Episode 196 - The Meg: LIVE!

[grudlian. 4725]

9 hours ago, RyanSz said:

I was furious at how angry everyone was at Statham for saving the majority of people he was tasked to, because 1 or 2 ended up dying. In the opening scene I was surprised that for the first time that I can recall, the left behind partners were actually begging for the lead character to wait and come save them, rather than telling him to leave them behind to save everyone else. Yet when Statham does his job, all of a sudden he's an asshole because he couldn't do the impossible. Even in the second instance when The Wall is telling everyone that Toshi sacrificed himself, the daughter basically calls him a murderer, despite her exacerbating the situation by being impatient.

This bugged me so much too. Why is he internationally infamous for two people dying and not having saved 10 people? I assume this is in part because the book had a different reason for the mission altogether, but also from different scripts being married together unsuccessfully from 20 years of development hell.

[taylor anne photo 11311]

14 hours ago, Geans said:

As the kids say, "I ship it." 

Nicole needs to have Jason on "Why Won't You Date Me?" immediately now.

[The_Triple_Lindy 2482]

19 hours ago, Elektra Boogaloo said:

-- I didn't know Statham was a diver but I did think he had good form when he dove into the water off the boat (usually actors look stupid diving). So that adds up.

I'm actually shocked to know he was a diver, because he didn't really look like a strong swimmer ... his legs aren't straight and his arms were flailing. If you're a diver, I suppose you only really need to be strong enough to get out of the pool again, but I was a little concerned. 

Plus, when he's in the water, the camera tended to be right in his face. My thoughts were that the film crew were waiting just off-screen to save his floundering ass from drowning. 

13 hours ago, RyanSz said:

I'm still trying to figure out Wilson's business model for this venture, as it's revealed when he arrives that he has no idea what they were doing or that it cost him over a billion dollars. Yeah you can get some prestige in the scientific community by revealing your discovery, but that won't come near to covering the costs of the expeditions. If only they had said they thought there was a new energy source below the cold layer or that Wilson thought he could capture the Meg to put into a theme park, it would make more sense.

I got the impression that Rainn Wilson was just a rich dude who was providing funding but wasn't really involved in the research. It was Suyin and her dad and Mack that were in it for the science.

[The_Triple_Lindy 2482]

During the scene where we see the footage of Jonas getting grilled by Heller after their failed expedition, Jonas has a half-eaten muffin sitting beside him on the table.

It's such an odd piece of mise-en-scene, but I think the implication is that after Jonas erupted, a food fight breaks out.

 

[Elektra Boogaloo 3371]

22 hours ago, WatchOutForSnakes said:

I actually had this thought process run through my head: Why is this little girl running around everywhere? Who the hell is taking care of this girl? *smacks forehead* No childcare, obvs! 

So Rainn Wilson was evil from the jump? Because he gave money for bullshit stuff but not for child care?

 

5 hours ago, RyanSz said:

I wouldn't expect the sharks to be inbred as they can live for-fucking-ever, so there would be little need to breed. If I recall from old Time Life animal books I read as a kid, fish could breed fairly quickly and in massive numbers, and we're only seeing a small portion of the lower sea floor, so there could be larger schools of fish that we aren't seeing, but with a shark as massive as the second Meg was, it is highly unlikely it would be surviving longer than a few years.

I agree with Muttnik that the Meg must be inbred as hell. Google search tells me the average shark lives for about 30 years, but the longest lived was about 275 years. The species megalodon disappeared from known science about 2.3 million years ago. Even if they *all* live 200 years (and I'm not even sure if it's the big ones that live longer), that family tree is becoming more of a shrub every 30 years or so. That's thousands of generations.

I guess what bothers me about the secret habitat scenario is that there was no attempt to imagine how it might have adapted in those 2 million years. Like what if it had become transparent and the humans couldn't see it or something? I'm just spitballing here.

They didn't even really use the powerful jaws of the megalodon in a cool way. I agree with all of you that it should've bit through that helicopter, like one of those flying sharks in South Africa. Because apparently megalodon could eat through bone. So let's see it bite through some shit! I wanted more stuff snapped in half, I think.

The Meg really just behaved like a movie shark (that is a shark that goes after humans as usual prey, not one that only bites humans on accident or in extreme situations  like real sharks). I'd like to have seen it go after, like cruise ships or maybe some marine life they kept at the research station. Maybe the little girl could've been friends with one of those whales and watch it get eaten.

[The_Triple_Lindy 2482]

Correction: Paul says during the ep that the movie should be called Watch Out for Tension Wires since they're so much more dangerous than the sharks, but ... c'mon, it's the sharks that are making the tension wires dangerous. Without the sharks, a movie about the tension wires would just be called Slack.

[RyanSz 3140]

Another thing i noticed when watching this movie was that it had numerous similarities to another film that needs to be covered by the show, Shark Attack 3: Megaladon. Both feature a hero who isn't believed about there being a maneating shark, there is a rich business owner who wants to either contain the Shark or bribes people to ignore the shark, a "shocking reveal" that there is a bigger, meaner megaladon, and an awkard romance between the two leads. If you haven't seen this film I highly recommend you do because it's free on Prime, which is maybe the best thing that can be said about that film.

[sycasey 2.0 2301]

On 8/31/2018 at 6:57 AM, grudlian. said:

So, I read the book this week. I spoil it for you:  don't read it. It's really badly written and misogynist. The only real similarities are that a megalodon is kept in deep underwater with the hydrothermal plume then causes mass killings when it escapes into cold water when dives interrupt its habitat. Everything else is pretty different. But the current edition of the comes with the prequel (yes, this is a series of books). The prequel is all about Jason Statham's origin story about the mission from the first few minutes of the movie. It explains why people claimed he was "crazy" according to everyone else in the movie.

In the prequel, Jason Statham is a deep sea diver for the navy. He's been diving too deep, too often too recently (four times in nine days or something). This is causing him to experience vertigo, hallucinations and general craziness. Despite knowing he's unfit to dive, Doctor Heller from the movie gives him the medical clearance to dive again. Some admiral basically forces Statham to dive.

During the dive, Statham has an attack from underwater dementia which coincides with a megalodon attack. He surfaces without authorization. The meg attack and Statham's actions causes everyone on board to die during the ascent. Jason blames the shark attack but Dr. Heller and the admiral start a smear campaign against Statham to cover their own negligence in letting him dive. Statham is given a dishonerable discharge and put in a mental health facility for three months as part of the smear campaign.

Some major differences are that Statham wasn't diving to rescue anyone on the mission. They are diving to get minerals. There are multiple parties who witness evidence of the megalodon. Statham physically sees it. The admiral sees the tooth stuck in the submersible. There's some non-navy boat that picks up a huge blip on sonar that they rule out being a whale (and theorize it's a giant shark).

So, the book proper opens seven years later with Statham now a shark expert trying to prove megalodons still exist to clear his name.

All of this explains SO much. The biggest laugh I got in the movie was when Toshi and company are getting rescued and someone says, "Looks like a giant shark!" And then Statham gravely intones, "It's a megalodon."

HOW does he know this?! All we've seen is that a submarine he was performing a rescue on was attacked by "something" he never actually saw and then the ship blows up. Based on that and someone else seeing a big shark, your mind immediately jumps to: "Must be a prehistoric creature no human has ever seen alive! Of course!" What?

Usually in a movie like this there's a few scenes of people not knowing what's going on and having to take their evidence to some scientist or something, trying to determine what the monster is. Not here. Statham just knows. No one questions him.

[grudlian. 4725]

13 hours ago, RyanSz said:

Another thing i noticed when watching this movie was that it had numerous similarities to another film that needs to be covered by the show, Shark Attack 3: Megaladon. Both feature a hero who isn't believed about there being a maneating shark, there is a rich business owner who wants to either contain the Shark or bribes people to ignore the shark, a "shocking reveal" that there is a bigger, meaner megaladon, and an awkard romance between the two leads. If you haven't seen this film I highly recommend you do because it's free on Prime, which is maybe the best thing that can be said about that film.

This makes me wonder if Shark Attack 3 is basically stolen from The Meg or attempting to be a mockbuster thing like Asylum does. The Meg movie was in development since the late 1990s by big studios with big name actors. It's been over a decade since I watched the Shark Attack movies but isn't 3 way way sillier than and totally unrelated to the first 2 which are pretty grounded? Shark Attack 3 could have been ther next step in escalating the series the sharks but I wouldn't be surprised finding out the studio said "Disney is doing a megalodon movie with George Clooney! Just find the book and change enough to legally keep us out of court."

[grudlian. 4725]

8 hours ago, sycasey 2.0 said:

All of this explains SO much. The biggest laugh I got in the movie was when Toshi and company are getting rescued and someone says, "Looks like a giant shark!" And then Statham gravely intones, "It's a megalodon."

HOW does he know this?! All we've seen is that a submarine he was performing a rescue on was attacked by "something" he never actually saw and then the ship blows up. Based on that and someone else seeing a big shark, your mind immediately jumps to: "Must be a prehistoric creature no human has ever seen alive! Of course!" What?

Usually in a movie like this there's a few scenes of people not knowing what's going on and having to take their evidence to some scientist or something, trying to determine what the monster is. Not here. Statham just knows. No one questions him.

Yeah. It's pretty baffling. In looking into the book a little bit, my understanding is that the revised and expanded edition which I read is pretty different from the original version. I haven't found out what's different but the author's forward talks about fixing story stuff to fit into the series as it is now. I assume it's like Stephen King rewriting the first Dark Tower book. So, I'm not sure but it might be significantly different. 

I assume they've had scripts going around for years then someone said to add in bits of the expanded book. Then those parts don't quite make sense together. And everyone remembers this is a high budget SyFy channel movie and decides finding it doesn't matter. 

[gigi-tastic 2322]

On 8/31/2018 at 10:09 AM, taylorannephoto said:

S

We haven't yet because we both work full time and she's in grad school but I'm hoping this long weekend will give us the opportunity. I just love that one of my friends as a teenager could find this in our high school library and expect a normal book about sharks and get so many sex scenes lol.

And yet we (and by we I mean mostly Nicole Byer) were denied those oh so important sex scenes in this movie! Warner Bros How dare you deny us!

[gigi-tastic 2322]

I just want to take this opportunity to remind everyone that the true monstrosity of the seas are dolphins not sharks.  Sharks are relatively harmless. According to PBS Nova of there are nearly 500 kinds of shark but only a dozen are dangerous to humans.  You're more likely to be hit by lightning than attacked by a shark.

I'm sure the chance of dolphin rape and /or attack is equally low but sharks don't go around playing with the corpses of the dead infants they've killed so I like them slightly more. I've ranted about dolphins before so here's  an old article from Slate: http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2009/05/13/dolphins_are_violent_predators_that_kill_their_own_babies.html

[Quasar Sniffer 4174]

Dolphins are also notoriously... amorous and sexually aggressive. They're basically wet Harvey Weinsteins with the speed of Usain Bolt and the strength of J.J. Watt. NO THANK YOU. But Stephen Speilberg never made a perfectly terrifying movie about them and they make cute clickity-clack noises so I guess people think they are adorable.

[tomspanks 9039]

21 minutes ago, Quasar Sniffer said:

Dolphins are also notoriously... amorous and sexually aggressive. They're basically wet Harvey Weinsteins with the speed of Usain Bolt and the strength of J.J. Watt. NO THANK YOU. But Stephen Speilberg never made a perfectly terrifying movie about them and they make cute clickity-clack noises so I guess people think they are adorable.

I’ve been saying dolphins are the jerks of the sea!

[Quasar Sniffer 4174]

I think what turned me against this movie was that it murdered a Star Trek character. One of the humpback whales the titular meg rips apart is named "Gracie." In the CLASSIC film, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, the Earth is assaulted by an alien space probe that seems to be emitting sounds and songs not heard since, in this Star Trek timeline, whales went extinct. In order to communicate with this strange device, the intrepid crew of the Enterprise goes back to the late 20th Century to retrieve a humpback whale and hopefully save Earth. They arrive in San Francisco and... borrow a pair of humpbacks and bring them to the future where the whales converse with the space probe and convince it to stop murdering our planet, thus saving Earth. What were those two whales named? George and GRACIE! This is no coincidence, and The Meg has the gall to dump this heroic cetacean's bloody corpse in front of us like its the punchline to a joke. FUCK YOU, The Meg.

http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/George_and_Gracie
 

[gigi-tastic 2322]

10 hours ago, Quasar Sniffer said:

Dolphins are also notoriously... amorous and sexually aggressive. They're basically wet Harvey Weinsteins with the speed of Usain Bolt and the strength of J.J. Watt. NO THANK YOU. But Stephen Speilberg never made a perfectly terrifying movie about them and they make cute clickity-clack noises so I guess people think they are adorable.

This is what I'm saying! Also to tie this back to another HDTGM alumna Demi Moore was assaulted by a douche nozzle dolphin when she was visiting Siegried and Roy’s Secret Garden and Dolphin Habitat.  So... probably exactly like Harvey Weinstein. (Is she one of his victims? I have genuinely lost count). Douglas Adams lied to us people! 

[LukePfleger 6]

In terms of the lack of really any physical romance of any kind or even SUGGESTIONS of sex, I think that was definitely the film trying firmly to appeal to a Chinese audience. This accounts for the lack of gruesome deaths that American audiences crave as well.

As someone living in China, I've noticed a few things about Chinese TV and movies. Often, you'll see someone get badly wounded that would be a great excuse for gore in the US, but instead they'll have perhaps a single streak of the fakest-looking blood you've ever seen running down their cheek. In terms of the sex stuff, let me put it this way--they re-edited The Shape of Water to remove the scenes where she was naked to remove all the nudity, even going as far as to add a strange black slip-shaped mask over her back when she takes off her robe and we see her from behind before the fish sex scene. It's so poorly done and obviously looks like those Adobe Premiere masks that I laughed out loud in the theater, earning strange looks from the Chinese viewers around me.

Catering to the Chinese market like this is not new. Think of how in Arrival the main world-saving information was given to Amy Adams by the Chinese general. Tons of films have been trying to present Chinese actors/characters as heroes and appeal to the Chinese sensibility in order to rake in some of that sweet sweet dough.

It's also interesting that this film was released the same time in China as in America, which is NEVER true for American movies. Even the Marvel movies, which also make huge swaths of money from China and are absolutely the most popular movies here, open much later. For example, Ant Man and the Wasp just opened last weekend (August 21) and the new Mission Impossible opened a couple days ago. The fact that this movie opened at the same time in China as America definitely lends credence to the idea that it's almost more of a Chinese import to America than the other way around.

One more Chinese thing: the beach is pretty real. Obviously they exaggerate it as movies are want to do (I mean, that shark isn't real either), but Chinese beaches are NOTORIOUS for being absolutely jammed. The water balls are real, everyone in tubes is real (most Chinese people can't swim), and Chinese women getting mad at people ruining their wedding pictures is real. Also, as a conspiracy theory note, the island in question (Hainan) is China's only real "resort" area, sort of like Hawaii. However, most Chinese tourists/vacationers traditionally choose to go to Thailand or elsewhere to vacation, paradoxically because Hainan beaches are thought of as over-crowded and absolutely filled with litter. The Chinese government recently has been trying to make strong pushes to encourage people to vacation in Hainan (within borders) as opposed to going abroad to do it, so the choice of that island for this movie might be more than just a random artistic whim of the screenwriters.

[RyanSz 3140]

On 9/2/2018 at 5:44 AM, grudlian. said:

This makes me wonder if Shark Attack 3 is basically stolen from The Meg or attempting to be a mockbuster thing like Asylum does. The Meg movie was in development since the late 1990s by big studios with big name actors. It's been over a decade since I watched the Shark Attack movies but isn't 3 way way sillier than and totally unrelated to the first 2 which are pretty grounded? Shark Attack 3 could have been ther next step in escalating the series the sharks but I wouldn't be surprised finding out the studio said "Disney is doing a megalodon movie with George Clooney! Just find the book and change enough to legally keep us out of court."

Yeah all three are on Prime now, and you really only need to watch 3 as it really plays up the camp factor and John Barrowman is fantastic in it. Each one sort of follows the same premise of a where some guy involved with the ocean starts to think there is something more to the rash of shark attacks while a muckity muck business man is trying to dissuade him. The first one the sharks are mutated I believe, and are somewhat featured in the second one, but that's about the only connection between those two. The third is a standalone film and is more a collage of fair use shark footage than it is an actual film, but god are the crazy parts worth watching the whole thing for.

[WatchOutForSnakes 807]

So there's this really great interview with Jason Statham on the making of The Meg. Apparently he was pretty disappointed in how little gore there is. The original script had a lot more gory death scenes, but the studio cut it all out to satisfy the PG-13 movie. He says the first sub rescue also was a late addition to the script. He was pretty tactfully saying he thought he was making a very different movie than what got released. As a bonus he also has some stuff about the Fast films that HDTGM fans should enjoy. It's a good read. In particular: 

[COLLIDER] Yes. I think they were aiming at a release date. I want to jump back in time. Often when you sign on to a movie it’s going to be one way. Then you end up being on set and the movie turns into something else. From when you signed on to what people are seeing on screen, how much changed along the way?

STATHAM: A lot.

[COLLIDER] Yeah I kind of figure.

STATHAM: A lot. Scripts totally different. There was so many different … sometimes you just go, “How did it happen? How did it go from this to this to this to that?” You just can’t keep a track on it. I guess if you have the control to keep it a certain way you would, but you don’t. They have a movie to make. They have so many people deciding on what action stays and what scenes stay. How the characters … In the end they want to put something at the beginning. The whole thing at the beginning where I do a rescue on a sub? That was not in the script that I read. That was all brand new stuff, good or bad. I’m just letting you know.

[COLLIDER] I’ll defend that scene by saying it sets up your relationship. It’s a huge plot point in this version of the movie.

STATHAM: Yeah, but there was other stuff at the beginning that was … I’m, you know. I’m just saying it was radically different. I guess in some ways your imagination and your own perception of what it’s going to be is its worst enemy. Just because you should always try and not narrow that down and imagine what you want it to be and just go for the ride. John’s interpretation of this is a fun end of summer [movie]. It’s full of humor. It’s a little bit more directed to a different taste of what my own is in terms of I like more gory adult stuff. I’m a lot older but I can’t speak for what this film could possibly speak to a younger audience.

I might have made a film that not many people wanted to see. I’m not a filmmaker. I’m sort of an actor that’s going to portray a role. I go there but I’ve learned not to get too attached with your own idea of what something could be.

 

[Elektra Boogaloo 3371]

It's so funny that you guys are talking about dolphin rape. They always have their dicks out. (A friend of mine once showed us a "cute" picture of her at a dolphin encounter and my coworker and I were like, "... there's it's dick right there.") I was actually thinking the other day it's a shame Hollywood always does shark movies and then people are afraid of them because they should be afraid of dolphins. We should write a movie where some evil company puts, like, Viagra juice in the water and the dolphins just rape swimmers.

I'd rather a shark bite my leg off. It's usually an accident. And even if it did want to eat my leg, at least the leg is going to good use.

[grudlian. 4725]

So, I've been listening to a bunch of old episodes and got up to Sharknado. At the end, Jason comes up with the movie Dinocano where dinosaurs have been around forever living underground and escape through a volcano opening. This is extremely close to The Meg where a shark that co-existed with dinosaurs is kept deep underwater and escapes through a heated vent. I don't want to say Jason is the reason The Meg made it out of development hell, but I can't prove he wasn't the reason either.

[tomspanks 9039]

2 hours ago, Elektra Boogaloo said:

It's so funny that you guys are talking about dolphin rape. They always have their dicks out. (A friend of mine once showed us a "cute" picture of her at a dolphin encounter and my coworker and I were like, "... there's it's dick right there.") I was actually thinking the other day it's a shame Hollywood always does shark movies and then people are afraid of them because they should be afraid of dolphins. We should write a movie where some evil company puts, like, Viagra juice in the water and the dolphins just rape swimmers.

I'd rather a shark bite my leg off. It's usually an accident. And even if it did want to eat my leg, at least the leg is going to good use.

And you know what's on those dolphin dicks out?  Genital warts.

[Cameron H. 23786]

I would also like to say that I am Team Shark. I had a Marine Biology teacher back in school who always told us how funny it is that people love dolphins so much when they are essentially sea-wolves. She attributed a lot of it to their upturned mouths that give the illusion of smiling and all the New Age artwork that always portray them as these ethereal, space-faring creatures.

I guess the scariest part of dolphins is the fact that they are intelligent. I can't get mad at a shark when it's all instinct, but when you're talking about an animal that is capable of premeditation, that's something else entirely.

Dolphins are the worst. Fuck those guys.

 

[sycasey 2.0 2301]

2 hours ago, CameronH said:

I would also like to say that I am Team Shark. I had a Marine Biology teacher back in school who always told us how funny it is that people love dolphins so much when they are essentially sea-wolves. She attributed a lot of it to their upturned mouths that give the illusion of smiling and all the New Age artwork that always portray them as these ethereal, space-faring creatures.

There's also the "Sea World" effect. People like animals that can do funny tricks.

[taylor anne photo 11311]

As a proud owner of a dolphin patronus I will not stand for all of this anti-dolphin talk (except for the dolphin rape that is bonkers and horrible).

Who even started making us choose??? Can't we be team all sea creatures cause the ocean is amazing???