Blackjack with David Blackjack with David Blackjack with David Blackjack Once more, we record our dangerous podcast. A podcast against our old adversary, the American Navy. For 40 years, your father's before you and your older brothers recorded this podcast and recorded it well. But today, the podcast is different.
We have the advantage. It always falls apart. It really turns that kind of act bar. It does.
Yeah, there's some act bar. Today, the advantage is just getting a loud phone call. We know that it's a trap. Is this his best performance?
Let's let's exclude sort of James Bond. I was going to say, you do know he played James Bond. Yeah, let's set that aside. Okay.
This is John Connery's best film. That's interesting question. That is a real interesting question. I would say it's my favorite John Connery from Performance.
I can't think of another one in the 90s. That's this good. I mean, there's the rock. The rock is his 90s performance that's probably the most robust, right?
It's great. Yeah. Great. But he's putting 80 slices of ham on a piece of bread.
This performance is like measured. No, it's incredible. Yeah. Yeah.
And especially for a guy who like jumps in on like two days notice. True. That's what we'll talk about. Do we all agree that his untouchables now win is simultaneously pretty silly and I'm cool with it.
Absolutely. Right. Yeah. Like I'm like, that's objectively kind of ridiculous to give him the Oscar for that.
And also I have no complaints about it. It was a career Oscar. He's good in the untouchables. He's only in it for like 10 minutes.
Yeah. He has like 15. That is not true. He has an iconic line.
He's got an iconic line. He's in so much more of that movie than he is. He I remember him dying like surprisingly early. No, we were having this conversation about Jack Collins and city slickers, who was truly in that movie for eight minutes.
You know what? You're right. You know what? You're right.
He's got he's in like half the movie. I have not taken a stopwatch to Jack Collins, but his character dies before the 40 minute mark. We just watched executive decision on on Clearing and with Nick Wiger. And Steven Seagal is in that movie for much much less than you think.
Yes. It's so iconic that he gets taken out of that movie. Like that's I like executive decision entirely. Like I think it's a good movie.
But the best thing it does is kill off Steven Seagal. Not to go too far. Spoilers for executives. Not to go too far away from Chantony, but I will say the best part about Steven Seagal's death and executive decision is that it's not the kind of thing where the action that kills them happens and then it cuts to the other commandos and they react.
It's it cuts to his body being sucked out into the air. Yes. And it's very funny. You see this mannequin just sort of like fly away in the air.
And I think it's great. They are on an airplane. Why why was texting us after he had done that episode with you and threw to us the challenge of how would you cast that movie today? Who are the two appropriate movie stars?
The one guy who's a little overqualified to be killed off that early and surprised the audience and who's the guy who's kind of the brainy action star with the history and the gravitas to pull off the Russell part. And my two takes were put Damon in the Russell part. Here's a guy with action we pedigree. Yeah, but he put last on the event.
Right. Yeah. Right. And then I said, the fucking Stephen Seagal, you put your art butler in there.
Right. And it would have the exact same thing. And he dying. You're like, shit, they don't have him.
Like, you need that guy. Like, you need the muscle. I think the difference though is that even by 96, Seagal was very much on the down. Yes.
Instead of having this terrible reputation. But people liked your art. But we're not trying to say that has Stephen Seagal's personality or politics. No, that is for sure.
I agree. He's like a great guy. But he did go from being like an A-list studio leading man for a brief period. It's now being like the king of B-movie from secondary studios where for him to be in that type of role.
Like Lionsgate has like a button. They can press that calls his cell phone. Right. Like they just there's a G and they just like get a spot.
But the other thing with him is like he's like, he's schedules busy because he has to go to the funeral of like STX and every time one of these all the mid major studios that die right there, like looking very solid while there's like back by playing. He's on bed rest for, for health address. He's waiting bedside at catch up entertainment. Catch up entertainment.
What are you talking about? When you're talking about Halley Myers's new movie. Yeah. We're going deep in the weeds here.
But what I liked about the butler notion is that like similarly, if he showed up in like a universal, you know, like a major studio, Matt Damon movie as like the second leader of the fake out lead, he'd be like, this is weird. Butler's usually in smaller movies than this, but he's also always the guy. Yeah, that's right. He's never playing.
It's never two-hander really. Like even plain, which was sold a little bit as Oh, it's Butler and Coulter. Hold two pieces out for like the middle hour of that movie and let's Butler do his thing. Also, doesn't the plane piece out like they get off the plane?
They get off the plane. They get off the plane. I like that movie. I enjoyed it.
Here's my take on that movie. I think culture is unbelievable in it. And I'm like really into their dynamic. And then he disappears and he only comes back at the very end.
They've announced that the plane sequel is a Coulter spinoff, which is exactly what I want. What's it called? I want to say it's called train. I'm not joking.
I think it might be. You're wrong. It's called ship. Okay.
Well, it's a little more similar to the movie where it's maybe a cameo up here. Okay. But yes, you're right. It's going to be my Coulter centric.
I wanted that whole movie to be the two of them side by side the entire time that I'm in said there's the one fucking one take fight sequence that I brought there has that is so good and how messy it is and how they let him take moments where he's out of breath. And he's like fumbling to keep up. That shit rolls. Have you seen playing?
No, plane has one of my favorite movie weapons. It's like a supergun that when he shoots people with tears chunks out of them. I was a big fan of that. I don't think the military should have been like the caterpillar drive.
It's too powerful. This is my other complaint with a plane. You've got the scene where all the passengers are boarding the plane and you're like, okay, introduce me some good character. Correct one.
Who are the fun people who are all going to have their little threads going on fucking Joey slot Nick boards the plane. Oh, hell yeah. I'm in. I'm in the clear.
I'm good. And then slal he would agree that we all love them. We all love to movies and this is one of them. We really don't talk about him a lot on the show.
John Connery. No, we got another one coming up in the same series. Yeah, when I've never seen I'll say this is that's like the one you tune in I've never seen. Here's a spoiler time on that one.
New rush. I would actually disagree and say make it top priority. Okay, maybe we don't have priority in the way that you want to get like tough things out of the way. Yes, like you know you want to it's like taxes.
You'll feel better long term if you watch medicine sooner rather than later. Okay. It's it's quite a weird film. I suppose the thing with Connery is obviously we have not discussed his Bond films.
And apart from that, he did work kind of sporadically at a certain point. Sure. I mean, obviously we'll probably one day do the Anna Jones and the last or second. The two that feel inevitable.
I will probably do some Highlander commentaries. I would love to be on a Highlander commentary. Well, then we're out there. Okay.
All right. I love the Highlander. Do you like Highlander too? The quickening?
I like all Highlander. All Highlander. I would say there can only be one, but I'm going to allow there to be two huge fans of Highlander. There was a point a couple of years ago where we were recording a Patreon episode and because of scheduling, we didn't know what the next series was going to be, I think.
It was like recorded very far in advance. And David and I were on like saying like, and what's coming up next? We don't know yet. And Ben goes, I have an idea.
And we go, what is it? And Ben just starts going like this, like pantomiming, sword fighting. And we said like, what are you doing Ben? And he just did it with more intensity as if like this is so obvious.
And then we stopped recording. But I went, but Highlander. Yeah, but Ben, it's obvious. As if it's the only thing I would have got.
If I'm putting my hands up like this in the air, that can only mean one thing. It can only be one. Yeah, it can only mean one thing. Listen, this isn't an episode on Highlander.
But now we know. Yes. That our great guests would be down. All the more reason to do it.
All the more reason to go through the quickening. That's that's a highlander. But this today, yes, absolutely. This is another entry into a mini series on the films of John McTearness.
Big McTear. It's called Pod, hard with a venge cast. Although this is another title we could have used if we wanted to. It has the space.
Of course. The pod for Red Octobe cast. Yeah, it was a cast over. Probably what I would have done.
It was a hunt for Red Octobers that we're talking about with a man who I would say, among his many esteemed credits and titles. One of America's preeminent, hunt for Red Octobers experts. I guess I have made my name somewhat as a guy who likes Tom Clancy. I messaged you guys.
They were doing McTear. You go, oh fuck, a lot of interesting opportunities there. Right. And you're texting through them in real time and you're like, I'm tired with a vengeance would be fun to this and that.
And then you just go, I guess I just kind of have to do Red Octobers. Right. We didn't nudge you. And you were like, I know I've talked about it in a lot of places.
I've talked about it at length. I maybe shouldn't fight this and I should just do Red Octobers. Right. Yeah.
Would you say this is one of your all-time favorite movies or is it just a movie that's so embodied the type of thing you like in movies that you sort of end up going back to it a lot? I think it's both of those. It is 100% one of my all-time favorite movies. It's a comfort movie for me.
I can put this on whenever and just sort of like vibe out to it. It's impossible for me to try to do other things while watching it. It's basically Tim and I'm just like locked in like this is very compelling and I'm happy to watch it. It's also, when I say it's a comfort movie, you know, I've maybe mentioned this on the show before, but my parents are in the military and they're in the Navy in particular.
I grew up in a Navy town and a lot of time on Navy bases, new some Submariners, like some of my friends' parents were Submariners. Namor? Sorry. Yes.
First I thought I heard name one and I was like, what weird? Namus Submariner. Namor. Yeah.
Yeah. Basically. It's a very specific and intense job that you have to like they put you through a lot of batteries of tests for. You're going to have to get used to being in a windowless box for months and having little wings on your ankles.
Most people can't pull off. It really is. We're saying they aren't those things for months. But anyway, so it's also just things that are sort of US Navy-centric are very comforting to me because it's just my childhood.
It's sort of like the kinds of people that environment I grew up around. So it's a comfort movie in that regard to my favorite movies, but it also is kind of an encapsulation of a lot of the things I like in movies. I was going to say, like I know that. I knew that and I knew it was a comfort film where you watch it and I'm just curious of like, is it also would you put it on like your personal top 10?
Because they're movies like what you're describing where I'm like that embodies what I like out of a certain type of film, what I wish we had more of. I could watch it any day. Would I put it all the way at my top tier? But this is a movie where you can be like, no, it's a comfort film movie.
It's like the perfect example of a genre we don't get enough of. And also you could argue it's kind of like underrated as a serious film. Like it is not taken seriously enough. I think that's on this rewatch that was the thing that struck me the most, which is that this is you know, we lump it in with the Tom Clancy thrillers.
Yeah, it's sequel, Patriot games, Korean present major movies I like, but are a little pulpier than this is. But this is not always like a quite serious thriller. There aren't, there's very little action. Right.
There's very little action to these. Like really the dramatic arc of Jack Ryan in this is less overcoming any physical obstacles, but just trying to persuade people like at every every stage of the movie, he has to persuade someone until finally we get to the last act where he now has to survive. There is one gun battle. Yeah, but even then like, I love Crimson Tide, a great submarine film.
But that movie is obviously like absurd. Right. It's about an absurd scenario. And everyone, it's egos are raging and there's yelling and there's guns being pointed all that.
That's what I'm throwing at is comparison point. Crimson Tide like rules, blocks, great example of the thing we don't get enough of anymore, high level craft, comfort food. But you couldn't argue like this probably should have been nominated for best picture. No, no, exactly right.
Crimson Tide is a it's a pulp novel of a film. Yes. And Hanforak Topure is not. It is it is a kind of a serious thriller with some legitimate somber moments in it and moments of real kind of dried my favorite and not just because I love his voice, but when Fred Thompson when the when the F 16 or 14 can't make its landing in the aircraft carrier and Fred Thompson's like, this is gonna get out of control and be lucky to live through it, which is a great line delivery is a great scene.
It's sort of reminding the audience that like, this is all very scary for these people. What's happening? Yes, but also it's plugged into obviously what's happening in the real world. It's 1990.
Yeah, the Cold War is still ongoing. Right. Soviet Russia is actually kind of in the state of slow motion collapse. This isn't even a recent history movie when it comes out.
It is a movie about a different side of the history that people are still in. Right. Exactly. Right.
It's just like sliding. This movie watching this movie in 1990 must have been like watching dumb money in 2023. Right. Where you're like, I guess we're a little past this but also kind of not really almost barely.
Right. I'm looking at, are you doing what I'm doing today? Reading Fred Thompson's time to be patient. Well, that we're gonna talk about for an hour.
No, I'm like looking at best picture nominees from 1990. Sure. That's the, um, uh, Dances of the world here, right? I like this movie tremendously.
I've seen it before. I did have the same thought rewatching this of like, this movie actually should be taken more seriously. And I'm surprised it wasn't taken more seriously at the moment considering that like the fugitive gets nominated for best picture three years later. The 90s were an era where there was a sort of balancing of like, if you had top level, great movie star, high craftsmanship, adult popcorn movies that punch above their weight class, they would be taken seriously as Oscar contenders.
Yeah. And it's certainly a movie like McTyranen wasn't an Oscary filmmaker. No, what? No, no, he wasn't.
Yeah, sorry. But you could see an alternate universe, this being the movie that like, kicks him up to like, you know what, you get to make more adult kind of films. You're more cerebral and less action. It kind of is in that he makes, um, medicine man after this, which I do feel like is him trying that and maybe not succeeding.
Yes. The Oscars were just very different back then. Cause you look at the best picture list and it's Dance of the Wolves and Goodfellas, which, and Ghost, which are all big hits. Yes.
Those are the other things. And then Awakenings, which is sort of like the kind of, you know, middling prestige thing, no offense to awakenings that they used to really correct. And then Godfather Part Three, which like kind of snuck into that nomination. Yeah.
Like that was a weird, I guess we have to do this. And then later they're like, why did we do that? Like, you know, but it's a weird, that's a weird year. That's a lot of good movies, but it's a lot of the good movies of 1990 are too weird for the Oscars.
It's like this Miller's Crossing, Total Recall, Wild at Heart, Mo Better Blues. Like these movies are just a little too odd. Every other movie you've listed though, I agree with being too odd. And I look at this.
This is not too odd. This is too commercial. I guess like what I guess that was what they held against. And you read about McTearon and I mean, we'll dig into all of this, but McTearon read this book early, tried to option himself even before he ends up coming back around to getting hired to make this at Paramount and was just like, this is the vehicle to make the kind of movie they don't make anymore.
Like in 1990 or in the mid 80s, when he reads it for the first time, he's like, this is a throwback, which now we're watching it as a throwback to like they don't make him like this anymore, throwbacks to the movies of the 60s. But I could see this as a throwback to the came mutiny, right? It's a throwback to seven days in May. I don't know.
A lot of those sort of like Cold War thrillers set in the halls of power. Right. Right. Where it's again, it's mostly, I mean, most of what is happening is just guys talking in rooms.
Yeah. 10 situations. Should we do this? What do I go tell the president?
They'll say I love it. I love it when guys have to know what they have to go tell the president. Yeah. Gentlemen, I have to go tell the president something.
The term material using interview when the movie was coming out. He said it's a sort of old-fashioned men's movie. Well, there have been very few of them in the last 20 years. It has adventure and yet it does not offend your intellect.
Now old fashioned men's movies are interesting for his thing, but that feels like the real thing. It has a venture and yet it does not offend your intellect. I believe the only woman in this movie is Gates McFadden, who you see for 30 seconds as Jack Ryan departed and his daughter who you see for 30 seconds. Right.
Yeah. She actually has a lot more going on than Gates McFadden. Absolutely. I'll say another movie along these lines run silent, run deep.
Never seen that. That's a submarine movie. Right. Sullen to the car cable, Bert Lancaster.
Old car cable. Right. Yeah. That's Krusty Carkey.
That sounds good. Have you read the hunt for Red October? The book by Tom Clancy? Many years ago.
Yes. When I was in high school. Now, I will admit I have never read a Tom Clancy novel because they have always been described to me as like filled with descriptions of like how to clean guns and so on and so forth. Like, not as iconic way.
Just in like an incredibly detailed way. In the same way that like Moby Dick is like 90% whale fact. This is what a whale is. It's like we made him up.
He's like, whales can talk to plants and stuff and you're like, sure he can. Well, I'm Herman. Yeah, whatever. Yeah.
Tom Clancy novels are like, it's like half intense descriptions of guns of munitions of submarines and then 50% right wing of Jiprop. Right. David's missing the bigger thing here though. There's a clear explanation for why you've never read a Tom Clancy novel.
Was it you don't like flying? Well, then I would. How are you going to acquire Tom Clancy book if you never go to the airport? You can probably get them at a train station.
If you try to read them anywhere but a plane if you try to read them on the ground. I just remember a friend of mine high school reading Rainbow Six, which is the size of my head. That's a very large book. Yeah.
And me being like, that's like the video game. Like is it good? And he was like, it's like a lot. It's like really, really heavy.
Yeah. Like because you're like the game 13 year olds player. They just murky each other. Like, if you just described my third year, yes.
Like, it's not like his books are densely written or whatever. But it's just like he just will describe things. I don't know. What is it like?
I believe this is the case of Red October. Tom Clancy had never been on a US Navy submarine, but his descriptions, right, of the US Navy submarine, so detailed that federal authorities were like, are you a spy? Right. Their response was who cleared this.
Right. Yes. And so which is to say that the books were Tom Clancy himself and incredible pet and the books reflect that there's sort of full of insane detail about this world of military equipment, of military procedure and Pumpharot October is very much like this. It's also a very October.
The book is much more hawkish and like, anti-Soviet than the movie is the Reagan administration or Reagan. He loved it. Love this book. That was the origin of his success.
Right. It was Reagan being like, I like this book. Right. Right.
And I can imagine, and I like that book. I think he said, it's a good yarn. I can imagine, you know, part of you wonders if the difficulty the movie may have had getting made has to do with just like the political valence. Right.
The book is seen as maybe a little too right-wing for what do you think? There's this great anecdote that, I mean, we'll dig into all this deeper, but the class of Maria Brandauer drops out. He was supposed to play Remus. Remius.
Facts at Taconari on a Friday to potentially have him show up to film on Monday. That's the stakes and the pressure and the turnaround of this thing. And he reads it, and he's like, it's good, but like, I'm not going to do this. It's good, but like, isn't it doesn't feel a little retrograde?
And they realize that when they fax it to him, they had left off the front page that explains the movie is set in 1984. Right. He was like, this feels like six years behind where we are right now. Yeah.
Yeah. And like that distance for him, then he was like, oh, it's okay. You know, the space between when Ronald Reagan is like, I endorse this and the time they're actually making the movie is like, well, now it's a little bit of a document. But I'll say, and I'm sure we'll talk about this more later, the movie is not the movie has a lot of respect for the Soviet Navy, right, for Soviet sailors.
And to some extent, for the Soviet Union, as sort of like another world power, the fact that the, you know, the music, the music, one of the prominent music use of the film is the Soviet National Anthem and not played for dread, right, played kind of for triumph and for gravitas. I think that marks it actually as it takes place in 1984, but it really isn't, it really is in the Cold War is almost kind of over movie. Yes. Cold War is almost over.
And we have a lot more in common with these people than we think. Well, and there are two explanations for what you're saying, right? Quote from a Tiernan when he's promoting this movie in 1990, which is pretty wild that he admitted this at the time while selling the film, but he said to the LA Times, I had a secret agenda while making this film, you may think this sounds silly, but I saw this piece as a second Russian Revolution to meet the emotional heart of the movie comes from the Soviet sailors saying their National Anthem. So he's reading this book early, but immediately digging into like, there is a way to actually not only depict their side of story with integrity, but make that sort of like a linchpin of perspective.
And then the second thing is, when Connery comes on, suddenly now this guy needs to have a much greater internal life, because you need to justify getting one of the biggest movie stars in history. Yeah, sure. To play the villain. And he brings in John Meleus and is like rewrite all of the Russian stuff, right, and make it interesting and make it human.
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Like how many Jack Ryan novels have you read? I've read Clear and Present Danger. Yeah, that took down the cartels. Please editorialize the yeah, each one as you're now listed.
Rainbow six. And then there's the one who's in my forget when right? That's the same. Yeah, there's a character named Ding Chabas.
Yes, that's right. That's a good fucking name. Who's in Clear and Present Danger as well. Yes.
And there's a book who's in my title for get but basically what happens is there's a terrorist attack that destroys the White House. It's very like pre-9 11 9 11. The book of course you're talking about I believe is called Debt of Honor. That's right.
Yes. And Jack Ryan becomes president. Jack Ryan's kind of like the greatest Mary Sue of 90s Pulp. What if a CIA analyst nerd but he was also like he was a Marine.
Yeah, let's not forget. Became the president or Republican president. Right, explicitly. Yeah.
I mean, what are Democrats? Exactly. And it's like it's like it's like it's thrust upon he doesn't he doesn't do anything so clever role as like run for president. Disgusting.
No, it's like he was like Secretary of something or other right? Like everyone dies. So he's the national security advisor. So he has to be the president.
Oh yeah, executive orders. That's the first one where he's the president. And he's like right. He's a hero of brain and intellect.
But also he is only played by the most handsome men in Hollywood. Well, that's what's interesting about the Jack Ryan character because again, envision as not a slubby middle age white guy like a middle age. The best middle age white guy could be. Right.
Sure. Something about Clancy analog. Right. Right.
He's Irish Catholic much like Clancy. He's you know, he's a nerd. And it's like as power fantasy. It's like, you know, the things that make you unappealing and that make you kind of a butt of cultural jokes are actually the things that make you the hero in this story.
Right. And you are you're also physically capable. You don't need to be right. And in this movie, Ryan's really only physical in the last like 10 minutes.
Yeah. So you don't need to be physically capable, but you are. And you can. I'm ready to go.
Right. If people throw down, I'm ready to go. I do think Baldwin, as much as Baldwin, something of a pretty boy, I'm Baldwin, the star of this film is the best Jack Ryan. I like the Ford movies a lot, but they just feel like Harrison Ford is the hero.
The big thing that jumped out like me. He does less of a sense of Jack Ryan. No, he's just like, I'm Harrison Ford, American hero, like, you know, that's what I'm doing. But even I think Ford still works in the character precisely because he's sort of like peak middle aged white man.
He's like, he's like, everyone wanted to be the same way. And then with the later entries, Ben Affleck and some of all fears, and then Chris Pine and Jack Ryan, Shadow Crute, and then John Krasinski. The definitive Jack Ryan. In this Amazon series, I think those miss the point of the character.
Well, they all start to push him more towards a conventional action hero. Yeah, he's more borny. Right. Yeah.
Jack Ryan, Chuck, recruit is a terrible movie, but it's pretty awful. But I don't know. I saw it in theaters. I like some of all fears.
I actually like that movie quite a bit. Even though I don't think it's good. I do enjoy watching it. I saw that in theaters opening weekend.
I don't remember it very well, except for, of course, that a nuclear bomb blows up at the Super Bowl and kills the president, which is the bummer for that guy. David, I also saw that movie opening weekend when I was like, I was like 15 years old. Like, and this was in Britain. Like that movie did not move in Britain.
No one in Britain cares about Jack Ryan. I'm not worried about Rainbow Six. Then we had a Game Boy Color game. That movie was just like straight down the middle.
Summer blockbuster for children. Yeah, I guess so. And I guess that's the thing I'm watching this movie about like, yeah, guys, with Epilets being like, you know, what is what is deputy director? I just take my career on it.
I did see it opening weekend. Leef, Freiber plays John Clark in that one, I believe. Yes. I mean, this is the thing that's much like the Hannibal series.
The thing that's fun with the Clancy movies, the Ryan verse films, is tracking the different castings of every supporting part. Right. And being like, how weird is it that those four guys all played that same character? Right.
John Clark has been played by Will and Defoe, Leef, Freiber, and of course, Michael B. Jordan. Right. Without remorse.
Three identical actors. Without remorse. Exactly. I watched that stream.
I totally forgot about what happened. I saw it. Also, do you Jack Ryan think I watched this? I knew like Clancy thing.
Oh, it's Clancy. I mean, it's based on a Clancy book. So the hunt for October, of course, famous, it's a famous, so Rax, a rich story. Don Clancy's just insurance agent.
He writes this in Saint novel in his spare time, submits it to the Naval Institute Press, the person there. They basically only ever published like manuals, but they're like, well, maybe we can publish fiction. The editor reads it and is like, I think this is a potential bestseller if I can strip like 100 pages of submarine descriptions out. Yeah.
Yeah. Like whatever is published is headed it down from whatever he initially submitted. And as you say, the famous line is that the Naval Secretary said, who that cleared this book, basically. Yeah.
He'd never been on a submarine. He was paid $5,000 on a dollar, Ronald Reagan said he knew it was my kind of yarn and it became a huge hit. And so the book was optioned early for just $40,000 and churned away and was ignored. McTurning, like you said, was initially interested.
Yeah. And this is the 80s. I think this book has probably seen as like a little too cerebral and boring. That was the thing people were reading the breakdown once it had been an option and was being pitched as a studio film.
They're like, well, it's expensive because it requires big submarines and special effects, but it's mostly about conversations and it's incredibly dense and technical. And there's a lot of information that you need to impart upon the audience and keep them interested in, which is like a very hard task. I think most people just went like too difficult, but they eventually get the Navy on board. And why does the Navy get interested in being involved with this movie, Jamal?
I do not know. Toccon had just come out and done such great business for them. They went jealous for the Naval aviation and all that that. They were like, maybe this can be a recruitment tool for submarine or this was the test that would make people sign up to go inside the summer.
The least cool in a way or at least, or the least, I mean, the toughest one to want to do is sort of a sad, pretty sad haunted story. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
You talk with Tony Gailroy about this, I believe, on his episode of your podcast. I wouldn't even go in danger. We should call up. Yes.
I wouldn't even go in the submarine for a tour or would you go into the submarine, say you're making a movie about a submarine with the top open that I might do, but I wouldn't go down. I would 100% go down. I think I could totally be in the submarine. I'm not claustrophobic at all.
It doesn't bother me. It bends on board too. I think I could totally do a submarine. I think the minute they close the top and we're like, noises started to happen, I would actually have a panic second and I would run out of the, there'd be like a David hole in this and like water.
I would say there are a few environments I think of as being less inviting and less appealing to me than submarine. And I think I have, I like boats. I like the water. I'm not opposed to those things.
You know what? I don't like the water. I don't like the water. I don't like the water.
I don't think I deal with claustrophobia as much, but I don't like the water and then being in the water in a tube without windows. Yeah. So I've never been on one. I think I mentioned that.
I've been on aircraft carriers. I've been on sort of like other naval vessels. Those are like a whole order. That's like, you know, it's a difference between being in a mansion and being in like a tiny, you know, studio apartment, right?
Like an aircraft carrier is truly a massive thing. The interesting thing to me about submarines or submarines in film, was there a lot of submarine movies? I think all of them are usually pretty decent because I think it's just like a, it's a space that is good for creating drama. Yes.
No one can go anywhere. And so all things must be passed out. Like people are right next to each other and it's it works for drama. It's like boxing movies where you're like, why did boxing movies have a better track record than any other sport in America?
And it's like, because it's just it boils down to two people working other differences in a physicalized form. Boxing is literally cinematic. Right. And like a submarine is kind of like a physicalized version of the pressures of any sort of military operation.
Yes. It's interesting to me that the the conceit of the submarine movie has not been used in sort of like other kinds of genres. Like there are many space movies. There should be more space submarine movies.
That is a good call. Submarine movies. We were before recording, I was talking about Master in Commander. That's like, there's like, there's like two ship movies.
But Master Commander is in a lot of ways like a submarine movie. That's a good take. Something like Sunshine has a submarine vibe to it. I mean, I love the space movies.
Obviously, they try to get at the claustrophobia. But no, and the bad. I think Sunshine has that feeling of like these people have all been stuck in here together with each other for so long. Right.
And you're starting at this kind of breaking point. But Sunshine is not as much a military movie. They are like, they have ranks and stuff. But the submarine is also about like, this is a tightly honed psychological ecosystem.
Like, you really do listen to that guy and you're not like, there are hierarchies that must be followed. There are rules that have to be attended to, which is why I love Ucrumson Tide is that George Zendza is like, I can't, I have to side with them because like, that's what my military brain is telling me to do. Like, that's how this should be working. And even though I didn't like him.
Can I read these two quotes about the notion of this movie being a potential recruitment tool? Sure. So JH Patton Jr. says, Top Gun did well as a recruitment tool for pilots, but it probably hurt the submarine force because we compete for the same kids.
So they're not only looking at what Top Gun did with jealousy, but they were like, that actually bit into our audience. It made that shit seem too cool. Yeah. Because that's a fucking comic book movie where the coolest guy in the world tells everyone to go fuck off, does everything exactly the way he wants to.
It looks awesome. Never wants to fuck him, right? And like, oh, a couple less cool guys, unfortunately, die along the way. He has tragic loss, but he's the rebel and nothing can stop him, right?
Yeah. And then Captain Michael T Sherman says the submarine service has been quote, the silent service, both practically and philosophically. That will change with red October. The public is going to be amazed at the technology and the skill involved.
Now, what he's saying is correct and that that is exactly what's interesting about this movie, but is not something that makes a 15 year old holy shit, I got to do that. Right. In the way that Top Gun you watch that you're like, I could be fucking Superman. And the funny and interesting thing is that like Crimson Tide, which is much more along with another Tony Scott picture, much more along those lines, is still way more cerebral than top side, right?
Like, it's just like, I don't think it's possible to make an action-packed Top Gun-esque movie about being on a submarine impossible. You can make a fun movie like down Paris, then you could do it down Paris, and that I mean, that entices people because they're like, I could have a bunch of friends. We could get into some hijacks lonely, but if I wanted to crew of a submarine. So, John Maternity has long been interested in this movie.
He's initially maybe going to make a flight of the intruder, which John Mily has ends up making a non-wounder movie. That's the default one. And yeah, yeah, yeah. It's all right.
It doesn't really work out. He does, as you say, call it an old-fashioned men's movie, has adventure and yet does not offend your intellect. This quote I like though, and I feel like you'll like Griffin, he says also, it's Treasure Island. It's the story of a boy who has to go off and find the scariest man of the sea on Earth, and he turns out to be a sweet old bastard.
Once I realize that I have the movie. It's a through line I love in Maternity, that whether he's right or wrong, it's a comment across his best films and his worst films. He always has a quote that JJ has pulled up that's like, at some point I clicked for me, I read the script and I went, oh, it's blank, where he's like, diehard is midsummer's and I dream. Like, last action hero is King Conk.
Like, he's always like, there is some kind of mythic text that I'm looking at, and I'm mapping the story onto that, which is kind of smart in this way, where he makes films with very complicated plots and a lot of characters. And then he relates it to a very successful totemic version of the basic core of what the movie is. And then he said, as they were adapting the film around this, he was just like, take the elements from the book that map onto Treasure Island most. That's the thing.
There's 700 page book with Larry Ferguson, the screenwriter. Yeah. And he's just like, does this have Treasure Island pipes keep it? Does it not?
It's got to go. Tom Clancy very upfront about like, I realize once someone told me one page equals one minute of screen time, I realized half my book was going to have to go basically. I made my piece with it. Like, he seems positive on this movie.
And also, I mean, I know he's dead now. All right, but, um, David's pointing to this guy. I had that thought as well. Um, but I thought about pointing.
Tom Clancy does not seem like someone who was especially worried about his name being used for branding and merchandise. I'm sure he was just happy that it's going to be a movie. How much Xbox do you think Tom Clancy played? Given his name was on like 50 Xbox.
Well, he liked that. So sex tricky, right? That's the one I know. He didn't even like Rainbow Six really did play a lot of fable.
So McTuring decides this instead of Sergeant Rock. If you guys know, Sergeant Rock, the comic book character, DC military hero, Steven DeSouza had written that up and it's Joel Silver and Schwarzenegger. It's going to be like a full predator routine. Yes.
And he was going to make this insane sort of action-packed Sergeant Rock movie. He wanted John Cleese to be in it. Passes him the script and Cleese is like, this sucks. Yeah.
It's just a bunch of action scenes. And then John McTuring loses interest because he's like, without Cleese, where this movie won't have whatever it is I want. Right. And you know, Right.
So, I was like a character in a tone and like a imagery, but he, the comics are very interesting, but he's like, there's no core story there. And they wrote the script that kind of had no core story outside of like extremity and intensity. And I was like, there has to be some test for him, make it like a couple of comedy manners with John Cleese as like an uptight British officer. Yeah.
And he was like, if that's the thing, then I can do all the extremity around that. And I think he said that like, at the moment they offered to Cleese, Predator hadn't come out yet, where he kind of felt like if Predator existed as a proven concept to the- I assume we haven't asked, but I assume you like the films Predator and Die Hard. I do like the Predator and Die Hard. I think they're very good.