July 7, 2025 • 55 mins
Dinosaurs and box office numbers find a way, even when creativity doesn't. The latest Jurassic installment stomped through theaters with a staggering $318 million global opening, proving once again that this prehistoric franchise remains Hollywood's gold standard for bankable intellectual property.
Scarlett Johansson and Mahershala Ali headline Jurassic World Rebirth, bringing star power to a franchise that's circling the creative drain yet continues to draw massive audiences. We dissect what works in this seventh installment – primarily Gareth Edwards' undeniable talent for spectacular visual set pieces – and what falls flat. From the breathtaking Titanosaurus sequence in tall grass to the genuinely thrilling underwater T-Rex chase (finally realizing a sequence from Crichton's original novel), the film delivers exactly what audiences expect from the franchise: dinosaurs hunting humans in increasingly elaborate scenarios.
But beneath the impressive technical achievement lies familiar franchise fatigue. Characters feel underdeveloped despite the talented cast, emotional beats are undercut by the need to move to the next set piece, and the film's structure often feels algorithmically designed to hit nostalgic beats from previous entries rather than charting bold new territory. As this film kicks off another planned trilogy, we question where the franchise can possibly go from here without completely rehashing familiar territory.
We also discuss Christopher Nolan's mysterious Odyssey trailer that premiered exclusively before Jurassic World screenings and look ahead to next week's Superman release – another major franchise reboot that faces similar challenges in balancing fan expectations with creative revitalization. Can James Gunn deliver something fresh in a crowded superhero landscape, or are we destined for another case of franchise fatigue? Join us as we explore these questions and more on this week's Excuse the Intermission.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
how's it?
I'm alex macaulay and I'm maxgosberg and this is excuse the
intermission a discussion showsurrounding life and how, once
again, it finds a way.
Jurassic world rebirth was thebig, flashy, family-friendly
fourth of july release this yearand, despite circling the drain
creatively, the film has provenyet again that this
intellectual property is solidgold.
(00:27):
Max and I will chat about theRebirth movie, go over some
other movie news and lookforward to next week's episode,
which features another classicIP in the reboot spotlight.
All that up next on the otherside of this break.
All right, brother, how youdoing today?
Hope you had a restful.
I hope everyone out there had arestful and safe 4th of July
(00:49):
weekend.
We missed you up here.
How was the first IndependenceDay in Los Angeles for you?
Speaker 2 (00:57):
It was great.
It was pretty low-key.
I worked on set during the dayand then, after we wrapped, the
cast and crew had a cool littlebarbecue cookout at our
director's place, just anapartment complex.
But we were down by the pooland got to hang out and get to
(01:20):
know people more, which wasgreat.
And then, yeah, just came homeand Kaylee and I you know we
watched some fireworks from ourbalcony, but not a whole lot.
We didn't go out or anything.
We just kind of hung out andstarted watching a TV show
called Paradise.
(01:41):
Have you checked this show outyet's on hulu, starring sterling
k brown and james martson.
Okay, um, superman some.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Some would call him james martson uh cycle.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Oh, I thought you said james martson yeah, james
martson oh okay, no, no, no,that that was, that's Tom
Willing, um, but it looks likehim, definitely looks like a
similar white guy, um, but yeah,uh, so we just, yeah, we, we
(02:20):
just kind of got to relax andthe whole weekend was was very
relaxing.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
So it was nice.
How was uh, how was it up there?
It was it, you know, nice uphere.
We had good weather and there'sbeen.
It's funny, our buddy tim and Iwe were talking for a long time
there, like in the 2010s.
We had a place over by pointrustin where we always would go
to and we would see fireworksshow.
There would be what's nowbranded as the Freedom Fest,
(02:45):
with sometimes the Blue Angelsparticipate, other displays of,
I guess, patriotism, and thatwas really fun for a while.
But then that just kind of fellapart and I feel like our group
, our friend group, we were alittle lost there.
We didn't know what to do for acouple of years.
I think maybe one year we wentout, maybe to your family's
(03:07):
cabin, and that's always a goodtime.
But you know, the fun of thecabin was never necessarily tied
to a weekend or a certain event, it was just like any time you
went out there was a good time.
So we couldn't really make, wecouldn't really recall anyth of
July memories from out there.
But now another friend of ours,blaine, his parents have a
(03:30):
great place and that's sort ofbecome the new tradition, so
that's been really fun.
You were missed out there, ofcourse, but a lot of fun.
I do want to go back to yournight in Los Angeles, because I
have wondered this and I don'tknow if you're in a place to
respond yet, um, if you've maybeseen anything or heard anything
.
(03:50):
But I've always wondered,especially in a town like Los
Angeles, where so many peopleare making movies and you're
looking for.
You know we always would jokearound here when you were up up
here, max, and maybe there wouldbe a big um, a big response as
far as, like emergency medicalvehicles because of a fire,
(04:11):
because of something that maybeum happened out in the community
and you go, that's, that's goodfree production value right
there.
I'm wondering if, like not thatyou see fireworks in a ton of
movies but you definitely seefireworks in a lot of movies and
I just can't help but think,like gosh, for just to have like
B-roll footage of a droneflying over LA with a bunch of
(04:33):
fireworks going off, orsomething like, do you think
people are out there just kindof like guerrilla filmmaking,
like shooting stuff, not knowingif they're ever going to need
it or not, like, is thatsomething that you have sort of
thought about?
Like on these bigger, biggerdays, now that you're down there
and you're around so manydifferent people like big, big
casts of crews, of extras thatdon't even necessarily, I guess,
(04:55):
need to know they're in a shotor something.
But, like I was thinking aboutthat with with the holiday and
how cool it would maybe be to,yeah, fly a drone, drone, um,
over downtown la or somethinglike that, and just see what you
get.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Yeah, I I sure hope there are people out there doing
that.
If I guess, if I had a drone, II would have.
Uh, you know, I would be moreinclined to think about
something like that.
But, uh, but yeah, I, I, Ithink I'm sure that happens.
I'm sure someone was up.
You know, there's a coupledifferent hikes you can go to
with great viewpoints that justoverlook the whole city.
(05:29):
I'm sure there are people whoare up there and they've got
their cameras set up and whatnot.
Yeah, that's really interesting.
I would love to meet some ofthose people and see that
footage because, man, it really,you know, at one point we went
up to the roof of our buildingand like, no matter which way
(05:50):
you turned, you know, there werefireworks in the sky and just
like a constant, like rumbling,like towards the water and like
downtown, just constant stuffgoing off.
So, yeah, that's a great idea.
Uh, maybe maybe next year.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Uh, I'll be, I'll be ready for that that's very cool,
um, okay, well, so while wewere out semi-celebrating, I
suppose, um, a lot of peoplewere at the movie theaters and
they were out there to mostlysee.
I do want to give a quick shoutout to Lilo and Stitch, which
once again still did goodbusiness over the weekend.
(06:32):
And is it 90 or no?
It's at $975 million worldwide.
So we're so close to a billiondollar movie with lilo and
stitch, which is just likeinsane.
Um definitely smashed theprojections and the tracking of
that film and and so did thismovie that we're going to talk
(06:53):
about today, jurassic worldrebirth.
Um started its five-day holidayweekend run on july 2nd and
then, as numbers reportedthrough yesterday, july 6th,
we're looking at $147 milliondomestically, another $171
internationally, for a worldwidetotal of $318 million, which
(07:15):
beat the tracking, beat theopening.
These movies always make money,they always open big it's.
It's unfair, honestly, to othercreative minds out there that
want to try and tell a dinosaurstory because you're just never
(07:37):
going to be able to.
You'll always be compared tothis and you see why, like
there's always an appetite, atleast within the jurassic
universe, for these stories.
Um, you know we can talk abouthow we have before we're right.
We've talked about howsomething like 65 tried to come
and tell a new sort of originaldinosaur story and now some of
the production choices and theacting um in that movie not up
(08:01):
par, but it's not like JurassicWorld Rebirth is submitting
itself in cinema history, butjust the safety within that
franchise.
So speak to that a little bit, Iguess, off the top here.
Are you surprised at thefinancial success of Rebirth?
Speaker 2 (08:18):
I'm not.
Another note about it too is Ibelieve scarlett johansson has
become the highest grossingactor.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
Uh, uh right now, I think she, she eclipsed, she
eclipsed the lioness, she, sheeclipsed, uh, zoe, yeah, yeah
between this and and all the mcustuff that she's been in um.
I believe she is is the top dogthere um, which is honestly
impressive, and it was alwaysimpressive that zoe saldaña held
(08:50):
that as well.
But then you look at her workin the mcu along with the two
avatar films yeah, and, and evenpirates too, right, sure, right
, yes, from an earlier time.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
Um, yeah, you, you know I'm not.
I'm not really surprisedbecause, as you said, it seems
like if you put that skeletonT-Rex logo on on the front of
your movie, on your poster, it's, it's, it's going to do well,
and so I'm not really surprisedthat that it's had a huge
(09:26):
opening, do I think?
You know?
I think it was very smart tocorner this weekend.
Uh, first off, just becauseit's, it's by itself right,
there's, there's was reallynothing else coming out this
weekend?
I think it was.
I think the other, you know,notable release that anyone was
talking about was a movie calledsorry baby, which uh has done
(09:50):
really well on the on thefestival film circuit, uh, and
is a a a big indie hit.
But, uh, yeah, to have the havethe holiday weekend and to have
the word Jurassic and againthat logo, uh, people are,
people are going to go out andand again, this is like one of
(10:11):
the franchises, much like amission impossible or, uh, you
know, even like a fast and thefurious, where, like, people
understand that you need to goto the movie theater to to
experience this, right,dinosaurs.
Dinosaurs lend themselves to abig screen because they are huge
.
So, yeah, not very surprised Ithink we're going to see an
(10:36):
incredibly dramatic drop-off inits second weekend coming up,
simply because there's a movielooming that some say might be
the most important movie of thesummer and the most important
movie to a company, whereasDress World is part of Universal
(11:02):
, which is going to continue tomake movies no matter what.
I also think, and I wonder, Idon't know if I'm pretty sure it
played in front of every singlescreening of Jurassic World,
but do you think the fact thatChristopher Nolan dropped his
first trailer for his next movie, odyssey, uh, in front of this
(11:25):
movie, and is the only where Idon't think it's I I guess I
haven't looked, but I don'tthink it's online yet like you
have to go to the theater to seethis, uh, this trailer, and I
wonder if that played a littlebit into it too, to be like,
okay, I guess I will go see theseventh jurassic world movie
because I'm gonna get a littletaste of something for next
summer as well as much as Iwould like to think that we live
(11:50):
in a world where movie culturematters that much, it's just not
true.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
I think that maybe 10 of people and that might even
be generous even even knew thatthey were going to get that
trailer before beforehand.
Like, if you're not listeningto movie podcasts, if you're not
like reading the dailies, ifyou're not, like, really plugged
in, you had no idea that wascoming.
Yeah, that's probably true.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
That's probably true.
So it did play in front of your, your showing.
Yes, yeah, do we want to do?
We want to touch on that realquick, like what?
What you pull away?
I mean nolan, and you know he'sknown for these, these you know
, I think it was like a minute,a minute teaser.
Not much was told, shown or orwhatnot.
(12:36):
Um, you don't even see mattdamon's face.
He's playing odysseus.
Um, he's just got some likesome great John Bertholdt and
some sad Tom Holland, yeah yeah,I don't know.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
I don't really know if there is much to say.
I mean, I just hope that myhope with this movie for as long
as I've engaged with it, whichhas not been very long, but just
sort of like getting my toeswet and figuring out what it
might be about, like I hope thatGreek mythology if that's the
way we're going to go also meanslike monsters and creatures of
(13:16):
that mythology um, oh, I, Ibelieve, I believe he built uh,
a, a animatronic, uh, colossus,I think so those, those are
things that I will be almostmore excited to hear people's
response to, not necessarilysaying that I want to see that
(13:37):
in a trailer, and maybe he won'tput that in a trailer, but
those are the kind of thingsthat have me really excited for
this movie, because for thefirst time in a long time, a
Christopher Nolan movie is notgoing to have a bunch of guys in
well-tailored suits talking inrooms.
Now, maybe they're going to bechamber halls and maybe they're
(13:58):
going to be temples and maybethey're going to be other you
know um four.
There's going to be four wallsand a roof to them and there's
still going to be a lot ofconversation between men, I'm
sure, in this movie, uh, but thefact that he's going to branch
out and get a little bit more,uh, fantastical, I think is
really exciting.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
Do you think he's going to play with time the way
he does?
Speaker 1 (14:24):
That would be interesting.
I mean, obviously, by doing amovie rooted in a lot of
historical mythos.
You, you could.
There's a lot to chew on, um,but it would kind of be
interesting, I think, to see himtry to.
You know there's a lot to chewon, but it would kind of be
interesting, I think, to see himtry to.
You know, take your creativechances with just that, with the
(14:47):
mythology and with thecreativity that's given to you
from the historical context thatyou have to pull from, and not
try to throw in your own wrinkle.
Do you think he will?
I?
Speaker 2 (15:00):
I?
I kind of hope not.
I want this to be a straightdown the line sword and sandals
like make your troy, make yourversion of gladiator, make your
yeah, sword and sandals I don't,I don't think we need to be
jumping around with, you know,black and white and to you know,
to show the past or right,anything like that.
(15:23):
Um, so yeah, it's gonna beinteresting.
Uh, you know, once again,everyone who's anyone in
hollywood is in this movie.
Uh, and, and yeah, I mean meanlike I mean we're going to get a
Cyclops, we're going to get aMedusa, right, like I mean I
(15:44):
don't know exactly what part ofthe Iliad or the Odyssey that is
is in this movie, but I mean itcould go a lot of different
ways.
So pretty exciting to see that.
You know, people were hootingand hollering in my theater when
the Sinocopy or Senate, senate,canopy or whatever, however you
(16:06):
say, that logo came, came up,which I thought was pretty dorky
and fun.
But but, yeah, yeah, nolanheads rejoice.
Another one, another one comingnext year.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
So some of them may be the only people who aren't
going to be in that film.
And for other reasons too.
Jurassic World Rebirth is kindof interesting because I'm
watching this film and withsomeone like Mahershala Ali and
I think his choices within hiscareer and some of his projects
and the production um, or thelack there of production around
(16:41):
some of his projects have been athing of of much conversation.
And so to see this movie um,which which does star scarlett
johansson, which we haven'treally seen outside of the mcu,
lead a big action franchise ummovie in a long, I feel like,
was a big draw for people.
And then, of course, mahershalaAli Academy Award winner, a
(17:02):
two-time Academy Award winner.
I'm pretty sure, yeah, Iremember what the last film he
was in no.
And it's just been like we wantto see Blade, everyone wants to
see Blade, and then it's likeBlade's not happening and he's
working on Jurassic Park, andthen it's like Blade's not
happening and he's working onJurassic Park.
So now we get to finally seekind of some of this come to
fruition.
As far as this Gareth Edwardsfilm goes so off the bat, before
(17:26):
we get into you know kind ofthe nuts and bolts of the film,
did this feel like?
Was this a breath of fresh airfrom the Bryce Dallas Howard,
chris Pratt, three Jurassic Parkmovies that we got prior to
this?
Speaker 2 (17:45):
Did you enjoy Scarlett and Mahershala and the
rest of the ensemble in thismovie.
Compared to what we've gotten,yes, compared to those last two
movies Fallen Kingdom andDominion those movies are
extremely silly and goofy andbad.
Now I don't think this is agood movie.
I think this is just a nextlevel up of bad.
Um I, you know, I I think Iwrote this in my letterbox
(18:08):
review I it made me feel a lotlike how I felt coming out of
alien Romulus and I feel likethese franchises that are in
their seventh or eighth or sixthmovie, they tend to be like oh,
we are going to take a littlebit from every movie that's come
(18:28):
before.
We're going to put it togetheras an algorithm and do a bunch
of callbacks and try to make youfeel like you are comfortably
watching a highlight reel of allthe Jurassic movies.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
So, with Scarlett and Mahershala at the center of
that.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
I think that is also a problem.
When you do that, when youdecide to go that structure wise
with a movie like this, thecharacters just don't even
really matter.
Like I thought, you knowScarlett, I know Scarlett
Johansson can lead a movie.
You know, we've seen her do itmany times.
I know she can do action.
(19:16):
She's been doing that in theMCU.
She's done that in somethinglike that in the mcu.
She's done that something likeghost in the shell, um I I know
she's a good actor because oflost in translation, or even her
where you don't even seescarlet on screen marriage story
, marriage story.
She's fantastic in um.
But you know and and so she'sin this movie and like yeah, she
(19:38):
gets to put on, you know, abulletproof vest and a black
nondescript hat and and you knowI had to sit up in my seat,
yeah.
Yeah, I mean I I thought she wasfine, but like, also like her
character was not, was it wasjust nothing, like there was no,
I feel.
I felt like she wasn't evenlike really making choices other
(20:00):
than the choice to be like themost, like non-descript, you
know, world famous mercenary umwhich she was almost playing.
I felt kind of like she wasplaying scarlett johansson as a
mercenary yeah, and and mahershawley, he, he has this whole
(20:20):
throughout the whole movie.
They're talking, they're kindof like there's this thing under
the surface about his ex-wifeand that they supposedly lost a
child, but you never get toldhow they got lost, how that
child was lost.
You never you know he.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
Did you like that?
When we were finding out aboutsome of that stuff, the theme
music was playing unbelievableunbelievable uh, I was like what
?
There's no pterodactyls likeflying on the horizon right now.
What are?
Speaker 2 (20:49):
we hearing this music and then also, like you've got
jonathan bailey playing thenerdy uh, you know
paleontologist whose museum isclosing down and he's dedicated
his life to these animals and hecries when he sees a
titanosaurus for the first time,even though, according to the
movie, dinosaurs have beenaround and, yes, they're dying
(21:12):
out on the mainland.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
Yeah, there's literally one holding up traffic
outside of his museum as themovie opens yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
I just, and then Ruper or friend or whatever his
last name is.
As soon as he comes on onscreen you're like, oh, this is
paul reiser from aliens.
Like this is totally but thatguy.
And he's the pharmacy.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
He works for a pharmaceutical company yeah,
well, I mean, they have that inthe original jurassic park too,
right?
It's the guy with the suitjacket and the shorts, like
there are archetypes thateveryone.
It's the guy with the suitjacket and the shorts, like
there are archetypes thateveryone kind of has to follow
in these movies.
And when you get it that firsttime and maybe that second time
it's still fun.
But then you're right, it doesjust feel like you're circling
(21:52):
the drain by the time the fifth,sixth, seventh movie comes
around, when you just have thesame characters over and over
again showing up in these moviesyeah, I mean it.
Just it was an extremely staletaste in my mouth you know who I
would have loved to have seenin the rupert friend role, who I
thought could have done this.
Give me orlando bloom in thatrole.
(22:13):
Would have been great.
I don't think it would haveadded a whole, much more, a
whole lot more to the movie,just would have been great.
I don't think it would haveadded a whole, much more, a
whole lot more to the movie.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
Just would have liked to have seen it, though, but
also like we have a relationshipwith Orlando Bloom, you know,
with from Legolas and Troy andpirates, knowing that he can do,
he can do action.
So he's going to be a littlebit more threatening, right,
yeah, yeah, or even something.
I, when you said that, I merelythought of haven, right, like,
(22:42):
yeah, like badass.
Orlando bloom, you know thatmakes it way.
When, then when, at the end,when he's got the gun and he's
threatening everybody, it'sgoing to be a little bit more.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
there's a little bit more stakes well, I kind of feel
like that's what we saw alittle bit out of him in gran
turismo, which his performancewas one of the highlights of
that film, right, um, as as sortof like the corporate ugly um
of the story which obviously therupert friend character is
supposed to be playing.
Um, okay, so, so you have.
(23:15):
You definitely have star powerin this film.
Let's talk about Gareth Edwardsas well, the director, an
accomplished guy, someone whohas stayed basically within one
genre of science fiction actionhis entire career.
So it's no surprise that theset pieces in this movie do look
(23:38):
really good.
Like.
I will give this movie a lot ofcredit for its set pieces
because, at the end of the day,I'm not going to watch a Best
Picture nominee, a hopeful BestPicture nominee, I'm going to
watch people get chased bydinosaurs, and at the times when
people are being chased bydinosaurs in this movie, it's a
lot of fun being chased bydinosaurs in this movie.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
It's a lot of fun.
Yeah, I mean he.
He is one of the most, if notthe most, talented visual uh
effects director in in thebusiness, right, but everything
in between is just utter boring,like.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
So we put that on david, I'm gonna put that on
david cap.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
I'm gonna put that on david cap and not edwards yeah,
and then that's another personthat like again, like someone
who wrote the original jurassicpark movie and actually has had
a great year with something likeblack bag and presence.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
That he, he's had a great career yeah, well, yeah,
and a career.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
But again, like we are just, you know, and we're
going to get into spoilers, yes,right now.
So if you don't want to hearthat, go watch the movie and
come back and listen.
But like the, the, the, theconvenience store at the end is
(25:03):
exactly the industrial kitchen.
Yeah, of course you know the,the pterodactyl stuff feels a
lot like the stuff from jurassicpark 3, um, the.
You know the t-rex.
Here on the poster you can seethe t-rex chasing the family
down the river.
Now, I understand that is asequence that was in the
original book, that they wantedto do in the original movie but
didn't have the technology forum, because they were just
(25:25):
inventing all that stuff and soyou put it here, which is fine,
but also, like doesn't reallymean anything because a, the
family is absolutely unnecessary, like the only reason they're
there is because we have to putchildren in peril with these?
Speaker 1 (25:46):
Well, they just have a golden.
The entire family has a goldencloak around them the entire
time.
That's what I hated.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
Well, yeah, especially like yeah, the, the,
the boyfriend who goes in likepeas, you know just to to take a
leak at night and like araptors is ready to pounce,
ready to pounce, and then gets,gets eaten by a bigger dinosaur,
but then that dinosaur doesn'tnotice him and just flies away
and like you're playing that forlike laughs, but then also like
(26:14):
are you trying to thrill us?
I it's just yeah, um I you know.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
Also back to the rap sequence too.
The rap sequence doesn't workeither, because apparently we
are in the world's mostindestructible inflatable wrath
unbelievable you're telling me at-rex's mouth, teeth, can't
fucking this yeah that'sincredibly stupid, um, but yeah,
(26:42):
so back to gareth.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
I listen, yes, when the titanosaurus, when they're
in the the long grass, thetitanosaurus is is standing
there and like it's a big, wideshot.
It's beautiful.
The t-rex is is sleeping in thegrass right, that's something we
have never seen and kind oflike rolls over like a dog, like
that was really cool yeah, um,or, and even like I really loved
(27:05):
the design of the wingedraptors, right, or whatever they
were, I you know, and, and thatwas another thing that really
bugs me is that you know theymake a point to tell you over
and over again that this is aisland of mutant dinosaurs that
are, you know, misfit toys.
(27:26):
Uh, right, and, and like wedon't ever even really explore
that other than this, this othercreature dinosaur that I think
it's the d-rex, uh, I just what?
Speaker 1 (27:38):
do I have it I in my notes.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
It's called the mutant source yeah, the mutant
source, uh, it shows up at theend, but like, even that, like
we never even like go into itwould have been interest, more
interesting, if they if it wasabout like we had to go in and
like shut this, this laboratory,down because of what they were
doing to dinosaurs, they weremutating them and like
(28:01):
crossbreeding them and yeah, andit is a working, it's a working
laboratory, it's not abandonedor anything.
And like we, we had to goinfiltrate.
You know, you had scarlet andand maher shawley to go in and
infiltrate this place and shutit down.
Like that, to me that's waymore interesting than like we
have to, you know, break the law, go to this Island that's been
(28:25):
abandoned, and like we're tryingto extract dinosaur DNA to save
the world from cancer orwhatever.
Yeah, heart disease, yeah, heartdisease.
So, yeah, I Gareth, I thinkdisease, yeah, heart disease.
Uh, so, yeah, I gareth, I think, and it's too bad because I
think gareth, you know, when hedid godzilla, he, uh, he went so
(28:49):
far the other way from what weexpected from a godzilla movie
right, where like godzilla israrely on the screen and it's
much more of a human story andlike godzilla is just kind of
like happening in thisbackground, much like that movie
monsters he did.
I, I feel like this.
He was like I'm going to playthe most safe I can which is a
(29:14):
kind of a retelling of the firstjurassic park movie, or or
jurassic park 3, if that's whatit felt like.
To me it felt a lot likejurassic park 3 you know, you
know what movie.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
So, within the franchise, yeah, I think the
jurassic park 3 is the biggest,like the best, double feature to
do with this movie.
You know, what this movie felta lot like to me was Wolfgang
Peterson's the Perfect Storm.
Yes, yeah, because in thePerfect Storm you have Cherry
Jones and her whole family.
(29:47):
That are like.
Also happening simultaneouslyis all this stuff that's
happening on the Andrea Gale.
And the very first time we meetthis family on the sailboat I
had like an instant flashback tothe perfect storm and watching
that movie and being like why dowe need this family?
um, yeah, I don't even know andand then I realized like, well,
(30:09):
okay, so this is obviously notsomething that kept just made up
.
Like there's, I'm sure, and I'msure there's many more examples
of just like two parallelstories happening at once.
A, so that, like you just don'tget stagnant with with one,
with one storyline.
B, so that you can add someextra peril to your story.
(30:31):
But then the part that reallydoesn't work here, and where it
does work in something like theperfect storm, say, is that,
like those are a bunch of adultswho were out on that sailboat
that ends up capsizing and hasto get rescued.
And it was just like the early2000s.
And so you know, archetypeswere different and people were
(30:52):
less safe.
There were more stakes inmovies, even big blockbuster
movies that you expected, youknow a hundred million dollars
worth of people to go out andsee.
But like it just being a familywas, it was an attempt at
manipulation and it's likeyou're just not going to get me,
you're not going to get me tothink that anybody here's in
(31:13):
real danger, as we've stated.
Um, so I don't hate thecreative decision, I just hate
the execution of it.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
Yeah yeah, I, you, you can also feel that, like,
this movie felt extremely rushed, right, like, and another thing
, like, why is it called rebirth?
Yeah, that has nothing to do.
There's no, nothing about likere, like birthing or rebirth or
(31:43):
like reincarnation or you knowany, any sort of thing like that
.
I don't even know why thattitle is on this movie, uh, or
why it's even called jurassicworld.
It should be just jurassicisland, because because, again,
like they, they go, you know, topainstakingly, uh limits to
tell you that like, uh, all thedinosaurs that were on the
(32:07):
mainland from dominion have diedoff, you know, or are dying off
.
Yeah, they, they have been again, they have just been, uh,
isolated to this one area, youknow, by all around, yeah, yeah
and it's just like okay, well,that just means that it's just
gonna continue to be the samemovie of like we're going to an
(32:30):
island, we're gonna get chasedby a dinosaur, and then we're
going to escape, and it's justwhat?
Speaker 1 (32:37):
what's weird to me too, for for this being, you
know, may honestly like mayberebirth is more of a meta text
and it's supposed to be inconversation with the actual
franchise, and like we arerebirthing the jurassic world
franchise, which again alsofeels weird.
Max, and we're talking rightbefore we came on and we were
(32:58):
like we did an episode ondominion, dominion was like at
the tail end of of lockdown in2022, and that that movie's so
forgettable and feels like itcame out seven years ago already
.
Um, so I I do think that theywere trying to wash the taste
out of their mouth by byrebirthing this franchise, and
(33:20):
perhaps that does have somethingto do with the title of the
film.
I'm just, I'm interested inlike where they think they can
actually go from here that willtreat their audiences with any
amount of respect You're goingto have to get, so a
conversation like at the whitehouse level about, you know,
(34:01):
euthanizing dinosaurs orsomething like that.
I don't know.
That's not what people want, sothat's not what we're going to
get.
Well, again, what they want islike people in the jungle
running from dinosaurs, sothat's again what we're going to
have to go back to, but this issupposed to be the first film
that's going to kick off anothertrilogy, but, like you, just
brought back to the mainland allthe DNA, all the dino DNA that
(34:24):
you're ever going to need thatlittle girl brought back a
little dinosaur.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
Who's going to die?
Who's going to die RightBecause of the air First winter,
yeah, first bad winter.
Speaker 1 (34:35):
Um, so so you've, you've now established that you
have the, the means to cureheart disease.
So it's not like you can tell usthat the next story is going to
be we're going back, because itis going to be like now, all's
timers, or it's going to becancer, or it's gonna be like no
(34:57):
, you, just, you can't keepdoing that.
That's just so creativelybankrupt, and so I don't know
where they go from here.
Like this again wasn't I don'tthink it's the worst film in the
franchise, but I feel like theykind of blew their load and
every creative idea that theyhad to to pull from, whether
that was, you know, playing thebeats, playing the greatest hits
(35:20):
of of films past, or grabbingthings from the first book that
were maybe left out.
Because honestly, like I'm justbeing honest, when that t-rex
went under the water, I'm likethis is fucking sick, this is so
dope, and the t-rex is fullysubmerged.
I'm like, again, a great setpiece.
So, like there are moments itdefinitely feels this, this
movie is definitely built aroundit set pieces and that's fine.
(35:42):
I don't know where you go fromhere now because of, because of
what they showed.
Speaker 2 (35:47):
Yeah, I think they've totally written themselves into
a corner and um you know.
But then again, you know, it'sthe seventh movie in this, in
this fucking franchise.
Like when, when do we learnthat, like you know what?
Maybe after after six, aftertwo trilogies?
Yeah Well, I think maybe youknow, cause we've seen it now.
(36:10):
We've seen it with this, We'veseen it with star Wars, we've
seen it with, uh, fast and thefurious.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
We've seen I was going gonna say fast is
interesting because fast aren'treally structured in trilogies
but they're universal propertiesand they, those movies, have
gotten progressively lesseffective and and less fun yeah,
and and even like to a whilestill making a ton of money like
yeah yeah I, I just think atsome point we have to be okay,
(36:43):
and indiana jones too is anotherone that comes to mind.
Speaker 2 (36:46):
At some point you have to be okay with shutting
the door and just being like,hey, you know what these movies
live over here and and that wasa great run, and you know, if
you ever want to watch themagain, you can go watch them.
Yeah, but like, do we needjurassic world 8?
Nope, um, that's the answer.
So, yeah, it's just, I don'tknow we'll, we'll see what
(37:09):
happens, but yeah I do.
Speaker 1 (37:12):
I do want to give a couple.
There were a few other beatsthat I was kind of happy with
that.
I do just want to give a shoutout and we're once again in
spoiler territory here but likeI actually was the Titanosaurus,
you know moment in the tallgrass one in every single tall
(37:32):
grass sequence in these moviesyou are led to believe that
something bad is going to happen, that raptors are going to
attack.
So I did really appreciate thatthey they kind of like pulled
the rug out from under us onthat scene and let that moment
just be actually really peaceful, and I appreciated how chill
that was, because, especially ina, in a movie where you know
(37:56):
there's like a, b and C, theseare our objectives.
We have to get it from adinosaur on land.
We have to get it from adinosaur on scene.
We have to get it from adinosaur in the air.
You're like something's goingto go wrong or you're going to
have a challenge at each one ofthose steps the fact that one of
them and like more movies justneed to do this.
When it comes to, like you know, objectives that our main
(38:18):
characters have to do like let,comes to, like you know
objectives that our maincharacters have to do, like let
it just be easy for once.
So I did actually really likethat choice where it was like
you know what.
We're gonna put them out in thetall grass, we know what you're
gonna think is gonna havehappen.
They even drop the line.
They do a little checkoffs likethese danger.
These creatures aren'tdangerous, but the predators
that hunt them are like they getyou thinking something's gonna
happen.
And then it's just a reallynice time with these really cool
(38:40):
like Brontosaurus lookingdinosaurs that have these
amazing tails, that are justlike swirling around on the
screen.
So I thought that part wasreally cool.
And you know there's a there'sa great, there's a great
sequence on uh movie review.
I would definitely give um thelike shoot your shot award to
(39:01):
after um jonathan bailey'scharacter, whose name is dr
loomis, like again, I don't knowwhat we're doing there.
So after dr loomis killsmichael myers and then shoots
the flare gun up in the air Ithought that it was I was like I
know exactly what's going tohappen.
Now that flare gun is going todrop back down, it's going to
illuminate all this smoke that'saround him and we're going to
(39:24):
get that mutant source to popits head out, and of course
that's what happens and it'sexactly what you want to happen
and it looked awesome.
So I was like there's momentswhere it plays to the beats that
you expect, like as soon asRupert friend handcuffs himself
to the lab case.
It's like, well, that that armthat arm is coming off.
That arm is coming off, and whenit does, you're like, oh hell,
(39:47):
yeah, there we go Like could a12 year old write that
Absolutely, but it's kind ofsatisfying.
I was also really happy thatlike a T-Rex didn't come in and
like, fight the mutant source Ihave this in my notes, not
necessarily as far as the t-rex,but also very little raptors
like.
There's always a sequence inthese movies where the raptors
(40:08):
come in and save the day, or theraptors come in and turn heel.
Except from that one scenewhere the boyfriend goes out to
take a leak in the middle of thenight, we don't see any
velociraptors, so I thought thatthat was.
That had to have been a tough,tough call.
Uh, you know the mutant raptors, right?
I mean the flying ones.
Speaker 2 (40:28):
Yeah, I mean they show you the the, the claw on
the toe right.
Yeah, tell you like.
Oh, this is a mutated rafter.
Speaker 1 (40:36):
Yeah, these, these are our raptors for this movie.
Yeah, um, and and, hence whythey give them the convenience
store scene.
But but yeah, so I.
There were some things that Iwas definitely entertained with
um, or entertained by with thisfilm, and so, like I, as max
said, these movies aredefinitely made and and um,
(40:56):
designed like, designed to beseen on the big screen.
I'm not telling you to go spendyour hard-earned money on this
film.
I think you'll probably haveless fun, though, if you do wait
until it hits HBO or whateverstreaming service it goes to.
So I don't know, the decisionis yours.
I think that there's someredeeming qualities, but I
(41:17):
haven't put it in on Letterboxdyet.
This will be like a.
This will be somewhere betweena three and a three and a half
for me, and again, that's beingvery literal and that's so.
That's either like a D or a Cminus like there's.
There's a lot of room forimprovement here.
Speaker 2 (41:31):
Yeah, I think I gave it two stars.
I I just it bumps me out and Idon't even know why, because,
like, even going in, I was likethis is gonna be, it's gonna be
stupid, it's gonna be stupid.
The last two were so bad, um,and especially dominion.
I mean, I think I rememberhaving a huge rant on that
episode that we did aboutdominion well, yeah, because
(41:52):
that's when they really tried toget the whole gang back
together.
Sam neill, laura dern yeah, uhand yeah, you know, and so like
those sequences you pointed outlike yes, I loved the
titanosaurus stuff, except atthe very end when they tried to
cheaply do the fucking thatscene from original, the
(42:13):
original jurassic park wherethey look out, you know and it's
, they're all going down thevalley yeah, and they're all
going down the valley and it'sjust like a bunch of.
I thought that actually lookedreally bad, like it was just a
bunch of weird like polygondinosaurs walking around yeah,
yeah, they shouldn't have pulledback that far, that was yeah,
that was good and then, and thenthe end of that other sequence
(42:35):
you were talking about with the,with the d-rex, where maher
shawley and this is kind offurther down, so you could even
call this a separate, a separatepart of this movie.
But, like again, like thestakes, there's just no stakes
at all, because maher shawley,after again telling you
throughout the whole movie, orhinting, that he had lost a
(42:56):
child and the children arereally important to his
character like he's alwaystrying to find the children, you
know this girl telling him Iwon't let anything bad happen to
you.
Right, yeah, and he takes theflare and he runs off and the D
Rex chases him and and letseveryone else get into the boat.
And you're like, okay, he, he'sgoing to sacrifice himself.
(43:18):
I like that that's cool.
Like here are some stakes.
No, you know, a main charactercan die, yeah, and then the
fucking flare he shoots a flareup and we have no idea how he
gets out of it.
No, yeah, we don't even see.
It goes off screen and Iwouldn't even been fine like an
off screen death or even evenlike let's have it go off screen
(43:40):
and and maybe the the sequel islike him trying to survive on
the island by himself.
Sure, yeah, right, maybe hedoes escape and then scarjo's
got to go back scarjo has tocome back, or it's just him like
just a, just a maher shawalimovie, yeah, like predator,
where like he's covering himselfin mud and he's running around
(44:02):
the island.
Um, okay, you got my attentionbut instead, you know, he, he
shoots a flare and gets pickedup by the boat and then, and
then again, cheaply, they try todo the ending of jurassic park,
but just how they're in a boatand like the, the dolphins and
shit, and like, yeah, justhorrible, just really cheap, and
(44:24):
um, yeah, so, so yeah, I, Idon't know this one stung, I you
know, I'm glad, I'm glad it'sdoing well, I'm glad people are
going to see it in the theater.
But it was, it was extremely,uh, bankrupt experience.
Yeah it's.
Speaker 1 (44:41):
I mean it's just, and again, this is not a jurassic
world problem, this is an ipproblem.
They're just so, um you know,we're just spotter man, yeah,
we're just in such a tough placewith them and it's really too
bad.
Because, you know, this is whywe try to do things like our
lost horror sequels, spotlightepisodes.
Because only, I think, when youhave a budget of of this caliber
(45:07):
and you have expectations thatare so high maybe not critically
, but certain, certainlyfinancially speaking do you feel
you you feel more inclined tobe hypercritical of the creative
choices and to be and to feelrobbed when, when something
isn't really like delivered,when, when a promise isn't
(45:28):
delivered, when, when thestudios don't hold up their end
of the bargain, because whensomething like paranormal
activity, six or seven comealong and aren't great, but then
like they still work for somepeople and can keep the
franchise going, and then maybeyou know, like my favorite and I
(45:48):
bring it up all the time, likenext of kin, then all of a
sudden like still has enoughjuice to be made and it goes to
paramount plus and that movie'sawesome and it's so cool and it
gives someone like williameubanks a chance to like make a
make a film within a franchisebut to do a lot of fun, creative
stuff.
Like within franchises you canstill take risks and give people
(46:10):
the opportunity to share theircreative vision without studio
pressures, without pressures ofip and expectations, but just
not when they are this big.
And that's the tough thingabout a franchise like jurassic
park, slash world, like fast andthe furious, like mission
impossible, like so much of whatwe've seen so far this summer.
To be honest, um, which whichis a nice little segue, we'll
(46:34):
wrap up by kind of previewingwhat we, what we're going to
talk about next week, um, whichis the release of superman.
Now, I think this time lastweek, going into the weekend, we
were well, let's, uh, superman,I believe, and eddie eddington
is eddington also this oh,eddington, I believe is the 18th
, 18th, okay, the followingweekend, yeah, so yes, it is
(46:57):
superman week, you're rightyeah, um, but so going into
superman, we now we're basicallydealing with the exact same
monster here, the exact samething that we've been talking
about with jurassic world, and Idon't know.
What do we expect out of this?
Like you're, you will have thevery interesting task and I will
(47:20):
make sure to do my homework andreturn to the christopher
reeves films and watch somethinglike man of steel for the first
time and maybe even like pullup a smallville super, you might
like man of steel yeah, I mean,if it's not three hours long,
I'll watch it, like, uh, that'sthe problem with superhero
movies, right?
um, but no, I mean, do we thinkagain?
(47:42):
I, I I'm not gonna think, I'mnot gonna doubt this movie's
potential financial success, Ithink it's gonna do very well.
But again, like, can this movieshow us something that makes us
feel again, you know?
I mean, like superman issupposed to be such a human
story.
(48:02):
Um, you're, you're kind of ourcomic book expert here.
Like, what are the themes, whatare the like if this is a class
syllabus, like what do peopleneed to know and read and learn
before going into next week atthe theater?
Speaker 2 (48:15):
you think, I mean, it's a classic fish out of water
story.
Right, like he is an alien,superman, is an alien posing as
a human, right, uh, in our world.
He also, like you know, he isthe big blue boy scout.
Right, like he is the moralcenter of what you know when,
(48:38):
when the fight becomes goodversus evil, right, like he, he
is supposed to be the shininglight, the best of us, um, or
the best of you know, krypton,right, the best of the universe.
Uh, it's going to be reallyinteresting.
I think you know james gunn, Ihave James Gunn, I have a lot of
(48:59):
faith in James Gunn because hetends to take something we like
like a superhero movie, butreally give it its own voice and
style and substance.
And he did that repeatedly withthe guardians of the galaxy
(49:20):
movies, you know I I think someof those are the most unique and
individualistic movies in themcu.
Um, he's done that withsomething like slither, which is
like a total homage to bodyhorror and, and you know, the
fly and the thing, um, and likeit, but also has its own, very
(49:44):
own style and and breath, um, soyou know, can you do that with
a superman story?
I think it's going to beextremely different from what
we've been used to with ZackSnyder, which I think is a good
thing.
I think I hope it's.
I hope it's a better, you know,because something that is
(50:06):
extremely different from ZackSnyder's is Superman returns,
which is the Bryan Singer moviefrom 2005 or something like that
.
I hope it's a better film thanthat film and, you know, I think
it will be at, even though itwill be extremely different from
man of Steel and probably morelike the Christopher Reeves as
(50:27):
far as tone.
I think it will, you know, takea left turn from from those
movies as well and be much moreof a.
You know his stuff is alwaysvery like witty and violent and
so like if we can get a balanceof of of violence, you know,
(50:48):
good morals and hope like Ithink it will be successful.
We'll see.
I don't know.
Superman's never been myfavorite superhero story.
Uh, I I'm happy to hear thatwe're not getting an origin
story so it's it's gonna be.
(51:08):
you know you, you need to know,you need to know that origin
going into this movie, um, butyeah, who knows?
I think it will, I think youwill feel something because I, I
, I think again cheaply, youknow, we've got Crypto, the
super dog, in this movie, and soif anything bad happens to the
(51:30):
dog, I think that's you know, Imean, that's screenwriting 101.
Speaker 1 (51:33):
Manipulation tactic 101.
Speaker 2 (51:36):
Exactly yeah, so we'll see, we'll see, we'll see.
It feels a lot more sciencefictiony than than past superman
stuff because there's, you know, there's creatures and aliens
and um and things like that.
So, or fantastical maybe, maybefantastical is a better word,
(51:56):
but yeah, I don't know.
Uh, it's, it's a huge movie forDC WB James Gunn, you know who
is running that studio.
This is kind of the launchingpad of his new version of the DC
stories.
Speaker 1 (52:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (52:12):
A lot of rides on this.
A lot rides, a lot rides on onSuperman and and we'll see,
david Cornswe sweat has been aguy who's been like popping up
in big fan side, you know sideroles in in movies like pearl
and twisters, so this is kind ofhis big launching pad.
Yeah, rachel brosnan has been ahuge tv star, uh, with the
(52:34):
marvelous miss mazel on amazonprime.
I'm excited to see her uh onthe big screen.
Um, and then also, like our guy, nicholas holt is the heavy
right and he I think the lastvillainous role I saw him do was
uh the order, which he wasfucking awesome in yeah oh, the
(52:55):
order so good, and we getsomething as maniacal and evil
as that, as a white supremacistlex luther yeah, in a in a
bright, shiny.
Yeah, that'd be fucking awesomebecause I think nicholas holt's
a really really great actor.
Um, agreed, so, yeah, it'sgonna be really, really
interesting and I'm excited thatthe town down here is very
(53:15):
excited, I mean, you know,there's I'm sure it's everywhere
marketing wise yeah everythingeverywhere.
So, um, I can't wait to see itin a packed theater, um, and and
yeah, and then we'll get to sitdown and talk about it.
I'm excited, I and also I.
I just can't wait to hear what.
As always, what you think right, like I mean superhero,
(53:37):
superhero stuff is not, is notyour, your bag?
So?
Speaker 1 (53:40):
no, yeah, I'm coming in from a very neutral place
yeah.
Speaker 2 (53:44):
So yeah, if it's a good, I think we'll know if it's
a good movie, yeah, yeah, youknow not to put too much
pressure on you, no yeah, talkabout a big yeah, it's big for
james gunn, it's big for me, forall of us.
Speaker 1 (53:59):
Um, all right, well, that'll do it for our
conversation on Jurassic WorldRebirth and our anticipation
behind Superman.
Until next time, please followExcuse the Intermission on
Instagram and the two of us onLetterboxd to track what we're
watching between shows, andwe'll talk to you next time on
ETI, where movies still matter.
how's it?
I'm alex macaulay and I'm maxgosberg and this is excuse the
intermission a discussion showsurrounding life and how, once
again, it finds a way.
Jurassic world rebirth was thebig, flashy, family-friendly
fourth of july release this yearand, despite circling the drain
creatively, the film has provenyet again that this
intellectual property is solidgold.
(00:27):
Max and I will chat about theRebirth movie, go over some
other movie news and lookforward to next week's episode,
which features another classicIP in the reboot spotlight.
All that up next on the otherside of this break.
All right, brother, how youdoing today?
Hope you had a restful.
I hope everyone out there had arestful and safe 4th of July
(00:49):
weekend.
We missed you up here.
How was the first IndependenceDay in Los Angeles for you?
Speaker 2 (00:57):
It was great.
It was pretty low-key.
I worked on set during the dayand then, after we wrapped, the
cast and crew had a cool littlebarbecue cookout at our
director's place, just anapartment complex.
But we were down by the pooland got to hang out and get to
(01:20):
know people more, which wasgreat.
And then, yeah, just came homeand Kaylee and I you know we
watched some fireworks from ourbalcony, but not a whole lot.
We didn't go out or anything.
We just kind of hung out andstarted watching a TV show
called Paradise.
(01:41):
Have you checked this show outyet's on hulu, starring sterling
k brown and james martson.
Okay, um, superman some.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Some would call him james martson uh cycle.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Oh, I thought you said james martson yeah, james
martson oh okay, no, no, no,that that was, that's Tom
Willing, um, but it looks likehim, definitely looks like a
similar white guy, um, but yeah,uh, so we just, yeah, we, we
(02:20):
just kind of got to relax andthe whole weekend was was very
relaxing.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
So it was nice.
How was uh, how was it up there?
It was it, you know, nice uphere.
We had good weather and there'sbeen.
It's funny, our buddy tim and Iwe were talking for a long time
there, like in the 2010s.
We had a place over by pointrustin where we always would go
to and we would see fireworksshow.
There would be what's nowbranded as the Freedom Fest,
(02:45):
with sometimes the Blue Angelsparticipate, other displays of,
I guess, patriotism, and thatwas really fun for a while.
But then that just kind of fellapart and I feel like our group
, our friend group, we were alittle lost there.
We didn't know what to do for acouple of years.
I think maybe one year we wentout, maybe to your family's
(03:07):
cabin, and that's always a goodtime.
But you know, the fun of thecabin was never necessarily tied
to a weekend or a certain event, it was just like any time you
went out there was a good time.
So we couldn't really make, wecouldn't really recall anyth of
July memories from out there.
But now another friend of ours,blaine, his parents have a
(03:30):
great place and that's sort ofbecome the new tradition, so
that's been really fun.
You were missed out there, ofcourse, but a lot of fun.
I do want to go back to yournight in Los Angeles, because I
have wondered this and I don'tknow if you're in a place to
respond yet, um, if you've maybeseen anything or heard anything
.
(03:50):
But I've always wondered,especially in a town like Los
Angeles, where so many peopleare making movies and you're
looking for.
You know we always would jokearound here when you were up up
here, max, and maybe there wouldbe a big um, a big response as
far as, like emergency medicalvehicles because of a fire,
(04:11):
because of something that maybeum happened out in the community
and you go, that's, that's goodfree production value right
there.
I'm wondering if, like not thatyou see fireworks in a ton of
movies but you definitely seefireworks in a lot of movies and
I just can't help but think,like gosh, for just to have like
B-roll footage of a droneflying over LA with a bunch of
(04:33):
fireworks going off, orsomething like, do you think
people are out there just kindof like guerrilla filmmaking,
like shooting stuff, not knowingif they're ever going to need
it or not, like, is thatsomething that you have sort of
thought about?
Like on these bigger, biggerdays, now that you're down there
and you're around so manydifferent people like big, big
casts of crews, of extras thatdon't even necessarily, I guess,
(04:55):
need to know they're in a shotor something.
But, like I was thinking aboutthat with with the holiday and
how cool it would maybe be to,yeah, fly a drone, drone, um,
over downtown la or somethinglike that, and just see what you
get.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
Yeah, I I sure hope there are people out there doing
that.
If I guess, if I had a drone, II would have.
Uh, you know, I would be moreinclined to think about
something like that.
But, uh, but yeah, I, I, Ithink I'm sure that happens.
I'm sure someone was up.
You know, there's a coupledifferent hikes you can go to
with great viewpoints that justoverlook the whole city.
(05:29):
I'm sure there are people whoare up there and they've got
their cameras set up and whatnot.
Yeah, that's really interesting.
I would love to meet some ofthose people and see that
footage because, man, it really,you know, at one point we went
up to the roof of our buildingand like, no matter which way
(05:50):
you turned, you know, there werefireworks in the sky and just
like a constant, like rumbling,like towards the water and like
downtown, just constant stuffgoing off.
So, yeah, that's a great idea.
Uh, maybe maybe next year.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Uh, I'll be, I'll be ready for that that's very cool,
um, okay, well, so while wewere out semi-celebrating, I
suppose, um, a lot of peoplewere at the movie theaters and
they were out there to mostlysee.
I do want to give a quick shoutout to Lilo and Stitch, which
once again still did goodbusiness over the weekend.
(06:32):
And is it 90 or no?
It's at $975 million worldwide.
So we're so close to a billiondollar movie with lilo and
stitch, which is just likeinsane.
Um definitely smashed theprojections and the tracking of
that film and and so did thismovie that we're going to talk
(06:53):
about today, jurassic worldrebirth.
Um started its five-day holidayweekend run on july 2nd and
then, as numbers reportedthrough yesterday, july 6th,
we're looking at $147 milliondomestically, another $171
internationally, for a worldwidetotal of $318 million, which
(07:15):
beat the tracking, beat theopening.
These movies always make money,they always open big it's.
It's unfair, honestly, to othercreative minds out there that
want to try and tell a dinosaurstory because you're just never
(07:37):
going to be able to.
You'll always be compared tothis and you see why, like
there's always an appetite, atleast within the jurassic
universe, for these stories.
Um, you know we can talk abouthow we have before we're right.
We've talked about howsomething like 65 tried to come
and tell a new sort of originaldinosaur story and now some of
the production choices and theacting um in that movie not up
(08:01):
par, but it's not like JurassicWorld Rebirth is submitting
itself in cinema history, butjust the safety within that
franchise.
So speak to that a little bit, Iguess, off the top here.
Are you surprised at thefinancial success of Rebirth?
Speaker 2 (08:18):
I'm not.
Another note about it too is Ibelieve scarlett johansson has
become the highest grossingactor.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
Uh, uh right now, I think she, she eclipsed, she
eclipsed the lioness, she, sheeclipsed, uh, zoe, yeah, yeah
between this and and all the mcustuff that she's been in um.
I believe she is is the top dogthere um, which is honestly
impressive, and it was alwaysimpressive that zoe saldaña held
(08:50):
that as well.
But then you look at her workin the mcu along with the two
avatar films yeah, and, and evenpirates too, right, sure, right
, yes, from an earlier time.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
Um, yeah, you, you know I'm not.
I'm not really surprisedbecause, as you said, it seems
like if you put that skeletonT-Rex logo on on the front of
your movie, on your poster, it's, it's, it's going to do well,
and so I'm not really surprisedthat that it's had a huge
(09:26):
opening, do I think?
You know?
I think it was very smart tocorner this weekend.
Uh, first off, just becauseit's, it's by itself right,
there's, there's was reallynothing else coming out this
weekend?
I think it was.
I think the other, you know,notable release that anyone was
talking about was a movie calledsorry baby, which uh has done
(09:50):
really well on the on thefestival film circuit, uh, and
is a a a big indie hit.
But, uh, yeah, to have the havethe holiday weekend and to have
the word Jurassic and againthat logo, uh, people are,
people are going to go out andand again, this is like one of
(10:11):
the franchises, much like amission impossible or, uh, you
know, even like a fast and thefurious, where, like, people
understand that you need to goto the movie theater to to
experience this, right,dinosaurs.
Dinosaurs lend themselves to abig screen because they are huge
.
So, yeah, not very surprised Ithink we're going to see an
(10:36):
incredibly dramatic drop-off inits second weekend coming up,
simply because there's a movielooming that some say might be
the most important movie of thesummer and the most important
movie to a company, whereasDress World is part of Universal
(11:02):
, which is going to continue tomake movies no matter what.
I also think, and I wonder, Idon't know if I'm pretty sure it
played in front of every singlescreening of Jurassic World,
but do you think the fact thatChristopher Nolan dropped his
first trailer for his next movie, odyssey, uh, in front of this
(11:25):
movie, and is the only where Idon't think it's I I guess I
haven't looked, but I don'tthink it's online yet like you
have to go to the theater to seethis, uh, this trailer, and I
wonder if that played a littlebit into it too, to be like,
okay, I guess I will go see theseventh jurassic world movie
because I'm gonna get a littletaste of something for next
summer as well as much as Iwould like to think that we live
(11:50):
in a world where movie culturematters that much, it's just not
true.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
I think that maybe 10 of people and that might even
be generous even even knew thatthey were going to get that
trailer before beforehand.
Like, if you're not listeningto movie podcasts, if you're not
like reading the dailies, ifyou're not, like, really plugged
in, you had no idea that wascoming.
Yeah, that's probably true.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
That's probably true.
So it did play in front of your, your showing.
Yes, yeah, do we want to do?
We want to touch on that realquick, like what?
What you pull away?
I mean nolan, and you know he'sknown for these, these you know
, I think it was like a minute,a minute teaser.
Not much was told, shown or orwhatnot.
(12:36):
Um, you don't even see mattdamon's face.
He's playing odysseus.
Um, he's just got some likesome great John Bertholdt and
some sad Tom Holland, yeah yeah,I don't know.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
I don't really know if there is much to say.
I mean, I just hope that myhope with this movie for as long
as I've engaged with it, whichhas not been very long, but just
sort of like getting my toeswet and figuring out what it
might be about, like I hope thatGreek mythology if that's the
way we're going to go also meanslike monsters and creatures of
(13:16):
that mythology um, oh, I, Ibelieve, I believe he built uh,
a, a animatronic, uh, colossus,I think so those, those are
things that I will be almostmore excited to hear people's
response to, not necessarilysaying that I want to see that
(13:37):
in a trailer, and maybe he won'tput that in a trailer, but
those are the kind of thingsthat have me really excited for
this movie, because for thefirst time in a long time, a
Christopher Nolan movie is notgoing to have a bunch of guys in
well-tailored suits talking inrooms.
Now, maybe they're going to bechamber halls and maybe they're
(13:58):
going to be temples and maybethey're going to be other you
know um four.
There's going to be four wallsand a roof to them and there's
still going to be a lot ofconversation between men, I'm
sure, in this movie, uh, but thefact that he's going to branch
out and get a little bit more,uh, fantastical, I think is
really exciting.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
Do you think he's going to play with time the way
he does?
Speaker 1 (14:24):
That would be interesting.
I mean, obviously, by doing amovie rooted in a lot of
historical mythos.
You, you could.
There's a lot to chew on, um,but it would kind of be
interesting, I think, to see himtry to.
You know there's a lot to chewon, but it would kind of be
interesting, I think, to see himtry to.
You know, take your creativechances with just that, with the
(14:47):
mythology and with thecreativity that's given to you
from the historical context thatyou have to pull from, and not
try to throw in your own wrinkle.
Do you think he will?
I?
Speaker 2 (15:00):
I?
I kind of hope not.
I want this to be a straightdown the line sword and sandals
like make your troy, make yourversion of gladiator, make your
yeah, sword and sandals I don't,I don't think we need to be
jumping around with, you know,black and white and to you know,
to show the past or right,anything like that.
(15:23):
Um, so yeah, it's gonna beinteresting.
Uh, you know, once again,everyone who's anyone in
hollywood is in this movie.
Uh, and, and yeah, I mean meanlike I mean we're going to get a
Cyclops, we're going to get aMedusa, right, like I mean I
(15:44):
don't know exactly what part ofthe Iliad or the Odyssey that is
is in this movie, but I mean itcould go a lot of different
ways.
So pretty exciting to see that.
You know, people were hootingand hollering in my theater when
the Sinocopy or Senate, senate,canopy or whatever, however you
(16:06):
say, that logo came, came up,which I thought was pretty dorky
and fun.
But but, yeah, yeah, nolanheads rejoice.
Another one, another one comingnext year.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
So some of them may be the only people who aren't
going to be in that film.
And for other reasons too.
Jurassic World Rebirth is kindof interesting because I'm
watching this film and withsomeone like Mahershala Ali and
I think his choices within hiscareer and some of his projects
and the production um, or thelack there of production around
(16:41):
some of his projects have been athing of of much conversation.
And so to see this movie um,which which does star scarlett
johansson, which we haven'treally seen outside of the mcu,
lead a big action franchise ummovie in a long, I feel like,
was a big draw for people.
And then, of course, mahershalaAli Academy Award winner, a
(17:02):
two-time Academy Award winner.
I'm pretty sure, yeah, Iremember what the last film he
was in no.
And it's just been like we wantto see Blade, everyone wants to
see Blade, and then it's likeBlade's not happening and he's
working on Jurassic Park, andthen it's like Blade's not
happening and he's working onJurassic Park.
So now we get to finally seekind of some of this come to
fruition.
As far as this Gareth Edwardsfilm goes so off the bat, before
(17:26):
we get into you know kind ofthe nuts and bolts of the film,
did this feel like?
Was this a breath of fresh airfrom the Bryce Dallas Howard,
chris Pratt, three Jurassic Parkmovies that we got prior to
this?
Speaker 2 (17:45):
Did you enjoy Scarlett and Mahershala and the
rest of the ensemble in thismovie.
Compared to what we've gotten,yes, compared to those last two
movies Fallen Kingdom andDominion those movies are
extremely silly and goofy andbad.
Now I don't think this is agood movie.
I think this is just a nextlevel up of bad.
Um I, you know, I I think Iwrote this in my letterbox
(18:08):
review I it made me feel a lotlike how I felt coming out of
alien Romulus and I feel likethese franchises that are in
their seventh or eighth or sixthmovie, they tend to be like oh,
we are going to take a littlebit from every movie that's come
(18:28):
before.
We're going to put it togetheras an algorithm and do a bunch
of callbacks and try to make youfeel like you are comfortably
watching a highlight reel of allthe Jurassic movies.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
So, with Scarlett and Mahershala at the center of
that.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
I think that is also a problem.
When you do that, when youdecide to go that structure wise
with a movie like this, thecharacters just don't even
really matter.
Like I thought, you knowScarlett, I know Scarlett
Johansson can lead a movie.
You know, we've seen her do itmany times.
I know she can do action.
(19:16):
She's been doing that in theMCU.
She's done that in somethinglike that in the mcu.
She's done that something likeghost in the shell, um I I know
she's a good actor because oflost in translation, or even her
where you don't even seescarlet on screen marriage story
, marriage story.
She's fantastic in um.
But you know and and so she'sin this movie and like yeah, she
(19:38):
gets to put on, you know, abulletproof vest and a black
nondescript hat and and you knowI had to sit up in my seat,
yeah.
Yeah, I mean I I thought she wasfine, but like, also like her
character was not, was it wasjust nothing, like there was no,
I feel.
I felt like she wasn't evenlike really making choices other
(20:00):
than the choice to be like themost, like non-descript, you
know, world famous mercenary umwhich she was almost playing.
I felt kind of like she wasplaying scarlett johansson as a
mercenary yeah, and and mahershawley, he, he has this whole
(20:20):
throughout the whole movie.
They're talking, they're kindof like there's this thing under
the surface about his ex-wifeand that they supposedly lost a
child, but you never get toldhow they got lost, how that
child was lost.
You never you know he.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
Did you like that?
When we were finding out aboutsome of that stuff, the theme
music was playing unbelievableunbelievable uh, I was like what
?
There's no pterodactyls likeflying on the horizon right now.
What are?
Speaker 2 (20:49):
we hearing this music and then also, like you've got
jonathan bailey playing thenerdy uh, you know
paleontologist whose museum isclosing down and he's dedicated
his life to these animals and hecries when he sees a
titanosaurus for the first time,even though, according to the
movie, dinosaurs have beenaround and, yes, they're dying
(21:12):
out on the mainland.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
Yeah, there's literally one holding up traffic
outside of his museum as themovie opens yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
I just, and then Ruper or friend or whatever his
last name is.
As soon as he comes on onscreen you're like, oh, this is
paul reiser from aliens.
Like this is totally but thatguy.
And he's the pharmacy.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
He works for a pharmaceutical company yeah,
well, I mean, they have that inthe original jurassic park too,
right?
It's the guy with the suitjacket and the shorts, like
there are archetypes thateveryone.
It's the guy with the suitjacket and the shorts, like
there are archetypes thateveryone kind of has to follow
in these movies.
And when you get it that firsttime and maybe that second time
it's still fun.
But then you're right, it doesjust feel like you're circling
(21:52):
the drain by the time the fifth,sixth, seventh movie comes
around, when you just have thesame characters over and over
again showing up in these moviesyeah, I mean it.
Just it was an extremely staletaste in my mouth you know who I
would have loved to have seenin the rupert friend role, who I
thought could have done this.
Give me orlando bloom in thatrole.
(22:13):
Would have been great.
I don't think it would haveadded a whole, much more, a
whole lot more to the movie,just would have been great.
I don't think it would haveadded a whole, much more, a
whole lot more to the movie.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
Just would have liked to have seen it, though, but
also like we have a relationshipwith Orlando Bloom, you know,
with from Legolas and Troy andpirates, knowing that he can do,
he can do action.
So he's going to be a littlebit more threatening, right,
yeah, yeah, or even something.
I, when you said that, I merelythought of haven, right, like,
(22:42):
yeah, like badass.
Orlando bloom, you know thatmakes it way.
When, then when, at the end,when he's got the gun and he's
threatening everybody, it'sgoing to be a little bit more.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
there's a little bit more stakes well, I kind of feel
like that's what we saw alittle bit out of him in gran
turismo, which his performancewas one of the highlights of
that film, right, um, as as sortof like the corporate ugly um
of the story which obviously therupert friend character is
supposed to be playing.
Um, okay, so, so you have.
(23:15):
You definitely have star powerin this film.
Let's talk about Gareth Edwardsas well, the director, an
accomplished guy, someone whohas stayed basically within one
genre of science fiction actionhis entire career.
So it's no surprise that theset pieces in this movie do look
(23:38):
really good.
Like.
I will give this movie a lot ofcredit for its set pieces
because, at the end of the day,I'm not going to watch a Best
Picture nominee, a hopeful BestPicture nominee, I'm going to
watch people get chased bydinosaurs, and at the times when
people are being chased bydinosaurs in this movie, it's a
lot of fun being chased bydinosaurs in this movie.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
It's a lot of fun.
Yeah, I mean he.
He is one of the most, if notthe most, talented visual uh
effects director in in thebusiness, right, but everything
in between is just utter boring,like.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
So we put that on david, I'm gonna put that on
david cap.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
I'm gonna put that on david cap and not edwards yeah,
and then that's another personthat like again, like someone
who wrote the original jurassicpark movie and actually has had
a great year with something likeblack bag and presence.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
That he, he's had a great career yeah, well, yeah,
and a career.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
But again, like we are just, you know, and we're
going to get into spoilers, yes,right now.
So if you don't want to hearthat, go watch the movie and
come back and listen.
But like the, the, the, theconvenience store at the end is
(25:03):
exactly the industrial kitchen.
Yeah, of course you know the,the pterodactyl stuff feels a
lot like the stuff from jurassicpark 3, um, the.
You know the t-rex.
Here on the poster you can seethe t-rex chasing the family
down the river.
Now, I understand that is asequence that was in the
original book, that they wantedto do in the original movie but
didn't have the technology forum, because they were just
(25:25):
inventing all that stuff and soyou put it here, which is fine,
but also, like doesn't reallymean anything because a, the
family is absolutely unnecessary, like the only reason they're
there is because we have to putchildren in peril with these?
Speaker 1 (25:46):
Well, they just have a golden.
The entire family has a goldencloak around them the entire
time.
That's what I hated.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
Well, yeah, especially like yeah, the, the,
the boyfriend who goes in likepeas, you know just to to take a
leak at night and like araptors is ready to pounce,
ready to pounce, and then gets,gets eaten by a bigger dinosaur,
but then that dinosaur doesn'tnotice him and just flies away
and like you're playing that forlike laughs, but then also like
(26:14):
are you trying to thrill us?
I it's just yeah, um I you know.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
Also back to the rap sequence too.
The rap sequence doesn't workeither, because apparently we
are in the world's mostindestructible inflatable wrath
unbelievable you're telling me at-rex's mouth, teeth, can't
fucking this yeah that'sincredibly stupid, um, but yeah,
(26:42):
so back to gareth.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
I listen, yes, when the titanosaurus, when they're
in the the long grass, thetitanosaurus is is standing
there and like it's a big, wideshot.
It's beautiful.
The t-rex is is sleeping in thegrass right, that's something we
have never seen and kind oflike rolls over like a dog, like
that was really cool yeah, um,or, and even like I really loved
(27:05):
the design of the wingedraptors, right, or whatever they
were, I you know, and, and thatwas another thing that really
bugs me is that you know theymake a point to tell you over
and over again that this is aisland of mutant dinosaurs that
are, you know, misfit toys.
(27:26):
Uh, right, and, and like wedon't ever even really explore
that other than this, this othercreature dinosaur that I think
it's the d-rex, uh, I just what?
Speaker 1 (27:38):
do I have it I in my notes.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
It's called the mutant source yeah, the mutant
source, uh, it shows up at theend, but like, even that, like
we never even like go into itwould have been interest, more
interesting, if they if it wasabout like we had to go in and
like shut this, this laboratory,down because of what they were
doing to dinosaurs, they weremutating them and like
(28:01):
crossbreeding them and yeah, andit is a working, it's a working
laboratory, it's not abandonedor anything.
And like we, we had to goinfiltrate.
You know, you had scarlet andand maher shawley to go in and
infiltrate this place and shutit down.
Like that, to me that's waymore interesting than like we
have to, you know, break the law, go to this Island that's been
(28:25):
abandoned, and like we're tryingto extract dinosaur DNA to save
the world from cancer orwhatever.
Yeah, heart disease, yeah, heartdisease.
So, yeah, I Gareth, I thinkdisease, yeah, heart disease.
Uh, so, yeah, I gareth, I think, and it's too bad because I
think gareth, you know, when hedid godzilla, he, uh, he went so
(28:49):
far the other way from what weexpected from a godzilla movie
right, where like godzilla israrely on the screen and it's
much more of a human story andlike godzilla is just kind of
like happening in thisbackground, much like that movie
monsters he did.
I, I feel like this.
He was like I'm going to playthe most safe I can which is a
(29:14):
kind of a retelling of the firstjurassic park movie, or or
jurassic park 3, if that's whatit felt like.
To me it felt a lot likejurassic park 3 you know, you
know what movie.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
So, within the franchise, yeah, I think the
jurassic park 3 is the biggest,like the best, double feature to
do with this movie.
You know, what this movie felta lot like to me was Wolfgang
Peterson's the Perfect Storm.
Yes, yeah, because in thePerfect Storm you have Cherry
Jones and her whole family.
(29:47):
That are like.
Also happening simultaneouslyis all this stuff that's
happening on the Andrea Gale.
And the very first time we meetthis family on the sailboat I
had like an instant flashback tothe perfect storm and watching
that movie and being like why dowe need this family?
um, yeah, I don't even know andand then I realized like, well,
(30:09):
okay, so this is obviously notsomething that kept just made up
.
Like there's, I'm sure, and I'msure there's many more examples
of just like two parallelstories happening at once.
A, so that, like you just don'tget stagnant with with one,
with one storyline.
B, so that you can add someextra peril to your story.
(30:31):
But then the part that reallydoesn't work here, and where it
does work in something like theperfect storm, say, is that,
like those are a bunch of adultswho were out on that sailboat
that ends up capsizing and hasto get rescued.
And it was just like the early2000s.
And so you know, archetypeswere different and people were
(30:52):
less safe.
There were more stakes inmovies, even big blockbuster
movies that you expected, youknow a hundred million dollars
worth of people to go out andsee.
But like it just being a familywas, it was an attempt at
manipulation and it's likeyou're just not going to get me,
you're not going to get me tothink that anybody here's in
(31:13):
real danger, as we've stated.
Um, so I don't hate thecreative decision, I just hate
the execution of it.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
Yeah yeah, I, you, you can also feel that, like,
this movie felt extremely rushed, right, like, and another thing
, like, why is it called rebirth?
Yeah, that has nothing to do.
There's no, nothing about likere, like birthing or rebirth or
(31:43):
like reincarnation or you knowany, any sort of thing like that
.
I don't even know why thattitle is on this movie, uh, or
why it's even called jurassicworld.
It should be just jurassicisland, because because, again,
like they, they go, you know, topainstakingly, uh limits to
tell you that like, uh, all thedinosaurs that were on the
(32:07):
mainland from dominion have diedoff, you know, or are dying off
.
Yeah, they, they have been again, they have just been, uh,
isolated to this one area, youknow, by all around, yeah, yeah
and it's just like okay, well,that just means that it's just
gonna continue to be the samemovie of like we're going to an
(32:30):
island, we're gonna get chasedby a dinosaur, and then we're
going to escape, and it's justwhat?
Speaker 1 (32:37):
what's weird to me too, for for this being, you
know, may honestly like mayberebirth is more of a meta text
and it's supposed to be inconversation with the actual
franchise, and like we arerebirthing the jurassic world
franchise, which again alsofeels weird.
Max, and we're talking rightbefore we came on and we were
(32:58):
like we did an episode ondominion, dominion was like at
the tail end of of lockdown in2022, and that that movie's so
forgettable and feels like itcame out seven years ago already
.
Um, so I I do think that theywere trying to wash the taste
out of their mouth by byrebirthing this franchise, and
(33:20):
perhaps that does have somethingto do with the title of the
film.
I'm just, I'm interested inlike where they think they can
actually go from here that willtreat their audiences with any
amount of respect You're goingto have to get, so a
conversation like at the whitehouse level about, you know,
(34:01):
euthanizing dinosaurs orsomething like that.
I don't know.
That's not what people want, sothat's not what we're going to
get.
Well, again, what they want islike people in the jungle
running from dinosaurs, sothat's again what we're going to
have to go back to, but this issupposed to be the first film
that's going to kick off anothertrilogy, but, like you, just
brought back to the mainland allthe DNA, all the dino DNA that
(34:24):
you're ever going to need thatlittle girl brought back a
little dinosaur.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
Who's going to die?
Who's going to die RightBecause of the air First winter,
yeah, first bad winter.
Speaker 1 (34:35):
Um, so so you've, you've now established that you
have the, the means to cureheart disease.
So it's not like you can tell usthat the next story is going to
be we're going back, because itis going to be like now, all's
timers, or it's going to becancer, or it's gonna be like no
(34:57):
, you, just, you can't keepdoing that.
That's just so creativelybankrupt, and so I don't know
where they go from here.
Like this again wasn't I don'tthink it's the worst film in the
franchise, but I feel like theykind of blew their load and
every creative idea that theyhad to to pull from, whether
that was, you know, playing thebeats, playing the greatest hits
(35:20):
of of films past, or grabbingthings from the first book that
were maybe left out.
Because honestly, like I'm justbeing honest, when that t-rex
went under the water, I'm likethis is fucking sick, this is so
dope, and the t-rex is fullysubmerged.
I'm like, again, a great setpiece.
So, like there are moments itdefinitely feels this, this
movie is definitely built aroundit set pieces and that's fine.
(35:42):
I don't know where you go fromhere now because of, because of
what they showed.
Speaker 2 (35:47):
Yeah, I think they've totally written themselves into
a corner and um you know.
But then again, you know, it'sthe seventh movie in this, in
this fucking franchise.
Like when, when do we learnthat, like you know what?
Maybe after after six, aftertwo trilogies?
Yeah Well, I think maybe youknow, cause we've seen it now.
(36:10):
We've seen it with this, We'veseen it with star Wars, we've
seen it with, uh, fast and thefurious.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
We've seen I was going gonna say fast is
interesting because fast aren'treally structured in trilogies
but they're universal propertiesand they, those movies, have
gotten progressively lesseffective and and less fun yeah,
and and even like to a whilestill making a ton of money like
yeah yeah I, I just think atsome point we have to be okay,
(36:43):
and indiana jones too is anotherone that comes to mind.
Speaker 2 (36:46):
At some point you have to be okay with shutting
the door and just being like,hey, you know what these movies
live over here and and that wasa great run, and you know, if
you ever want to watch themagain, you can go watch them.
Yeah, but like, do we needjurassic world 8?
Nope, um, that's the answer.
So, yeah, it's just, I don'tknow we'll, we'll see what
(37:09):
happens, but yeah I do.
Speaker 1 (37:12):
I do want to give a couple.
There were a few other beatsthat I was kind of happy with
that.
I do just want to give a shoutout and we're once again in
spoiler territory here but likeI actually was the Titanosaurus,
you know moment in the tallgrass one in every single tall
(37:32):
grass sequence in these moviesyou are led to believe that
something bad is going to happen, that raptors are going to
attack.
So I did really appreciate thatthey they kind of like pulled
the rug out from under us onthat scene and let that moment
just be actually really peaceful, and I appreciated how chill
that was, because, especially ina, in a movie where you know
(37:56):
there's like a, b and C, theseare our objectives.
We have to get it from adinosaur on land.
We have to get it from adinosaur on scene.
We have to get it from adinosaur in the air.
You're like something's goingto go wrong or you're going to
have a challenge at each one ofthose steps the fact that one of
them and like more movies justneed to do this.
When it comes to, like you know, objectives that our main
(38:18):
characters have to do like let,comes to, like you know
objectives that our maincharacters have to do, like let
it just be easy for once.
So I did actually really likethat choice where it was like
you know what.
We're gonna put them out in thetall grass, we know what you're
gonna think is gonna havehappen.
They even drop the line.
They do a little checkoffs likethese danger.
These creatures aren'tdangerous, but the predators
that hunt them are like they getyou thinking something's gonna
happen.
And then it's just a reallynice time with these really cool
(38:40):
like Brontosaurus lookingdinosaurs that have these
amazing tails, that are justlike swirling around on the
screen.
So I thought that part wasreally cool.
And you know there's a there'sa great, there's a great
sequence on uh movie review.
I would definitely give um thelike shoot your shot award to
(39:01):
after um jonathan bailey'scharacter, whose name is dr
loomis, like again, I don't knowwhat we're doing there.
So after dr loomis killsmichael myers and then shoots
the flare gun up in the air Ithought that it was I was like I
know exactly what's going tohappen.
Now that flare gun is going todrop back down, it's going to
illuminate all this smoke that'saround him and we're going to
(39:24):
get that mutant source to popits head out, and of course
that's what happens and it'sexactly what you want to happen
and it looked awesome.
So I was like there's momentswhere it plays to the beats that
you expect, like as soon asRupert friend handcuffs himself
to the lab case.
It's like, well, that that armthat arm is coming off.
That arm is coming off, and whenit does, you're like, oh hell,
(39:47):
yeah, there we go Like could a12 year old write that
Absolutely, but it's kind ofsatisfying.
I was also really happy thatlike a T-Rex didn't come in and
like, fight the mutant source Ihave this in my notes, not
necessarily as far as the t-rex,but also very little raptors
like.
There's always a sequence inthese movies where the raptors
(40:08):
come in and save the day, or theraptors come in and turn heel.
Except from that one scenewhere the boyfriend goes out to
take a leak in the middle of thenight, we don't see any
velociraptors, so I thought thatthat was.
That had to have been a tough,tough call.
Uh, you know the mutant raptors, right?
I mean the flying ones.
Speaker 2 (40:28):
Yeah, I mean they show you the the, the claw on
the toe right.
Yeah, tell you like.
Oh, this is a mutated rafter.
Speaker 1 (40:36):
Yeah, these, these are our raptors for this movie.
Yeah, um, and and, hence whythey give them the convenience
store scene.
But but yeah, so I.
There were some things that Iwas definitely entertained with
um, or entertained by with thisfilm, and so, like I, as max
said, these movies aredefinitely made and and um,
(40:56):
designed like, designed to beseen on the big screen.
I'm not telling you to go spendyour hard-earned money on this
film.
I think you'll probably haveless fun, though, if you do wait
until it hits HBO or whateverstreaming service it goes to.
So I don't know, the decisionis yours.
I think that there's someredeeming qualities, but I
(41:17):
haven't put it in on Letterboxdyet.
This will be like a.
This will be somewhere betweena three and a three and a half
for me, and again, that's beingvery literal and that's so.
That's either like a D or a Cminus like there's.
There's a lot of room forimprovement here.
Speaker 2 (41:31):
Yeah, I think I gave it two stars.
I I just it bumps me out and Idon't even know why, because,
like, even going in, I was likethis is gonna be, it's gonna be
stupid, it's gonna be stupid.
The last two were so bad, um,and especially dominion.
I mean, I think I rememberhaving a huge rant on that
episode that we did aboutdominion well, yeah, because
(41:52):
that's when they really tried toget the whole gang back
together.
Sam neill, laura dern yeah, uhand yeah, you know, and so like
those sequences you pointed outlike yes, I loved the
titanosaurus stuff, except atthe very end when they tried to
cheaply do the fucking thatscene from original, the
(42:13):
original jurassic park wherethey look out, you know and it's
, they're all going down thevalley yeah, and they're all
going down the valley and it'sjust like a bunch of.
I thought that actually lookedreally bad, like it was just a
bunch of weird like polygondinosaurs walking around yeah,
yeah, they shouldn't have pulledback that far, that was yeah,
that was good and then, and thenthe end of that other sequence
(42:35):
you were talking about with the,with the d-rex, where maher
shawley and this is kind offurther down, so you could even
call this a separate, a separatepart of this movie.
But, like again, like thestakes, there's just no stakes
at all, because maher shawley,after again telling you
throughout the whole movie, orhinting, that he had lost a
(42:56):
child and the children arereally important to his
character like he's alwaystrying to find the children, you
know this girl telling him Iwon't let anything bad happen to
you.
Right, yeah, and he takes theflare and he runs off and the D
Rex chases him and and letseveryone else get into the boat.
And you're like, okay, he, he'sgoing to sacrifice himself.
(43:18):
I like that that's cool.
Like here are some stakes.
No, you know, a main charactercan die, yeah, and then the
fucking flare he shoots a flareup and we have no idea how he
gets out of it.
No, yeah, we don't even see.
It goes off screen and Iwouldn't even been fine like an
off screen death or even evenlike let's have it go off screen
(43:40):
and and maybe the the sequel islike him trying to survive on
the island by himself.
Sure, yeah, right, maybe hedoes escape and then scarjo's
got to go back scarjo has tocome back, or it's just him like
just a, just a maher shawalimovie, yeah, like predator,
where like he's covering himselfin mud and he's running around
(44:02):
the island.
Um, okay, you got my attentionbut instead, you know, he, he
shoots a flare and gets pickedup by the boat and then, and
then again, cheaply, they try todo the ending of jurassic park,
but just how they're in a boatand like the, the dolphins and
shit, and like, yeah, justhorrible, just really cheap, and
(44:24):
um, yeah, so, so yeah, I, Idon't know this one stung, I you
know, I'm glad, I'm glad it'sdoing well, I'm glad people are
going to see it in the theater.
But it was, it was extremely,uh, bankrupt experience.
Yeah it's.
Speaker 1 (44:41):
I mean it's just, and again, this is not a jurassic
world problem, this is an ipproblem.
They're just so, um you know,we're just spotter man, yeah,
we're just in such a tough placewith them and it's really too
bad.
Because, you know, this is whywe try to do things like our
lost horror sequels, spotlightepisodes.
Because only, I think, when youhave a budget of of this caliber
(45:07):
and you have expectations thatare so high maybe not critically
, but certain, certainlyfinancially speaking do you feel
you you feel more inclined tobe hypercritical of the creative
choices and to be and to feelrobbed when, when something
isn't really like delivered,when, when a promise isn't
(45:28):
delivered, when, when thestudios don't hold up their end
of the bargain, because whensomething like paranormal
activity, six or seven comealong and aren't great, but then
like they still work for somepeople and can keep the
franchise going, and then maybeyou know, like my favorite and I
(45:48):
bring it up all the time, likenext of kin, then all of a
sudden like still has enoughjuice to be made and it goes to
paramount plus and that movie'sawesome and it's so cool and it
gives someone like williameubanks a chance to like make a
make a film within a franchisebut to do a lot of fun, creative
stuff.
Like within franchises you canstill take risks and give people
(46:10):
the opportunity to share theircreative vision without studio
pressures, without pressures ofip and expectations, but just
not when they are this big.
And that's the tough thingabout a franchise like jurassic
park, slash world, like fast andthe furious, like mission
impossible, like so much of whatwe've seen so far this summer.
To be honest, um, which whichis a nice little segue, we'll
(46:34):
wrap up by kind of previewingwhat we, what we're going to
talk about next week, um, whichis the release of superman.
Now, I think this time lastweek, going into the weekend, we
were well, let's, uh, superman,I believe, and eddie eddington
is eddington also this oh,eddington, I believe is the 18th
, 18th, okay, the followingweekend, yeah, so yes, it is
(46:57):
superman week, you're rightyeah, um, but so going into
superman, we now we're basicallydealing with the exact same
monster here, the exact samething that we've been talking
about with jurassic world, and Idon't know.
What do we expect out of this?
Like you're, you will have thevery interesting task and I will
(47:20):
make sure to do my homework andreturn to the christopher
reeves films and watch somethinglike man of steel for the first
time and maybe even like pullup a smallville super, you might
like man of steel yeah, I mean,if it's not three hours long,
I'll watch it, like, uh, that'sthe problem with superhero
movies, right?
um, but no, I mean, do we thinkagain?
(47:42):
I, I I'm not gonna think, I'mnot gonna doubt this movie's
potential financial success, Ithink it's gonna do very well.
But again, like, can this movieshow us something that makes us
feel again, you know?
I mean, like superman issupposed to be such a human
story.
(48:02):
Um, you're, you're kind of ourcomic book expert here.
Like, what are the themes, whatare the like if this is a class
syllabus, like what do peopleneed to know and read and learn
before going into next week atthe theater?
Speaker 2 (48:15):
you think, I mean, it's a classic fish out of water
story.
Right, like he is an alien,superman, is an alien posing as
a human, right, uh, in our world.
He also, like you know, he isthe big blue boy scout.
Right, like he is the moralcenter of what you know when,
(48:38):
when the fight becomes goodversus evil, right, like he, he
is supposed to be the shininglight, the best of us, um, or
the best of you know, krypton,right, the best of the universe.
Uh, it's going to be reallyinteresting.
I think you know james gunn, Ihave James Gunn, I have a lot of
(48:59):
faith in James Gunn because hetends to take something we like
like a superhero movie, butreally give it its own voice and
style and substance.
And he did that repeatedly withthe guardians of the galaxy
(49:20):
movies, you know I I think someof those are the most unique and
individualistic movies in themcu.
Um, he's done that withsomething like slither, which is
like a total homage to bodyhorror and, and you know, the
fly and the thing, um, and likeit, but also has its own, very
(49:44):
own style and and breath, um, soyou know, can you do that with
a superman story?
I think it's going to beextremely different from what
we've been used to with ZackSnyder, which I think is a good
thing.
I think I hope it's.
I hope it's a better, you know,because something that is
(50:06):
extremely different from ZackSnyder's is Superman returns,
which is the Bryan Singer moviefrom 2005 or something like that
.
I hope it's a better film thanthat film and, you know, I think
it will be at, even though itwill be extremely different from
man of Steel and probably morelike the Christopher Reeves as
(50:27):
far as tone.
I think it will, you know, takea left turn from from those
movies as well and be much moreof a.
You know his stuff is alwaysvery like witty and violent and
so like if we can get a balanceof of of violence, you know,
(50:48):
good morals and hope like Ithink it will be successful.
We'll see.
I don't know.
Superman's never been myfavorite superhero story.
Uh, I I'm happy to hear thatwe're not getting an origin
story so it's it's gonna be.
(51:08):
you know you, you need to know,you need to know that origin
going into this movie, um, butyeah, who knows?
I think it will, I think youwill feel something because I, I
, I think again cheaply, youknow, we've got Crypto, the
super dog, in this movie, and soif anything bad happens to the
(51:30):
dog, I think that's you know, Imean, that's screenwriting 101.
Speaker 1 (51:33):
Manipulation tactic 101.
Speaker 2 (51:36):
Exactly yeah, so we'll see, we'll see, we'll see.
It feels a lot more sciencefictiony than than past superman
stuff because there's, you know, there's creatures and aliens
and um and things like that.
So, or fantastical maybe, maybefantastical is a better word,
(51:56):
but yeah, I don't know.
Uh, it's, it's a huge movie forDC WB James Gunn, you know who
is running that studio.
This is kind of the launchingpad of his new version of the DC
stories.
Speaker 1 (52:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (52:12):
A lot of rides on this.
A lot rides, a lot rides on onSuperman and and we'll see,
david Cornswe sweat has been aguy who's been like popping up
in big fan side, you know sideroles in in movies like pearl
and twisters, so this is kind ofhis big launching pad.
Yeah, rachel brosnan has been ahuge tv star, uh, with the
(52:34):
marvelous miss mazel on amazonprime.
I'm excited to see her uh onthe big screen.
Um, and then also, like our guy, nicholas holt is the heavy
right and he I think the lastvillainous role I saw him do was
uh the order, which he wasfucking awesome in yeah oh, the
(52:55):
order so good, and we getsomething as maniacal and evil
as that, as a white supremacistlex luther yeah, in a in a
bright, shiny.
Yeah, that'd be fucking awesomebecause I think nicholas holt's
a really really great actor.
Um, agreed, so, yeah, it'sgonna be really, really
interesting and I'm excited thatthe town down here is very
(53:15):
excited, I mean, you know,there's I'm sure it's everywhere
marketing wise yeah everythingeverywhere.
So, um, I can't wait to see itin a packed theater, um, and and
yeah, and then we'll get to sitdown and talk about it.
I'm excited, I and also I.
I just can't wait to hear what.
As always, what you think right, like I mean superhero,
(53:37):
superhero stuff is not, is notyour, your bag?
So?
Speaker 1 (53:40):
no, yeah, I'm coming in from a very neutral place
yeah.
Speaker 2 (53:44):
So yeah, if it's a good, I think we'll know if it's
a good movie, yeah, yeah, youknow not to put too much
pressure on you, no yeah, talkabout a big yeah, it's big for
james gunn, it's big for me, forall of us.
Speaker 1 (53:59):
Um, all right, well, that'll do it for our
conversation on Jurassic WorldRebirth and our anticipation
behind Superman.
Until next time, please followExcuse the Intermission on
Instagram and the two of us onLetterboxd to track what we're
watching between shows, andwe'll talk to you next time on
ETI, where movies still matter.
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