27
like it's not just final destination, you know, it's also
57:29
you know, candy Man and a in a multitude of
57:32
other horror things. So yeah, you know, again there's a
57:36
lot of you know, there's a lot of subtext in
57:38
that scene, and you know it's it's a good scene.
57:42
But if you are a fan of horror and Tony
57:46
Todd's career, it's also a good scene because again it
57:50
speaks to you know, it's like what they you know,
57:52
Sid Hag never got that right, but Tony Todd did.
57:55
So you know that's you know, there's there's there's something
57:58
to be said for like you said, filmmakers, you know,
58:00
acknowledging the importance of his role in this franchise, but
58:05
in horror, I think as a whole. I mean, he's
58:08
an icon of horror. You know, he's up there with
58:09
Robert England and Caine Hodder and Wes Craven. I mean,
58:14
he's up there with the best of them. You know,
58:16
he's you know, he is a true black horror icon,
58:19
which Ken Foray is up there too. You know, there's
58:23
not a super big list of people, but you know,
58:26
I would say Tony Todd's at the top of that list.
58:29
Speaker 4: Which is impressive because his first horror role wasn't even
58:32
until nineteen ninety with the remake for Neither Living Dead.
58:36
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right, man, he was in the Indiana Jones
58:39
video game of all things. That's just you know what, like,
58:43
you know, you have a voice, Yeah, God, the fucking voice. Yeah,
58:46
Tony Todd's voice. Man, it's arresting. It's an arresting voice,
58:51
you know him. And you know, like, you know, like
58:54
we're so lucky to be graced with so many like
58:56
fantastic voice actors, but they're they're in our lifetime and
59:00
there have been a specific sub section of black voice
59:03
actors with some of the like great voices James Earl Jones,
59:08
Keith David Morgan, Freeman, and Tony Todd. I think are
59:12
that like Mount Rushmore of like black actors with arresting
59:16
voices and like and you know their voices when you
59:19
hear them, like, yeah, Tony Todd will be missed, and
59:23
he was a he was such a massive part of
59:27
this franchise. But you know, he wasn't never the focus
59:30
until this movie. And even in this movie, he wasn't
59:32
really the focus. So No, and Ni Man, they could
59:36
have they could have just gone wild in this movie
59:38
with his character, and I'm glad that they didn't. Like
59:41
This movie practices restraint so much. I will mention though,
59:47
because we haven't talked about it, the needle drops in
59:48
this movie are pretty great.
59:50
Speaker 4: Yeah, they're They're shocking, shockingly good.
59:53
Speaker 3: Yeah, and funny too. Again. You know, like at the
59:55
beginning of the movie, when people are falling out of
59:57
the sky, rain drops keep falling on my head, starts claiming,
1:00:00
which I mean, it might be a little on the nose,
1:00:03
but you know, I'm here for it. I'm I'm I'm
1:00:08
very much here for it. This this franchise knows its audience.
1:00:11
I think you described it to me as like a
1:00:13
popcorn horror movie, and I would say, yeah, this is this.
1:00:16
This franchise has always kind of lived in that weird
1:00:20
world of you're kind of just here to see people die,
1:00:25
and the original four movies maybe bristled at that Part
1:00:32
five didn't really bristle at it. Like Part five was
1:00:35
like really like I mean, the the the Miles Turner
1:00:39
music video, the New Roman's music video where its Final
1:00:42
Destination meets saved by the Bell, like all of that
1:00:46
stuff like was so like again, like they were acknowledging
1:00:50
what you were here for. And now I feel like
1:00:53
the franchise like really really acknowledges what we're here for.
1:01:02
And I love that about this franchise, Like that this
1:01:05
franchise like, yeah, you're just here to see people die
1:01:07
in creative ways, and you know, even at the expense
1:01:10
of the narrative, these people might die, like you know,
1:01:14
again to see people smushed by logs at the end
1:01:16
of the movie. But yeah, no, I am. I'm so
1:01:20
excited to see where this franchise goes. I really am,
1:01:24
because it's this is a good starting place for a
1:01:28
fresh take on a franchise that again could have just
1:01:31
come back and just fucking phoned it in so hardcore,
1:01:35
like didn't even have to have any by the way
1:01:38
that to acknowledge the fact we could have had a
1:01:40
Final Destination movie that had nothing to do with anything
1:01:42
like anything that came before it, Like and that the
1:01:45
fact that this movie even held itself accountable to anything
1:01:47
that's come before it when it didn't have to is
1:01:50
equally as shocking, frankly, and the fact that it does
1:01:53
it so well. Yeah, there's no ghost egon at the
1:01:56
end of this movie, thank god. So Lord, you could
1:02:03
do a lot worse this Halloween season in the horror
1:02:06
movies that you watch. I guess that's the last thing
1:02:08
the question I have for you, And this is a
1:02:10
genuine question that I have, and it's not something I
1:02:13
see talked about very often, but I'm curious your thoughts.
1:02:16
If I were to ask you, is Final Destination a
1:02:19
horror movie?
1:02:23
Speaker 4: By definition? Yes, yes, it's not a slasher franchise, which
1:02:29
in a way you could kind of argue it is,
1:02:31
but it's not as a slasher. Yeah, but it's it's
1:02:35
absolutely I mean, the whole point is fear and tension
1:02:38
and things that are horrifying. So yeah, I don't think
1:02:41
there's any question that it's a horror franchise.
1:02:44
Speaker 3: I would say if it falls into a category, it
1:02:48
would it would be like supernatural horror, you know, like
1:02:51
super I mean, like you know, like not ghosts per se,
1:02:55
but not demons either, but kind of in that same
1:03:01
realm of like there's something that is doing things, that
1:03:05
is operating on a plane outside of our own. Like, yeah,
1:03:09
there's no persona Like we never see death in any
1:03:12
of these movies. I think that would be the moment
1:03:14
this franchise jumps the shark, right, is if we see death, right,
1:03:18
and that's never we never see it. Tony Todd was
1:03:21
kind of always that right, like.
1:03:24
Speaker 4: Kind of I mean, he wasn't like a personific. He
1:03:26
was like a messenger of death more than a personification.
1:03:29
Speaker 3: Yeah, he was like the speakerphone for death. The speakerphone,
1:03:35
it's a video for talking to death.
1:03:37
Speaker 4: Press one for show time, press two for concessions.
1:03:41
Speaker 3: I mean again, like he you know, like if the
1:03:43
Pope can talk to God, he could talk to death
1:03:46
or he was Death's on the void or whatever like,
1:03:49
but that would be like the moment this franchise jumps
1:03:51
the shark is if like we have like death, like
1:03:54
an actual like personification of death. So I think this
1:03:58
is like a supernatural horror thing. Yeah, but it's it's
1:04:03
such a unique franchise that I'm glad it's back, and
1:04:06
I'm glad this movie is good because it's been kind
1:04:09
of a shame that it's been gone, kind of like Saw,
1:04:11
like it needed some time to fuck off. This one
1:04:16
didn't need as much time as they took. Like this,
1:04:18
we could have gotten some more final destination movies. You'd
1:04:21
have to wa fucking like Tron. You didn't have to
1:04:23
wait fifteen fucking years, guys, Like, I'm whatever you did.
1:04:28
But you know, we got all those fucking Saw movies,
1:04:31
I mean Jigsaw and Saw or Saw Books of Yeah,
1:04:35
all that came out since, like we've we've had all
1:04:38
that since, like so we know what it's like to
1:04:41
just get inundated with with with shitty sequels. But I
1:04:45
hope that this is a first in a couple good
1:04:50
final Destination movies. I don't know if I need like
1:04:52
a one every year for the next five years type thing.
1:04:55
Speaker 4: But no, I'd say let them let him cook her
1:04:57
a little bit, like two and a half years in between.
1:05:00
I had a really solid script and just crush it.
1:05:03
I mean, you make enough money with Part six, They've
1:05:06
proven you can make enough money at the box set
1:05:08
to make these well more than worth the time. And
1:05:11
I mean, I'll stand by what I said earlier with Bloodlines.
1:05:14
Final Destination is back and literally better than ever.
1:05:18
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I agree. It's a franchise that five years ago,
1:05:23
if you had asked me, what's going to be a
1:05:25
horror franchise that actually will have some legs to it,
1:05:29
I don't think Final Destination would have been my first guess.
1:05:33
I'm we haven't gotten a fucking Nightmare on Elm Street
1:05:36
or Friday the Thirteenth reboot, and we've gotten a Final
1:05:40
Destination movie come out that just shows that you can
1:05:43
continue these franchises while doing something new and balancing and
1:05:49
balancing it all in a kind of an interesting and
1:05:52
healthy way. So yeah, no, I would say definitely check
1:05:56
out Final Destination as a franchise. I think there are
1:05:58
worse franchises out there that are much longer that uh,
1:06:03
that don't have as many good movies as this. This,
1:06:07
this franchise does me all but one. I mean even
1:06:09
then that that one's not terrible. So yeah, this, uh yeah, this,
1:06:14
this franchise is, like you said, it's back and hopefully
1:06:17
we'll get another good movie and a couple of good
1:06:20
couple good movies.
1:06:21
Speaker 4: So but well you want to you want to call
1:06:24
it and go watch the screen seven trailer together.
1:06:27
Speaker 3: No, I mean, I'm gonna have to now. I'm so disappointed.
1:06:31
But at the same time, I'm excited to watch it
1:06:33
with you, But I'm disappointed that it's We all know
1:06:37
what it could have been, we all know what it
1:06:40
should have been, and because of bullshit outside of anything
1:06:46
to do with anything, we're now saddled with a movie
1:06:50
that will probably be everything that Final Destination Bloodlines was
1:06:55
not or is not. So Yep, where can people find
1:06:59
you Ryan and the things that you work on when
1:07:01
you're not sitting here talking about horror movies with me
1:07:03
or watching trailers with me?
1:07:06
Speaker 4: Apparently, Well, today I'll shout out to Someone's Favorite Productions
1:07:10
dot com. You can find my magazine that I put
1:07:13
out over there. You can find out the podcast network
1:07:15
that I help run over there. You can find out
1:07:17
many of the releases that I've contributed to for special features.
1:07:19
But also there will be some things being announced in
1:07:22
the next few months that are very exciting as well.
1:07:26
Speaker 3: Yeah, and as for me, you can find me at
1:07:28
Weirdingwaymedia dot com and Patreon dot com, slash culture cast,
1:07:31
and on Spotify and iTunes. Like the show, give it
1:07:34
a five star review. On Spotify and iTunes and later
1:07:37
review on iTunes as well Patreon iss where you can
1:07:40
go to contribute financially. You'll get access to bonus episodes.
1:07:43
Ryan and I did a bonus episode last month on Robinhood,
1:07:47
which was not nearly as bad as I was expecting
1:07:49
it to be. And yeah, and we also do ranking
1:07:53
on Bond once a month as well, so that's those
1:07:55
are places and things you can go and do to
1:07:58
support us, financially or non financially. So whatever whatever you
1:08:02
want to do is up to you and we'll be
1:08:05
cool with it either way. So Brian, thank you for
1:08:07
joining me. This was fun and kind of impromptu.
1:08:09
Speaker 4: So yeah, it was quite a quite an easy discussion
1:08:14
Speaker 3: And as always, we'll catch it on the next episode
1:08:17
of The Culture Cast.