Talking Pondo: Dragonheart and Rollerball (1975) with Derek Schlender

 In this episode, first time guest Derek Schlender ("Schlender 5 Productions") joins the podcast. He brings along the movie Dragonheart. Marty and Clif give Derek the movie Rollerball to watch.

Season 4 kicks off with a guest, and a double feature that couldn’t be more different.

Marty and Clif are joined by Derek Schlender to break down two films connected by spectacle, ambition, and wildly different results: Dragonheart (1996) and Rollerball (1975).

First up is Dragonheart. Rob Cohen’s mid-’90s fantasy epic starring Dennis Quaid and featuring Sean Connery as the voice of Draco, the last dragon. The crew digs into peak-’90s CGI, bad medieval wigs and whether nostalgia is the only thing keeping this cult fantasy afloat. Is it a charming kid’s adventure? A tonal mess? A necessary stepping stone between Jurassic Park and Lord of the Rings? All of the above?

Then it’s on to Norman Jewison’s Rollerball (1975), a dystopian sports thriller about corporate control, violent spectacle, and individualism crushed under the system. What starts as futuristic world-building turns into a surprisingly talky meditation on power, celebrity, and manufactured entertainment.

 #TalkingPondo #Dragonheart #Rollerball #FilmPodcast #90sMovies #CultCinema #FantasyFilm #DystopianFilm 

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Like the practical and composite, like when they put um they were figuring things out, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 0:04

They were. Yeah, you could tell they saved some money by staying away from a lot of practical stuff. Like there's there's very little practical dragon in the movie, I think, at one point at the end. When's that movie? Yeah, practic practical dragons. Now that's a copyright. That's that's ours. Practical dragons. Practical dragons. Uh but anyway, the but there's no there's no practical effect of the dragon until the very end, I think, when Quaid's crying over it, right? And he's got his head on it and and and Draco's finally passing away. Um, yes, kids, the dragon dies in this movie. Um there is a Welcome to season four of Talking Pondo. Talking Pondo is a podcast where Cliff and Marty give each other a film to watch and talk about them in detail. Some episodes will include special guests.

SPEAKER_01 0:54

Darkstar, Road Games, Maximum Overdrive, Amongst Friends, Class of 1984, Hell Knight, Before Sunrise, 10, Fool's Paradise, and Mazes and Monsters will not be seen tonight, so we may bring you a film that Cliff might like even less. And about 10 of them Cliff hasn't really cared for, so one of them today might be in that area. I don't feel quite the same, but I kind of understand, I think. But anyways, we're back. It's season four.

SPEAKER_00 1:30

Season four season four. Woohoo.

SPEAKER_01 1:33

It's uh Marty and Cliff, and we have guests to start the season out because we're doing a lot more guests this season. And to start things out, it's Derek Slender. That's right, Derek.

SPEAKER_02 1:44

Thanks for having me, guys. I uh apologize for the multiple times you've had to talk to Dylan, but uh hey, to start your season, it sounds like you're going off with a big upgrade.

SPEAKER_03 1:52

So yeah, I was gonna say we went with the better brother to open his season. We have to, yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_02 1:56

Primus, he's Segundus.

SPEAKER_03 1:58

So if you're familiar with Stardust. I imagine the two of you in the same household was quite a bit for your mother, is my guess, where she was just like, I these boys, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:09

Maybe I feel in some ways she was it it was probably pretty easy because we have similar interests. So it was like, uh, go watch the Simpsons. Okay, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:18

Okay, yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_02 2:19

We have a younger brother too, so there was always multiplayer video games. I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 2:24

Um, so the so welcome. Uh I'm really excited to have you on. Um, I have a quick rant I would like to go on.

SPEAKER_01 2:32

Um, we are going to be talking about Dragonheart. Oh, that's right, and Rollerball from 1975, but those are the movies, but what is your rant? I just wanted to let the people know what what we're doing here today. Perfect, perfect.

SPEAKER_03 2:45

Um, and hey, I know Rollerball was a remake. Did it have um did it have the dude from American Pie in it? And yeah, yeah, and uh uh the rapper.

SPEAKER_02 2:59

What's um um was that Bow Wow or something along those lines? I've never seen that.

SPEAKER_03 3:04

I would say it was the other, it was the dude from um any given Sunday. LO Cool J. LO Cool J. Was he in that?

SPEAKER_02 3:11

I think you mean the guy from Deep Blue Sea?

SPEAKER_03 3:14

Yes. Yes. Anyway, so my rant. So I read that uh so I just want to put out in public personally, and I hope he hears it. Um I would really I I welcome Darren Aronofsky to at his earliest convenience take a moment and really vigorously fuck himself. Oh my god. Like really, really hard. What happened this time? He just he's he's he's leaned into the AI. He's he's releasing an entire AI series about the American Revolution. Oh wow. Uh it's all AI with human voice. And he's and he's saying, well, I'm putting voice actors in it. That's how I'm that's how I'm getting away with it. And and being very non-AI, I I don't like it. I don't like the fact that he's a very well-known director who's uh done a lot of high profile stuff, and here he is moving into the sphere. I don't like it. Um so I just wanted to you know let him know. Hey, of course I'd heard of that.

SPEAKER_01 4:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 4:08

Yeah, you suck. Um also I there was a thing in the movie, I don't normally talk about this type of stuff, but it there was a thing in the news this week about the girl who's um she's in Marty Supreme and she was cast cast for a new role, and she didn't realize that it was a Latina Latina role and she's not Latina. And so she turned the role down, right? And there was a big call for more Latin representation, right? And and I I agree that we definitely need more representation for Latins because I think that they they represent like two percent of total on-screen time, and there's they're about 20% of the country. But this idea that an actor can't play a role due to the hair the heritage of the person to me seems to be a fallacy. It's really stupid, and it's gonna and it's it's limiting, right? Like any any actor should be able to play any role as long as it's not something where it would be insulting to do so, right? Right. Um, and and I I just I again want to put that out there and just say, you know, I just don't, I don't, I don't I'm buying it. But if other people are, if but I whatever.

SPEAKER_02 5:08

Uh what do I know? No, no, I think you're honest on that. And if I can piggyback on that, one of the most outspoken critics of this has been John Lewisamo. John Le Wizzamo's been very vocal about it. Well, John, you're not an Italian plumber. Yeah, exactly. They're not an Italian plumber. And in terms of like casting, um, I don't know if you remember, but there was a controversy with the movie In the Heights, yes, saying that it wasn't diverse enough enough, even though they had cast Hispanic actors. So I think that's one of those once you go down that road, you can't win. The only way to come back, meritocracy. Get good actors and good roles, actors and good roles. Put Denzel Washington in anything.

SPEAKER_03 5:46

Yeah, I would watch him paint a house for two hours and be like, that was the most brilliant fucking thing I've ever seen. I guarantee it would be awesome.

SPEAKER_02 5:52

Yeah, yeah. Gotta bring back the meritocracy. So I agree with you, and I'm kind of getting tired of people trying to be like get their flowers for it.

SPEAKER_03 5:59

Yeah, it's just it's it's getting kind of silly. And and um I just I more than anything, it's this whole idea, it's the same thing with like the like, you know, well, if if you're gonna have an art piece, then it has to have this, it has to do this. When you start when you start demanding what art has to give you, then it's no longer the artist's vision. It's whatever it's then you might as well just go to AI and be Darren Aronofsky and feed it prompts and just get what you want out of it, right? Like you're removing this whole idea of like a bunch of people coming together and making a piece of art that's gonna live for you know quite a while. Anyway, absolutely. Maya rant over, and you know what, you know, who knows? Maybe I'll cut it out. We'll see.

SPEAKER_01 6:36

But well, it'll all be fed up with the liquid book library and the versions.

SPEAKER_02 6:44

We keep in Geneva.

SPEAKER_03 6:45

Yeah, and the 19th century will become corrupt anyway, 20th century will become corrupt anyways, and then we'll be able to get it. But we didn't lose much anyway. Yeah, no. So, yeah, so that's my those are my rants. Any uh any viewer mail?

SPEAKER_01 6:56

Uh no, not this week. I mean, we did notice that listeners Jim Wynorski, that cult movie director, was suddenly started talking about the party animal out of nowhere and said that he dated the woman who played Miranda in the movie, which was like really did you see our post or did somebody else post about that movie? Because I feel like it must have been us, because who the hell else is talking about that thing? But that's not really beautiful male. We should have him on sometime, haven't you? Yeah, I'm thinking about maybe reaching out. That could be interesting to see if nothing else. Director of Trivia Pond.

SPEAKER_02 7:28

Now you can do trivia about party animal.

SPEAKER_01 7:31

Yeah, right. How much do you know it?

SPEAKER_03 7:33

Wasn't Miranda in another movie? Wasn't she in? I could have sworn she was a good one.

SPEAKER_01 7:36

She was at least a video for Abracadabra, by music video, that's what it was.

SPEAKER_03 7:41

Steve Miller's Abracadabra. Whoa. We wanted to reach out and grab her. That's what it was.

SPEAKER_02 7:48

Poor woman, she's been typecast.

SPEAKER_01 7:52

So we're starting off the season with a bang. Couple scorchers here for you, kids. Um, if dra if Drago had gone roller derby and invent dragon ball, I never watched that cartoon, but I thought you meant Ivan Drago. Oh, yeah, Verocon.

SPEAKER_02 8:17

It's Draco. It's Draco. No, Ivan Drago and in a rollerball would be a good one.

SPEAKER_03 8:25

You know, yeah. I must be butter new. Uh yeah, you want to start with you guys want to start with Dragonheart? Oh, why not?

SPEAKER_00 8:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:35

So what what is this one very long Monty Python sketch called Dragonheart? I like to think of it that way. I recast it in my mind as just nobody but Python playing every part, and wow, that's a movie I'd like to see.

SPEAKER_03 8:51

Now that I would I would really watch that. Dragonheart. Original title, Dragonheart from 1996, PG 13, an hour and 43 minutes. Here's your log line. The last dragon and a disillusion disillusioned dragon slaying knight must unite to stop an evil king who is granted partial immortality. This is directed by Fast and the Furious franchise creator Rob Cohen, uh written by Patrick Reed Johnson and Charles Everett Pogue, stars Dennis Quaid, Sean Connery, and Dina Meyer. Let's see your storyline. When a young male king is torturing everyone in the kingdom, a middle-aged male soldier, a young female, and an elderly male dragon team up to put an end to the knight's reign. To do that, they all would have to face some consequences that may change everything. I mean, eventually we get to that part of the story, but yeah, it takes what 30 or 45 minutes to get there. Oh at least.

SPEAKER_02 9:44

Maybe about 20. Well, I don't know, because that's kind of like the middle of the film. So there's a little bit more setup that goes into it. It's a little more nuanced than that.

SPEAKER_03 9:53

Not by much, but the most positive thing I have to say about this film is that it has Dina Meyer in it. That's that's and Pete Postlethwaite.

SPEAKER_02 10:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 10:02

Um what about let me say Pete Postalthwaite?

SPEAKER_02 10:06

Who? Uh who's it? Thhuleis? Is that the guy?

SPEAKER_03 10:08

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He's an excellent actor. He he was in um Blackhawk Down and some others later. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's really good. What's his name? Um, I'm looking at right now. Give me just a second.

SPEAKER_02 10:22

David Twulis.

SPEAKER_03 10:23

David Thuulis, that's it. Yeah. Oh no, I was thinking of um Jason Isaacs.

SPEAKER_02 10:28

Jason Isaacs is in it as well.

SPEAKER_03 10:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:30

Yeah, sort of. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 10:32

And you get Brian Thompson. A little Brian Thompson. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:34

Brian Thompson of uh Dr. Mordret, Cobra, and Star Trek fame. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. He's in everything, that guy.

SPEAKER_03 10:44

He's one of those, he's one of those background guys that you know that you see, but you often don't see. You know, they put a makeup on effect on him or prosthetic, or he's uh a stunt man or whatever.

SPEAKER_02 10:53

I feel like he was in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

SPEAKER_01 10:56

Right. Yeah. I feel like he's one of the people that fits in this cast, because to me, I'm like, oh, I know you guys had casting problems, and Dennis Quaid wasn't your first choice. And man, he tried. He tried. He just doesn't belong in the 10th century. Yeah. First off, the wig is Buffett. Does it feel weird to have Americans in this fantasy, but you know, it's it's it's he's just not the right guy to play the role.

SPEAKER_03 11:24

His his accent's bad, his guy he's got that Quaid's great at kind of like giving you that shit eating grin that he's kind of giving at the camera and to the you know the audience is kind of grinning along with him, and you know, that's why you get great fun things like inner space, but he's just this is not for him.

SPEAKER_01 11:40

I feel like he's channeling like an inner Harrison Ford here, which is an interesting mashup to Sean Connery because we're back in Indiana Jones and Last Crusade level almost. I'm like, well, it's been weird if Harrison Ford had been in this movie.

SPEAKER_02 11:55

That would have been really weird. Because I am uh quite a big fan of Dragon Heart, and you should let people know this was my recommendation. Yeah. Uh I I own it on the I bought the 4K, and it has the director's commentary, and of course I'd listen to it. And they were saying at first, like, Quaid couldn't figure out how to act with nothing there. He didn't know how to sell lines to nothing. And so he, I guess eventually he ends up suddenly like, well, I'll just consider it like an external, internal monologue. And I was like, oh buddy. But but I think there's charm to it. Like I I do. I think there's a little bit of charm to it, a little bit of cheese. It this is a movie that I would watch like Saturday mornings on the sci-fi channel.

SPEAKER_03 12:38

This was this was a movie I've watched as a kid, right? Yes, that makes a lot of sense.

SPEAKER_02 12:42

Yeah, as a matter of fact, it is the first movie that I was compelled to buy in widescreen because there was a display at Suncoast Video that showed how much of the dragon I was missing if I got four by three. Ah, okay. It has a very special place in my heart as from that point forward I paid more attention to those things.

SPEAKER_03 13:01

And now people want to watch Dragon Heart on VHS and four by three.

SPEAKER_02 13:05

Yeah, I know. Everything's gone backwards. It wasn't even filmed in four by three, so that's not a pan and corner.

unknown 13:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:12

Uh terrible. So 90s 96 is when this movie's made. Yeah. Um, and it's that 96 of like when the Middle Ages were clean and shiny, right?

SPEAKER_01 13:22

And like the CGI kind of ruled the 90s, like the late 90s is when like when they figured out the Jurassic Park CGI and they could mimic it in other films cheaper, the technology lost its is in the nebulous zone between Jurassic Park and Lord of the Rings, where it's like this is the standard of what fantasy films are gonna be going forward. But this reminds me of like when they were trying to figure out how to make comic book movies before Iron Man, as far as like trying to figure out how to do the fantasy things, and it's got that you know that mid-90s like a blade to it, yeah. Yeah, like that. So I was like, okay, I'm gonna be a little more forgiving on this because I see that it's in that time period, and it's essentially a kid's movie. If I had seen this when I was like 10 to 12, I would have been able to fill in all the rest of like a kid would do, and then have that strong nostalgia for it.

SPEAKER_03 14:14

I mentioned on an episode, I brought up the Barney Stenson theory of uh Ewoks and Return of the Jedi, right? And he has this theory that like people born after 1978 hate Return of the Jedi because they fucking hate Ewoks. But if you were young enough to love Ewoks, then you love Return of the Jedi, right? And for Dragonheart, I think it's kind of the same thing. If you grew up watching this movie, it you you love it. It's the nostalgia of it is awesome. I have those movies from the 80s too, right? That but like when but like you when you show them to other people, you're like it, you're kind of like, oh well, you know, it's a little creaky, you know, it's a little creaky.

SPEAKER_01 14:51

But if you think about it, like what movie outside of like Pete's Dragon had a dragon as a talking main character? How do you write for a dragon? What do you how does a dragon interact? So this this crawls so a lot of other things can walk, right?

SPEAKER_02 15:04

Like how you train your dragons and stuff, which I mean as you were talking about, like um the director was heavily inspired by like you know, talking about monsters and stuff with his dad, and he kind of wanted to make something that would have that same sense of adventure and fantasy, and something his kid who has a um he has a guest appearance in it. He's the little boy who notices the dragon at first and then runs off camera. Um, so he wanted to do something kind of like for the kids in a younger audience, even though it's PG 13 and you know, so the tone is all over the place.

SPEAKER_01 15:36

Sometimes he gets hit in the nuts, and then it's sincere, and then it's like what is going on here, and then here's a beautiful shot. So there's so many strange things mixed together.

SPEAKER_02 15:46

They couldn't totally redo a lot or like reshoot a lot because of the cost of the CGI and the dragon. He said it cost something like sixteen thousand dollars a second. Good God. Yep, and also it took over a hundred days to film, so the weather was changing violently. Uh when they burned the village, the village at the beginning, and it's like that whole battle. That's one continuous take shot from multiple angles because they couldn't afford to build it and burn it again.

SPEAKER_03 16:10

So he just got the extra cameras and shot the shit out of it. That makes sense.

SPEAKER_02 16:15

They spent like all the clothes they made themselves, like all the structures they tried to build themselves. But there's really they they filmed it in Romania, and when you look at Romania, it's like, well, it's not really like that British Arthur Penn dragon kind of thing you're looking for. So even like in terms of aesthetics, it doesn't quite read like this is where you would expect to historically find dragons. Right. I still like it, but in terms of how it looks, you're right. Totally, it's it's all over the place.

SPEAKER_03 16:43

Yeah, it is. Yeah, yeah. And it it it feels very Renfairish at times, right? Like it's very kind of like you know, um, you know, just kind of there's got that, it's got that I that I don't know, that nineties sort of like this is what the Middle Ages used to look like. It feels very much like um a night's tale, like Z Stripe or something, right?

SPEAKER_02 17:03

Those are those are even more stylized.

SPEAKER_01 17:05

Those are 90s, you can't tell between a TV movie and a theatrical movie sometimes. Sometimes, right, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:12

I think that's an issue too with them trying to be so authentic. Like they even planted the type of wheat they would have in a field. I'm like, this is all great for people who are gonna listen to the DVD commentary, like myself, but on but like these clothes are not high quality, they're not like camera ready. So maybe take another pass at it. It doesn't need to be accurate. They tried to explain that the sword fighting was accurate, and we just know that's not true. Because that sword fighting is weak.

SPEAKER_03 17:36

Well, no, yeah, terrible. But you know, you know, I think he's I think part of what Cox did, uh, you know, he he told a pretty good kid's fantasy story, right? Like he told this, he anthropomorphized the dragon, he made it friendly, he made it something likable to a certain extent. You know, Dennis Quaid's character is is relatively likable and is upholding the code, you know. Yeah, yeah, you can't forget the code. It's always about the code, you know. And so for kids, especially, I could see that really being attractive. I I I you know, I remember watching this movie. I guess I was 23 when it came out, and thinking, ah, you know, I mean it's not terrible. It was, but now I watch it and I go, oh no.

SPEAKER_01 18:17

Well, it's more about like for me, it's like the the king, the king in his subplot where I'm like, oh, he's just his his acting is so like, oh man, it's some some harsh uh direction there. And the bad wigs don't help either. So bad wigs the bad wigs don't help.

SPEAKER_03 18:32

Yeah, I hate it. I hated I hated the prince who then becomes the king. And so that's good acting, right? Like, like it literally was a visceral, like, oh, I fucking hate this guy. I'll be really fine. I'm glad when he's dead.

SPEAKER_04 18:44

True, right?

SPEAKER_03 18:44

You know, I'll be okay with that, you know. So that's good acting for sure, right? To to evoke an emotional response. Um, I never realized how much Pete Postlethwaite sounds like fucking Brian Cox, man. Like if you close your eyes, people like he sounds like fucking Brian Cox, man. It's really crazy. They sent they both sound like the McDonald's commercial, you know.

SPEAKER_02 19:06

Uh uh the real star, though, of course, is Sean Connery, as uh Draco, some would say, Drago, but that would be incorrect. No, it'd be rocky four. That'd be rocky four. If he burns, he burns. If he bugs, he bugs. But yeah, I I just loved the idea of like a talking dragon, because like anthropomorphized monsters, talking monsters were very popular when I was growing up. So I I like gargoyles, you know, things like this were were everywhere. And the idea of a dragon being voiced by Sean Connery, who, you know, even young, we all know who Sean Connery is. We all know he's James Bond, you know. Um, I guess they took uh hours of footage of him, like every close-up they could get their hands on. So when he would say something, they would then take even like the lateral lisp of Sean Connery and try and put it on the dragon's face to make him more expressive. Because remember, they didn't have well, they probably did have like some technology to do some facial mapping. It just with the amount of money they looked at. Yeah, no mocap, and they weren't gonna spend the money anyway, you know, just give it to their animators and trust in them. So yeah, I find that to be kind of charming behind the scenes kind of stuff. And again, you know, I'm there for as a kid, I'm there for the dragon. And I get a lot of the dragon, and I get a lot of good dragon. So I'm pretty happy with that.

SPEAKER_03 20:24

$57 million budget. That's not bad.$57 million in 96? That's a lot of fucking money.$57 million in 96 is a lot of money.

SPEAKER_02 20:32

$22 went to the dragon.

SPEAKER_03 20:36

Wow.$35 million in the lot of it.

SPEAKER_02 20:39

Wasn't it produced by like one of the Daily Rentises or something? Like, yeah, it was one of the Daily Rentises, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 20:47

Like and subscribe.

SPEAKER_02 20:53

I guess I love the ending. I absolutely love the ending where they because they do the whole thing about dragons becoming like, you know, joining the constellation. Okay, yeah. I loved that ending. It's one of my favorite endings, and I love the theme that plays Randy Edelman's to the stars. And anyone who's ever heard like heard me talk about it, I mentioned it when I was on Reels and I recommended the movie because I do love the movie. I recommended it specifically because I love Randy Edelman's to the stars. It's such a great thing. And people who are familiar with Randy Edelman, he also did the soundtrack for Anaconda.

SPEAKER_03 21:27

Really?

SPEAKER_02 21:28

Oh, that pan flute. Yep. Same guy. So he likes his giant reptile music. That's cool. But I just I absolutely love the ending. I love him going up into the constellation. I'm like, I feel good about it at the end. It's like, well, that's why we don't have dragons, they're in the stars.

SPEAKER_03 21:43

Yeah, I I I um I wanted a shower after it was over because I kind of wanted to get all the feel good off of me. Like it was like, oh, there's a lot of that's a lot of feel good. Um, but especially in particular, that in really, really, really but brings it home. And it's again, if you're if if you're At that age where it's a kid's movie, or you're, you know, that that's perfect. That's exactly the way it should end.

SPEAKER_01 22:05

You think it would play to a 10-year-old in 2026? I do. I really do. I think I think an 8 to 12 year old would be this movie.

SPEAKER_03 22:14

If you're into Dungeons and Dragons and all that shit, because it is all over film, so I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 22:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:19

I think so. I mean, I think so. There's enough of a dragon. I would do it, right? I would much prefer. I mean, they made five of them.

SPEAKER_01 22:27

Well, that's true.

SPEAKER_02 22:28

Pete's Dragon continues too, so I think a modern kid would have a hard time because there's too many distractions. They won't have an appreciation for it. They're growing up in the Marvel age where everything is non-stop CGI action. So this movie doesn't have enough action to keep it going. It actually has quite a few moments where like in this we find, you know, an actor struggling to talk to nothing, but there's still moments of like dialogue where these we learn a lot of kit about the characters just by them communicating. And you know, because they didn't have the budget for the big action sequences. And most of the time when you have a fight in these kind of movies, like the storyline is kind of progressing to some level, like some small level. Um, like even well, like the big fight at the towards the end where you know Draco gets uh kidnapped, you know, like so the plots change then. Uh even the action sequences where they're scamming the countryside, you know. You do it once as a setup, you do it the second time to be like, uh-oh, this is no longer a sustainable form of revenue. We have to change tack. And of course, it leads to all the chaos that follows after that. I don't think a kid is gonna be like, Well, why are they doing this? Why don't they just fly into the castle and burn the bad guy? You know, it's like people like, why don't they take the eagles in Lord of the Rings?

SPEAKER_03 23:44

You know, that it's like you can't just because that's not how it works. Because you need to tell a story.

SPEAKER_01 23:49

Well, I guess it depends on how how many movies has this 10-year-old seen. You know, if they've seen all the modern stuff, they might be able to jade it. But if they've only seen a handful of things, they might know to me.

SPEAKER_03 24:01

I remember as a kid, an eight-year-old to a 10-year-old kid, 11, you know, right around there was watching, like, especially like if it was animated, I'd watch it. I didn't give a shit what level of animation it was.

SPEAKER_01 24:11

TikTok.

SPEAKER_03 24:11

So you could go to Hanna Bar. Yeah, that's true. That's true. Maybe it's different for kids nowadays.

SPEAKER_01 24:15

I don't know if they're into them.

SPEAKER_03 24:17

I think if you're a DD fantasy kid, this is definitely going to be in your rotation at some point.

SPEAKER_01 24:22

You know, this is better than that first DD movie.

SPEAKER_03 24:25

Oh, the very first movie. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:29

Oh god, yeah. They finally got away with that last one, though. Yeah, that one was excellent. We covered it.

SPEAKER_02 24:35

I like that a lot. I like I like a lot of that one. I don't like all of it, but I like it a lot more than I was expecting to based on like trailers and previews and stuff. So it ended up being a lot more I I I did enjoy it more. They really got like the class and characters.

SPEAKER_03 24:49

They got it, they got a lot of things right. They got a lot of things right. A lot that the other movies did not get right at all.

SPEAKER_02 24:56

But that's it. That's I just I just wanted to talk about Dragonheart because like I said, if it if it hadn't been for Dragonheart, I'd still be watching things in four by three, you know, at a young age, and I would not have started to pay attention to those, you know, finer details. And from that point forward, it was like widescreen all the time. And I just wanted to bring that uh just just to talk about that.

SPEAKER_01 25:16

And it's an important movie too, because it leads to you know, it's one of those cogs in the wheel of progress to uh to to you know the modern fantasy thing.

SPEAKER_02 25:26

Oh, the composite stuff too, as well. Like the practical and composite, like when they put they were figuring things out here, yeah. Yeah, they were.

SPEAKER_03 25:33

Yeah, you could tell they saved some money by staying away from a lot of practical stuff. Like there's there's very little practical dragon in the movie, I think, at one point at the end. Practical dragons. Now that's a copyright. That's that's ours.

SPEAKER_02 25:49

Practical dragons.

SPEAKER_03 25:51

Uh but anyway, the but there's no there's no practical effect of the dragon until the very end, I think, when Quaid's crying over it, right? And he's got his head on it and and and Draco's finally passing away. Um, yes, kids, the dragon dies in this movie. Um there is a uh Marty's loves to talk about gross out humor. This has got it, you know, with that dragon hawking a freaking loogie on Dennis Queen. Yeah, at least it's my mouth though. It happens uh Alexa. It's hilarious. Um yeah, that that that wig they put on poor Dina and Quaid. Her wig is so inconsistent, it's so bad, it's so bad, it's just so bad.

SPEAKER_02 26:29

It's because of that 100 day shit, man. Yeah, because they're trying to do things out of sequence, and there's just yeah, they just didn't have they they joke in the commentary about how at the end they had UN shirts made for them because they had like a 23 nation crew of just like artisans and everybody doing this, and they said, Well, we couldn't speak the same language, but we were brought together by art. I was like, Well, I'm sure there was probably some missed money then. Money, yeah. Well, yeah, it's a job, you know.

SPEAKER_03 26:58

That's it's absolutely a job. I that you remember when they finally go to Avalon, right? And they're standing around looking at everything. Why is Avalon lit like it's a tourist attraction? It's lit like it's the great the pyramid of, you know, like we're you know, the pyramids of Giza at night, where I'm just like it looks like people are gonna walk by and then stop by the gift shop to buy some King Arthur merchandise, you know what I mean? '90s fantasy world, like it is, it totally is aesthetic. You know, they're not gonna change that way through. Absolutely, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 27:29

Well, you know what Lucy Lawless says when you notice a detail like that, a wizard did it, right? Okay, sure. It's a Simpsons joke. Um but yeah.

SPEAKER_03 27:42

There's a very, very willow uh uh influence in this too. I I feel there's a lot of willow in here too. Well, Star Wars, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:52

Yeah. And uh yeah, because they were very proud of themselves that the hero also like wears black and the villain wears white, and they're like, we've subverted tropes.

SPEAKER_03 28:01

We've not seen Ladyhawk. I mean, it's the same thing. You know, and that's I wonder if this movie, speaking of Ladyhawk, if they had done what Ladyhawk did and said, we're not gonna worry about anachronistic shit, we're gonna kind of go with our own thing in our own style and do our own, like like the a night's tale, right? And I'm not saying yeah, give it a look, give it a feel, give it a style, decide on a a a theme and a and a sort of a palette for the film and and just fucking go for it. I wonder, I wonder, I wonder what that would have been like. I would have kind of I kind of would have wouldn't have mind seeing that, you know, taking it taking a stab at that. I want just brighter colors, just in general, just like co cooler, sorry, just like cooler suits of armor and you know different tapestries or whatever, you know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:41

Well, there's four other Dragon Heart movies. It makes me wonder, are those I know they're direct to video and stuff, but maybe they were left alone and maybe had the time to do what so maybe they're a little more together. I'm kind of curious in a way, you know.

SPEAKER_03 28:55

Maybe we torture torture Derek by bringing him back one at the one at a time.

SPEAKER_01 28:59

Yeah, just yeah, yeah, I'll watch them.

SPEAKER_03 29:03

Every time he comes back, it's a new Dragon Darton Heart and Rollerball remake.

SPEAKER_02 29:09

Oh shortest episode ever. Well, we're here, single gunshot in the distance, audio cut.

SPEAKER_03 29:17

And it's a score, by the way. You talk about uh too much space where like action sequences and like you know, too much space or whatever. Rollerball is just like, my god, we'll get there, we'll get there.

SPEAKER_01 29:30

Yeah, holy shit. I don't mind the CG in in this movie because to me it's like he's like a big cartoon. He's like Pete's Dragon, and he kind of looks like Jabba from the special admissions part the way the skills move. Well, there's similar not like it's horrible, but you know, there's a similarity in how the animation is progressing, is what I mean. But I don't mind it. I look at I'm like, he's he's just a big cartoon, so I don't it doesn't make me dislike hate it or anything.

SPEAKER_03 29:57

So it's holding up better than the faculty, I think. Um yeah, that one's a little bit the faculty, the alien is supposed to be otherworldly and unbelievable and be in the the looks more like Sega Dreamcast, yeah. The yeah, the effects over time have kind of failed it, but but you're right.

SPEAKER_02 30:13

The Draco is more of that kind of let's be careful about Sega Dreamcast bashing. Take a look at this.

SPEAKER_03 30:20

You know, Hallmark keeps Dreamcast.

SPEAKER_02 30:23

I love the Dreamcast, man. The 90s, man, 1999.

SPEAKER_03 30:29

Let's see. Uh I love Pete Postelfwaite uh doing his best Friar Tuck Little John. You know, he he beat he goes from being the priest who doesn't want to kill anybody to being kind of this, you know, like I said, little John Friar Tuck, kind of whipping everybody's ass type guy. It's a lot of fun. He's the guy that shoots the bow, you know, and hits the target to knock down the trunk, you know, the tree trunk and all this type of stuff, you know.

SPEAKER_02 30:53

Oh yeah. The interesting thing, I guess the uh the scallop shell means he had cr uh completed a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Yes, and I guess if you were like a monk or friar or whatever it is at the time, uh if you completed it, you get the scallop shell, and that's how they would uh recognize each other as having gone on like a pilgrimage, I guess you would call it. That's fascinating. So that is an interesting thing. Little details they throw in that uh yeah. But again, I would have taken I would have had a better stylized uh wardrobe as well. Yeah, I I think so.

SPEAKER_03 31:28

I think just just lean leaning into it, not worrying about trying to be realistic to whatever century that you're trying to recreate and just going for it and doing something maybe just cool a little cooler looking, again, much like Ladyhawk did, where they weren't really worrying about.

SPEAKER_01 31:44

But there's not five Ladyhawk movies, though.

SPEAKER_04 31:46

There's five Dragonhearts, so somebody did something right.

SPEAKER_03 31:51

Okay. Uh this movie did very well in the theater. Um 150 million worldwide gross, it opened to 50 million.

SPEAKER_01 31:59

Um that reminds me, I I saw it on videotape later that year, because it came out in like November that year. I had to look back. I'm like, did I see it with those people? Because I'm like, no, that fits in that timeline. So the people I watched it with, I thought it was okay when I saw it. I was didn't, you know. But the people I watched it with were like, ugh. And now when I looked at it, now I'm like, oh, I kind of see a little what they were groaning at. I don't feel exactly the same way, but I kind of, you know, like I was like, what? That was fine, you know.

unknown 32:29

But it's a lot of people.

SPEAKER_03 32:33

It's definitely one of those films where the graphics are helped. Again, we talked, we've talked about this by the opacity of a of a of a screen and and the fact that not all the light that hits the screen in a big theater bounces back towards you. Yeah, you lose about 20, 20 to 25% of it, and that actually helps the image. It sells the effect. Yes, it sells the effect. And so, you know, a lot of directors and a lot of filmmakers count on that, especially back in the day. They really counted on, you know, Lucas counted on that for a lot of those those uh Star Wars, those uh battles, because he's you know, they're framing that stuff in one piece at a time, which is why when you later, when you get the film on on DVD, you're like, whoa, look at this. This is what are all these boxes around these TIE fighters, around these X-Wings? Weird. But yeah, so it I mean, I I'm sure in the theater, yeah, it definitely looked a lot better. Really, really sold better in the theater as far as that goes. I think a lot of these 90s movies did not transfer to DVD very well. I don't think that they were really prepared for the what what the film was gonna look like from the screen to the DVD. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 33:34

The Blu-ray of this look good though.

SPEAKER_03 33:36

Well, it looked fine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think they've kind of cleaned it up and probably run it, you know, run some sort of thing through it to kind of help it a little bit. But I remember the DVD not looking super great.

SPEAKER_02 33:49

Yeah, I had it on VHS, which you know, the widescreen edition, as I famously said earlier. But I I have a uh I have the 4K and I have a 4K player and I have a a projector. Okay, so I do project these things onto the screen. So I do get the HDR as well as like the projector with some of that light loss like you were talking about. Yeah.

unknown 34:07

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 34:09

That looks great. I mean, yeah. Yeah, it looks it it probably looks the same. You know what, in my memory, they all look the same all the time anyway. So it's like in the moment, I'm like, this is awesome. Oh, for me Star Wars.

SPEAKER_03 34:21

I don't care. You know, like yeah, raiders is raiders, it's always gonna look fucking great. I don't care if I can see the glass with the cobra or not. I you know, it's a shit.

SPEAKER_01 34:30

Yeah, um there's glass in front of the cobra.

SPEAKER_00 34:33

Spoiler.

SPEAKER_03 34:35

Again, now we're back to Cobra with selling the to selling the shots and cobra.

SPEAKER_01 34:42

I'm sorry, I w I watched Cobra this week, so I've been getting a lot of Brian Thompson this week. So uh I know it's weird. I'm like, there he is in Dragonheart, there he is in Cobra. He's everywhere, he's everywhere. There's a knock at your door, don't answer. He's known to sneak in through windows. So, Cliff, if you weren't as sick as a dog, would this movie have sat on your head nearly as much, or would you have been a little more like, yeah, it's fine. But being completely on death's door for two weeks, did that make this a harder watch?

SPEAKER_03 35:19

Yeah, so so for those listeners, if you don't know, so two weeks ago I caught COVID or a really bad cold, and I was down for about three or four days, and I started feeling better, and then Snow Mageddon hit us, and I was snowed in, and I got out one time on Sunday, one friggin' time, and I came home, and Monday I wake up and I've got the fucking flu. And I had the flu all week, so it's I've just been sick for two weeks, and so and then I have to and then I watched Dragonheart, and I just I I have to admit, I just hate watched the shit out of it because I was so I was so miserable and it got under my skin so bad. Dennis Quaid, I just wanted to smack the shit out of Dennis Quaid for this whole fucking movie. I was just like, get off the fucking screen. And I love Dina Meyer, thank God she's in it. And I love show and again, I love Pete Post with Wade. I love a lot of these actors are fantastic. It was just it, you're right. Probably because I was sick. Like, no, I don't think I would, but for my sick watch, I have to give it a one star. I just I and I don't think I'm gonna watch it again. I don't think I'm gonna get better and try and watch it again. I'm gonna do that to myself. It just wasn't for me.

SPEAKER_01 36:26

Well, when I look at it through the lens of uh as a kid's movie, I I would say a three, but for me personally, I'm going one and a half because there was a lot of slogs in between the action movie for very long. But like I said earlier, it's a very interesting watch because part of the movie is like, what is going on? And there's other parts where like, damn, that's a really good scene. How are these existing in the same movie? But it's one of those where it feels like to my earlier statement, uh, you ended up with the cast that you could get at the time. Because it feels like sometimes movies have to get made because there's contracts and there's money, there's the money's and you can't get who you want, you get who's around and you make the movie and you hope for the best. And hey, this got five movies for it.

SPEAKER_03 37:12

So yeah, we talked about CBGB being like that, where it was like, we got the money, we gotta make the movie, and yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But um, I mean, I would say, like, again, I can see people like uh who caught this movie in their as a kid. This is the type of movie that when you catch it young, you grow up with it, it's one of those five for those. I have movies like that too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's that's for Derek's face because he's been making a face this entire. He's just been like, what the fuck?

SPEAKER_02 37:41

Bringing the cast and they bring us their favorite movie, and we're like, it's not my favorite movie by any stretch of the imagination. Uh all right, if I had to rank it, uh, five stars, no notes. I'm just kidding. No, it's a it's a three-star movie. Uh if I'm generous, it's a three-star movie, but it's the type of movie that I I really still enjoy watching, like these cheesy kind of like thrown together. Like I feel, and the reason why is I feel like for as cheesy and as you know, like slapdash as it is, and it does you can see that the production kind of got away from it. It feels like they, and I use this word a lot, it felt very earnest. Like I really can tell they tried to make this movie the way they wanted to, and that's why the production probably took too long, and that's probably why they just had to, you know, sacrifice some things, but it it feels like an earnestly made movie where they just wanted to make a story about the uh the last dragon and the dragon hunter coming together to stop a king, you know, and it's like it feels like they accomplished that. Like I said, I I love the soundtrack, still listen to it, love the ending, even though you have to get all the uh feel good off me. But I mean that's kind of how you want your fairy tales to end, you want them to end somewhat positively, yeah. Yes, and again, but yeah, I I just I enjoy it and I enjoy the fact that like I said, it's an earnest movie.

SPEAKER_01 39:03

Yeah, the the other movie today, I feel like there's a good movie hiding in there, but maybe it didn't completely come out, but you can feel what they were going for, right?

SPEAKER_02 39:14

I think it'd be easier to fix rollerball than it would be. I think so too.

SPEAKER_03 39:18

Because I think I honestly, I think with rollerball, what you need is an aggressive editor. Like you need to get in and you need to get in and make some cuts on that movie. You know, you need to get in and make some cuts on that movie. Dragonheart, you need to maybe do some, like you said, we need to maybe change the wardrobe, we gotta do some production redesign, then we've got to maybe change a couple actors, even you know, we gotta get Dennis Quaid the fuck out of there. It's just not his part. We gotta, but if we bring in the right actor, that movie can work really well.

SPEAKER_01 39:42

That's what I'm curious about the sequels.

SPEAKER_02 39:45

Yeah. I don't think those are I will find them. I don't even know if they're on high definition. It's just gonna be I'm gonna have to buy DVDs. There's a Blu-ray box set.

SPEAKER_03 39:55

There's a Blu-ray set of it. Like you could, yeah. Like in like critters, I can buy that in critters at the same time. But again, I I'll say this. I have movies that I know are one-star movies that I just like that that I love, that I grew up, and I'm just like, you know, fucking part of the movie. That's what you gotta talk about. And that's what your show is great.

SPEAKER_01 40:15

That's a good example of a one-star.

SPEAKER_03 40:16

That's a great example. And honestly, it was it was a fun kind of rewatch. I hadn't seen Dragon Heart since I was since it came out, '96, you know. You know, so that was great. But moving on to rollerball.

SPEAKER_01 40:28

Rollerball. So in the time period before skateboards became cool, we were momentarily obsessed with roller skates. No, also no inline either. I wonder if the remake has those. What is rollerball 1975, Cliff?

SPEAKER_03 40:46

Rollerball 1975. Rated R two hours and five minutes. A corporate dictator tr yeah, a corporate dictator tries to oust the star player of a brutal 21st century spectator sport. Uh let's see here. Storyline. In a futuristic society where corporations have replaced countries, the violent game of rollerball is used to control the populace by demonstrating the futility of individuality. However, one player, Jonathan E, rises to the top, fights for his personal freedom, and threatens the corporate control. Oh, okay. Tagline, it's more than just a game. It's a way of life. Fucking directed by Norman Jewison of all fucking people, and starring James. When I looked that up, I was like, no way. Yeah. The guy who did Moonstruck and In the Heat of the Night and The Hurricane and Agnes of God and you know, I mean uh Fiddler. He did Fiddler for fuck's sake, and he brings us rollerball.

SPEAKER_01 41:52

Sort of Logan's Run looking 70s aesthetic, right? It's uh when the future was the 70s.

SPEAKER_03 42:01

It's the dirtiest looking like like the the past in Dragonheart is cleaner than the future in fucking Rollerball. That's that's the the weirdness of these two movies, the juxtaposition of these two films. I turn on Rollerball and I'm like, why is this dirtier than Dragonheart? Why does it art odds again?

SPEAKER_01 42:18

What's going on?

SPEAKER_03 42:18

It just feels like there's like like um like toxic shit in the air constantly when I watch this movie. It just feels like it's covered in smog. Like cover film.

SPEAKER_02 42:31

But you know, that's a good point.

SPEAKER_03 42:33

I I think that was just the 70s. I think it's those lenses and the way the film stock, I think, is part of it too. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:40

Definitely, definitely the lenses and film stock. Uh again, I listened to the director commentary. I don't know why I did this to myself, um, but he's very proud of the way that they filmed it. So we'll talk about it later, but I I did. So I watched the movie twice in a very short amount of time.

SPEAKER_03 42:57

Uh the arena where they film this is in German, which is really cool because it's it's a it's one of the only round arenas where they could actually go in and do this and build this cool arena. And I also read that the sport was so fucking actually so popular that the stunt men and the extras were would play it like during setups when they were waiting to shoot. They would actually play this game, and there was talk of trying to create leagues after it came out, which I guess horrified the director because the director was like, This is about like violence and about like, you know, we're not gonna play it that way, and we're just gonna try to score and roll around score.

SPEAKER_01 43:32

Yeah, I can't really follow the game. I don't think you're supposed to be able to follow the game. It's just they're rolling around and making scores, and anything goes. Like when the people are watching the highlights on the TV, some of the TVs are just like blurry footage spinning around. I'm like, is this just an indictment of professional sports? What is going on here?

SPEAKER_03 43:51

Yeah, bit. Yeah. It's like a like like a futuristic North Dales forty.

SPEAKER_02 43:58

So he says, uh Norman says in the in the commentary that he was noticing that professional athletes were starting to make more money than they had any right to do. So like that they hadn't really seen in the past. They'd always been celebrity, but they were starting to get outrageous contracts. And this is kind of what they thought like in the 70s would happen if a certain player became more popular than some of the things that's right. Dude, he he was doing the commentary in 1997. So like Michael Jordan had already become basketball. You know, so it's like they were kind of right.

SPEAKER_03 44:35

Uh I I I'm a I'm a Thunder fan, and they just gave SGA 275 million dollars for a five-year contract. He's one of the highest paid players in the NBA. It's unbelievable the amount of money these guys are making.

SPEAKER_01 44:54

Yeah. Uh and how it gets frustrated.

SPEAKER_03 44:57

Yeah, this weird thing that corrupts itself and can't answer correctly and is confused a lot of times. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:03

The early zoom call. Now they all they have is a bunch of TV sets lined up, but then they all go out. It's like that's that's a pretty good approximation as to what the zoom call would be. You know, they that's pretty good for 51 years ago. True. Yeah, true, true. It's like the TV of the future. Oh, go ahead, go ahead. Multiple TVs is the TV of the yeah. The TV of the future, it's like having a control room in your living room. You get to see all the shows.

SPEAKER_02 45:32

And it goes to every room.

SPEAKER_01 45:34

And it's not just for rollerball viewing, it's for viewing your ex-wife and random montage.

SPEAKER_03 45:40

Oh, yeah, he's he's got a whole like DVD collection of the stuff.

SPEAKER_02 45:45

Stalking your ex.

SPEAKER_03 45:46

Stalking your ex. He gets a lot of things eerily correct. And porn. Stalking your ex and porn. Uh it's this movie is like Death Race 3000 meets Whippet. Uh, is the best way I can put it. If you've seen Whippet, the um the Drew Barrymore movie. Yeah. About the role, about the girl, little girl who wants to be in roller dirty, and then put Death Race 3000 in that, you pretty much get this movie, kind of. Yeah, that's true.

SPEAKER_01 46:11

You know, then 10 years later, you get solar babies. Oh. That is a perfect example of something that is a horrible movie that I love. Watch over and over again. But you know what they don't get right about the future? Way worse than Dragonheart. Go ahead. There's no DNR. There's no do not resuscitate. Look, if you're playing this sport, you're signing this shit off. Your teammates not gonna have to sign your pull the plug. Yeah. Where's the DNR? Maybe they didn't think that way 50 years ago. That is true too. It's a different time, so yeah.

SPEAKER_02 46:44

Yeah, you would think like it why would it go to the teammate? Why wouldn't the corporation be like, his contract is void, he's done.

unknown 46:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 46:53

I I love how you have to hold the ball up at all times when you're when you're carrying it, and it's legal to smash somebody in the fucking face with it if you need to. And and they and they they show you that this ball weighs 10, 15, 20 pounds. So like this is a heavy metal object that's gonna get your brains bashed in with. Oh yeah. It's also like North Dallas 40 or semi-tough meets THX 1138. I have a lot of like I I have a lot of I have a lot of elevator pitches for this movie. Um but yeah, did anybody see the remake? No, I feel like I did, but I don't remember it. I feel like I did too, but I can't remember it. And I want to say it had the dude from American Pie in it. It does, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:34

I don't think it has any kind of edge to it, is the thing. It's just kind of there, you know.

SPEAKER_03 47:39

Yeah. Who's the girl? Is it Rebecca Rebecca Roger? Yeah, I think you're right.

SPEAKER_02 47:43

Yeah. Rebecca Romain. She has a certain mystique to her, some would say. I'll show myself out. Oh, Mystique.

SPEAKER_01 47:52

And I was like, oh, this is gonna be some futuristic action packed thing, you know, and you go and you go, oh, that was kind of a bummer, man.

SPEAKER_02 48:00

John McTune directed it.

unknown 48:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 48:03

It starts fucking John Renault, dude. And LS is a j. Yeah, we might have to revisit the line. We might have to bring this on the show.

SPEAKER_02 48:12

Oh my god, Rollerball remake, Dragonheart 2.

SPEAKER_03 48:15

Would you be willing to come back for a rollerball remake Dragon Heart 2 session?

SPEAKER_02 48:19

Well, definitely rolled a ball the remake. We'll find out the pin back in that dragonheart grenade for now.

SPEAKER_03 48:30

Yeah, I don't want to get uh destroyed by the sequels. That's like smarter than your brother, who immediately agreed to talking figgy pondo with all the questions at all. I didn't think you'd actually make me do it. He's like, I can't believe we're actually doing this.

SPEAKER_01 48:46

Every year now.

unknown 48:47

It was a great episode.

SPEAKER_01 48:49

It was so fun. I get to the end of rollerball and I go, Oh, it was Vietnam all long, wasn't it? Because it is 1975, so I don't know. War is over. See how useless this is, all of us killing each other for no reason for sport.

SPEAKER_02 49:07

I I will say I absolutely loved the rollerball sequences. Like, yeah, hard to shoot action scenes like that, too. So what they so because um, like like you were talking about there, uh Cliff, with the being filmed in that circular arena, that was part of the old German Olympic village. Yeah, and so they had a whole bunch of like skilled Germans who had just got done like you know, uh shooting the Olympics. Um, and so they just hired the German cinematographer teams who did all the speed events, so that's how they were able to get so much in frame. And let me tell you something, it looks awesome. Like, I I am impressed beyond belief at like how much they were able to capture in camera and just how kinetic and how it's truly impressive that you never really lose sight of what's going on. Sometimes when they relaunch the ball at the beginning, I was like, Why are they doing that?

SPEAKER_03 49:57

But other than that, sometimes it's a little disjointed, but yeah, it it's that old school action where yeah, it's that old school action where the way they're shooting it, they're giving you know that you're getting pieces, you know that you're getting this piece and then this piece and then this piece, and you know, that there are pieces in between that you're not getting and you don't need them.

SPEAKER_04 50:13

Right.

SPEAKER_03 50:14

Action nowadays, like the John Wick stuff, they would do that shit from beginning to end all the way through, and it would look completely different. And I kind of prefer this method. I kind of like this older way of shooting the action. I think it, like you said, it's more visceral and kinetic. Like I think if yeah, I'm willing to bet we're gonna watch this rollerball remake and it's gonna be more like live action now, and it's gonna fucking suck.

SPEAKER_01 50:35

Yeah, I wonder it that one was made before like the shaky cam was heavy, so I don't remember it being too shaky, but I wonder if they go through the rules of the game in the remake. Because they don't tell you in this one. I think it's purposely to keep it kind of vague, but I bet you in the remake they're probably like, and then this happens, and the pinball shoots out and the blah blah. And it's like that's my guess, but we'll see, you know. And I bet they have inline skates in that one too.

SPEAKER_02 51:02

Uh probably. Probably. They probably have lights on. Do they have lights on them? There's an image. Do they glow as they skate? That'd be hilarious.

SPEAKER_03 51:10

Oh my god, it looks like a you know what it looks like? Oh my god, I just saw a picture. It looks like uh it's all lit up and shit. It looks like um oh no, it looks like the circus.

SPEAKER_02 51:22

Oh well, they wanted it to look like the circus maximus. He says so several times in the commentary. And uh even the way they come out is like a chariot, you know. Oh my god, this is gladiators essentially.

SPEAKER_03 51:34

Oh, yeah, it's inline skates, and they mixed in extreme sports with it.

SPEAKER_02 51:38

Um, I have to bring this on the show. Oh my god. Where the happening. Yes, all right, but back to the original one. Because this was this is getting there is one image here of them on the glass. That is my brain is melting. Um, I don't know how fast you have to move. Oh my god. Um what is this? One guy looks like the comedian. What is the all right? I gotta, I gotta close that tab. All right. Um, but yeah, so I absolutely uh enamored with the the uh the kinetic uh because even the first like the first uh event is not that violent. No, you know, it's it's it's kind of like stylized motor hockey or something along those lines. Yeah, no, and that was kind of the point, and I really enjoyed that. And then unfortunately, the rest of the movie kind of happens.

SPEAKER_03 52:39

And then there's an hour and a half after quit. Why?

SPEAKER_01 52:44

Oh I won't I'll never tell sequence and repeat for two hours because we want you to quit.

SPEAKER_00 52:50

Why? Because we want you to quit because you're gonna you're gonna win the whole game and people are gonna revolt because they realize well, I don't know. Maybe that was my head canon. Wasn't it wasn't it enough that I gave you my wife? Is that not not good enough?

SPEAKER_02 53:03

Like, yeah, no kidding.

SPEAKER_01 53:05

There's a lot of Bond people in this Maud Adams, uh Maud Adams, yep. There's a couple other people as well. Uh the dude from Star Wars, right? Who always tells uh Darth Vader, don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed. I never see him in another movie.

SPEAKER_03 53:20

He's the henchman, he's John Gilgun's henchman, right? And then uh John Halsman. The girl, the girl, um, the first brunette uh girlfriend that he's got, that's the she's the princess, the evil princess from Buck Rogers. Yeah, well, really. Back in the day. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 53:35

Yeah. Uh uh Norman was saying in the uh director's commentary that all the women had kind of like supermodel aesthetics because he was like, if you're that far in the future, this is just what you're gonna look like. Like you'll have the technology to look almost exactly however you want.

SPEAKER_00 53:52

Yeah, well, that's what you're looking beautiful or whatever.

SPEAKER_03 53:57

You're young. Well, and bringing it up though, it's like this is this this film is I don't normally like to I don't normally point this shit out because I just it's just not my thing to do because I think we cover it pretty much in in other ways, but this film is fucking misogynistic as fuck. Like, I mean, there are a lot of films out there that that you can kind of point at, but this not a woman in this film has any agency of her own at all. No, no, they're trophies, they're trophies, they're props.

SPEAKER_01 54:22

Well, they're we just need the elite, so they're all kind of like shithead assholes.

SPEAKER_03 54:27

Even the one the one girl that is actually helpful is she just is kind of dumb and she's happy to be dumb. She has no a like no questioning of her own self, her agency, her position. The the girl in the library is talking about the books and shit, where she's just like, I don't know, they've all been just summarized, and I guess you could go over here. It's a real nice place, you could go visit that. And you know, she's just completely.

SPEAKER_01 54:47

Are they trying to say like society will would be in their dystopian future like that?

SPEAKER_03 54:51

I think so. I I it's just don't worry about it.

SPEAKER_02 54:54

Front facing only, just front facing only.

SPEAKER_01 54:56

We just care about rollerball.

SPEAKER_03 54:58

Yeah. It's a classic way to look that that the 60s and the 70s looked at the future. Like, like, I mean, if you think back to um a boy and his dog, right. I was gonna say that one. Very much like that too, right? Like there's just the future. Yeah, Zardas. In the future, these 60s and 70s sci-fi movies, the the it's bleak for women. It's very fucking bleak for women. There aren't a lot of there aren't a lot of great roles for women in the future in these movies.

SPEAKER_01 55:23

And the guys are all stupid too. I mean, they are they're just running around shooting shit with that gun, and it's like, what was that all about? We're gonna light all these trees on fire.

SPEAKER_02 55:33

All right. I'm so glad you brought that up because I was watching it and I was like, this whole thing needs to be cut. And the only the only reason it's in there is because Norman says he views trees in nature as something to be revered, and he thought these people wouldn't care about it. And it's like, all right, buddy, just Lord of the Rings. Lord of the Winds, pal.

SPEAKER_03 55:53

Yeah. Yeah, save that for the director's cut, my brother.

SPEAKER_02 55:57

Yeah, cut 20 to 30 minutes out of this movie minimum.

SPEAKER_03 56:01

Right.

SPEAKER_02 56:01

That whole that whole party sequence, not only is it just terrible, we're not really learning new information we couldn't have already figured out. It won't end. And you're right, we get that montage that is just a it is hard to look at.

SPEAKER_03 56:15

It's fine, it takes forever. It's it's really bad. Yeah, it's really bad. Um there's a line in the movie that says, even the corporate wars are a thing of the past. And my my note is that's almost at the inflection point where we are in our current timeline. I got it right. 50 to 75 years, you know, it's very, it's very William Gibson. If you've read any of the sprawl series or any of William Gibson, he talks a lot about how basically corporations are like their own states, they own massive, massive tracts of land, and the people who work for them never fucking leave the compounds and never because they have shopping, they have doctors, they have everything that you could ever fucking need. So why bother to leave? Right. And so it's uh it's a weird statement, and it kind of struck me of like, oh, that's that that dystopian corporate owned future that a lot of people are, you know. I mean, shit. It's it feels like we're heading that way now, and honestly.

SPEAKER_02 57:03

Yeah, because uh that was the other thing too. So it's like excuse me. It's uh there's what? Well are we to believe there's the one monolithic company in each team plays for a separate sector of that company? And I was like, uh, that's that's interesting. I feel like you could have probably done a better job explaining it, but what it reminds me of is almost something like you would see in like uh Warhammer 40k or something like that, where you have like specific planets for specific things, but by focusing so solely on you, and I know they have a modest budget and they can't really expand on it. Something like this could almost work better as like I wouldn't say like a TV show, but maybe like an anime or something where you could see a TV show would be good because then you can really world build the shit out of it. Yeah, that's what this is missing for me, is really the world building and why I should care. And I the dialogue doesn't help. James Conn's like, you might like you were joking earlier, like you gotta you gotta retire. Why? Uh because yeah, but why? Like if him winning and then offering him like a cushy deal as like the coach or something, because that's what we do with sports stars now, because they're good for the franchise, you know. But I just like and then all that what that line where they're sitting there on the couches, and he's like he essentially is like, I think there's a conspiracy against me. Well, why would you think that? Where did that come from?

SPEAKER_03 58:18

Yeah, I don't know. I think you're paranoid, buddy.

SPEAKER_02 58:20

Yeah, I think stop taking the those altoids, they're they're rotten your brain. No word from our sponsor.

SPEAKER_03 58:26

Altoids. Corporate society takes care of everything, and all it asks of you is that you don't fucking ask any questions. Yeah, that's it.

SPEAKER_01 58:35

Gee, that sounds so familiar. Yeah, doesn't it? Rollerball remake? Yeah, rollerball remake. Rollerball remake, 98 minutes. So they they knew about brevity in that one, so yeah, they focus on the rollerballing and that one.

SPEAKER_02 58:49

And five minutes of that is LO Cool J rapping.

SPEAKER_00 58:53

I hope so.

SPEAKER_02 58:53

I hope so. He'll be rolling head like a shark spin. Wrong movie, Eldon. Remember that rap at the end of Deep Blue Sea? If he doesn't rap and rollerball, I'm gonna be really mad.

SPEAKER_01 59:04

Yeah, I better end with the rap song.

SPEAKER_02 59:08

Uh yeah, if they could get rid of that that scene in the mansion, because I really hated that. Uh you can keep him going to Geneva and trying to learn more. I think that's interesting. And we learn a little bit more about world building and a little bit more about his character. Uh, and it's also a little silly, you know, like when he goes to sit down and the scientist stands right back up. Oh, I like that part. Yeah. Yeah, you gotta have some brevity on this time. So, like, I I'm all I'm fine with that.

SPEAKER_03 59:31

And uh I I like that I like that visit that he does. I think it's it's it's like it's almost like visiting the wizard, right? Like it's weird and kind of out of place and and funny and kind of cool. Like a Star Trek episode for a second. We can learn the heartbeat of it all, but it's it's all it's it's truly at the heartbeat of it all broken, right? Like it's truly in the in the center of it broken. Um, which is which is an I like that. I thought that was really that that piece was really fucking well done. I like it. Like 70s. Yeah, yeah. Very 70s. Speaking of which, what's also very 70s is the uh you mentioned that party that goes on forever. It's like a it it reminded me of like a fucking key party. It was right where like yeah, like we're okay, we're here to fucking cuck ourselves and swap wives or girls or whatever this is, and it is weird.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:17

I uh Moon Pie literally just walks up to that girl and they walk away. He's like, I got a poem for you. Yeah, yeah. It's like okay, thanks, guys.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:26

Then later they're all just passed out in the living room. Like, is this an asexual future? I can't tell.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:34

All they enjoy are popping pills and watching rollerball. They have no need for the physical uh connection anymore. Except James Conn when he gets back together with his uh ex-wife. Right, yeah, yeah. Maybe it's like Demolition Man and they just put the, you know, put the little headsets on. Yeah. I don't know. There's so much of the world that just doesn't get built out. I mean, even now that I'm thinking about it, you nailed it when you said they don't really even explain what rollball is. It's meant to be vague. The rest of the world can't be. Yeah, no, I agree. We need to have some context for why rollerball is the way it is. Yeah, you don't need to tell me the rules, but you need to show me how it's impact on. Like, you know what we did a really good job with this? The running man. The running man shows you why the running man is important to that world. We see it. So rollerball doesn't show us, or tell us even.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:24

It's also I I we haven't talked about this yet, but uh the one of the things that really lets the film down is its fucking sound design. It's terrible.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:32

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:32

Like they they use a lot of rather than creating their own crowd noises, they use a lot of like crowd noises from college games and different college games. And the way it's blended in is god-awful. The dialogue is sometimes soft, the crowd is loud, or vice versa. The the the special effect sounds are it just bad. It's just not good dialogue. I mean, it's when you just get to the dialogue parts, it's fine. You can kind of hear that stuff and it works fine, but anything else that has to be mixed in starts to be pretty bad. Yeah, and Gilga or the paper chase dude is I think that's Gilga. John Halsman. He's Housman, sorry, he's talking so low that you have trouble even hearing the guy at times, right? It's like, damn, this is the sound really lets the movie down.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:13

It gets mentioned in the commentary that when they could use the sound, like they wanted you to think, like, oh, the camera is now is going to be like our ears, so you won't be able to hear the guy from far away because you wouldn't be able to. There was like, well, it's a movie. And so again, there's almost no audio during the rollerball sequences because you could never accurately capture the audio at that time. So even like the dialogue being all like you know, done in post, and yeah, you know, so I forgive it a little bit, but what I don't forgive is you've remastered it now and you still can't get your balance levels right. Like I should not be like turning the volume up to hear what you're saying, and then somebody hits something, and now I'm like, oh great.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:54

It's one of those, it's exactly one of those movies where you're writing the volume up and down because you're like, okay, here we go. Loud crowd sequence. Oh, people are talking again, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:01

Yep, and that's exactly what I did. And it's two hours of riding in the road.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:05

Yeah, it's it's really annoying, and uh it's it, yeah, you're right, especially with the remaster. You know what, you know what reminds me of? It reminds me of the the original uh Escape from New York. Escape from New York has that problem. And I mean, this is a carpenter, this is a B-level carpenter movie. I I forgive that because it's a I'm you know, because it's a great film, it has a great premise, it's doing all these cool things, but it's still a B-level movie. We know it didn't have the budget. This thing had six million dollars in 1975, and it sounds like shit.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:33

Yeah, it's just it's really frustrating. Sound tech back then, but you're right, they should be able to give us a better clean it up just a bit. Use that AI and separate those audio tracks. I'll make Cliff hanging. There you go.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:48

This one in a Bath for fuck's sakes.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:50

Best science fiction film.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:51

I think you mispronounced baffling award.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:54

Oh, best art direction. Okay, I might I might go for best art direction. Like, I liked the look of the film. Oh, yeah. I definitely liked the aesthetic of the film. I thought, you know, all these cool buildings they shot in, these are the BMW one in Germany. Yeah, yeah, looked futuristic. It was very cool in that respect. I really give it credit there.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:13

Yeah, and and again, you can't I can't take away from how much I enjoyed all three of the rollerball sequences. I I captivated, especially as the violence continued to increase, you know, well-paced, you know, just you see the escalation of stakes, tension, violence, and I didn't really notice this, but there's not really that much blood. I mean, there's that scene at the end on the last one where like the body kind of skates down, you know, but other than that, it's it's pretty much like contusions and blunt force trauma and a couple scrapes and cuts, but it's it's not as incredibly violent as you would expect people slamming you know bites into each other to be.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:52

Its reputation precedes it. Yeah, yeah, it's true. I think the most shocking blood portion is where he drags the glove across her cheek and she bleeds. Like that's to me, is the most kind of shocking blood moment where I'm like, oh shit. Yeah, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:05

No, you're right.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:07

Yeah, but the Tokyo, the Tokyo game is my favorite out of all three games. I love the Tokyo game. I love the fan, yeah. I love the fans. I loved, I just love the whole game. I thought it was awesome. You know, I love how the Tokyo guys were just tough as shit and were taking dudes out and they weren't they weren't fucking around either. And you know, it was a good game.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:24

Because Moon Pie makes fun of them earlier. It's like the small going down.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:28

I'm like, oh, he's gonna be the first one to go.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:30

Well, he made fun of them. So, like in terms of how you would write that, yeah, you have the guy who says, I'm so big, there's no way three guys can take me, and then he gets taken out by three guys. That's right.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:39

That's right. And like we talked about, this movie is way too long. Like it's it's it it takes forever to get from Moon Pie in the hospital to his wife showing up to continue to to try and get him convince him to quit. Like it that is 25 minutes, I think, or 20 minutes where you're just like, dude, just compress. What are you doing? Come out of the come out of the hospital, do your thing, tell the girl to fuck off, have the wife show up, keep the movie moving. Why are we dragging this out?

SPEAKER_01 1:06:09

Yeah, I thought the movie was gonna end. It was like in Dragonheart. I'm like, oh, they shot the king, the movie's gonna end, right? There's 20 more minutes. What? We're gonna wrap up the rest of the story. I'm gonna go to the show.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:19

The 20 best minutes, I think you meant to say.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:21

Well, you know, you might be on something there, actually.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:24

But yeah, no, they're wrong.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:26

They're wrong.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:28

Yeah, I was uh because it just even in terms of how like you fix this movie, because I do think you know, with with Dragonheart, I think what we have is probably what would be stuck with. Um, maybe you could tease out some other scenes, replace actors and stuff, but with rollerball, I think we could just even edit around what they have. I think we eliminate the um that whole key party, right? I think we compress the time, like you were saying. I think his because I don't remember. Did does he go to Geneva before or after the ex-wife? Before? Before. I think so. Because to me it would make more sense. He goes to Geneva with Moon Pie. No, after Moon Pie gets k uh, oh my god, he goes afterwards, right? So for me, it would have made more sense for her to be sent to him, him to really have the scales fall from his eyes. That's what sends him to Geneva, and then have him be like, okay, well, now I'm definitely gonna win this thing. Um, like in just in, I know I get in trouble a lot when I talk to other people about these things. They're like, well, that's not what they wanted to do. And I'm like, well, yeah, you're right. And I am kind of rewriting parts of the movie, but I just think in terms of narrative, there's not, I mean, I guess you could say him realizing his wife is a prize is a big push to win as well, but I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:44

If if the movie was good enough, we wouldn't want to rewrite rewrite rewrite it. I have no intention of trying to rewrite Raiders because it's good. You know? So tells you tells you we want to fix it. I I I look, I I this movie comes to out two years after Westworld, and it and to me, these are two of the more kind of uh uniquely scientific kind of sci-fi movies of the 70s that really stood out, big budget kind of shots, right? You still get you get a lot of other stuff. 70s was really cool for their wonky sci-fi, they did a lot of cool shit. But this these two kind of stand out to me, especially. Um but yeah, I I agree. Too long and it needs some it needs some help, it needs some love, needs some scissors. Yeah, sure it does. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:30

Needs uh Uncle Joey from Full House. Cut this out.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:35

Oh my god. Yeah, thank you. We're going way back with that one. Uh so Kurt Russell's longtime stunt double was in this movie. A person we met, Cliff, Dick Warlock. I saw his name in the credits. I'm like, holy shit, there he is in another movie. Man, that guy did a lot of stunt work back in the day. But he's also on Escape from New York, as you were talking about earlier.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:58

This movie um had so much stunt work that actually it was one of the very first movies to be to credit stunt men, to put to give them actual, to give them credits and credit them in the film with by name, um, which I thought was pretty cool.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:12

Well, they earned it. They definitely earned it.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:16

That those, like I said, those like we talked about those rollerboss sequels. I and again, if those rollerballs sequels were weak, this movie would be even goddamn. We wouldn't be freaking about spray. Yeah, those rollerball sequels was really hold up.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:28

Yeah. I would make you watch it as uh penance for insulting Dragonheart as opposed to Dragonheart was a fun penance. You think it's bad, you just wait till Dragonheart 2. I can't wait. I'm telling you. Revenge of the Dragonheart.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:45

Like Rollerball remake Dragonheart 2. We have it. It's it's gotta happen.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:49

We can do that.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:50

If you had to watch Maises and Monsters or Dragonheart right now, Cliff, which one? Dragonheart, probably. There we go. Not by much. What about against uh Fool's Paradise? Fool's Paradise. What about Blake Edwards 10? 10. Okay. Oh, here's a good one. This just got inducted into the National Film Registry, and you gave it a star and a half before sunrise. Oh no, I'd I'd rather watch Dragon Heart.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:24

I almost texted you while I was watching it. I'd almost prefer watching before midnight. Like it I came really close, but I was like, no, no, I'd rather watch Dragonheart. Okay. Well, at least there are some things that you would rather watch. Dragonheart. Dragonheart 2 is called Dragonheart, A New Beginning. Yeah. Well, that happened. And it's about a it's about an orphan stable boy who befriends a young dragon named Drake, and with the help of others, they help him learn how to fly and fight and protect himself from a ruthless knight. They train their dragon.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:53

They train their dragon. I still think that's a metaphor for masturbation.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:58

How to train your dragon?

SPEAKER_03 1:11:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:01

I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:02

So what is Barry Gordy's the last dragon?

SPEAKER_02 1:11:05

Because I thought confusing. Super cut them together.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:17

Oh shit.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:20

Two stars. Okay. I can't give I can't give it more than that. I I it's not something I'll put on a watch again. I have I have a really, really great copy of it, but I just don't know why.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:32

I know.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:33

I know.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:34

Uh well, to be fair, I was given three options, and I picked this one two, so both are my fault today. So you gotta take responsibility for your mistakes, Derek. That's right. That's right. Uh sorry.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:49

I'll give it a two as well. Yeah. Derek, what about you?

SPEAKER_02 1:11:56

Yeah, I think two is I think two is like dead on accurate. Um it's just on the strength of rollerball, like the sequences. Like you talked about. And uh 20 minutes out of this movie.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:09

20 minutes and given me a little more world building. Tell me more about these corporations and the structure and how they control this game and and how they can and and why is it okay for an executive just to say, I want your wife, thanks, to the greatest rollerballer of all time. Like, this is a power structure thing. Tell me about it a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:29

Yeah, like he should like because they keep talking about how you do things to get privileges, right? Right. James Conn should be the one with privileges. He should be, he should have some modicum of it. Or if like if he's that replaceable, never let him get that powerful. Because if it I don't know, it's just they don't explain enough. So it's like I'm stuck doing like headcanon things and like in my own head rewrites, and I had to sit through it for like two hours twice. I know I didn't have to, but I did. And you you take a look at like I'm I'm looking up right now. The 87 Schwarzenegger running man is an hour and 41 minutes, so it's already shorter. And to be honest, that could probably be trimmed up a little bit too. Um, but I already know more about the world, I know more about the character. I know nothing about James Conn like at all, you know. We have like no introduction.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:19

It reminds me a little bit of the Hunger Games, too, right? This whole idea of competing to get privilege or to, you know, uh in a society where you have to compete or you have to, you know, be in you play some sort of game to to get privileges. But even in that movie, you know a little bit more about the world and how it's created, and it's that's a movie for kids. That's a teenage, that's a young, young adult film. It came from books, so yeah. Right. But even then, they got enough world building. This is from a short story from um uh Esquire magazine. Yeah, Variety or Esquire Magazine.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:50

Variety. Um Esquire Magazine.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:51

So I mean it had a writer, had some sort of headcanon of what world he was, you know. I mean, I usually have some sort of idea of the world I'm writing in if I'm writing. Well, come on, remake. We're counting on you to have all this in you.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:04

Let's go. Come on.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:06

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:07

Answer these questions.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:10

TikTok wars are over, right? Oh god, 3.2 stars on IMDb. Okay. That's gonna be our punishment. That'll be our punishment.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:24

Derek, thanks so much for coming on, man.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:26

It was a blast. Like you yeah, it was good. You have good insight. You could tell you really you really paid attention and really watched these movies. I really appreciate it. It was fun.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:37

I try. I try because I do love watching movies, and you know, like I said, I there are certain aspects of it. It's like when I watch it, like the world building character setup and payoffs. Like, I don't I know it's not super easy, otherwise everyone would do it. But when I watch a movie like Rollerball, where I have no idea what's happening, you know, world building wise, it's kind of hard for me to you know forgive it, except if you give me excellent rollerball sequences. So get two stars off that. Dragonheart is pure nostalgia just right in the sweet spot for me. So I know it's not a great movie.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:11

Well, and we apologize that we had to we had to kind of put it over the coals, but but uh you know, I've I've unfortunately had to take a couple of Marty's favorites to task, and he's done the same to me. It's there's no there's no punches pulled on this on this podcast. None. Well, maybe we put nice, we'll put some soft gloves on when we punch it.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:29

When we always there's always two more movies next week, so that's right. That's right.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:35

You guys want to get out of here on a quote? What do you got for us, Derek?

SPEAKER_02 1:15:44

All right. Um, mine's gonna come from rollerball because uh, you know, for as flawed as it was, they do kind of hit the nail on the head where JamesCon's ex-wife says, but comfort is freedom. It always has been. The whole history of civilization is a struggle against poverty and need. And then Jonathan goes, No, no, that's not it. That's never been it. The privileges just buy us off. And I feel that's pretty apropos for some aspects of society. I won't get too political, but if you expect to be taken care of, you'll never have the skills to take care of yourself.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:18

Marty. Sweet dreams, Moon Pie.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:24

I love this game. Woo!

SPEAKER_03 1:16:28

See you guys. Three for three on rollerball. Oh man, that was so good. All right, let's get out of here, guys. Um, I think I had one more. Was it what was it? It was no one is above the code. There you go. One from Dragonheart for you. I was gonna say, I am the last dragon.