FisterRoboto

That makes so much sense, and I'm going to keep that in mind if that turns out to be one of the live show movies.

I was really hoping for Furious 7 (note: not Fast 7, because this time, it's not just about being fast....) when he said it was one that everyone had been asking for. But I really hope they hold off until the digital release/Blu-Ray comes out. I saw it twice in the theater, but now it's almost impossible to find. And I definitely need to see it again before the episode. And I remember seeing Dreamcatcher on DVD right after Deadwood started and Timothy Olyphant was blowing up. I only saw it because he was in it and Lawrence Kasdan co-wrote. And just....wow. I guess it's hard to blame Kasdan if it's straight from King's novel, but maybe Kasdan needs to stick to just fixing Lucas' craziness.

There's a documentary called Turtle Power that came out last year that I would highly recommend as a companion to this movie. It's a bit harder to find (unless you want to shell out $15 to own the digital version), but it's a really good look at the Turtles phenomenon. As someone who idolized the Turtles as a kid (I had the Coming Out of Their Shells album on tape, most of the video tapes from FHE, and of course, tons of action figures), I thought it was a great look at the whole TMNT thing.

At least he reads yours =\ I am glad he read Nonesuch's defense, though, because she did a hell of a job defending that movie against the likes of us. I'm very excited about TMNT 2. I know it's an awful movie, but it's been a favorite since I saw it in the theater when I was 10. And finally, did anyone else hear Paul say "Bram Stroker's Dracula" in the Audible ad? I was on my bike riding into work and almost fell off from laughing.

Yeah, we got it the first three times you posted it in other threads.

I'd be okay with that, if it meant we could have all three in an episode. They have the best dynamic when they're all there. Paul usually has to play the somewhat straight man while Jason and June's individual types of crazy bounce off each other (and I love that).

Ummm...I'm pretty sure Star Wars is basically a documentary.

I agree. I thought Chatum (a name that came up in the AMA that I will now be using) was more along the lines of, "Yeah, I don't know what happened there" rather than "Fuck that movie." Someone (possibly Nonesuch) mentioned that the movie looked like it had tons of studio notes. We don't know how much they actually filmed that got cut out during editing. There are a lot of things that could have happened during post that could have taken a far better movie and turned it into what it is. And maybe the movie he thought he was in didn't turn out to be what the finished product was. If that's the case, I think his answer was a lighthearted way of just saying, "Yeah, it didn't turn out to be the best decision I've made." Then again, he said Step Up was his favorite movie that he'd been in (although I think he said it was just because that's where he met his wife), so take it for what you will.

Well, guys, I have a new goal...

It also helps when one of those people is someone really lively like PFT. Maybe it's just because he and Jason were on CBB together this week and were delightful, but I could listen to PFT and Zouks play off of one another basically forever. And yet you somehow managed to completely ignore the "credible" opinion in the post you were responding to. As far as scope and aspiration goes, you could 100% compare this to Star Wars, which was the point being made. In the same way, you can compare (and the HDGTM crew did compare) the movie to The Matrix because it had many of the same themes. As a total Star Wars fanboy, I was somewhat taken aback when they made the comparison, but it does make sense when you talk about the scope of the film and aspirations of the filmmakers. (On a related note, I also there's a really good comparison to be made between The Wachowskis and George Lucas as filmmakers.)

Oh, if there's anything this film has in spades, it's definitely ambition.

I don't think that was it. I looked up the actual review it came from (fortunately, Amazon has some custom review searches that are pretty legit). You can read the whole review here: http://www.amazon.co...rd=terra+papers Here's the relevant part: After some research (that involved visiting more foil-hat forums than I would have cared to), I think they meant a movie called 1Annunaki that was supposed to be directed by a dude named Jon Gress. Apparently, the production was shut down, and if you google the title, you'll see a bunch of conspiracy theories about how "TPTB" (an acronym for "The Powers That Be" that I wish I still did not know) shut down production and removed all traces from the internet! It's fucking crazy as balls. But yes, Paul definitely meant "Annunaki;" he's just notoriously bad at words and names.

I was going to make this same post until you did. We get it about the pad in the glove box already. Quit bringing it up every page, ya dummies. That said, I'm going to agree for the nth time about needing a female voice. I think that's probably the one aspect that Nonesuch and I agree on in regards to this episode. I actually would really enjoy a feminist "reading" (or whatever you call it for movies) of JA. I think that leads to a very interesting conversation, and I'm not entirely sure how I would characterize it. I did re-watch it last (admittedly while dicking around on the internet, but that's the most attention I could muster the second time around) with this in mind. And honestly, I'm still not sure how I feel about the character of Jupiter. Nonesuch - I also thought a lot about your points from yesterday. I now understand where you were coming from, but I still don't think there's really enough nuance to this film to really develop a lot of the thematic elements you mentioned. I can see that that's what they were going for, but it feels like they really need someone to focus their writing better. I still think a stripped-down version like I suggested earlier in this thread would make for a much better movie.

Ahhh okay. I just had it in my notes with "What the shit?!" written next to it in all caps. I misremembered and thought it was Stinger (and was too lazy/didn't care enough to look for it again). If it was supposed to show detachment, though, it would have been much better to have shown her detached from something that the whole movie didn't build up to be so valuable that they were having a war over it. It is only one of many planets they own, but Balem has some speech in the first scene he's in about how it's worth more than all of Titus' planets combined. The only way this makes any sense to me is if Kalique was downplaying its value to make Jupiter think that it was worth less than it really was so it would be easier to steal away from her.

My podcast app shortened the episode name/description, so i didn't even know JV was in it until I heard her laugh about a minute in. It totally made my morning. Someone suggested a few weeks ago that we call this the "pre-ramble," and I'm championing that name. And Eben Schletter's stinger on Paul's "If you know anything about me, I respect vegetables!" was one of the best things ever.

I'm back home now and can look at my notes again. And boy, there's a lot of stuff that didn't get covered. Right off the bat, there are two movie tropes that bug the hell out of me: Starting off a movie with four minutes of exposition that's completely pointless. It's becoming a thing in sci-fi (and it's even worse in video games) to give some sort of backstory on people you don't even know. This information would be far more poignant if we knew Jupiter or gave a fuck about her first. Bring this stuff up in the middle of the second act to build her character, but even then, we don't need a flashback. Have her tell the story to Captain Sparkles of the Rollerskate Brigade. This would create some sort of emotional connection between them much better than saying how she's always wanted to jump on a dog dick. (I mentioned this once already, but I wanted to expand on it) Someone has a gun; they point it at someone. BUT GET THIS GUYS - THE SAFETY IS ON! I think the first time I specifically remember this being used was in the first Bad Boys. Or it could have been Die Hard with a Vengeance. They came out around the same time. Just off the top of my head, I remember it happening in The Fifth Element, Run Lola Run, The Rock, Big Trouble in Little China, Scream, and Edge of Tomorrow. Yes, some of those came out before the movies I mentioned; those are just the ones I remember noticing it for the first time. It's overdone now and just comes off as lazy. There were a lot of comparisons to The Matrix in this episode, which was a good jumping off point. Thematically, it has a lot in common with the first film. I think you could have cut 90% of the Abrasax scenes, and it would have been a much better movie. You know what made The Matrix so great? It was a simple story, and you learned everything as Neo learned it. The sense of wonderment that came with that helped fuel the story. They could still be harvesting Earth in this movie, but we honestly don't need any of the siblings to show up until late second act. Stinger or Caine could quickly explain that the three are fighting over her, and her attempting to defeat them, claim her birthright, and save Earth are the third act. Boom. Much better movie. Other ridiculous bullshit: After the bees recognize her, they call her "Your Majesty" FIVE fucking times before she's even like, "Hey, why the shit are you guys calling me that?" Everyone said this movie was "beautiful." I thought it looked awful. The CGI alien things looked like Gravelings from Dead Like Me, which didn't look outstanding at the time they were on Showtime - a decade ago. Ores (I had to look up the city's name) looked the worst. Those backdrops looked god-awful. If this is "beautiful," I'll take 1997 Star Wars-style effects any day. Stinger tells Jupiter: "Earth is just a planet, and people own things far more valuable." BUT THE WHOLE POINT OF THE MOVIE IS THAT EARTH IS SO GODDAMN VALUABLE The original humans killed the dinosaurs. Just read that sentence out loud and try not to kill yourself. I mentioned this in the minisode thread, but that bureaucracy scene is the wooooorst. It's supposed to be funny, I think, but it's just goddamn awful. And later, when she knows the exact law she needs for what-the-fuck-ever-it-was she was trying to prove, it's 27b-stroke-6, which is the name of the form referenced by Jonathan Pryce in one of the best scenes of Brazil. I wanted to break something when they trotted this allusion out. Sean Bean is clearly supposed to be the Lando of this movie. But Lando redeems himself by rescuing Leia and Chewie and setting the stage for them to save Han from Jabba's palace. We don't see his redemption because the characters forgive him; he's redeemed in our eyes because we see that he's actually a (somewhat) good dude put in an awful position. Compare that to Stinger. What's his redemption moment? Ca(n)ine opens up his cell, and Stinger mumbles, "I'm sorry, man." That's literally the whole scene, and then we're supposed to go, "Welp, I guess he was really good all along! Fuck. This. Movie.

This is unrelated to your question/point, but the dialogue in this movie pissed me the fuck off. Like, I get that we're used to bad dialogue in the movies we watch for HDTGM. Hell, that's even half the fun sometimes. But in this movie, it was infuriating. They talked in this episode about how much exposition should have been there, but then let's look at what exposition actually WAS there by comparison. First off, every single line of dialogue in the opening scene was awful. The whole scene was beyond pointless and did nothing except try to build pathos for a thoroughly unlikable character. I think I even missed half the dialogue because I had subtitles on, and the version I watched said "[sPEAKING RUSSIAN]" on top of the actual English translations. And I feel like I got just as much out of that scene as if I had read every stupid thing these dummies had to say. Second, let me ask you guys a question. Do you think Jupiter hated her life? If you're not sure, go back and watch the montage of her cleaning toilets where she says, "I hate my life" about 20 times in the course of 2 minutes. This is basically trying to set up that she's miserable without anything actually awful happening to her. She has to get up early, she's a maid, and she lives with her family. Boo fucking hoo. Literally the only thing that suggests she's miserable is that she keeps repeating how much she hates her life. I bet her mom wishes she had gotten shot, too, so she wouldn't have lived long enough to see her daughter become such a whiny little fuck. Who came up with the word "Lycantant" and why the fuck where they not fired immediately? It's worse than any of the awful character names. Also, I don't know if any of you listen to Spontaneanation (you should), but during PFT's "pre-ramble" today, he brought up people marrying dogs and dog-human hybrids. And it totally killed me because I was reminded of this horrible movie.

My favorite part of the episode was Jason just giving up for a couple seconds mid-explanation. That perfectly encapsulated how I felt watching this movie (and then trying to explain to someone who hadn't seen it exactly how bad it was).

Guess they needed a pastime after they apparently KILLED ALL THE FUCKING DINOSAURS.

Cameron, NOOOOOOOO! Remember the bees! And the rollerblading glitter werewolf! And Eddie Redmayne's sausage lips! Don't give in!

Really? I have two consecutive notes that I took during the movie that say: I can tell this is early in the movie because everything hasn't shifted to all caps and excessive punctuation marks yet.

Ummmmmmmmmmm. So, according to this article, Lana Wachowski told Redmayne to play Balem "like an accountant." Who the fuck does these people's taxes?!

His effeminate whisper talking was a weird choice. Were we supposed to be afraid of him? Aroused? Confused? I was at least two of these... I'm pretty sure you could take any random 15 minutes of this movie, and they could have a full HDTGM episode just talking about that.

Not to mention that at one point in the bureaucracy sequence, they say something about needing form "27b stroke 6." I think they thought they were making a hilarious comedy bit and were trying to pay some sort of homage to Brazil, but it was almost unbearable. For those that haven't seen Brazil (or who have and want to see the scene again):

The irony being that Sandler's next four movies are direct to Netflix releases.