All right. Here we go. Quiet to the big picture podcast where we take the latest movie news, the films of yesterday and today try to make some sense out of it all seated across the microphone for me is film of online contributing editor Natasha Bogoski and seated across the microphone from me is the question the one and only question of who the hell is rich trees? Oh, he's the editor in chief of home of online in my podcast partner.
How's it going? I thought maybe one of your best friends who but I was going off your shirt. Oh, yeah, that's right. I'm wearing a question favorite comic book of mine from the late 80s, early 90s.
Danielle Neil wrote it. This is some Dennis Cohen artwork. I literally never heard of it. You've never heard of it.
It's a DC comic that no one's really ever heard of. But I thought it was a damn fine book and it recently came out in and on the bus edition that I got. So I could read all of it all over again. So you're as happy as a paint shit.
Well, yeah. Anyway, welcome back to our second show this season. If you listen to our show from last week, you're probably just finished it now. It was a long one.
So it was but I hope we kept you entertained long enough through it. I was entertained while, you know, doing the production on it, you know, going back and doing the editing and everything. Oh, Richard's so sweet. Oh, yeah.
So anyway, it's a single ladies and a comic book nerd. So, you know, hey, is that gonna sell you? It'll sell me to the right woman. That is true and out there.
It's the right woman for you. Yeah, but she better hurry up. I'm getting old. Anyway, wow, you guys didn't hear that.
Really, he's not that old. He's actually kind of handsome. Thank you. Now we're recording this about.
Here's your microphone, dead cat. Thanks. We're recording this about a week before this is going to be aired and dropped onto the podcast feed. Something because I'm going to be away this coming week.
Yeah, you're off shooting a film. Well, it's not it's not my film. First of all, I'm not even. But you're off shooting one.
I'm working on the crew. Yes, I'm not shooting it like I'm working the camera. Oh, for God's sake, you're shooting a film. I'm shooting a film.
I'm doing a film. I'm very excited. So low budget horror thing, but it's eight days away from my apartment away from everything, really, which should be kind of fun. Some of the crew I already know, I enjoy their company.
So when we finish and we wrap for the day, it should be funny evenings are hanging out with them chatting and everything. So that's exciting. So that just means we're doing the show a little bit early. And then I'm just going to schedule it on the site and it will eventually appear when it needs to magically appear in your ears, ladies and gentlemen.
So we don't really have too much in the way of news to kind of talk about outside of just it's generally fall. A lot of the Oscar contention movies are starting to roll out. By the time you're hearing this, you're only going to be about a day or two away from make a lot less premiering as to whether that's going to be a giant hit or a giant Hindenburg size disaster. I'm so excited for this movie.
Like this has been my number one all year. Same here. It's not tracking well. And let's make our usual caveat that box office does not equal quality.
So if you see somebody say, well, it didn't do good at the box office. It flocked. It didn't make any money. That doesn't mean anything.
No. No, it could be an amazing film that for some reason, people just decided they didn't want to see it could have been marketed poorly. Hello, man from uncle. Okay.
Yes. I know. That's one of your faves. The witch.
The witch was marketed terribly. It was not marketed as it should have been marketed. But I found a cult favor. And that was considered to be one of the best horror movies of the last 15 years.
Oh, yeah. It's funny. You know, and that a lot of times is when movies become cult classics is because they're good. But for whatever reason, they didn't connect with an audience at the moment.
And then they, you know, find that audience thankfully through home video. I would say movie like, Oh hell, Speed Racer, which did not connect with anybody. It didn't connect with me when I watched it like two years ago. And I try, it was beautiful optics.
But the story, I felt was just a wee bit basic. It was her be fully loaded with a stronger with a stronger visual take. Wow. I never heard that comparison before.
That's a new one to me. I kind of appreciate it. It's new and out of left field. But I liked Speed Racer when I first thought it was a great story about, you know, family sticking together in the face of temptation of you could be rich.
We can give you all this money. You just kind of have to walk away from what's important in your life. And I like that. But it's been done so many times and in better ways.
And I think in roughly what is compared, you know, you could say as a family film, the idea that they kind of sneakily, stealthily put in that corporations are bad inherently bad. It's kind of like, it's kind of like this really cool progressive liberal idea. And maybe they intended that. I don't know if the witch house keys were feeling kind of mad at Warner Brothers at the moment when they were writing this.
Well, it also works because they're coming from a mindset that isn't American Capitalist. But also, I'm sorry, Speed Racer did not do it that idea justice. The movie that did do it justice, Pirates of the Caribbean. Okay, Josie and the Pussycats did it very well too, except that movie also did what Speed Racer did.
It flopped and then became a cold classic. Exactly. That's what we're talking about. And I love Josie and the Pussycats too.
But Pirates of the Caribbean did it the best by introducing Davey Jones, which you think is your main freaking villain. But instead, no, your true villain is the most despicable character in the film is the little weasel that works for the East India Trading Company called Cutler Beckett, played by, to perfection, by the way, by Tom Hollander, who I don't think gets enough credit for the evil, the pure fucking evil he created in a family movie. Oh, I know that first Pirates of the Caribbean, I think is really good. Yeah, but he doesn't come into it too.
Oh, that's right. He's in two. He's one of the good things about two. Two and three for me.
And I've said this before, I think there's some good ideas that are for one movie that have been spread out across two movies. They're each about half to two thirds of a good move. Oh, I highly disagree. There were things I felt like they kind of abandoned after, you know, it was like, oh, we're chasing after that.
The cracker. The sea witch or whatever her name was. And they catch her, and then she just goes, OK, you got me by. And I was like, wait, why were we spending all this time chasing her?
What's the witch? I can't remember. She was green. Huh?
Are you sure you're even talking about the same movie? Yes. No, you're not. Yes.
No, there is no sea witch that's green. Or there was something technically that would be Davey Jones? No, no, no. It was a female character that they were trying to capture for whatever reason, because she could point them to a treasure or something like that.
Oh, for God's sake. That's the fourth movie. That's the fourth one, and it's a mermaid. Oh, boy, I confuse them all.
I guess, apparently. I didn't see any of them since the theater. Pirates of the Caribbean stops after three. Those three movies are perfect.
I actually think they are the halfway point to getting to like Lord of the Rings interest in terms of the arc that the story and what the arc does for the characters, how it grows them, especially for the character of Elizabeth. She is one of the strongest characters ever written for film. And we see a full freaking arc through all three films. Oh, yeah, that's one of the good things I liked about the sequels, the sequels.
And I will stand on ceremony on this. And if you guys can think of any other examples, throw it my way, because I obviously cannot figure this out. And I've been thinking about it for months if I rewatch them. I think Elizabeth might be one of the few characters in film, the female character, to do the rousing war speech.
Oh, wow. You know, um, yeah, yeah, we actually got and there's so many little tidbits that you can throw in there. Like the fact that Will Turner becomes Jack Sparrow's protege and Elizabeth becomes Barbosas. There's just so much in the way that you see those characters develop based off of who's mentoring them and how that plays into how they work against each other.
And it's impressive as how. I highly recommend you watching that. Like I feel like I admit that, you know, like I said, it's been since they came out theatrically that I watched any of them. They're not on my shelf.
Um, I could probably pull them up on Disney Plus at some point, but that's what I recently did. So so swamped right now. It would probably be a couple of months before I could even get to that. The first is the best.
The third is the most fun with the best soundtrack. Cause Hans Zimmer score for that is one of his best scores of all time. Um, but the actual arc for the characters through all three is honest to God. I say Star Wars is for the fuck boys.
Lord of the rings are for the men that you men and women that you turn into as you grow up. Okay. And prior to the Caribbean is the halfway point that gets you to there. It challenges you.
It makes you think it makes you make rough decisions sometimes for the better for the benefits of others and sacrifice your own, you know, life and dignity for it. But it's more complex because of some of the geopolitical stuff that's going on in there. Okay. And then Lord of the rings with its complex, you know, themes and world building is where you ultimately end up.
All right. I see that. That's, that's a great way of looking at all of those. Which I did not realize until I rewatched them about like a month and a half ago.
And there was a lot of room during those rewatches. Well, that was absolutely brilliant. Yeah, I was on brand. Yeah.
So anyways, you're trying to figure out where we're talking about. I'm trying to figure out a really good segue back to cult movies. So I'm just gonna say, but anyways, we will never confuse Pirates of the Caribbean with cult movies because of its great financial success. However, other cult movies do not have great financial success.
Unfortunately, until probably long into their after their traditional theatrical life through revival screenings, home video, rentals of digital downloads, things like that. Sadly, we don't have midnight movies anymore because there are so many films like everything from like Rocky Horror to Pink Floyd's The Wall and the animated Lord of the Rings from Ralph Batchy that had a continual life in in midnight movies on the weekend that were just a little stream of income. But it was consistent over years and years for these films because they found an audience and they kind of became like the version of cult classics that we now have today. And so one of these cult classics that we have today is turning 20 years old this year.
I think it's this month even too, correct? Yes. So the last midnight movie I ever saw was Dark Night Rises. Oh, okay.
Well, that was a midnight Thursday night premiere though, right? Yeah. Okay. I was talking like midnight movies like Friday night, Saturday night, you go with your buds to your general cinema or your AMC or whomever.
And they had a whole slate of three or four movies that they were only showing those two nights at that time. Oh, yeah, no, those never existed for me. Sorry. That's okay.
Yeah. They were starting to die down like die out when I was in college, which is a shame because I was like the prime time to be going to those things. And you know, I still managed to get some Rocky Horror screenings and saw heavy metal with a friend and a couple of other things as well. But the movie that we are here to talk about is a Far Cry from Rocky Horror.
It's one that's kind of near and dear to my heart for a number of reasons. I think it's closer to Faray. Yes, there is a connection that could be made from Rocky Horror through Faray through King Kong to Sky Captain and the world of tomorrow. Otherwise, just known as Sky Captain.
Yes, we're going to keep it shortening down because we don't want another hour and 40 minute podcast again, like last time. But let's start. That's why. Oh, no, I was thinking if you had to make an acronym of this movie, literally it would be Skatwa.
Skatwa? Yeah, SCAT WOT. That's not good at all. Anyways, yes, I think what excited me about this movie when they first announced it and started to talk about what it was going to be.
I think I know where you're going with this was that it's a throwback to Saturday morning matinees cereals. Okay, that's not where I thought you were going with this. And it's really a love letter to those kind of things like Commando Cody and things like that. Also, Pulp Adventure novels from the 30s and 40s.
Sky Captain and his entire cadre of people around him feels a little duck-savageish to me. I mean, it is very pulpy watching it. Honest, what I saw a little bit of call back to was some German Expressionism. Oh, there's the metropolis, definitely.
I mean, the director here at Kirkhorn is pulling from hundreds of things. I love the there's a reference at the beginning of the movie where they're at Radio City Music Hall watching the Wizard of Oz only for one of our characters to end up almost like a like a wizard behind the curtain at the end of the movies. So there's a lot of film history I think this man is pulling from. He's also pulling from a lot of the stuff that was created for our World Fairs in the 30s.
I think there was one in yeah, New York in 39, correct? Or was it 34? I'm unsure of the exact year it was. Yeah, I saw some of the sketches and stuff that he had pulled from.
But yeah. And it's similar things we've seen in like the that you know, Stark Expo we see in Captain America, the First Avenger, the World's Fair is very important. Which is, I think, no, I pre-star in that the same year, right? 39?
No. No. In Captain America, First Avenger World War II was already in progress. So it would have been 42, 43, somewhere in there.
It's going to be now World Fair, what? In New York. It was 1939. Yes.
But I'm saying that was before like the fictional Stark Expo version. Oh, yeah. So also in Michael Chabon's novel, The Adventures of Cavalier and Clay, the World's Fair plays a part in that. And it's a great romantic left about the early days of the comic book industry and a gay man struggling to live in New York in a time when that really wasn't a great thing to be.
And it's a great novel. I think I want to pull it, sir. I think I want to pull it. But Chabon's all Chabon's work is worth checking out.
And we're kind of drifting from the point here that there was so much pulp goodness in here of heroes with airplanes and two fists and they're going to punch a bad guy. And then we started seeing pictures from this thing. And I was blown away by the fact that, yes, what he was doing was, and to quote the scene that we see other Wizard of Oz in Radio City Music Hall at the beginning of the movie, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore. No, we are in a whole new style of movie making where he was taking a lot of blue screen and green screen.
And almost everything outside of the actual actors and a few handheld props were digital creations. And this is how they do a lot of movie making now. A lot of blue screen, a lot of green screen digital. And that led us to, of course, like the LED walls, like the volume that Disney and Marvel use for their shows.
It's such an innovating film where they really did kind of create new technologies and new styles of filmmaking and visuals that influenced things like Sin City or 300. The diesel punk style of Zack Snyder, like this is a direct influence, I would say, to that style of filmmaking. Outside of somebody like what Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez were doing with Sin City and then when Miller went off and did The Spirit, where they're very much, which we talk about, which again, I'll say it, you make a movie, you have Scarlett Johansson show up in Leather Fettish where and I'm still bored, you've made a bad movie. Where as I would have just been bored period, sorry, she doesn't do it for me.
That's okay. We've had that discussion. But those two movies were, you know, looking to replicate a certain look from a comic from specific comics. And that's fine.
And they were carrying on the tradition of not going for photorealism that I think Sky Captain kind of pioneers. It's a very stylized look. It's not a realistic look at all. And I like that about this movie, though.
And I wish outside of like, again, maybe Speed Racer, I don't think there are too many films out there that really go for a stylistic approach to their visuals the way that this movie did. But the thing is, oftentimes those types of films, they choose one or the other. They choose the style or they choose the substance. It is interesting to find a film where I think they both work hand in hand together.
The story is pretty big. I know Speed Racer wouldn't be that example, but it would be for me. Here, I think it very much is. I would even go as far as to say another movie that you really love down with love, which came out a year before this, is very much a particular 1960s style.
It's very much a stylistic recreation of those type of, you know, bedroom sex comedies from the early 60s. But that was all physical, though. It may have been all physical, but it doesn't matter. It still creates that specific visual.
And the substance of the writing and the acting seems to work in tandem with that. It's not one or the other. Yeah. Here, it is not one or the other.
The story, maybe slightly basic, because you've seen a thousand pulp things before and is kind of out of date. But the characters that have been created here, make it not feel out of date. That's true. There's a very good snappy pattern between Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow.
And I think that's from the script, because again, he's pulling from fast-talking names from the 30s and 40s. There's, you know, everything. But the females in this are not, you know, you think for the 30s and 40s, you're going to find them being, you know, just names. They're either sexual appeal or they are the damsel in distress.
In fact, our damsel in distress, you know, type character Gwyneth Paltrow, is very much a tenacious, like, I'm going to do anything for the story. I'm going to put myself in danger for her. She's Lois Lane here. She's more ballsy than Lois Lane.
Yeah. If you go back and watch like some of the early Fleischer animated Superman cartoons, Lois Lane is always out there to get the story. Granted, half the time she does wind up in trouble and needs to go in Superman to save her. But however, I see a strong, I can draw a strong line from Lois Lane's character to Gwyneth's character of Polly.
Polly Perkins. And I mean, right down to the fact that yes, they're both newspaper reporters. She must get tired of those double peas. I just thought about it.
Polly Perkins, Pepper Potts. True, true. But again, you know, that double P name, Lois Lane. Yeah, it's a thing.
Yeah. And the Fleischer cartoon influences don't stop there. The Fleischer Superman cartoon mechanical monsters, the giant robots that attack New York early on, are exactly the same robots from that cartoon. And then you see Franky.
And then you meet Franky, Angelina Jolie's ballsy commander with an eyepatch. She's not your average run of the mill woman either. She is sex appeal, but she's masculine. She keeps command balls also at the exact same time feeling like, yeah, there's something there's something below that.
It's just kind of a mask that she puts on. I like that the characters, the female as well as male, are not playing into the stereotypes. They understand the stereotypes of the genre in which they are working in. And therefore, they kind of find those undercurrents and they play with them a little bit more.
It creates a interesting dynamic and a little more meat to the story. Yeah, I would definitely agree with you there. And you know, when I look at a character like Frankie too, you know, it's not just like she's the other point in and now I love triangle between those three characters either. Yeah, she may have had something happen with Sky Captain before, maybe not.
We don't know. All of these characters, I feel at the end of the day, love is not their basic need. Yeah, no, it's deeper than that. It is definitely we all have the ability to switch on or off.
They are able to compartmentalize their emotions in order for them to do what needs to be done. And I think that's a very interesting change in the pulp story. Like they all have different ambitions that don't result in, oh, we need to be with Sky Captain in order for that to be the case. True.
In fact, he's kind of like, I kind of had it with both of you at times. I don't blame it. Yeah. I mean, they both have their own qualities that I could see a character like him going, I like, you know, her because she is a gear head like me about planes.
And we have both have, you know, share a military mindset and similar backgrounds in that way. I also like her because she's tenacious. She's her own woman. And she never stops.
Yeah. And I admire that quality, even when it drives me up a wall. Yeah, they all have masculine and feminine qualities in them. Polly and Frankie are just opposite ends of the spectrum.
Frankie is more masculine and Polly is more feminine, but that doesn't mean there isn't a balance. And speaking of the great pitter patter, I need to say this because I have a feeling you were going to completely miss it. Part of Jude Law and Gwyneth Palfrow's chemistry comes from the fact that they worked together on talented Mr Ripley a couple of years prior. So they already had that kind of rapport going on.
Yeah, they already knew each other and they knew where they could kind of play as actors. And considering they spend most of the time in this film, just the two of them together, you really need that chemistry and that rapport in order to stay interested. Even though those characters are vastly different. Oh, they are extremely different.
Yes. But I'm really impressed with how much of a love letter this is to not just screwball comedy, not just adventure, pulp stuff, but just the 30s and 40s in general. I mean, we start off with a Zeppelin docking at the top of the Empire State Building, which probably 90% of people don't realize was the Empire State Building was built with a docking station at its top because that was the thought that, oh, we can welcome transatlantic Zeppelins to our city at the top of the Empire State Building and it'll be grand and majestic. And oh, wait, there's updrafts.
Whoops. And so they abandoned that plan after they had the building built. But it's a genius idea. Here, it's like what if, yeah, what would that look like?
I think that would be beautiful and majestic. And it's so funny that the day we are recording this, and I forwarded this to you. Variety had an interview with Carrie Conrad on the 20th anniversary of the release of the film. Which is funny because I was looking him up early this morning before that piece dropped because I was looking to see, okay, what happened to this director?
Yeah, it's nothing. He's disappeared completely. And they talk about that in the variety article. And I will try to remember to put that in the show notes on the post.
He was supposed to, at one point, he was linked to directing John Carter of Mars. Yes, he was well in development on that. And then that never happened. And then he just kind of disappeared.
Yeah, that didn't happen because that was being developed at Paramount at the time. And Sherry Lansing was the president of Paramount. She left. She was kind of his champion.
She was like, I know Sky Captain didn't do that great financially, but I believe in you as a filmmaker. And you have something? Yes, you have something. You have a way of creating something that we haven't seen before.
And I think that's important. So I want to be in business with you. And then she left the new coming incoming administration there didn't understand that. And we're kind of like, hey, why are we spending all this money on a project that the guy who made Sky Captain, which didn't make a nickel, why are we giving him all this money?
Oh, by the way, my friend's John Favreau. I'm going to give this movie to him now is basically what happened. Well, anyway, I think it's time that people kind of look back at him and go, you know, Sky Captain was ahead of its, it was ahead of its time. And unfortunately, what happened to Conrad is a kind of a cautionary tale about Hollywood too.
I mean, innovation is great. Innovation that makes you money is better, though, always. And everybody kind of looked at Sky Captain and went, oh, okay, that's interesting. And they kind of ran with those ideas.
They ran with the ideas, but they never gave it its due. And to this day, I still don't feel like they've given it its due. I don't think it's gotten its due in the general public. I think those of us who know know know, it's slowly starting to trickle back in.
Like I showed it to a friend about two years ago, and I watched their reaction as they went, oh my God, how is it I've never seen this movie? It's fucking genius. They were like, I just want something I can turn my brain off to, but something I've ever seen. And I said, well, how about this?
And they went, I don't, what is this? And I go, trust me. Have I ever led to a stray when it comes to movies? And they're like, no, they put it on.
They saw giant robots and they went, fuck, it's like Kaiju, man, it's giant fucking robots. I'm a huge fan of, oh God, I was an ultra man or bionic or something like that. And they're like, this is, this is me. As they're watching it, they're like, oh, oh, oh, oh.
And by the time we got to lens cap, they fell in love. Yeah, it's, it's hard. If, if you vibe with what the movie is vibing with, you can't not fall in love with this movie. No, it's got giant robots.
It's got science fiction. It's got the 30s and 40s retro. It's got dinosaurs, man. Dinosaurs, you're kind of like roughly on Skull Island from the con movies.
I mean, it's going and you see the venture underwater with a cage that's been ripped open from the inside. And it's just so many things. And honestly, I think every time I watch it, I'm like, you pick up on something else. Yeah, there's so many deep cut references in this that, if you know, a lot of Hollywood history from the 30s and 40s, this thing is just a wealth of knowledge.
And it's fun. Oh, it's incredibly fun. Absolutely. You know, the witty banter, the fact that Polly is running out of film the entire movie in her camera and is trying to pick and choose the glorious spectacles that she is being shown to kind of decide which ones she wants to document from everything from Shangri-La to Skull Island to Noah's Ark.
And she can't fucking decide what is worth spending it on. Exactly. Yeah. It's a great, it's a great runner through like the second half of the movie, basically, where she's like, you know, oh my god, but what if the next thing around the corner is even more?
Oh my god. Yeah. And you know, that she. And by the end of it, she ends up with nothing.
By the end of it though, where does she point her camera? She points it at Joe. Sky Captain. Yeah.
Because ultimately, you know, it's, you know, it's through the course of this whole adventure. They fall back in love. You know, Frankie, unfortunately, if we say there's an actual triangle here and I don't believe there is, you know, she, you know, she, you know, she, she loses. And it's like she's fallen back in love and they've kind of repaired their relationship, at least to a form of friendship.
But she's like, you know what, out of all this, the most amazing thing I see is the guy here who showed me all of this. And who saved the world. And who saved the world. Yes.
And at the end of the day, by the way, also when I say that there was a triangle, all I'm saying is he was in a relationship with Polly at one point. And maybe while they were on a break, he had like a one night sandwich, Frankie, like that's all I am seeing is the. Yeah, they both are able to shut off and go back into their jobs. It was probably just a hey, let's have a little fun.
We'll take the heat off of each other. And oh, look at that, my watch beeped. Time to get back to the ship. Yeah.
Yeah. And I think probably that he would have that kind of attitude towards a relationship while also having a different attitude towards the relationship that he had with Polly is interesting. And we see that every now and then in things where some people put in an amount of investment into having sex or sex in their relationship, where they don't think that you can also go off and just have a one night stand and have that be an entirely emotionally different kind of thing. There's no emotion in it.
It's the id. It's just the pleasure principle. That's all it is. It's just it's exercise.
It is releasing tension. It can be a release from anger or pain. It is just in this moment, I want to feel something more than what I am feeling. It means nothing.
And as long as your other partner kind of is on the same page, it is fun. Yeah, it doesn't need to be any emotional thing at all. It is just we're here. When I was like, sure, yeah, bought a Bing, bought a boom.
All right. Thanks. I gotta get back to work. Like it's all it is.
And it can be like that for both parties. I've been there. I've been that person who is just like, okay, let's have some fun. I'm getting back to work.
Bye. And I have been in that situation as well. And I've also been in other relationships where it was very much a emotional and as well as physical thing. And it's interesting.
And I don't think we started this conversation at the beginning of the podcast going, let's talk about the socio sexual thing underlying things in sky captive all things. Well, outside of the obvious visuals and how it influenced our current style of filmmaking, even down to Lawrence Olivier's being brought back from the dead, which has ever since in CGI influenced things like Rogue One, the new alien film, for example, there are there are so many ways that that could be taken. But under that, there's also a story thing that it's emotionally complex. It is extremely complex, even though you aren't seeing that you actually really have to sit with it and kind of think about it, because the film itself is just it's fun.
It's beautiful. It's a great time. You can kind of turn your brain off to it. And but if you really want to pay attention, you're going to see so many references.
You're going to see emotional complexity. You're going to see people talking about feminism and sexuality in a way that isn't pandering and in your fucking face. It's just part of the story, but it was one of the first movies to really do that. It's impressive.
Oh, yeah, definitely. And but to circle back around, though, to that one point you just made. Oh, Lawrence Olivier's image being used and animated as a voice from the dead very literally, but it's funny because I think people were shocked when they saw that and surprised and were like, Oh, that's interesting. And no, I don't think they thought it was interesting at all.
I think they thought it was shameful. That hadn't really kind of started to bubble out yet. It was one of the first movies to do it. Of course, that it was shameful and they talk about it.
I don't think we had that conversation at the time. Now, you know, you can't even say, well, you know, two years ago, James Earl Jones sold his voice rights to Lucasfilm. So he could provide for his family after he is gone. And so he gave his obvious blessing to the whole process and people are still like, Oh, that's gross.
I hope they don't use it. Well, if if you had the obvious permission, of the performer, that's one thing. But to kind of go and do it without their permission, well, even whether or not you had the family's permission. Yeah.
That is interesting. That's the case of alien. Yes, Ian Holmes family estate, you know, kind of wrote off on that Peter Cushing's family wrote off on that. But there's some kind of legal bruja about somebody coming forth now saying, Oh, no, I have the legal rights to his image after his death eight years later.
And the estate, the person who was running the estate at the time, they gave permission to Lucasfilm has since died also. So it's weird timing on that case. I'm hoping that continues to get reported on because I'm very interested in how that comes out. But I don't think the whole lot of I saw a guy captain when it first came out.
And the one of the first things I said, and yes, I was nine years old at the time, and I had been following film for a bit was I said, it hasn't Lawrence Olivier passed away? And they went, yes, and it is disgusting that they did this. That was I think that was like my aunt or my cousin or something like that when I saw it. They were they were just really pissed off of the fact that it was just so shameful to kind of try to recreate someone's image and do if it would been one thing, if they were using archive footage, like like the archive footage of Jorrel, AKA.
Yeah, but that is footage that's already been shot. It's not creating something fresh using this person's face. It may have not have been talked about back then because social media didn't freaking exist. But there was a lot, but I didn't see like a lot of think pieces on like the film websites I would go to, whereas in the nineties, it wasn't it wasn't like that it was just kind of just briefly spoken about.
And that was a big turn off at the movie at the time. Possibly. Now I'm thinking back even to the nineties, there were two commercials. One was for beer, some beer company with repurpose and very rudimentary digitally altered John Wayne footage.
And another, it was for like a vacuum cleaner or a swiffer or something like that, where they took footage of Fred Astaire very famously from his dance on the ceiling, but they stuck a fucking vacuum cleaner in his hands. There's a difference between altering already created footage and creating fresh new footage that is never ever ever ever ever been used in any way before. Well, the point though is people were upset that they were just altering that previously created footage long after that performer had died. So that was like the first time people said, Oh, we can do this.
We don't like this. I didn't see so much of that with Lawrence of Olivia here, but it's since become a thing again. So I think when we talk about the technical achievements that Sky Captain has made, we have to include that this kind of exists on that continuum of we can do this. Why are we doing this kind of a thing too, in terms of digital recreations of actual performers.
And it's very interesting because sometimes I'm very impressed with what we are able to do, but how far does that go? And one of the major issues that I have with recreating the face of a dead actor is that the person who is doing all the heavy lifting is never seen. And there's a difference between doing like a mocap and creating something fresh, like say, Andy circus doing Caesar. That is one of the best mocap performances I've ever seen.
And I say that even beats golem, but how is that different than if you're taking an actor who plays grandma's target and then mapping Peter Cushing's face over because people only see what's in front of them. If it is a creature of some sort, an alien or an angel or even an ape, that is obviously not a talking ape. That is obviously not a talking alien. There is an actor playing them and therefore the actor gets the credit for the work that they're doing.
Yes, whereas here people see what's in front of them. If you were playing another human, a very famous actor, such as Peter Cushing, or James Earl Jones. I mean, not James Earl Jones, bad, bad. Somebody's going to voice those Darth Vader lines and they're going to map that performance with his people are going to forget that the original actor one passed away.
And two, they are also not going to give credit to the actor who's actually doing all the heavy lifting. And that is something that angers the hell out of me is that when you look at the list for the new alien movie, which by the way was incredible. It was one. It's the best movie I've seen since aliens.
But Ian home, creating that character and having another actor do all the work. Do you want to know where he that actor who had a very significant role ended up at the bottom of the cast list? That is not right. Because they do play a strong supporting role in that movie.
And they deserve to be recognized for the work that they're doing. Instead, the face of an actor who has been passed away for almost 15 years is going to get the credit because people who are younger are not going to understand that this person's dead. Well, let me ask you this. Is it just the idea of credit or attribution that you think is wrong here?
If that actor who did the heavy lifting on the Ian home stuff, if he was listed, you know, much higher right after like the first five or six cast members in the movie and, you know, far above the the cranky woman in that one little office thing at the beginning of the film is is that better? Or is there still an issue that we're appropriating a dead person's likeness? Both. Okay.
Both. I just want to make sure we're there on that. Why not do both? Why not have the character's name and then have the actor first and then the face of the actual person that they have appropriated?
Why can't you have two people listed under that character? In the grand scheme of the performer? Yeah, I think this is a secondary consideration versus the ethics of I think it's very much an ethics thing. I think it's an ethics thing in the way that SAG should have probably when they had their yeah, when they had their strike last year, they should have pushed a little harder on this because of the way of getting around AI.
Yeah. And oh boy. Yeah. And I'm starting to see AI stuff that's really like, uh, hey, it looks like shit, but I can see where it's better than the really shitty stuff we saw like a couple months ago.
And so Sky Captain created and innovated, but at the exact same time, I think they also made the headway for some of the problems that we're having currently. That being said, all technology has a downside. It does. Oh, it can be used or abused.
And here, I think it works wonders. They just didn't know how much they would be shoved aside for it and then praised later on. Yeah. And I do kind of like wish I lived in a world where, you know, and I've joked about this on social media, but in a better world, we would have had three Sky Captain sequels by now, but he puts so much 30s and 40s.
I really didn't want one. He puts so much 30s and 40s into the first movie. I don't know where, you know, what else is there to do? I would want one.
I kind of like the fact that yeah, he put it all onto the field and he walked off, you know, with nothing left to get. And you know, well, even in the the variety article, he's kind of like, there's some things that, you know, in the moment, I wish, you know, had been better. But I think what he has done is a singular achievement in filmmaking. And from a first time director, this is it's an incredible work of art.
Yeah. And I just wish that he had been able to continue to make films because I would have loved to have seen his John Carter. I would have loved to have seen, you know, what else he wanted to do in terms of flights of fantasy and stuff like that. I just wish somebody had been able to kind of shelter him in the studio system and give him the support that he would have needed to thrive.
Yes. Yeah. Here, it's you're right. It's a cautionary tale.
I wouldn't have wanted any more sequels for this because I think it is perfect as it is. I think a lot of times we get so wrapped up and having franchises and sequels in order to make more money is and create this sense of nostalgia that we don't focus on what is being given to us in terms of the the meat, the material, the how everything works together as one singular being and can create a perfect moment in history. Down with love, I think is a perfect film. I would never want any sequels to that.
I don't know how you would do a sequel. You can't. But here, I would want to either. I agree with you.
Ultimately, I mean, when I say, you know, in a perfect world, we'd have three sequels. It's more of a case of in a perfect world. Kerry Conrin would be absolutely, you know, identified and revered for the achievement that he did with this film. What I would have liked what I would have liked instead is to see him take that specific style of filmmaking and then stretch it into other films across multiple genres.
Yeah, it's just he never got the chance. No, unfortunately, another, no, unfortunately, one other director did and doesn't really give it the meat gives it the style, all style, but forgets the meat, Zack Snyder. These are punk. That is what Kerry created here, what he pioneered and then Zack took advantage of.
I'm not sure I would call diesel punk, but in terms of just the stylistic look and approach. Yeah, I would say yes. Soccer punch. Yes.
Okay. Soccer punch. Yeah, that's diesel punk. Definitely.
Yes. And I think though, on that note, I'm going to say go out. If you haven't watched Sky Captain in a while, give it a second. Look, it's a lot of fun.
It's beautiful. It's it's still stunning today. I mean, I have two computers. One is a desktop that we record this podcast on.
And that has a the screen background screen is Empire Strikes Back. And my laptop desk, my laptop is Sky Captain. That's how much this movie means to me. So like I said, that about wraps us up for this week.
Go see this, rewatch this, find it and give it some love and pop some popcorn and have a great, you know, maybe watch it as a Saturday early in the afternoon as a matinee type movie. The kind of movies that it is an obvious and loving love letter to. Absolutely. Remember, you can find us online at bigpitcharpod.com and we are available on Spotify, iTunes and Google Play.
So either use the link in the show notes post or head directly there, search and hit subscribe. And if you like what you're hearing, please leave a positive review because that always helps us find new listeners. We'll be back next time with more news and reviews. Right here on the Big Picture Podcast.
Rich. Yes. We forgot to talk about something. What?
Let's catch up.