June 28, 2023 • 28 mins
Chapter Select is finally back to review Ratchet and Clank, a CGI theatrical film developed in tandem with the 2016 PS4 reboot of the series. Is this movie completely redundant for fans of the game or does it stand on its own? How about if you went in completely blind like a regular movie-goer? Randy and Jens discuss.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:20):
Hello, and welcome to Chapters Selectat the Movies, the show where we
watch movies based on video games andthen talk about them. Randy, it's
been too long since I've done this. I was going to add to your
deal. We watched the movies andtalk about them when we so damn well,
please when we are ready, orwhen already or when life works out.
(00:44):
We are according this and the smallesttime frame possible between our two crazy
schedules. When our schedules aren't crazy, one of us is under the weather.
It's been a fun month. How'sit going. Yeah, yeah,
mostly sick, So I think you'vehad the same experience the spring springs us
for us nerds. In between beingreally really sick, we did watch Ratchet
(01:10):
and Clank the twenty sixteen was Itmovie two and sixteen movie two thousand and
sixteen CGI movie kind of made concurrentlywith the reboot game, and you know,
I don't have that much to sayabout it because it's a Wratchet and
(01:32):
Clank thing. Yeah, that's that'sthe one thing I was thinking about while
we were trying to to coordinate ourtime today to finally be able to record
this, because I was like,we don't have a lot of time to
talk, but at least it's thismovie that we have set ourselves up now.
Yes, we've waited a long timeto finally get to this recording.
However, I mean, even ifI had never played the two thousand and
(01:55):
sixteen game, which takes a lotof the cut scenes from the movie,
again, it's a great tie in, and I think they work really well
together even if I had not playedthe game. At the end, this
is a fine kids movie where Ithink there's nothing horrendous about it, but
there's nothing memorable memorable about it either. It's just a fun family movie.
(02:19):
I think part of it, thefeeling I have of it is I have
this Actually I've got two of these. Did our fan edit of Win Commander
four and five? No, sorry, Win Commander three and four? So
Wrath the Tiger and The Price ofFreedom, both of which are big as
you might know, Chris Roberts directed. You know huge live you know big
(02:40):
live action stars. You know cutscenes, you know FMV video games,
and somebody took those FMV cut scenesand kind of cut them together into like
a two and a half hour movieeach for each game, and when you
watch them it's kind of impressive howwell it works. You're like, wow,
(03:00):
this almost feels like a real movie. And that's the reaction add to
this where I was like, oh, yeah, it's like the fan film
based on twenty sixteen Resting Clank thatalmost feels like a real movie. But
the thing that takes me out ofit is the same as with Wing Commander,
which because you know, you don'tget the missions right, you get
all the in between the missions stuff, but you don't get the missions.
(03:21):
And I have the same feeling withthis, where like, yeah, there
are like two or maybe three kindof semi memorable set pieces, but mostly
it feels like we're actually skipping overthe good stuff. Like the movie makes
a big point of referencing a lotof things from the game, of like
giving you all the introductions to allthe weapons, including like the ratings and
(03:42):
like lots of little touches, whichI assume and I don't remember the game
well enough, but maybe that existsbecause in the game they're they're incorporating those
little bits whenever you get a newweapon, whereas here it's like a montage.
Yeah, I'm sure, I mean, I'm with you. It's been
a long time since I've played thegame, but it would make absolute sense
that it was the same way thatthey introduced them. I do credit at
(04:04):
least this movie in general for allowingthem to reboot Ratchet and Clank from the
old PS two days. They went, all right, we'll remake the first
game basically and kind of upbreads everythingand make everything look great and work better
with the newer systems. And Iabsolutely love Ratchet and Clank twenty and sixteen
the video game. But yeah,I'm with you. There's a lot of
(04:26):
times in this movie where I went, man, it's been a long time
since I've played the game. Ithink right here is where a level breaks
out, like the characters will runoff. You're like, and now you
grab your control. Oh I can'tgrab my controller. We're just gonna continue
on. So but saying that,while that is kind of a hindrance where
(04:46):
it's like, it's close to beinga great movie, but it's just missing
its pieces. Again, I don'tthink there's anything terrible about it. They
brought No, there's nothing offensive.It's not a bunch of fantastic voice actors.
So I think the voice actors allgreat. The voice acting was fantastic.
They had a ton of Easter agein there that kind of made you
laugh, and overall the story wasfine. I like Paul Jamadi a lot
(05:09):
in this as the bad guy.I also always enjoy Rosari Dawson, who
plays the hacker chick. I don'tremember if they were in the video game
as well. I don't remember ifjust exactly how much synergy there was,
but I know when they marketed thismovie, they focused entirely on, you
know, the real stars of like, hey, we got Rosari Dawson,
we got Paul Jamadi. But whatI do appreciate despite that, is that
(05:33):
it does have you know, likehow often do you go to a movie
theater version a movie adaptation of avideo game and they've got the original voice
actors. So that's a nice thing, even though it's obviously due to the
mechanics of how this movie was made. But yeah, it's got all the
classic kind of veteran clank stuff asfar as introducing Captain Quark, and he's
(05:56):
you know, like the best comparisonto be like a Zap Brannigan like figure,
or I guess like a you know, you know, really ego bloated
captain Kirk type figure or just theyou know, the hero who's in love
with himself but isn't really as heroicas he wants to be as a bit
of a fraud, you know,he sells himself out to the villain at
some point and undermines his own teamfor a big attack on the villain.
(06:18):
Is your typical So you've got likeyour evil politician who's Paul Jamadi. But
then he's got an evil scientist workingfor him who's basically done a death star
laser type weapon, and you know, they've got a fun dynamic between them.
And yeah, you know, here'sthe thing. I think the biggest
problem this movie did not get goodreviews. I actually think this movie is
(06:41):
a little underrated just because of howI'm not saying it's good. You seem
to think it's good. I don'tthink as a movie. There's just something
what's charming in a video game,Like our standards in a video game for
humor are so much lower. Yeah, oh yeah, you know, like
again, I'm not so rare fora game to make you laugh at all.
(07:03):
That like the fact that Regen andClank games are like mildly funny and
charming and have banter in them andlikable characters and memorable bits. That alone
is a huge win for those games, and also the production quality of the
cut scenes and the vision all thatstuff. In general, it is stuff
that's like super impressive in a videogame. But then when you put it
(07:25):
on a movie theater screen, yourexpectations relative to like what a movie is
are just so much higher that Ido feel that it kind of feels like
a nothing like a wet fart.Now, now I will say I don't
think this is a good movie.I didn't get it's a serviceable one.
Again, it works really well whenyou watch it with the family and everyone
(07:45):
kind of gets along with it.Well, your folks liked it, the
kids like they thought it was fine. I don't think it'll ever be asked
to, hey can we watch that? But you know, it worked for
its hour and a half or whatevercalled to run time is. Do agree
with you that there's nothing offensive Likea lot of kids movies will resort to
lowest common denominator kind of humor.You know, your your poop jokes and
(08:09):
all that kind of thing, whichalways bother me and I wish weren't there,
And this doesn't have that this actuallydoesn't or like sexual innuendo, there
was very little of that. Likeother things that people always feel the need
to slip into kids movies, thismovie does not do that. So as
far as like, if you're lookingfor a movie that's basically completely safe for
(08:31):
your children, I don't think there'sanything in here that would be seen as
corrupting. And and if you're anold video game player like myself and YenS
both are, they have nice littlereferences for you. I do like when
they were trying to figure out whatspecies Ratchett is that they brought up,
it was Staxter part of it.I know, Crash from Crash Bandicoot was
(08:54):
on there, and they were justgoing through all the other trophy platform gimmick
that were all the rage there fora few years, like the PS two
era, And I want to say, wasn't it one of the guys computers
turns on and it's like the originalPlayStation Yes, sound some of that stuff.
So they have some of those littlegimmicks. It's not enough to sell
(09:16):
you on a movie, but Ialways here's my question stuff in there to
you. As far as the differencesbetween original Ratchet, because I just I
don't know. I vaguely remembered theoriginal PS two games being slightly different,
especially as far as Clank's origin story. Do you do you remember that being
different because this, honestly twenty sixteenwas my first ever Ratchet and Clank game.
(09:37):
Wow, now they've been more ofa game collector. I owned some
of them, I just said,not gotten around to playing that. Se
My Rachet and Clank fandom was atits hype during the PS two era because
when you look at those games,those games are not far off what those
games are now in terms, Likeyou look at those and you're like,
wow, that, you know,freaking PlayStation two game looks almost as good
(10:01):
as current gen Retchen Clank and hasa great story and amazing leveled weapon design
and all that stuff. Those gamesfor the time, they were so good
for the time. I mean they'venot really to just throw them on the
PlayStation stores and stuff, and Imean they do more for the original PlayStation
(10:22):
than PS two as far as likethat PlayStation plus stuff. But I've always
wanted them to go all right here, We're just gonna go. But I
think they made some changes, LikeI don't remember Clank being a glitch like
in this Clank's origin is just thatthe machine that makes warbots for the villains
malfunction and making made and ups andmade a clank basically, and he just
(10:43):
there's no other explanation for why,you know, he's got that personality or
or four Like, he's nothing likethose other do you don't He's not really
a design that you'd recognize from whatany of those other robots look like.
So that's always seemed a little bitweird to me. But yeah, so
he just kind of wakes up ina factor and then goes about starting to
sabotage the villain. You know,he's he arrives full grown as a character.
(11:07):
But of course Ratchett is going throughthe typical Ratchet and Clank storyline of
he's somewhat concerned about what his originis, but mostly in the beginning of
his goal is that he wants tobe a hero. He wants to be
part of this group of galactic heroesthat Zap Brannigan is currently the head of,
and he you know there zab Brannigan. Reluctantly, they figure that they
(11:31):
need another member for some reason orother, and they start holding auditions and
of course, Clank appears and isrejected, but then Ratchet Ratchett sorry,
yeses Clank actually is not a factoryyet that you know. The first like
twenty minutes with this movie is sowe spent with Ratchett and and and Captain
Quark and their relationship of how youknow, Ratchett admires Captain Quark and Captain
(11:54):
Quark rejects him, and Ratchett feelsterrible, and you know, we also
get established him as a mechanic whosebiggest flaw as a mechanic seems that he's
too awesome right, like he goeshis big failure at the beginning is that
like he like pimps out a spaceshiptoo much and the guy can't handle them.
Just maybe be a reference that youdon't maybe you did not watch the
(12:16):
show in the nineties, but hehas him to too man Taylor for yeah,
yeah, yeah, I like that. Yeah. Absolutely, He's pretty
reckless and how he goes about things, um, but yeah, but very
likable, likeable, you know,he's a he's a likable protagonist and you've
got but but he's got his ownarc of kind of coming into his own
(12:37):
as a hero and his big momentearly on is during um, you know,
when they have the big celebration toto announce that they're that they're going
to be accepting a new member,and there's like a you know, a
parade and all that kind of stuff. That's when the the Alien Army attacks
the first time, and Ratchet pullsthis sweet you know manue for where he's
(13:00):
got this um giant magnet that wasestablished a little bit earlier in the prologue
of the movie as part of hiswhole engineering thing, and he uses the
giant magnet to basically grab, youknow, carry off the entire robot army
and throw it into space into theAlien spaceship and kind of single hand,
almost single handedly defeating, you know, the first wave of the invasion.
(13:24):
And at that point the conflict becomesthat now Ratchet is the hero and Quark
feels undermined, and that is whenQuark decides to betray his own team work,
gets jealous, and this is thepreamble to the Boys where the superheroes
are actually just a bunch of jerksand egocentric and I don't know, interesting,
(13:48):
Yeah, not really, but Ijust wanted to at least Ratchet doesn't
like run right through someone's girlfriend.So not yet, but he's a new
superhero, that's true. But yeah, he does get a little bit too
big for his bridges. But honestly, I don't think they do that much
of that. They don't. Theydon't have him be uh you know two
episode asks about it, Like there'sdefinitely been there's later Ratchet and Clank stories
(14:13):
where Ratchett gets gets kind of vainand has to learn a lesson about that,
but you know, for the momentthat he's kind of classic Ratchett and
it's basically the hero throughout. Yeah, he's got a nice it's not a
deep movie. He's got a nicerelationship with most of the team. You
know. There there's some good characters. There's there's you know, the tough
(14:37):
lady soldier who I don't remember whothat voice actress was, but I know
Rossori. It also plays the hacker, and there's a few others. There's
some of them. Do we seeanybody die? Oh? Is that Thorne?
Okay Corey? Yeah? Yeah,she was fun though, you know,
the classic trope character. But yeah, so they they decide be proactive
(15:00):
for the next phase and and attackthe enemy base. But they're walking into
an ambush because Quarks sold them out. And then of course Rager doesn't know
this. Rachet's blaming himself for forhis failure. Am I skipping anything.
It's been like three weeks and thismovie there's not much. It's yeah,
it's they attack, they set up, they attack, but they don't do
(15:22):
it with the plan, it doesn'twork. How does the third act go
after the attack on the base fails. I know that Quark has kind of
a change of heart. I wantto say, they just came up with
the game plan and a little thefemale scientist lady comes up with the plan.
They actually listen to her and itworks. Right. Then they've got
(15:43):
a big finale where he gets tobut first Chimadi dies because the scientist what's
this doctor? The scientist doctor Nefarius, thank you? Yeah, yeah,
Nefarious eventually backstabs Paul Jamadi's mayor orwhatever he is. Politician guy, a
(16:07):
politician wanted to create his own planetwith the best of all these different planets,
and doctor Nefarius was like, no, we have to be normal,
evil people and just want to destroyjust revenge, just revenge, and yeah
that pretty much now, Clank,we haven't talked very much about Clank Clank
Basically, you know, he eventuallyruns into Ratchet, they realize they've got
(16:30):
the same agenda, they join up, and you know, he's just kind
of a slightly sarcastic little guy whochuckles a lot, and that is heroic
and does heroic robot things. Thoughyou know, we don't. We don't
spend as much time with him asmaybe we Again, like a lot of
the cool Clank stuff is kind ofgameplay stuff. Yeah, absolutely, which
(16:53):
there's a point. So here,here's my question. You and I did
not, or at least maybe maybeyou did, but I know I did
it. I didn't watch this movieuntil a few years after it came out.
But do you think it was agood idea to have the game come
out two weeks before the movie cameout or should have been flipped and this
(17:14):
should have been kind of the here'syour preview to the game, and now
play all the gaming segments we cutout of these cuts. Either way,
it's not ideal. Either way you'regetting well, no, obviously, the
way that it happened actually is betterbecause you want people to have the complete
experience first, and then this canbe like the nostalgic. Oh, you
(17:37):
get to you know, you don'thave to play through all the game again.
You just get to kind of relivethe best story moment. You're going
to get nostalgia in two weeks.But I know, well, that's the
problem with developing those things concurrently.Right, Normally, what you would want
the whole reason why you make amovie adaptation is something is that sometime has
passed and people have fund memories ofthat thing, and I'm like, sure,
(17:59):
I want to you live Doom again. I remember like Doom. I
wonder what that's like. You know, to be determined and are discussed.
We will need more time for thatmovie and all that we will say about
that that oh yeah, yeah yeah, But I mean it's just an example.
It just makes a little bit moresense. Like you want to make
it like a decade or so afterthe fact, and then people can be
(18:22):
like, oh, yeah, Iremember reaching clank rushing clanker is great,
I should go. But you stillwouldn't have that reaction because it's just you
know, if the people who weregoing to see this movie are also the
same people who are going to playthe game, so they're going to have
the same reaction that we did,which is just going seeing it yep.
Oh yeah, it's this bit.Now. They skipped some gameplay here,
(18:45):
so that's why I just don't thinkit quite works. It was their solution
to backseat gaming, and like we'lljust watch all the cut scenes and then
not watch the gameplay, and herewe'll just watch we just I will say.
I will say there are better versionsof this on YouTube. You said
you've seen it some with the winCommander stuff. I've seen it with a
lot of the Naughty Dog stuff wherethey cut out oh yeah, they stuff
(19:07):
and they just create it to bea movie and ends up being eight hours
long. Right, yeah, no, it's called The Last of Us at
HBO. Yeah, but yeah,I still I agree with you, though,
like if you take all that baggageout of it, Like if I
try and put myself this is difficultto do, and I don't want to
keep it here too long because Iknow you have other things to do.
(19:30):
But if I try and put myselfinto the mindset of say one of your
children, who actually maybe not yourchildren, because I'm sure you've played Rutched
and Clank Tree sixteen with them,they've probably experienced it in some form already.
I know they've watched the newer game. Okay, they've watched you play
it? Yeah right, yeah,yeah, okay, so they're familiar,
so it already, they already knowthe characters and have I would really be
(19:52):
curious how this how this would theoreticallyplay for the kind of person who's never
going to see it, which issomebody just looking for children's sci fi movie,
right with no pre existing knowledge ofthe IP. That's that's what I
want to know, because I doactually think it kind of sort of like
if you don't know what you're missing, or if you don't know what's adapting,
(20:14):
maybe it'll hang together a little bitmore and feel more like a real
movie. Yeah, and you don'twant to feel like you want to skip
the like I just was looking forthe skip the entire time. Let just
skip this cut seat and then thecredit troll and your last shit. Yep,
but I agree, all right,let's let's let's get a score.
Oh man, boy, would youlike me to go first? Yeah?
(20:37):
I let you go first. Youactually see more positive on this? Well,
I'm just again, I just thinkit it was there, Um,
I it was. I forgot alot about it. I'm sure my kids
will forget all of it by thenand I won't be there. So I
looked again at our movie rankings andI went, what other movie reminded me
of that? Oh yeah, AnimalCrossing. I don't remember shit about that
(20:59):
movie. Oh man, it wascute, it was fine, it wasn't
offensive, it was just a movie. So it's so different though, because
Animal Crossing it's like so slice oflife. It's like nothing like it's just
bits, like nothing hangs together.I'm giving Raction Clank a six. Okay.
Did you give Animal Crossing a six? Yeah? So did you?
(21:23):
Okay. I would say in oneway this is better than Animal Crossing,
which is that this tells a coherentstory. That's but in every other way,
I actually think Animal Crossing is probablymore watchable, despite the fact that
it's more of a vignette type ofthing or feels like, you know,
I want to see the like Icould see like a Wes Anderson version of
(21:45):
it or something, you know,like the you could go even more cute
see on it. I'm just I'mjust kind of the little bits I like
that movie. I don't really thisto me, It's not a six like
it's so nothing. It's like it'slike cotton candy. It's like it's empty
calories, you know. Yeah,so, but it's also completely inoffensive.
(22:10):
And again, part like this isstuff that like in video game form,
I will lap up. It's justthat it's just expectation management when it comes
to watching a movie. I expecta movie just to do more. So
I'm just gonna go straight down themiddle of five. Five is fair.
I can't disagree too much with thateither. That for you, that ties
(22:33):
it with Dynasty Warriors and Wing Commanderof all things. There you go,
that actually makes some sense to me. I think I would about I would
actually rather watch I'd rather watch WingCommander or Dynasty Warriors before watching this.
Again, both of those were moreinteresting. That's fair. It also just
to put it in a more context. You're four point five so far,
(22:56):
you have a bunch of them.Assassin's Creed, Oh yeah, I writed
that too highly. Monster Hunter,Oh god, I write that way too
highly. We watched Tumbrater already,I forgot all about it. Oh yeah,
the Laura Cross one, that's right, and that's about right. Four
point five. I stand behind thatone. And then um a couple of
(23:18):
Resident Evil movies, Resident Evil andResident Evil Extinction. You both gave I
read those way too highly. Sohere's a flying here. Did you get
it? I don't know. Ithought it did. There's a little one
anyway, I think that's about ourque that we should call this all right,
we need a movie for hopefully nextweek. I already chosen it.
(23:45):
It is what I think would bea more interesting I'm still not the most
interesting, but I think it willprobably be summer north of well. I
think I don't want to make predictionson where we're going to rank it,
but I definitely think it'll be moreupper echelon than what we've been doing.
And that is Prince of Persia.Honestly, one I have not seen yet,
(24:10):
so oh that's exciting. I sawit in the movie theater and I
didn't hate it. Also, it'sa good time because that that two D
Prince of Persia just got shown onall of the different like summer times,
some kind of anniversary and it looksreally good. So I'm down for that
again. Hopefully we will not havethis long break anymore. I apology,
(24:32):
We both apologize for that again.Health and schedules and life at this point,
Randy, you know, people canjust watch People could watch the movie
in their own time and we'll getaround to it. Yeah, but I
just I actually more apologize the endsbecause I missed this and was excited to
finally get this in, and I'mglad that we're able to fit this in
quickly, and I'm I'm excited toget It's always a pleasure, especially because
(24:57):
all this other crappers coming out likeTwisted Metal keeps teasing stuff yet not giving
us a full trailer, which reallyscares me for this that it's so close
and they just keep teasing just alittle bit, like, Oh, it's
gonna be so bad, isn't it. No, man, I, well,
here's the thing. I have zeroattachment to Twisted Metal as a video
(25:21):
game franchise, So I honestly don'tknow how I'm going to Really it's it's
like I'm gonna have nothing to compareto. I'm not gonna be able to
talk about you. I've played somuch Twisted Metal too back in my day.
Again, there's zero story to it. You get a little you get
a little story thing at the endof what the gut person does with their
wish after they win the tournament orwhatever. Sounds like you're the expert Trinity.
(25:42):
Oh yeah, totally all right,and then it completely fell apart.
All right, that'll do it.So next time we will get together,
it will be Prince of Persia.And again Yenza said, it'll be better
than ratchet and clank. You've heardit here first. All right, there
you go, right, see youguys next time
Hello, and welcome to Chapters Selectat the Movies, the show where we
watch movies based on video games andthen talk about them. Randy, it's
been too long since I've done this. I was going to add to your
deal. We watched the movies andtalk about them when we so damn well,
please when we are ready, orwhen already or when life works out.
(00:44):
We are according this and the smallesttime frame possible between our two crazy
schedules. When our schedules aren't crazy, one of us is under the weather.
It's been a fun month. How'sit going. Yeah, yeah,
mostly sick, So I think you'vehad the same experience the spring springs us
for us nerds. In between beingreally really sick, we did watch Ratchet
(01:10):
and Clank the twenty sixteen was Itmovie two and sixteen movie two thousand and
sixteen CGI movie kind of made concurrentlywith the reboot game, and you know,
I don't have that much to sayabout it because it's a Wratchet and
(01:32):
Clank thing. Yeah, that's that'sthe one thing I was thinking about while
we were trying to to coordinate ourtime today to finally be able to record
this, because I was like,we don't have a lot of time to
talk, but at least it's thismovie that we have set ourselves up now.
Yes, we've waited a long timeto finally get to this recording.
However, I mean, even ifI had never played the two thousand and
(01:55):
sixteen game, which takes a lotof the cut scenes from the movie,
again, it's a great tie in, and I think they work really well
together even if I had not playedthe game. At the end, this
is a fine kids movie where Ithink there's nothing horrendous about it, but
there's nothing memorable memorable about it either. It's just a fun family movie.
(02:19):
I think part of it, thefeeling I have of it is I have
this Actually I've got two of these. Did our fan edit of Win Commander
four and five? No, sorry, Win Commander three and four? So
Wrath the Tiger and The Price ofFreedom, both of which are big as
you might know, Chris Roberts directed. You know huge live you know big
(02:40):
live action stars. You know cutscenes, you know FMV video games,
and somebody took those FMV cut scenesand kind of cut them together into like
a two and a half hour movieeach for each game, and when you
watch them it's kind of impressive howwell it works. You're like, wow,
(03:00):
this almost feels like a real movie. And that's the reaction add to
this where I was like, oh, yeah, it's like the fan film
based on twenty sixteen Resting Clank thatalmost feels like a real movie. But
the thing that takes me out ofit is the same as with Wing Commander,
which because you know, you don'tget the missions right, you get
all the in between the missions stuff, but you don't get the missions.
(03:21):
And I have the same feeling withthis, where like, yeah, there
are like two or maybe three kindof semi memorable set pieces, but mostly
it feels like we're actually skipping overthe good stuff. Like the movie makes
a big point of referencing a lotof things from the game, of like
giving you all the introductions to allthe weapons, including like the ratings and
(03:42):
like lots of little touches, whichI assume and I don't remember the game
well enough, but maybe that existsbecause in the game they're they're incorporating those
little bits whenever you get a newweapon, whereas here it's like a montage.
Yeah, I'm sure, I mean, I'm with you. It's been
a long time since I've played thegame, but it would make absolute sense
that it was the same way thatthey introduced them. I do credit at
(04:04):
least this movie in general for allowingthem to reboot Ratchet and Clank from the
old PS two days. They went, all right, we'll remake the first
game basically and kind of upbreads everythingand make everything look great and work better
with the newer systems. And Iabsolutely love Ratchet and Clank twenty and sixteen
the video game. But yeah,I'm with you. There's a lot of
(04:26):
times in this movie where I went, man, it's been a long time
since I've played the game. Ithink right here is where a level breaks
out, like the characters will runoff. You're like, and now you
grab your control. Oh I can'tgrab my controller. We're just gonna continue
on. So but saying that,while that is kind of a hindrance where
(04:46):
it's like, it's close to beinga great movie, but it's just missing
its pieces. Again, I don'tthink there's anything terrible about it. They
brought No, there's nothing offensive.It's not a bunch of fantastic voice actors.
So I think the voice actors allgreat. The voice acting was fantastic.
They had a ton of Easter agein there that kind of made you
laugh, and overall the story wasfine. I like Paul Jamadi a lot
(05:09):
in this as the bad guy.I also always enjoy Rosari Dawson, who
plays the hacker chick. I don'tremember if they were in the video game
as well. I don't remember ifjust exactly how much synergy there was,
but I know when they marketed thismovie, they focused entirely on, you
know, the real stars of like, hey, we got Rosari Dawson,
we got Paul Jamadi. But whatI do appreciate despite that, is that
(05:33):
it does have you know, likehow often do you go to a movie
theater version a movie adaptation of avideo game and they've got the original voice
actors. So that's a nice thing, even though it's obviously due to the
mechanics of how this movie was made. But yeah, it's got all the
classic kind of veteran clank stuff asfar as introducing Captain Quark, and he's
(05:56):
you know, like the best comparisonto be like a Zap Brannigan like figure,
or I guess like a you know, you know, really ego bloated
captain Kirk type figure or just theyou know, the hero who's in love
with himself but isn't really as heroicas he wants to be as a bit
of a fraud, you know,he sells himself out to the villain at
some point and undermines his own teamfor a big attack on the villain.
(06:18):
Is your typical So you've got likeyour evil politician who's Paul Jamadi. But
then he's got an evil scientist workingfor him who's basically done a death star
laser type weapon, and you know, they've got a fun dynamic between them.
And yeah, you know, here'sthe thing. I think the biggest
problem this movie did not get goodreviews. I actually think this movie is
(06:41):
a little underrated just because of howI'm not saying it's good. You seem
to think it's good. I don'tthink as a movie. There's just something
what's charming in a video game,Like our standards in a video game for
humor are so much lower. Yeah, oh yeah, you know, like
again, I'm not so rare fora game to make you laugh at all.
(07:03):
That like the fact that Regen andClank games are like mildly funny and
charming and have banter in them andlikable characters and memorable bits. That alone
is a huge win for those games, and also the production quality of the
cut scenes and the vision all thatstuff. In general, it is stuff
that's like super impressive in a videogame. But then when you put it
(07:25):
on a movie theater screen, yourexpectations relative to like what a movie is
are just so much higher that Ido feel that it kind of feels like
a nothing like a wet fart.Now, now I will say I don't
think this is a good movie.I didn't get it's a serviceable one.
Again, it works really well whenyou watch it with the family and everyone
(07:45):
kind of gets along with it.Well, your folks liked it, the
kids like they thought it was fine. I don't think it'll ever be asked
to, hey can we watch that? But you know, it worked for
its hour and a half or whatevercalled to run time is. Do agree
with you that there's nothing offensive Likea lot of kids movies will resort to
lowest common denominator kind of humor.You know, your your poop jokes and
(08:09):
all that kind of thing, whichalways bother me and I wish weren't there,
And this doesn't have that this actuallydoesn't or like sexual innuendo, there
was very little of that. Likeother things that people always feel the need
to slip into kids movies, thismovie does not do that. So as
far as like, if you're lookingfor a movie that's basically completely safe for
(08:31):
your children, I don't think there'sanything in here that would be seen as
corrupting. And and if you're anold video game player like myself and YenS
both are, they have nice littlereferences for you. I do like when
they were trying to figure out whatspecies Ratchett is that they brought up,
it was Staxter part of it.I know, Crash from Crash Bandicoot was
(08:54):
on there, and they were justgoing through all the other trophy platform gimmick
that were all the rage there fora few years, like the PS two
era, And I want to say, wasn't it one of the guys computers
turns on and it's like the originalPlayStation Yes, sound some of that stuff.
So they have some of those littlegimmicks. It's not enough to sell
(09:16):
you on a movie, but Ialways here's my question stuff in there to
you. As far as the differencesbetween original Ratchet, because I just I
don't know. I vaguely remembered theoriginal PS two games being slightly different,
especially as far as Clank's origin story. Do you do you remember that being
different because this, honestly twenty sixteenwas my first ever Ratchet and Clank game.
(09:37):
Wow, now they've been more ofa game collector. I owned some
of them, I just said,not gotten around to playing that. Se
My Rachet and Clank fandom was atits hype during the PS two era because
when you look at those games,those games are not far off what those
games are now in terms, Likeyou look at those and you're like,
wow, that, you know,freaking PlayStation two game looks almost as good
(10:01):
as current gen Retchen Clank and hasa great story and amazing leveled weapon design
and all that stuff. Those gamesfor the time, they were so good
for the time. I mean they'venot really to just throw them on the
PlayStation stores and stuff, and Imean they do more for the original PlayStation
(10:22):
than PS two as far as likethat PlayStation plus stuff. But I've always
wanted them to go all right here, We're just gonna go. But I
think they made some changes, LikeI don't remember Clank being a glitch like
in this Clank's origin is just thatthe machine that makes warbots for the villains
malfunction and making made and ups andmade a clank basically, and he just
(10:43):
there's no other explanation for why,you know, he's got that personality or
or four Like, he's nothing likethose other do you don't He's not really
a design that you'd recognize from whatany of those other robots look like.
So that's always seemed a little bitweird to me. But yeah, so
he just kind of wakes up ina factor and then goes about starting to
sabotage the villain. You know,he's he arrives full grown as a character.
(11:07):
But of course Ratchett is going throughthe typical Ratchet and Clank storyline of
he's somewhat concerned about what his originis, but mostly in the beginning of
his goal is that he wants tobe a hero. He wants to be
part of this group of galactic heroesthat Zap Brannigan is currently the head of,
and he you know there zab Brannigan. Reluctantly, they figure that they
(11:31):
need another member for some reason orother, and they start holding auditions and
of course, Clank appears and isrejected, but then Ratchet Ratchett sorry,
yeses Clank actually is not a factoryyet that you know. The first like
twenty minutes with this movie is sowe spent with Ratchett and and and Captain
Quark and their relationship of how youknow, Ratchett admires Captain Quark and Captain
(11:54):
Quark rejects him, and Ratchett feelsterrible, and you know, we also
get established him as a mechanic whosebiggest flaw as a mechanic seems that he's
too awesome right, like he goeshis big failure at the beginning is that
like he like pimps out a spaceshiptoo much and the guy can't handle them.
Just maybe be a reference that youdon't maybe you did not watch the
(12:16):
show in the nineties, but hehas him to too man Taylor for yeah,
yeah, yeah, I like that. Yeah. Absolutely, He's pretty
reckless and how he goes about things, um, but yeah, but very
likable, likeable, you know,he's a he's a likable protagonist and you've
got but but he's got his ownarc of kind of coming into his own
(12:37):
as a hero and his big momentearly on is during um, you know,
when they have the big celebration toto announce that they're that they're going
to be accepting a new member,and there's like a you know, a
parade and all that kind of stuff. That's when the the Alien Army attacks
the first time, and Ratchet pullsthis sweet you know manue for where he's
(13:00):
got this um giant magnet that wasestablished a little bit earlier in the prologue
of the movie as part of hiswhole engineering thing, and he uses the
giant magnet to basically grab, youknow, carry off the entire robot army
and throw it into space into theAlien spaceship and kind of single hand,
almost single handedly defeating, you know, the first wave of the invasion.
(13:24):
And at that point the conflict becomesthat now Ratchet is the hero and Quark
feels undermined, and that is whenQuark decides to betray his own team work,
gets jealous, and this is thepreamble to the Boys where the superheroes
are actually just a bunch of jerksand egocentric and I don't know, interesting,
(13:48):
Yeah, not really, but Ijust wanted to at least Ratchet doesn't
like run right through someone's girlfriend.So not yet, but he's a new
superhero, that's true. But yeah, he does get a little bit too
big for his bridges. But honestly, I don't think they do that much
of that. They don't. Theydon't have him be uh you know two
episode asks about it, Like there'sdefinitely been there's later Ratchet and Clank stories
(14:13):
where Ratchett gets gets kind of vainand has to learn a lesson about that,
but you know, for the momentthat he's kind of classic Ratchett and
it's basically the hero throughout. Yeah, he's got a nice it's not a
deep movie. He's got a nicerelationship with most of the team. You
know. There there's some good characters. There's there's you know, the tough
(14:37):
lady soldier who I don't remember whothat voice actress was, but I know
Rossori. It also plays the hacker, and there's a few others. There's
some of them. Do we seeanybody die? Oh? Is that Thorne?
Okay Corey? Yeah? Yeah,she was fun though, you know,
the classic trope character. But yeah, so they they decide be proactive
(15:00):
for the next phase and and attackthe enemy base. But they're walking into
an ambush because Quarks sold them out. And then of course Rager doesn't know
this. Rachet's blaming himself for forhis failure. Am I skipping anything.
It's been like three weeks and thismovie there's not much. It's yeah,
it's they attack, they set up, they attack, but they don't do
(15:22):
it with the plan, it doesn'twork. How does the third act go
after the attack on the base fails. I know that Quark has kind of
a change of heart. I wantto say, they just came up with
the game plan and a little thefemale scientist lady comes up with the plan.
They actually listen to her and itworks. Right. Then they've got
(15:43):
a big finale where he gets tobut first Chimadi dies because the scientist what's
this doctor? The scientist doctor Nefarius, thank you? Yeah, yeah,
Nefarious eventually backstabs Paul Jamadi's mayor orwhatever he is. Politician guy, a
(16:07):
politician wanted to create his own planetwith the best of all these different planets,
and doctor Nefarius was like, no, we have to be normal,
evil people and just want to destroyjust revenge, just revenge, and yeah
that pretty much now, Clank,we haven't talked very much about Clank Clank
Basically, you know, he eventuallyruns into Ratchet, they realize they've got
(16:30):
the same agenda, they join up, and you know, he's just kind
of a slightly sarcastic little guy whochuckles a lot, and that is heroic
and does heroic robot things. Thoughyou know, we don't. We don't
spend as much time with him asmaybe we Again, like a lot of
the cool Clank stuff is kind ofgameplay stuff. Yeah, absolutely, which
(16:53):
there's a point. So here,here's my question. You and I did
not, or at least maybe maybeyou did, but I know I did
it. I didn't watch this movieuntil a few years after it came out.
But do you think it was agood idea to have the game come
out two weeks before the movie cameout or should have been flipped and this
(17:14):
should have been kind of the here'syour preview to the game, and now
play all the gaming segments we cutout of these cuts. Either way,
it's not ideal. Either way you'regetting well, no, obviously, the
way that it happened actually is betterbecause you want people to have the complete
experience first, and then this canbe like the nostalgic. Oh, you
(17:37):
get to you know, you don'thave to play through all the game again.
You just get to kind of relivethe best story moment. You're going
to get nostalgia in two weeks.But I know, well, that's the
problem with developing those things concurrently.Right, Normally, what you would want
the whole reason why you make amovie adaptation is something is that sometime has
passed and people have fund memories ofthat thing, and I'm like, sure,
(17:59):
I want to you live Doom again. I remember like Doom. I
wonder what that's like. You know, to be determined and are discussed.
We will need more time for thatmovie and all that we will say about
that that oh yeah, yeah yeah, But I mean it's just an example.
It just makes a little bit moresense. Like you want to make
it like a decade or so afterthe fact, and then people can be
(18:22):
like, oh, yeah, Iremember reaching clank rushing clanker is great,
I should go. But you stillwouldn't have that reaction because it's just you
know, if the people who weregoing to see this movie are also the
same people who are going to playthe game, so they're going to have
the same reaction that we did,which is just going seeing it yep.
Oh yeah, it's this bit.Now. They skipped some gameplay here,
(18:45):
so that's why I just don't thinkit quite works. It was their solution
to backseat gaming, and like we'lljust watch all the cut scenes and then
not watch the gameplay, and herewe'll just watch we just I will say.
I will say there are better versionsof this on YouTube. You said
you've seen it some with the winCommander stuff. I've seen it with a
lot of the Naughty Dog stuff wherethey cut out oh yeah, they stuff
(19:07):
and they just create it to bea movie and ends up being eight hours
long. Right, yeah, no, it's called The Last of Us at
HBO. Yeah, but yeah,I still I agree with you, though,
like if you take all that baggageout of it, Like if I
try and put myself this is difficultto do, and I don't want to
keep it here too long because Iknow you have other things to do.
(19:30):
But if I try and put myselfinto the mindset of say one of your
children, who actually maybe not yourchildren, because I'm sure you've played Rutched
and Clank Tree sixteen with them,they've probably experienced it in some form already.
I know they've watched the newer game. Okay, they've watched you play
it? Yeah right, yeah,yeah, okay, so they're familiar,
so it already, they already knowthe characters and have I would really be
(19:52):
curious how this how this would theoreticallyplay for the kind of person who's never
going to see it, which issomebody just looking for children's sci fi movie,
right with no pre existing knowledge ofthe IP. That's that's what I
want to know, because I doactually think it kind of sort of like
if you don't know what you're missing, or if you don't know what's adapting,
(20:14):
maybe it'll hang together a little bitmore and feel more like a real
movie. Yeah, and you don'twant to feel like you want to skip
the like I just was looking forthe skip the entire time. Let just
skip this cut seat and then thecredit troll and your last shit. Yep,
but I agree, all right,let's let's let's get a score.
Oh man, boy, would youlike me to go first? Yeah?
(20:37):
I let you go first. Youactually see more positive on this? Well,
I'm just again, I just thinkit it was there, Um,
I it was. I forgot alot about it. I'm sure my kids
will forget all of it by thenand I won't be there. So I
looked again at our movie rankings andI went, what other movie reminded me
of that? Oh yeah, AnimalCrossing. I don't remember shit about that
(20:59):
movie. Oh man, it wascute, it was fine, it wasn't
offensive, it was just a movie. So it's so different though, because
Animal Crossing it's like so slice oflife. It's like nothing like it's just
bits, like nothing hangs together.I'm giving Raction Clank a six. Okay.
Did you give Animal Crossing a six? Yeah? So did you?
(21:23):
Okay. I would say in oneway this is better than Animal Crossing,
which is that this tells a coherentstory. That's but in every other way,
I actually think Animal Crossing is probablymore watchable, despite the fact that
it's more of a vignette type ofthing or feels like, you know,
I want to see the like Icould see like a Wes Anderson version of
(21:45):
it or something, you know,like the you could go even more cute
see on it. I'm just I'mjust kind of the little bits I like
that movie. I don't really thisto me, It's not a six like
it's so nothing. It's like it'slike cotton candy. It's like it's empty
calories, you know. Yeah,so, but it's also completely inoffensive.
(22:10):
And again, part like this isstuff that like in video game form,
I will lap up. It's justthat it's just expectation management when it comes
to watching a movie. I expecta movie just to do more. So
I'm just gonna go straight down themiddle of five. Five is fair.
I can't disagree too much with thateither. That for you, that ties
(22:33):
it with Dynasty Warriors and Wing Commanderof all things. There you go,
that actually makes some sense to me. I think I would about I would
actually rather watch I'd rather watch WingCommander or Dynasty Warriors before watching this.
Again, both of those were moreinteresting. That's fair. It also just
to put it in a more context. You're four point five so far,
(22:56):
you have a bunch of them.Assassin's Creed, Oh yeah, I writed
that too highly. Monster Hunter,Oh god, I write that way too
highly. We watched Tumbrater already,I forgot all about it. Oh yeah,
the Laura Cross one, that's right, and that's about right. Four
point five. I stand behind thatone. And then um a couple of
(23:18):
Resident Evil movies, Resident Evil andResident Evil Extinction. You both gave I
read those way too highly. Sohere's a flying here. Did you get
it? I don't know. Ithought it did. There's a little one
anyway, I think that's about ourque that we should call this all right,
we need a movie for hopefully nextweek. I already chosen it.
(23:45):
It is what I think would bea more interesting I'm still not the most
interesting, but I think it willprobably be summer north of well. I
think I don't want to make predictionson where we're going to rank it,
but I definitely think it'll be moreupper echelon than what we've been doing.
And that is Prince of Persia.Honestly, one I have not seen yet,
(24:10):
so oh that's exciting. I sawit in the movie theater and I
didn't hate it. Also, it'sa good time because that that two D
Prince of Persia just got shown onall of the different like summer times,
some kind of anniversary and it looksreally good. So I'm down for that
again. Hopefully we will not havethis long break anymore. I apology,
(24:32):
We both apologize for that again.Health and schedules and life at this point,
Randy, you know, people canjust watch People could watch the movie
in their own time and we'll getaround to it. Yeah, but I
just I actually more apologize the endsbecause I missed this and was excited to
finally get this in, and I'mglad that we're able to fit this in
quickly, and I'm I'm excited toget It's always a pleasure, especially because
(24:57):
all this other crappers coming out likeTwisted Metal keeps teasing stuff yet not giving
us a full trailer, which reallyscares me for this that it's so close
and they just keep teasing just alittle bit, like, Oh, it's
gonna be so bad, isn't it. No, man, I, well,
here's the thing. I have zeroattachment to Twisted Metal as a video
(25:21):
game franchise, So I honestly don'tknow how I'm going to Really it's it's
like I'm gonna have nothing to compareto. I'm not gonna be able to
talk about you. I've played somuch Twisted Metal too back in my day.
Again, there's zero story to it. You get a little you get
a little story thing at the endof what the gut person does with their
wish after they win the tournament orwhatever. Sounds like you're the expert Trinity.
(25:42):
Oh yeah, totally all right,and then it completely fell apart.
All right, that'll do it.So next time we will get together,
it will be Prince of Persia.And again Yenza said, it'll be better
than ratchet and clank. You've heardit here first. All right, there
you go, right, see youguys next time
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