Matt (00:00.68)
Hello and welcome to this podcast. is called popcorn and plot holes. I'm just trying to change it up. I'm trying to.

Luciano (00:04.448)
I was going to pay you a compliment for not sounding like a dead person and then you forget the name of the thing

Chris (00:09.25)
Are you ashamed?

Matt (00:13.5)
No, I didn't forget it. It's up on the upper left -hand corner of our recording software. I'm trying new energy. It always feels weird to just say the same thing over and over again, expecting different results. Speaking of expecting different results, Luciano, yeah, you're still here? nothing at all.

Luciano (00:17.606)
Yeah, it is.

Luciano (00:22.452)
Fair enough.

Ashley (00:25.096)
You

Luciano (00:29.888)
What does that mean? What does... Do you know how sentences work? Yes, I'm here, apparently.

Chris (00:38.658)
I think he's trying to tell you something.

Luciano (00:40.276)
You

Chris (00:42.824)
sup? I am still here. Wait, I don't like that toad either. What the fuck?

Matt (00:42.834)
Moving on, Chris, you're still here?

Matt (00:48.9)
Yeah, it hurts when it comes to you and Spencer is has vanished I hope he's okay, but we've replaced Spencer and Other Matt with a brand new guest first time Ashley welcome to the podcast

Ashley (01:03.198)
Hey, thanks. I'm so glad to be here for this magnificent film. No, this is the best thing I've ever seen.

Matt (01:07.292)
I would thank us, but yeah.

Luciano (01:08.902)
Yeah, don't thank us yet.

Matt (01:13.864)
You're welcome. Sarcasm not detected. Let's dive right into this. We watched Borderlands, the, I don't know, man, fuck. Who wants to own this vehicle? Like.

Chris (01:14.359)
You

Chris (01:24.012)
Shit, the Eli Roth vehicle. Look at how many times his name fucking appeared in the end credits. Why? Why? Anyways.

Luciano (01:30.09)
That is true. That is true. That is true. He's proud of it. He's proud of it.

Matt (01:30.886)
Yeah. I'm fine with giving it.

Ashley (01:33.492)
Cause no one else wanted to take credit. Everyone was like, nah, pass. I didn't touch it. No.

Matt (01:39.243)
He shouldn't be. Yeah, the Elia Roth vehicle that works Borderlands. It is a... I use this term because I'm legally required to. Adaptation of the Borderlands video games.

Chris (01:40.578)
Mm -mm.

Luciano (01:50.112)
But 2k and gearbox called you is like you better fucking call it an adaptation, okay

Chris (01:50.69)
Legal legalities? What are they?

Matt (01:57.352)
They said, Randy Pitchford himself sent me a sternly worded email. Make sure you mention Gearbox Studios. So there, we got it in. Let's do what we always do. Let's start with at least one positive thing before potentially we talk about some negative things. I don't want to tell you where to go. But let's start with Luciano. What was good about this movie?

Luciano (02:19.614)
Okay, so there were, because you asked for one good thing, I'm going to give you two. And the reason I'm going to give you two is because I know it's going to stir some controversy here. But I really liked the fight scene in like in the, when they're with the cycles, they even the cycles are afraid of the blood shots or whatever. But not because the scene was particularly good, but because it was Motorhead playing Motorhead's Ace of Spades playing.

Chris (02:24.78)
What the?

Ashley (02:25.044)
Mm hmm.

Chris (02:27.852)
Don't you do it.

Luciano (02:49.14)
that I was like, okay, I'm in, this is the best scene in this movie, I'm done. But I also loved Jack Black as Claptrap. I'm not even being ironic, I really loved it. To me, it was the saving grace of this fucking movie, knowing that Jack Black was gonna be there, so.

Ashley (02:58.228)
you

Matt (02:59.772)
Ha ha ha.

Chris (03:02.91)
Matt (03:04.964)
I will say that Jack Black certainly carried the spirit of claptrap from the video games into the movie. He was, yeah.

Luciano (03:12.19)
Right, that's what I thought too. I only wish, I wish his voice was a little bit more robotic. Like I recognize too much of Jack Black's own voice in it. I don't think it's good, but like the spirit of the character was very much the same as in the game. I thought, yeah.

Matt (03:27.228)
Yeah, that's fair. Ashley, I understand you may be hyperventilating. We will get to your version of Clap Trap after we go through everybody's one positive thing.

Luciano (03:32.638)
Hahaha!

You

Ashley (03:38.28)
I appreciate the acknowledgement of the faces I'm making podcast world.

Matt (03:40.348)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We need it to be auditory. I'll let you come down from that blood rush of anger. Chris, what was your good thing?

Chris (03:40.642)
You

Luciano (03:42.715)
Hahaha!

Chris (03:54.55)
My good thing was the perp how perplexed I was. No, my good thing was watching Kevin Hart try to be something he's not. I like watching people struggle sometimes. Kevin is - Kevin is - has - has - Kevin's got a funny -

Matt (04:10.674)
Peace.

This feels like a backhanded compliment.

Luciano (04:15.134)
Yeah, yeah.

Chris (04:16.394)
What you're gonna get is what I give you. Kevin should be doing what he's doing to the best of his ability and he's funny no matter what he does. And so I'm glad that that shines through.

Matt (04:19.311)
Mm

Luciano (04:28.198)
because I thought it was not funny in this almost but alright fine I like I liked him as an action actor in this case actually I was okay

Matt (04:30.29)
Hey man, positive only. You gotta wait your turn. I got a list of people rebuking your positivity. You're second on the list currently. Let's get there. There's a lot to go through. Ashley, positive thing?

Chris (04:31.623)
Hahaha

Ashley (04:35.23)
We -

Chris (04:41.588)
REBUCED! They're banging the door down. Satan!

Ashley (04:46.324)
You

Ashley (04:51.572)
high -pitched voice. I would say the, like the everlasting beret, like the hat that never falters. It seemed to stay on ahead the entire duration of the film, no matter the energy, the explosion, that is one hardworking motherfucking hat. So that would be the one saving grace. And that tells you against the background of my tone, how I feel about this film.

Chris (04:53.537)
Bye.

Chris (05:08.683)
Hmm

Chris (05:14.956)
Mmm. Mmm.

Matt (05:15.944)
Great.

Luciano (05:16.581)
The most trustworthy character in this movie is the hat.

Ashley (05:19.1)
is the hat. The hat sticks by like handles it is always on top hat. For the Oscar. That's it. That's all I got.

Chris (05:21.452)
Correct. Preach.

Luciano (05:26.602)
Fair? Fair.

Chris (05:29.276)
The Oscar!

Matt (05:32.2)
The Oscar goes to the hat for existing. I would like to give you my one positive thing. Nothing. This movie is a godforsaken blight on society. And we're all worse for having watched it. Ashley, would you like to talk about how much you hate Claptrap?

Ashley (05:33.306)
the Oscar of hats. That's it. Yes.

Chris (05:40.626)
huh.

Ashley (05:49.534)
Yeah, thanks for passing the mic. Yes, I would. So first of all, I think for me, it's like there has to be like an energy of it being like funny picking. Like, you you grow up with like a certain kind of energy when you go back and forth, you learn how to like parlay kinda. This was just like fucking lame. Like none of it landed, none of it was funny, none of it was interesting. It wasn't like picky, cute. It wasn't like edgy.

I love robots, like as a rule. If it's a robot, I'm like, yes, this robot, because Jack Black, sorry sir, if you're listening, not sorry. All of it was just to him. I know he's like, this is his podcast of choice. He's like, fuck. But no, there was just something, it was almost too human and too forced. Like nothing else in this film was too forced, but it was like the energy of it was just all like.

Chris (06:22.433)
Mmm. Mmm.

Chris (06:28.716)
Hmm.

Matt (06:32.21)
I doubt it.

Ha

Ha

Chris (06:38.818)
Come on, guys!

Ashley (06:48.998)
It just, wasn't fun or funny. He was annoying. It was annoying. And I was like, it should be a machine that can die and it can't. I was like, fucking kill it. So...

Chris (07:00.225)
You

Matt (07:00.326)
Luciano, would you like to re -rebuke?

Luciano (07:03.612)
Yeah, so I'm having, like the feeling that I'm getting is I went to watch this movie and I was like, this is going to fucking suck, right? And it did not suck as much as I expected it to. So I was like, okay, that's all right. But so like, I love Jack Black just in general. I was like, when I first heard his voice coming out of, no, no, no, no.

Chris (07:03.85)
Let them fight, let them fight.

Ashley (07:04.532)
you

Ashley (07:15.027)
Okay.

Chris (07:24.78)
Look, so I...

Matt (07:29.214)
Stay out it, Chris.

Luciano (07:32.672)
So when I first heard his voice coming out as Claptrap, I was like, if nothing else, I'll have Jack Black to see me through this. But I actually agree with you, Ashley. It's too human sounding. It doesn't sound like a robot. I don't mind the banter. The jokes are kind of flat, I agree. I like the fact that, like I said, the way that Claptrap is. Claptrap does not respect any fucking body in the game.

Ashley (07:34.932)
Please.

Ashley (07:40.756)
Mm.

Chris (07:51.926)
Yep.

Ashley (08:01.801)
Yeah.

Luciano (08:02.655)
He will shit talk you and I thought they were gonna try to make him like R2D2, like BB -8 cutesy and I was like, no, I'm enslaved to you. You're a horrible person. Did you die? no, I have to stop celebrating. Like I like that vibe, but it was too Jack Black a little bit.

Ashley (08:09.491)
Mm.

Ashley (08:19.29)
Yeah, cause that vibe would be dope, like if it landed it just... didn't.

Luciano (08:21.792)
But I don't know, enjoyed actually most of the scenes that I most enjoyed were I loved that crap, crapping bullets. Like I was just stupid 13 year old me humor. I was laughing like an idiot. I was like, my God, of course they made him crap bullets. I like Matt, you said this is a godforsaken plight on humanity. I was like, you know what? I'm okay with this movie. That's how I finished.

Ashley (08:35.966)
Sure!

Luciano (08:51.786)
just a lamp shade to the end when we do our reviews. But I was like, this could have been much worse. That was my feeling. Yes, it could have.

Matt (08:53.278)
Cool. who knows?

Chris (08:59.65)
Could have? Could?

Matt (09:04.03)
I'm not sure that's a way to... Yeah. Nah. Let's tackle it a different way. Let's just continue talking through this movie and see if we can figure out why his brain is broken. Luciano is just for a clear and not clap traps. So this movie... It's an original story in the Borderlands universe. They take elements from... There are five games, I think, in Borderlands. There's Borderlands 1, 2, 3...

Ashley (09:04.414)
I'm not sure I want to investigate that because that's concerning on a level.

Luciano (09:28.457)
Yeah.

Matt (09:34.216)
There's the outer space one pre -sequel and then there's Tiny Tina's Wonderland, which technically I guess doesn't count because it's like a D &D themed to spin off. But so at least in the four games, they take different elements from the games and sprinkle them liberally throughout the movie. so like Marcus, for example, in the video game, Marcus is a, he sells you guns. He's Russian or Russian sounding.

Luciano (09:35.296)
pre -sequel and the pre -sequel. Yeah.

Luciano (09:41.906)
It's a spin -off, yeah.

Matt (10:03.11)
I understand why they might not want to use that accent given the current climate we're in. But that's why he's like horny for guns and he like talks to General Knox and is like, I never forget a gun because technically that's job. And yeah. But like, I guess the thing that caught me here was that, and this might tread a bit on the plot holes that we're going to cover, but it's an interesting choice for a movie based on a video game to

Luciano (10:05.386)
Yeah.

Luciano (10:16.372)
His thing,

Matt (10:33.424)
just be a generic action movie, like a Tropy action movie. And even if this wasn't based on a video game, it had no hope of being a fun action movie because it doesn't do anything interesting or like original or cool. I always bring up John Wick all the time. For some reason, that's my go -to movie. But John Wick had a cool mystery and lore behind, he's the assassin, but they have coins and this is world and blah, blah. And even though like it's Tropy that they killed his dog and he wanted to murder everybody.

That's just the one thing and then he goes off and has this amazing adventure.

Luciano (11:04.608)
And it leans on it, right? They know it's tropey, they know it's like a cliche. Yeah.

Matt (11:07.816)
Sure. Sure. Yes. And this movie seems to go through acting like nothing here is a cliche, right? Like, this kid is, this kid is the, the, we need this, the chosen one. And it's like, this is this kid, this kid's the chosen one. This is, it's here. Look everybody, this is the one. Yeah.

Luciano (11:16.552)
Yeah.

The chosen one. Yeah.

Luciano (11:26.398)
Yeah, it fooled no like I don't know if it fooled anybody we like I know a little bit about the games Maddie's played more than I did but the first scene when they're talking like in the narration in the beginning of the daughter of a radio blah blah and they go rescue tiny teen I'm like Who believes that that is just some random? Like kid and not fucking Kate Blanchett. That's gonna be the main character of this whole thing. Come on

Chris (11:26.997)
special!

Luciano (11:53.0)
It was dumb, that was very dumb. think the problem there is they tried so hard to world build, and I use the word here very loosely, because they try to keep alluding to the game, but only they didn't pick up a story that's set in the world of the game and then tell the story. They picked up some random, very cliched and deadbeat story.

And they kept saying, hey, remember, this is Borderlands. Remember, this is Borderlands. Remember, it's not a story. It's a bunch of beats with references to like, it's almost like the Borderlands thing is a product placement more than an element of the actual story.

Chris (12:26.944)
Hmm.

Ashley (12:27.314)
Yeah.

Chris (12:35.916)
Sounds hollow, hollow to me.

Luciano (12:38.304)
Yeah, 100%.

Ashley (12:39.838)
And was hard to tell if it was like trying to be camp because it was so shit. And it's like, are people knowing that it's this garbage and trying to amp it up to the maximum so that you're like, it's campy and that makes it fine. But then it was like, every piece. Yeah. And so it's like the story, nah, the acting, nah. Everything was just nah. there wasn't, it was.

Luciano (12:53.928)
It doesn't get there, right? Yeah.

Luciano (13:00.81)
Ha ha ha ha.

Ashley (13:05.428)
That's almost like jarring to watch because usually you want some sense of immersion, right? Then I think that's the beauty of video games is that when you are that first person that is your story and you are in it and this was so absolutely not remotely even an inch of that. And so I think that's a uniformly big issue to tackle with video game adaptation anyway, full stop period. But like in this case, I was like...

Am I supposed to believe it or am I meant to suspend my disbelief in the hopes that I can fall into whatever fucking shit they're trying to sell me right now? Like it was busted. Not to get scientific, but shit was broke. Okay, I don't

Matt (13:39.313)
Yes.

Luciano (13:41.108)
Yeah, if they try to be... Yeah, they try to be camp, they failed. If they try to be serious, they failed. So when the movie starts, right, when the movie starts and you see that scene, especially that scene with like Lilith shooting up the whole bar and that whole thing, I was like, OK, it's going to lean into like the absurd of it. But then they stop and it only ever comes back at the end.

Ashley (13:48.264)
Yeah.

Chris (13:52.171)
WAAAHHHH

Matt (14:08.168)
Yeah, she never does that again. Yeah.

Luciano (14:10.686)
when she has the wings. That's the only time where like the absurdity comes back, right?

Ashley (14:15.218)
Hmm.

Chris (14:16.386)
It's like the wrong ingredients going into a meal. you look at these ingredients, you're gonna think, dessert? But then they make some fucking soup.

Luciano (14:22.239)
You

Luciano (14:25.81)
Yeah, I was gonna go the other way. was like, let's make some let's make some omelettes and someone hands you a tray of like mushrooms or marshmallows and you go Marshmallows

Matt (14:35.09)
I want to get on this metaphor. I like the metaphor. I like the metaphor from Friends where, you know, halfway through she's Rachel's making a trifle and then the pages rift and then the rest of it is like a shepherd's pie. That's what I think happened to this movie.

Luciano (14:45.348)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You're not gonna be Joey. You're not gonna be.

Ashley (14:52.55)
Mm -hmm.

Matt (14:55.0)
what?

Ashley (14:55.954)
Listen, I'd eat that. I'm not gonna be mad at that, because that actually kind of sounds delicious. But this was like... Right? But this was just a mess. Like, at least those two things are two coherent holes that were added together. I don't know what the fuck this is. Like, it's not a video game, it's not a movie, it's not an interesting story, it's got no cohesion, it has no pacing. It literally makes no sense. Like, I've never felt so, like, outside of a film.

Luciano (14:57.578)
Yeah.

Chris (15:01.28)
take a shepherd's pie right now over this movie.

Ashley (15:24.958)
Do know what I mean? Does that make sense? Yeah, that. Mm -mm.

Matt (15:24.986)
It, yeah. Well, I was going to say, I play all the Borderlands games. really liked the Borderlands games. And instantly my reaction to this movie was this movie doesn't understand what it feels like to play Borderlands. Yeah. It just, it is, as Luciano said, it is product placement for Borderlands. And know, there's the creatures and like, you know, like some of the humor is like,

Chris (15:25.312)
Hmm hmm the key. go man you wanna say

Luciano (15:40.234)
Bartolin.

Chris (15:41.228)
Thank you. That was a good question, like coming out of what you were saying.

Luciano (15:51.988)
the world and yeah.

Matt (15:53.436)
Yeah, like the piss, the piss lands or whatever that humors in Boroughlands, but it's like the way it's everything's utilized and done. It's like the classic thing to me to get back on the tropes and the classic trope is like when she wants, Tina winds down the window and they're like close the window, but no one has can be just tell her close the window because you have piss in your mouth. And it's just like that is a classic trope that probably shouldn't ever be in any movie. It's just infuriating. Yeah.

Chris (16:08.46)
Yeah.

Luciano (16:12.095)
Yeah.

Luciano (16:17.489)
It's too, it's so played out, yeah.

Chris (16:17.74)
Yeah. Correct. I was very angry, especially since Latina and Roland and Creed, they've spent time together. Why wouldn't you listen when just before when they were driving into that region, it was pissed something. Put it together. She's not dumb, but she did a dumb thing.

Luciano (16:31.605)
Yeah.

Luciano (16:36.416)
That happens a lot in the movie where a character will act slightly out of character because the plot or some gimmick wants it. It's the same with Lilith and when they're in the mines and the fucking crab floaty thing from Atlas comes in and you have the hologram and they're just talking like pals. I told you not to disappoint me she goes, yeah, I know. was like, what the

Chris (16:45.612)
Hmm.

Luciano (17:04.562)
Aren't you mad that he tried to kill you, he lied to you, and now you're like just, you know, what are you going to do? You know, another tooth. No, like be mad, shoot the thing. No, they needed Tina to see her talk at Atlas so they can split them up. And it's like, let's make Lilith act completely out of character because we need to.

Chris (17:24.544)
Yeah, it was a completely different, it was night and day compared to the very, like the scene when she shoots up the bar, which was the energy I was hoping for for the rest of her character going through, so.

Ashley (17:31.111)
Yes.

Luciano (17:32.028)
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, Well, that's.

Ashley (17:35.208)
And you can't start with that and end with this. And I think it's that disjointed flip -floppiness that it makes you not able to understand the character or gravitate because they keep changing and into things you don't like. Like you need to invest in a, like a movie is a short period of time to learn, understand and give a shit about a character. And they didn't spend the time to make them consistent enough to even be approachable, nevermind believable. So I was like, ew.

Luciano (17:38.015)
Yeah.

Matt (17:39.731)
Mm

Luciano (17:45.162)
Yeah.

Luciano (17:59.348)
Honestly, the character they do the best, like the character that's the most believable of all the main characters is, no, it's Roland, it's Roland. Because he's always acting the same way at least, right? He's like driven and blah, blah, blah. Well, Krieg too, but then Krieg is easy.

Chris (18:04.978)
Bernie! That's killing. He's inconsistent.

Ashley (18:11.369)
Yeah.

Matt (18:16.331)
But, but, Roland's easy too. Krieg is the crazy violent guy.

Chris (18:16.78)
Yeah.

Ashley (18:16.936)
mean, yeah.

Luciano (18:21.438)
Yeah, but Lilith was easy too and they fucked up, so...

Matt (18:24.562)
Right, but they're all just the same character. That's the other thing, right? Like, Krieg's a little crazier than Roland, or a little, sorry, a little crazier than Lilith, and Lilith's a little crazier than Roland. and Tina is maybe, she, yeah, she bounces from top to bottom, but like, if you're gonna do an ensemble cast, can we get some different characters who bring different things and vibes to the crew? Not just, I'm really good at killing things.

Luciano (18:27.21)
True, yeah.

Luciano (18:34.207)
Right.

whatever the plot needs.

Ashley (18:49.844)
It was one note.

Luciano (18:51.224)
Or, you know, lean into it being like dumb and campy and stupid and make the characters be zany all the time, do all the... Like, that's what I'm saying. If they wanted to be campy, they needed to be more ballsy than they were. This was like an attempt and a failure at being campy, but also it wasn't serious or cohesive enough to not be... You can see the sort of the aborted attempt at campiness. I think that's...

Ashley (19:05.15)
Yeah.

Luciano (19:21.428)
The part, the only, so the only time I felt like this was like an actual borderland things was that scene, the fight scene in the basement there with the million cycles. Cause that's how it feels to play borderlands where you're shooting at everything that moves, right? But that was the only time and they can clearly do it even in the treasure scene, which I was expecting to be like, okay, they're gonna explode the treasure or I don't know, send the treasure after the enemy. No, it's just.

Chris (19:37.825)
Hmm.

Luciano (19:50.534)
shoot through it it dies they fly away and it's done and they complain about piss i'm like what the fuck is this

Chris (19:56.618)
It's a very confusing thing for an outsider, a first time viewer coming to Borderlands. The trailer alone with the cut, like again, I like again, going in with zero, I was cool with the visual, like the treatment and having seen bits and pieces of the game over the years. I was like, this might be interesting. But then at the same time,

Luciano (20:00.661)
Mm

Chris (20:22.59)
Again, similar to the inconsistencies of Lilith, and then when you get in thinking it's gonna be one way, they switch it up on you again and again and again. And here's the thing, I don't blame Cate Blanchett. I liked her as Lilith, but at the same time, I have no previous knowledge. And so I was okay with her intro to this setting, but then it was just confusing in different areas and letting me down.

Ashley (20:48.532)
And like, who was the intended audience, right? Like, who were they making this film for? Because if it's people who understand Borderlands, played it, loved it, fail, and if it's where people had no fucking clue, also fail? Because they didn't spend the time to build anything to make it interesting enough to buy in or even make it believable enough to suspend for that space. Like, I was mad at the $20 I just spent. I'm like, shit.

Luciano (20:48.628)
I hated her.

Chris (20:51.831)
Hmm.

Matt (20:52.166)
Yes.

Luciano (21:00.032)
You're always 100%.

Chris (21:12.802)
Yeah, yeah moment of silence for your $20

Luciano (21:13.522)
Yeah.

Ashley (21:15.73)
You know what I mean? You don't want that. Like, I don't know who they... I work hard for my money and I did not appreciate...

Matt (21:19.422)
That is the crux of the problem with this movie, right? This movie is trying so hard to not anger anybody that it doesn't... Yeah, it's just trying to not piss off anybody. So if you're as generic as possible, everybody can watch your movie, but that's not true. Especially in 2024, if your movie isn't doing something specific or saying something specific, no one's gonna watch it.

Luciano (21:31.05)
but also to appeal to everybody.

Luciano (21:44.146)
yeah, yeah. What they did was... Yeah, yeah.

Ashley (21:46.556)
And especially if it's a video game film. Sorry, but like, don't do that. Piss off. Like people who play video games love video games. I is one of those people. Don't, I'm sorry, fall out. Go F yourself. Absolutely not. Thank you. I never watched that show. Like if you love games, I bet, but sure.

Matt (21:49.32)
Yes. Yeah.

Luciano (22:03.658)
It's actually pretty good. Yeah.

Matt (22:05.338)
It's actually a really good show.

Ashley (22:08.532)
Well, good for fucking fallout, but not me because I want to be I am the character in my stories You feel me like like I love that game so deep because of the choices I get to make and that's the beauty of video games in the medium of video games It is not a passive activity. It's an action activity where you choose you do you engage? am I sit back and watch some other fucking up? Like it just doesn't make sense and like you will alienate the audience because the audience are the people who know the game do

Chris (22:11.788)
Yeah.

Matt (22:15.166)
Yep.

Luciano (22:37.056)
Well, I know, I don't know if you make it a good thing, especially if you don't try to retell the same story that the game has, because that I agree, the story that you're playing that I'm supposed to be the protagonist there. I don't want to see some other person there. What?

Chris (22:37.483)
Hmm.

Matt (22:51.794)
Hey, hey, do you wanna, do you wanna like, it's a bit early, but do you wanna get into it?

Ashley (22:56.723)
early but you want to into it?

Luciano (22:58.005)
Sure, let's go. mean, we're there.

Chris (22:59.008)
Echo.

Matt (23:01.566)
Okay, let's pause, because I got Ashley to stop recording, so.

Chris (23:04.52)
okay, okay, okay. Do do do do do. Maybe something happened or do we give it a minute? I'll check. gotcha. Yeah, sometimes Riverside, right? wow.

Luciano (23:04.965)
Yeah, should drop

Matt (23:07.528)
And she dropped. Check, yeah.

Luciano (23:10.1)
Yeah, it's a good time anyway. We're segueing, right?

Ashley (23:13.041)
was weird, my headphones died and it kicked me out.

Matt (23:18.11)
yeah, I'll do that sometimes. I've hit like my microphone and it kicks out. Okay, give me a second here. Time stamp. Ashley gets fired from the podcast. 23.

Chris (23:23.712)
I like the flow, y 'all.

Chris (23:27.85)
All good.

Ashley (23:29.223)
Sorry, my bad.

Luciano (23:32.018)
You

Ashley (23:34.267)
I broke it. Probably won't mess up, can be updated to, girl be breaking shit.

Chris (23:42.402)
Thank you.

sorry.

Matt (23:48.428)
Okay, so

Luciano (23:50.932)
Ask the question again and I will answer.

Chris (23:51.094)
What were we doing?

Matt (23:53.822)
Well, what I were, we're, let's just talk about it right here. Cause it's only 20, 22 minutes in where we are on top of the plot hole. And do we, so we do, we just want to drive ourselves into the pot hole then. Cause I feel like we have enough to talk about that. Okay. So I'll just, as I was doing before, when you dropped Ashley, was basically saying to Luciano, do we want to get into the pot hole? So I will ask the same thing and not allow me to stitch it together.

Luciano (24:03.711)
Yeah, we should.

Matt (24:22.15)
just give me a good timestamp and I'll ask the question.

Matt (24:29.864)
So Luciana, we're like dangerously close to the blood hole. I think we should just dive into the blood hole. Okay. We are. Yeah, so let's segue professionally without having to talk about it like professionals do.

Luciano (24:35.985)
Of course, we're professional podcasters. We should just segue when the segue presents itself.

Luciano (24:44.384)
No professionals always lampshade how professionals they are

Ashley (24:45.047)
This is like news work.

Matt (24:49.114)
Ashley, welcome to a professional podcast. You're welcome.

Ashley (24:51.025)
Hey -o.

Luciano (24:51.946)
Ha ha ha ha!

Chris (24:52.041)
YEEEAH!

Matt (24:54.162)
Plot hole, there's one plot hole in this movie. And I will say up front, there's lots of problems with this movie. Plot holes are hard to find because there's no story. So what we're talking about here is, this is a plot hole for this movie, but it might go other places. Video games as movies is a plot hole because it is so insanely hard for someone to make a movie about a video game property specifically.

Chris (24:56.812)
Hmm.

Chris (25:14.274)
Hmm.

Luciano (25:14.292)
Yes.

Matt (25:23.58)
and make it good. This one, very bad. I think Luciano and I know one that was also not great, Warcraft. We had a very bad time.

Luciano (25:31.326)
Listen, you know, you know, and I know that we both like that movie, but that's because that movie has so many references to wow and everything. And we don't like the movie. like to, I know that thing. That's what we like. No, true. It's not.

Matt (25:40.284)
Right.

Matt (25:46.408)
But that's not a good movie, right? Ashley, what's your favorite terrible adaptation?

Ashley (25:52.497)
My favorite adaptation of a video game? terrible?

Matt (25:54.396)
No, terrible. The worst adaptation. Yeah, the worst adaptation.

Ashley (26:00.346)
It's really hard because I hate all of them.

But it like because it just comes back to the main thing that I don't want to passively watch like to me It's the undoing of the whole point of the video game like I want to play even if it's like a super linear baked by number like paint by number You know like choose your venture bullshit. I'm doing it and so I find I cannot participate in films that are video games, but number one the worst one I've never in my life left a movie theater except for Mortal Kombat 2

I that stupid scene with Liu Kang and that fucking ball with what's -her -name rolling around and that's Roman I was like It has seared itself there are things I can't remember in my real life cuz that's in there Do know how traumatic that shit is? Anyway that that was that was fucking worse

Matt (26:37.086)
Ha ha ha ha.

Luciano (26:42.624)
my God, I forgot about that scene.

Matt (26:43.218)
Yeah, yeah.

Matt (26:53.008)
Yeah. Chris, do you want to add one as well?

Chris (26:56.756)
Hmm, definitely. It has to be, absolutely has to be for me. The first Dungeons and Dragons movie. The Jeremy Irons movie. I used to work at Cineplex when, no, I think it was before, no, I was working at the, at Famous Players called at the time, I don't care if it dates myself.

Luciano (27:08.394)
What, Jeremy Irons one? my.

Matt (27:08.978)
with Jeremy Irons.

Chris (27:20.15)
but I saw the ending coming from a mile away when they're like, they're gonna revive snails. If they fucking revive snails and don't let them die and give them after sacrificing themselves, take it something from the black man, I'm gonna walk out of this theater. And then soon as the twinkle on the tombstone trickled in, I got up and I walked down the stairs and I turned back and I waited for it and I shook my fist at that bitch and then they brought him back and then I walked the fuck out. I remember that shit.

Ashley (27:20.605)
you

Ashley (27:39.963)
Yeah.

Luciano (27:43.901)
Hahaha

Matt (27:45.416)
Chris, Chris, Chris, dragons!

Chris (27:50.11)
Hahaha!

Luciano (27:50.208)
No, it's not. Come on. DRAGONS! It's like seven syllables that word. yes, no it is. Jeremy Irons was like, this is hot garbage. I'm just gonna have fun. I don't blame the man. He should.

Ashley (27:52.723)
I love that.

Chris (27:57.76)
But that's not Jeremy Iner. It was, it was, they ruined it for me. I don't blame, no, no, I don't blame him. I blame the movie and what they did. Yes.

Matt (27:58.118)
fair.

Ashley (28:11.153)
But it kind of was a fun - okay, I won't derail this, but like I do feel like it was kind of like you can watch it and find it hilarious. I would not rewatch Borderlands. Do know what I mean? Like there's a difference. Like there was like an inherent joy of watching something that's kind of hor - like shit, but in a fun way? This is just... No. I did a lot of gesticulation. I'm sorry. Yes.

Luciano (28:20.126)
Yeah. Yes. Yeah.

Chris (28:21.092)
Oooooh, true!

Luciano (28:26.815)
Yes.

Matt (28:31.144)
So.

Chris (28:31.522)
Hot trash.

Luciano (28:32.501)
For me, that for me is Alone in the Dark. Another... Absolutely the worst movie I've ever watched in my entire life.

Matt (28:39.742)
Yeah, so let's, we can name shit adaptations to the cows come home. That's a different podcast entirely. But in the guise of shit, like can we, you know, Ashley kind of alluded to it, like the fact that you're taking a thing that you experience as yourself doing and trying to make it into a medium. And it brings to mind the Doom movie with The Rock and Carl Urban, where they have like that 10 minute first person scene where Carl Urban wakes up and like,

Chris (28:40.342)
Whoa.

Chris (29:03.17)
Mm -hmm.

Matt (29:08.648)
It's supposed to be like the video game. Fucking hilariously bad. It's hilarious. But like, you know, it just shows you like they're they were trying to be like, okay, it's first person. Let's do the first person thing. And it didn't work. And so like, how do you is there a way to make a movie about a video game or including the video game that makes sense? Because because the one example I have that was OK is Super Mario.

Luciano (29:10.398)
It's the only fun part of that movie. Yeah.

Chris (29:10.785)
Yeah.

I wasn't expecting it and it was fun, yeah.

Chris (29:20.8)
Mm -hmm.

Matt (29:38.238)
The Super Mario movie, the animated one made by Illumination, the one that just came out like what, 2023? Was alright. It wasn't great, but it was okay. Ashley, you wanna jump in?

Chris (29:39.062)
The animated one or the re - Yeah. Two - yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it was - it was fun. There's a reason for that. at the one,

Luciano (29:39.178)
Yeah.

Luciano (29:44.682)
Yeah, last year, yeah. Decent, yeah.

Ashley (29:51.515)
Maybe, think, okay, so.

Great fighter to the animated movie. Maybe if we're going to go from video game that we go to animate, you know what I mean? Like I think live action is such a weird detraction that adds all these bonkers layers, but maybe like anime is the sweet spot because you can hit all the absurdity. You can get the kind of energy and the support that you need in the world building because you do have to animate it. And I think it demands a different way of seeing things and like presenting them. So almost like the alternative.

Chris (30:00.651)
Yeah.

Ashley (30:25.881)
Yeah, for me, I just don't think people, it shouldn't be people. The Street Fighter, also terrible film. Why was Lyle...

Luciano (30:32.825)
Yeah, I mean, but that's also terribly so so bad that it's like

Chris (30:38.219)
Still better than Borderlands RIP Ryle Julia

Ashley (30:40.635)
is.

Matt (30:41.892)
But is it though? I'm not gonna get into that. No.

Luciano (30:43.4)
It's no, it's not. like, I think one of the important things that I think is actually touched on this is.

Chris (30:44.023)
Yeah, it's Sonic Boom!

Ashley (30:44.069)
I mean, John Claude is all American.

Matt (30:51.88)
Sorry, Chris, I have to say this, Chris, you need to be way more French when you said that.

Ashley (30:55.591)
Yeah, no Sonic.

Chris (30:56.418)
Put this

Ashley (31:00.279)
Yeah.

Matt (31:01.438)
The Christa K McQuah has infected you clearly. Sorry Luciano, back to what you were saying.

Luciano (31:09.874)
Yeah, so I was gonna say, I actually touched on this, is I don't think any video... First of all, the main thing is for me, a movie usually doesn't have enough runtime to tell the story of the game, because the game runs much longer. So a series might be a better idea, but one way or another, I don't want to see the same story that I'm playing when I'm playing the video game. When I'm playing it, I'm the protagonist. I don't want to some other person play it.

Let's use Warcraft as an example. It is a huge lore and story behind it. There's definitely stuff you can tell, stories you can tell that aren't exactly the game, but that you can tell that they're part of your game, you can do it well. But the thing is, some games will lend themselves better. Like I haven't watched it, but apparently the series of Last of Us is really good too. But that's a much more, yeah.

Chris (32:01.197)
the live action. I hear a thing.

Luciano (32:03.412)
But it's much more realistic than Borderlands, for example. So it's easier to do in live action. I think the thing is movie studios are usually too scared to stray too far. And we talked about this when we talk about anime movies. It's the same thing. Like Dragon Ball Evolution, where they're like, Bulma has blue hair. Let's put Emmy Rossum with a single fucking blue strand of hair. Fuck you. Just don't do it.

Ashley (32:06.737)
Mm.

Chris (32:32.524)
Hmm

Luciano (32:34.036)
Don't insult me, you know what mean? adaptation isn't, let's take exactly what the video game was and just put actors to do it. You have to adapt it to the medium, right?

Matt (32:36.296)
So.

Matt (32:46.294)
Well, I'm like so I mean I guess the question there is you kind of answered it but I want to throw it to everybody else too is like Are we picking? The wrong things to making the movies now, obviously when you bring up Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter there are examples of Movies that are fighting tournaments that are are dare I say good?

Luciano (32:58.899)
You

Chris (33:07.018)
Return of the Dragon? No, enter the Dragon, sorry.

Matt (33:09.471)
yeah blood is a blood sport the blood sport as an example yeah yeah so but but then

Luciano (33:10.496)
I mean, good is a strong word. It's fun. Again, it's fun. But... Koumite! Koumite!

Ashley (33:13.158)
Blood sport, love of my life,

Chris (33:20.066)
Coo -mi -te, coo -mi -te. See?

Matt (33:22.447)
Ha ha.

Ashley (33:23.505)
Well, I mean, you feel happy. Yes. Thank you.

Matt (33:25.992)
But then we like, I don't know if you guys have watched the trailer for Minecraft.

Luciano (33:31.05)
There's a Minecraft movie? Why am I surprised there's a Tetris movie?

Chris (33:31.234)
trailer?

Matt (33:32.826)
Yeah, Jason Momoa. okay, let's, Jason Momoa is the star of that movie. The thing, you bring up the Tetris movie, but the thing about the Tetris movie is the Tetris movie isn't about Tetris. It's about getting the game made. So at least that has some logic to it. But so many of these video game adaptations, Doom is another good example, is a studio trying to take a popular video game franchise and ham -fist.

Luciano (33:43.708)
It's about the game, right? Yeah. Fair, fair.

Luciano (33:58.356)
making money.

Matt (33:59.792)
a movie out of it because it's popular and they just assume people are going to see Super Mario on the title and go watch John Leguizamo and Bob Hoskins run at Dennis Hoffer. right. That is that's enough drama for a lifetime. You're right, Ashley. So like we're clearly picking the wrong things. Like again, Last of Us is a game that is driven by a dramatic narrative. And so it lends itself so closely to being a movie that

Luciano (34:06.872)
and Bob Hoskins and Dennis Hopper. Yeah.

Ashley (34:12.669)
So much trauma there too, guys.

Luciano (34:16.64)
Yeah.

Ashley (34:17.393)
That was...

Chris (34:29.036)
Hmm.

Matt (34:30.342)
Are there... Is there like a video game now that could be a good movie that is not being looked at? Yeah.

Luciano (34:37.876)
God of War, God of War.

Ashley (34:40.829)
day.

Chris (34:41.599)
could work.

Luciano (34:41.98)
It has like it's stylized enough that you would recognize it not it's not just you know insert another greek mythology tale here like it has its own thing but it is the story is very rich so i mean you know that sony sony would fucking ham fist the whole thing but they could if they wanted to make a good movie out of it not the original no no the original is more of a

Matt (35:02.012)
And you're talking about like the new God of War, not the... Yeah.

Chris (35:07.49)
Do you have it?

Luciano (35:09.338)
Super Mario like the 90s Super Mario sort of deal where there's no real story. It's just bald man goes chop chop. Like that's what the fucking story is

Matt (35:13.586)
Yeah. Yeah.

Chris (35:15.286)
OG God of War could work too.

Ashley (35:20.925)
but it does speak to like the things that you need, which is like, like the background, the storyline, like Castlevania did so good as the first, that was fucking incredible because the lore is so strong. The story is so strong and there's such a depth to it, right?

Matt (35:21.278)
Don't trivialize my guy like that.

Matt (35:26.824)
Sorry, go ahead.

Luciano (35:32.797)
Matt (35:33.125)
Yep. Yep.

Luciano (35:40.106)
But they adapted it, right? They didn't just go, let's like pluck this from the video game and plop it into the anime, right?

Matt (35:48.562)
Yeah, you're not playing. Yeah.

Ashley (35:48.817)
but they kept the essential pieces, right? And built. Yeah.

Luciano (35:51.038)
Yeah, I mean Belmont is still there, right? He's there. Exactly. So like they adapted it. They didn't just hem fist it like you said.

Matt (35:54.334)
It's a different Belmont though. Yeah. Yeah.

Ashley (35:58.14)
Yes.

Matt (36:01.202)
Yeah, that's a really good example of one that works well.

Luciano (36:04.468)
Yeah. Horizon Zero Dawn. Just Horizon, the series. Yeah. That would be... But I think that needed to be animated because the robot animals, they would be so cheesy like CG with real actors. True. Yeah. I don't...

Chris (36:08.844)
Did you say horizon? Yeah, that makes sense.

Chris (36:21.996)
We've seen worse. We've seen worst.

Matt (36:25.938)
Right, but did that make it good? Like I want to see what is a good video game that could, like, a video game that could be adapted successfully into a movie, yeah, into a live action. See, Diablo is an excellent choice. Yeah.

Luciano (36:35.104)
to live action specifically or? Okay.

Ashley (36:37.213)
They're like Diablo. Like some deep dark. Like that could be interesting. I think there's enough there that you could like do something with it and it doesn't exceed the realm of like, like the cool kind of mechanistic, like the art that you could put in place and like all the demony work and all like the cool like that could be really rad without having to go CGI. You could do like the actual like.

Chris (36:40.403)
Yeah

Luciano (36:59.903)
Yeah.

Ashley (37:06.833)
Yeah.

Luciano (37:07.23)
Maybe StarCraft for talking Blizzard still. It'll be hard to make the Protoss not be cheesy, but if they could pull it off. I mean, they did with the Orcs on Warcraft, like the CG wasn't the problem in Warcraft.

Chris (37:11.682)
I thought it was... Okay.

Matt (37:16.028)
Yeah.

Matt (37:22.042)
No, I think, but I think you're bordering on something that I think you have to watch out for is how far into the fantastical you're going to go. And to Ashley's point, something like Diablo is easier to pull off because by nature it's dark. And whenever you make things dark, it's way easier to do practical effects and CGI looks realistic, right? So it's a balance of both. And like, that's one thing I noticed about this movie that pissed me off right away is like they CGI'd everything. They CGI'd her

Luciano (37:28.629)
Yeah.

Luciano (37:38.74)
Get away with things.

Ashley (37:41.905)
there.

Matt (37:49.822)
drive like a little driving the fucking vehicle around and it's like I mean I guess that's cheaper than building the car but it's just like to what end right and so so when you're thinking of a good adaptation last of us great good humans doing human things like to me I always think the gears of war be really good one to adapt because so much of that is people being humans and fighting a war and the things are fighting are generally just humanoid so you just make up a bunch of

Luciano (37:52.712)
Yeah.

Luciano (38:06.494)
Yeah. Yeah.

Luciano (38:13.322)
No, fallout, same thing.

Chris (38:15.402)
Isn't Halo a TV series that's kind of doing well? I haven't seen it, but isn't Halo kind of doing okay?

Matt (38:18.916)
Yes, Halo's failing because they are just fucking with the lore because they can. That's why I got cancelled.

Chris (38:23.778)
got canceled. Mass Effect. Mass Effect is a spacey I would have liked to have seen.

Matt (38:27.484)
Yeah, but another one that could have been good. Mass Effect would be great.

Luciano (38:30.688)
yeah mass mass effect has such a good story like the world they built that could that could but don't make it a movie okay bio -ware fucking ea you're i know you're listening because this is a famous podcast don't fucking make a movie out of mass effect it needs to be a series with like 11 seasons

Chris (38:41.375)
No.

Chris (38:45.964)
Ha!

Matt (38:51.016)
See, I disagree. don't... I think you can make a movie, but you need to just find a contained story, right? Like it doesn't have to be a TV. It's better if it's a TV series in many cases. obviously, especially if you're like The Last of Us, the one thing The Last of Us is doing, which is interesting, is they're just telling the story from the video games with tweaks for TV, but they're trying to tell the same story.

Chris (38:52.075)
Ooh, like challenge the next, challenge it to be the next battle star or battle one five.

Luciano (38:55.752)
Yeah.

Luciano (39:00.22)
I contain story. Fair. Fair.

Luciano (39:17.236)
Right, right.

Matt (39:17.576)
So of course you need a series to be able to do that because it's like lots of hours. But if you just want to tell a story in a universe, like you can block time box it into an hour and half, just make it small. Like that's the thing, right? Everyone wants to be like, I'm saving the universe in an hour and a half tops.

Luciano (39:20.724)
Yeah, there's a lot of story. Yeah.

Luciano (39:37.278)
No, does not have to be. yeah. It does not have to Because that's the kind of thing that lends itself to most video games. Like you want to feel the hero who saved the universe, right? A movie doesn't have to be about that. Like I don't think it would be good to have like the story of the games of Mass Effect games into a series. Because it's too... Like if you go back and look at those stories, you go, that doesn't make sense. That one... Okay. Yeah, that also doesn't make sense.

Chris (39:41.346)
It's too forced.

Luciano (40:05.244)
or servers that none of that makes sense. But in the video game, you abstract, you go, okay, fine. It needs to happen because of gameplay, right? Like it's too ham -fisted even in the video game, but it works. In the movie, it's too evident, I guess is the word. Like the exaggerations that work on a video game. Like you go, okay, I just don't believe this, right?

Chris (40:28.982)
Because there's time... There's like an ex - Not in a movie, there's time in a game.

Luciano (40:30.846)
Not just that, to Ashley's point, you're looking from outside. You're looking in. When you're playing the thing, you're more forgiving. It's like, yeah, I'm awesome. This is why this happens, right? That kind of thing.

Chris (40:42.722)
Yeah.

Ashley (40:45.947)
And it's almost inverse too, because like when I play a game, I want it to be long, I don't want it to end, but a film has to wrap up and it has to have a sequence, it has to have a beginning, a middle and a fucking end, right? And that means that there has to be pacing. So to the kind of this larger point is that

There has to be one part of the story. It may not necessarily be all the story with your Star Wars intro of here's the history of all the fucking whatever, but it does have to set the stage. so it's like, maybe have multiple films then. people keep talking about like the next like superhero franchise. Like why not turn it into multiples then? That might be the next way around it is because the stories are so enormous. They're meant to be that you maybe need a couple of films. And I mean,

Luciano (41:32.17)
Yeah, do Resident Evil.

Ashley (41:33.016)
Hi, Hollywood, make your money. You know what I mean though? Like maybe it has to be chopped up spread out to be believable.

Matt (41:39.258)
It's funny you mention that actually because the only thing they actually did, I think, well in this movie is the fact that Lilith gets her powers at the very end of the movie. Because it would have been almost impossible to explain that every character is like a special class and they all have their own special powers. And the fact that they made it like the culmination of the journey made some sense to tell the story. And then, you know, if this movie wasn't utter shit, you could have come back to a second movie and then be like,

Lilith has powers, who else has powers? We can discover powers on our next adventure. So you're right, it's important to like, not try to dole out the entire video game experience in that hour and a half space.

Luciano (42:17.14)
Yeah. They could have made this like this was a good way. This would have been a good way to tell a prequel to the first game made. Right. If they made Lilith very young like like a teenager or maybe like a young adult discovering her powers of the blind that would lead to other movies that time. like we get this little she's already like I'm too old for this. She wasn't the first thing she says in the movie.

Ashley (42:26.225)
Mm.

Luciano (42:44.478)
Which kind of sets itself up like, okay, so where do we go from here if she's already like tired? This is like the seventh movie in the franchise, not the first one.

Chris (42:44.534)
Yeah.

Chris (42:48.854)
Yeah.

Ashley (42:55.377)
Yeah, that sucked. that made me turn it off for a minute. I was like, shut up. come on. Don't use a weapon me like that.

Chris (42:55.384)
true.

Luciano (42:59.743)
Yeah.

Chris (42:59.926)
Ha ha ha ha!

Matt (43:00.766)
It... Well, least the weapon earned it by making it interesting and funny, But this is one of the things that movies sucked with. This is, you're picking the wrong video game. You didn't pick the wrong video game, but you applied the video game in the wrong manner. Little thing the video games, the ages are not brought up, but generally I would say 20 to 30 in that range. And...

Ashley (43:06.114)
Exactly. Yeah.

Chris (43:16.448)
Hmm.

Luciano (43:23.378)
It's I mean you could could say this is in the future people live a lot longer fine Doesn't matter how old she is just make her be in their prime not like I'm tired and I want to retire

Matt (43:29.599)
But

Matt (43:34.554)
Well, that's the problem is that you're taking someone you're forcing you got Cape lunch yet, right? To be in this movie, because I looked this up. She was bordering Colvin wanted to do something. She just signed on to whatever movie project. Yeah, makes sense. Got paid. Good idea. So but then you force the story to be written around an actor because they're a name in famous. But if you're making

Luciano (43:42.037)
Right.

Luciano (43:48.948)
Yep, that tracks. Yep.

Matt (44:03.098)
This is where I, maybe this is a bigger conversation, like if you're saying, I wanna make a Borderlands video game, I wanna make a World of Warcraft video game, I wanna make fucking Assassin's Creed, you're choosing this and the name, yeah you shouldn't have, but you did, you're choosing this because it resonates with people, right? People like Assassin's Creed, all these people like these video games. Great, good choice, you picked a video game that's popular. But then, you then go and immediately start,

Luciano (44:13.251)
boy.

Matt (44:31.238)
changing things to make sure that people who don't like the video game are gonna watch it and You change things in a way I think Ashley brought this up but that you're now saying or you brought it up to Luciano's like you're now saying the video game does this but because Most people if we only appeal to the video game, won't make enough money We're gonna appeal to people who don't like the video game. So now Lilith is gonna be Kate Blanchett But it's like so you've now

Yes, Bruce. Thank you. You've now taken your video game audience, said fuck you, and then made something for an audience that arguably isn't going to be interested.

Luciano (45:07.296)
Ostracize them. Yeah.

Luciano (45:16.67)
Yeah. Well, if you wanted to like... I was going to say if you wanted like you... could go and we don't care about the game people. We just care about grabbing people who don't play the game to like the franchise. But if you tell a good enough story that someone who doesn't know the IP is going to like it, then the video game people are going to like it too. Does that mean this is just a good story?

Ashley (45:42.969)
Yeah.

Chris (45:43.308)
Hopefully.

Ashley (45:43.601)
But it has to be a great story that can't fuck off the things that make it so desirable as its original form. So it's like you cannot change it so much that it's no longer recognizable. You almost want to like amplify the things that make it desirable as a game to draw in people who maybe do want to be those passive and not the actors, right? But that they get the same experiential like, this is awesomeness out of it. But like by being so like attempting to be

Luciano (45:45.919)
Yeah.

Luciano (45:55.168)
100%, yeah.

Chris (45:55.733)
Okay.

Chris (46:05.954)
Mm.

Chris (46:11.35)
Hmm.

Ashley (46:13.575)
so overly inclusive to get everyone you get nobody. And that's you just alienate everyone because it's a bad fucking choice. Hollywood, stop it, please. You're a nigger. A zillion. All of them.

Chris (46:23.34)
Dooz.

Luciano (46:23.776)
They've only been doing it for the past what 30 years or something? Yeah

Chris (46:28.214)
But fortunately we have glimmers of hope that it comes to good teams that either experiment through or just, whether you do or you don't know how to adapt, when you get there, you get there. Case in point, at least from my perspective, the Deadpool Wolverine movie is a great example of creative teams that adapted properly. And I'm sure, and there are loads of great adaptations, not just in video games, but in other...

genres in film and creative media as well.

Luciano (47:00.548)
But I think I think the now with Marvel especially but even before well not really with Marvel starting with them to you there is a Kind of a formula now of how you adapt comics to movies so that Translation let's call it translation software or the translation algorithm is there But I don't think anybody found like a winning formula for video game

Ashley (47:27.129)
even when you think of storyboarding for films, it looks a lot like a comic book. So like the leap isn't massive. But when you take a video game that's dead set chaos like Borderlands, the little bit that I played of it, it's nuts. Like it is a very intense, a lot happening situation even visually is wild. And like that was just yeah. And so you need that kind of like

Chris (47:27.53)
Not yet, at least.

Matt (47:31.197)
Mm -hmm.

Luciano (47:31.582)
Yeah.

Chris (47:31.617)
Yeah.

Luciano (47:34.176)
true.

Chris (47:39.81)
Mm

Matt (47:46.483)
Yes.

Luciano (47:46.496)
Yeah, it's a rave. It's a rave in the form of a game, 100%.

Ashley (47:53.979)
the world has that energy to it that was absent. And I think that's the big, it doesn't just go video game to film. there's such a leap. It's like the translation is lacking enormously and we're missing so many words and so much content and just completely different languages and no middle. So yeah, like there has to be something that brings them together. Otherwise it all falls apart. And I think that this is a really good example of that.

Matt (48:22.578)
You you bring up the idea of comics having a good translation to movies. And the things that I think always translate best to movies are things that have a story and a world built for them to work within. It's not, and it was, you know, it was a little disappointing because Borderlands is so much about looting and the guns and stuff you get, and they didn't touch on it at all. They could have a little bit, but they never touched on, like, the world of Borderlands is pretty flimsy. It's a means to...

Luciano (48:42.76)
Yeah.

Luciano (48:50.734)
yeah. Yeah.

Matt (48:51.824)
a looter shooter, right? And which it's interesting because Diablo is also in the same vein of like it's a loot grind, but they put so much effort into crafting a lore and a story around like Diablo's lore story is like insane, right? Yeah, Destiny is the same way. puts, mean, Destiny is probably too far and too far up their own asses, but they spent a lot of time crafting a story and a narrative to go along with the video game. And so you lost on Borderlands because you picked a story that didn't have great lore and the lore it did have you

Luciano (49:03.754)
Destiny Destiny is the same way. Yeah Yes, yeah, yes

Matt (49:21.704)
couldn't tell in a meaningful way because it's a video game and it's trying to be crazy and so the average person wouldn't care about it right? As you write a loss on two fronts so how do you make this movie good after that?

Luciano (49:33.63)
Yeah, can you imagine them trying to say okay, no, we're gonna be faithful to the game So they spend like half of the movie runtime at marcus's choosing guns Like bartering for guns and you know, I want this version because this version has more range. No, I want this version because it has more explosive power

Ashley (49:52.167)
But you legitimately could have made that like a funny bit. Like that could have been hilarious and it would have drawn in the people those nice little Easter egg kind of issues. You know what I mean? Like what a lost opportunity.

Matt (49:55.72)
Yes.

Chris (49:56.16)
Yeah, it's been done.

Luciano (49:56.682)
Yeah.

Luciano (50:03.112)
And it wasn't even hard, right? Lilith could have been in that fight that I liked so much. One of the psychos could have dropped the gun and she could have gone, this one's better and tossed that one pick up. Done. It doesn't have to be hard. That's what I meant when they said that they were cowards, that they didn't go deep enough in any direction. They just kept it like, they said they were going to make soup, but they just boiled water.

I guess that's the way that I'm gonna put this. Like it's just hot water, right?

Chris (50:34.559)
Which also plus one's my point about, sorry.

Ashley (50:37.756)
Lukewarm at best. lukewarm. It wasn't even hot. They just left it in room temperature water.

Chris (50:42.558)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And plus one's my point about like teams that teams or or folks that just don't either know how to adapt, which to me just says that this team, was out of touch. Like they didn't, they, didn't, they did not capture the essence of to really satisfy a S I guess, whether it's buying a binary audience or

Luciano (50:42.832)
Yeah, yeah, they boiled water and left it for a while. Yeah.

Matt (50:44.104)
Tepid.

Chris (51:10.122)
a little bit of a spectrum of an audience that they want to appeal to or draw in.

Matt (51:16.85)
If they make a Borderlands animated movie, I'm sure it be fantastic, to Ashley's point. Because, I mean, you play the goddamn video game, it's animated and it's stylized, heavily stylized, in a way that is not reproducible to a large extent.

Ashley (51:27.133)
Yeah. Yeah.

Chris (51:28.15)
you

Luciano (51:33.16)
No, actually in an animated way they could use the same art style. It'd be fucking hilarious. Cause it's so out there.

Matt (51:39.624)
Right.

Chris (51:41.868)
Doesn't that remind you a little bit of that? I think I don't know how many movies did it but that Keanu Reeves had a scanner darkly where he was all he was completely Thank you Where he was like, well, it was him but or like everyone in the movie was but they drew and they wrote a script drew over them and it was semi cell shaded and stuff

Luciano (51:47.902)
Yeah, it's kind of, yeah, kind of, yeah.

Matt (51:49.436)
Roto scoping. Yeah. Yeah.

Luciano (52:00.244)
That actually would have been cool. Like if they got this cast only they, you know, animated it with their...

Ashley (52:02.045)
Good.

Matt (52:04.688)
Nah, that would look stupid.

Luciano (52:07.254)
more stupid than what this was?

Matt (52:09.05)
No, but because if you can't take a video game that's animated in a certain style and then make a movie about it in a completely different style.

Ashley (52:17.264)
Luciano (52:17.566)
No, I meant do their, like, take the actors but make them look like the game, is what I'm saying. Not like Scanner Darkly, make them look like the characters look in Borderlands.

Matt (52:25.906)
okay. Yeah. Maybe.

Chris (52:30.911)
I suppose it would have been a different approach altogether if they animated these actors like, Kate Blanchett, this ensemble cast, and they mocapped them. I guess sort of like how video games do.

Luciano (52:42.381)
And I mean ensemble ensemble cast is very generous of you. It's Kate Blanchett and friends. Let's be honest

Chris (52:46.164)
I'm just trying to describe the group. Sure. And they mo -capped them so that they could get us from point A to point B with action set pieces or having them do things that humans can't really do. Because you got to wire work these humans.

Luciano (53:03.942)
Look. Yeah, yeah.

Ashley (53:05.659)
Well just makes it a video game again. But now it's a sitcom again. Sorry it's a lot.

Matt (53:05.822)
Chris.

Chris, I'm gonna translate Ashley's facial expressions to you and by way of the podcast. It's a look of confusion mixed with disgust and a little bit of anger. And I have to agree with her because like, even if you animated this all, the story is fucking stupid.

Chris (53:13.111)
Mm. Mm.

Luciano (53:13.587)
Hahaha!

Luciano (53:18.528)
Hahaha!

Ashley (53:20.413)
Yeah, well...

Luciano (53:28.128)
Yeah, it wasn't how it looked, that was the problem.

Chris (53:31.372)
not saying this story was worth it, but anyways, yeah.

Matt (53:34.184)
I like it.

Ashley (53:34.343)
We're trying to solve for a major fault, is shit. Like it just nothing made sense. was poorly, poorly picked, poorly designed, poorly articulated, poorly cast, poorly acted, poorly visualized, like, but like, I whooped like there's no real, there's no quick fix for this. It's a bad fucking choice. It's a hot day.

Luciano (53:38.525)
Yeah.

Luciano (53:55.262)
No, there's no quick fix for this.

Matt (53:55.388)
Actually, I think the word you're looking for actually is blight on humanity.

Luciano (53:59.616)
Those are those are three words, but okay

Matt (54:01.49)
Yeah. it's close enough.

Ashley (54:02.718)
This is officially bloatified. just, never, I never know. Like I feel bad about myself for having watched this film. self -esteem has gone to shit for enduring.

Matt (54:07.538)
Eh.

It is... Well, it's great that you mentioned shit because to me this is this thing, right? We're talking about a recipe you're cooking with. This is like someone says, hey, make a cake and they give you shit. Are you really going to make a cake or just be like, I can't make a cake with this. I'm sorry.

Chris (54:24.22)
Okay.

Ashley (54:27.879)
But this gets back to Hollywood just wanting money and they thought that they could sell something to people who knew that it was going to that this who know what the product is but they're like, yeah, but shut up and just take it and you're like, no, because they know what it is. You know?

Chris (54:27.958)
You know who we need? good. True.

Luciano (54:40.158)
Yeah. Using your analogy, Matt, they were like, we're going to give you cake, guys, OK? And they show up with, I don't know, porridge. They go, this is cake. Eat it. No, this is clearly porridge. No, it's cake, believe me. It's almost like gaslighting the audience into thinking.

Matt (54:41.694)
the Warner Brothers principle.

Chris (54:45.696)
Hey.

Matt (54:56.529)
It's.

But it's, it's, reason why I don't think it's gaslighting, I think it's just saying make something out of shit is they pick something that I believe cannot be made into a motion picture that people will care about. So they started failing because of the property they chose to use.

Luciano (55:16.765)
Right.

Ashley (55:16.772)
They started by failing.

Chris (55:17.633)
Out the gate!

Matt (55:18.95)
out of the gate. immediately, they, when the gun shot off and they ran out of the blocks, they fell on their face and broke every limb in their body immediately, somehow. And there was, yeah, and there was no way from that point forward.

Ashley (55:25.557)
Thank

Chris (55:29.09)
I smell almonds.

Luciano (55:30.848)
Well, but that's because they try to put lore where there isn't one. Like if they made they made like a more sort of Mad Maxy sort of deal where it doesn't matter how things got to where they are. People are looking for the vault. Let's make a fun movie about like vault hunting. Right. That could have been OK. Wouldn't have won any Oscars maybe. But not don't try to give me this whole bullshit. We didn't even talk about this, but like the

Chris (55:51.787)
Hmm.

Ashley (55:53.266)
Yeah.

Chris (55:54.336)
Like a race, which reminds me of what?

Luciano (56:00.64)
Attempted appeal emotion like the mom abandoned her and now she's the power of love in there. They fuck you Don't don't don't give me that. Yeah

Chris (56:09.654)
Too late for that, in a way.

Ashley (56:11.771)
And it also doesn't fit the narrative. Like they opened with a woman shooting some shit up because she was cranky. She just wanted her whiskey. She's like, yo, I want to get paid and merc shit. Dope. And then they turned it into this confusing fucking I don't know what trying to pull every goddamn thread. Hey, it's just.

Luciano (56:17.716)
Yeah.

Luciano (56:26.24)
Mopi thing right too. Yeah

No, actually what she needed was love. That's what she was looking for. Fuck you.

Matt (56:32.382)
Sorry.

Ashley (56:35.82)
yes.

Matt (56:36.926)
I'm sorry, you're telling me that E .I. Roth doesn't know female characters?

Ashley (56:43.013)
I mean, I'm a woman, so I guess I'm not entitled to an opinion on that. I preach. Yeah.

Matt (56:43.847)
I'm shocked.

Luciano (56:47.826)
Not according to Eli Roth, you're not.

Matt (56:50.984)
Yeah, I'm sorry. I take some time to tell a story about women properly, I think. Yeah, as one, as a white man on this podcast, I feel like it's my place to remind you how the patriarchy works. You're welcome.

Chris (56:53.644)
fail.

Luciano (56:56.978)
A white man. Yeah.

Ashley (57:04.977)
Thank you. And as a woman on a podcast with three men about a video game adaptation into film, I feel that's exactly the right thing for you to say to me right now.

Luciano (57:05.929)
You

Matt (57:13.01)
Yeah.

Luciano (57:13.76)
I'm going to have an adaptation with a female main character too.

Ashley (57:17.669)
Yes.

Matt (57:17.96)
Yeah. Yeah. No need to include any women in the screenwriting or the directing of said film to make it believable.

Ashley (57:25.648)
I mean.

Chris (57:26.132)
Eli was all over that fucking credit list. credit list. gee whiz. four times at least.

Ashley (57:34.669)
Yeah, again, maybe no one else wanted their name on it.

Matt (57:35.109)
I think we beat the

Luciano (57:36.32)
The living shit out of this? Yeah.

Matt (57:39.068)
Well, Ashley, you pretty have a good point. think that the reason why no women are involved in this is they know better than to be involved in a piece of shit. They're like, no, no, don't, you know what? You can have the credit, Eli. I do not need this credit. No, thank you.

Luciano (57:45.13)
Hahaha!

Chris (57:46.37)
You

Luciano (57:51.701)
Even the people that were part of it like just can you not mention my name, please? Just take the all the glory is yours

Ashley (57:51.709)
It's like I need a job.

Chris (57:52.226)
You

Chris (57:55.522)
Correct just you take you you all you all I'll I'll catch it rain check Holy

Ashley (57:56.561)
Just taking off.

Ashley (58:02.006)
Yes.

Matt (58:06.77)
Listen, on that beautiful note, let's stop supporting Eli Roth. Don't go see any more of movies. Let's ask questions. Let's ask fun questions and get off this depressing topic. Hey, how does somebody become a psycho? In the movie, specifically, the psycho character, Krieg, was the psycho? Yeah. I'm sorry. Well, no. Chris, do you know how?

Chris (58:14.252)
Hmm. Mmm.

Chris (58:20.107)
Shazam!

Luciano (58:25.312)
you just deflated me, okay. No, you're not, yeah.

Chris (58:27.25)
Yeah

Chris (58:36.45)
So based on what we saw in the movie, cycles are only on Pandora. So I think that...

Luciano (58:44.788)
It's Thrasher Piss, for sure. You start by snorting it.

Chris (58:47.796)
Okay, sure. You snort thrasher piss. Is that what that monster was that they drove the vehicle through? so then.

Matt (58:51.068)
Okay.

Luciano (58:55.252)
Yeah, a Thrasher, yeah.

Matt (58:55.548)
Yep. Yep. Is that why Tiny Tina is kind of crazy? Because you got the piss in her face? Okay.

Luciano (59:00.892)
A little bit of piss in her mouth, yeah, yeah. Yeah, you're on to something. no, why did you have to do that?

Chris (59:03.616)
I don't like where this is going. It feels very R. You, you, you said it. You put the ingredients on the table and I was like, stop it. Stop it. You can't unhear it. Cause you let me there. You let me there. Yeah.

Luciano (59:13.472)
No!

Matt (59:17.864)
Chris Chris. No, no, the Intel Spencer is not here in this podcast. We're stopping dead in our tracks. No more R Kelly talk.

Ashley (59:20.626)
you

Luciano (59:23.602)
Yeah.

Chris (59:24.65)
Listen, fine, but I didn't, listen, I don't support, but that was weird. Anyways, I wasn't even going in that direction. I was like, this planet seems to be mostly desert. Okay, so are they losing their minds and resorting to catabolism? Are they eating dust? I don't know.

Luciano (59:27.947)
God.

Matt (59:35.4)
Great.

Luciano (59:42.954)
maybe there's some sort of special element on the sand that they can collect. Yeah, thank you for explaining the fucking joke.

Chris (59:48.81)
Like DUNE! There's some spice on it and they're licking!

That was a joke!

Luciano (59:57.106)
It was going to be if you hadn't explained it.

Matt (59:57.214)
And in Chris's defense, it was not a great joke.

Luciano (01:00:02.26)
But it was a joke nonetheless that he killed. Anyway.

Matt (01:00:04.082)
You know what? You know what? think you guys have had long enough attempts. Maybe the patriarch needs to set this one out. Ashley, can you save us, please?

Ashley (01:00:12.466)
I mean, honestly, I just I'm gonna go with like, old school like a gamma ray fucking too much rads because they all is jacked and bald. So there's some kind of like steroidal or like amplified through the atmosphere bullshit. It's some weird planet, right? And given it's a barren landscape, I'm going to go with like something on the ultraviolet side that like

Matt (01:00:20.965)
Mm -hmm.

This is.

Ashley (01:00:39.535)
I want to be science or whatever or because they keep jumping into and out of holes something with really deep fucking holes and planets I don't know it's a lot I missed that part I don't know that's it what I got sorry patriarchy that's my take I won't know you wouldn't know what to do with it

Chris (01:00:52.126)
Yeah

Sorry. Don't cause that sort of...

Luciano (01:00:57.557)
Don't ever say sorry to the patriarch.

Chris (01:01:01.344)
Luciano, you don't apologize to Luciano, the chairman and president of the patriarchy. It's a running gag that we do at his expense.

Luciano (01:01:07.645)
I'm not.

Ashley (01:01:09.17)
Whoa.

But yeah, they're all bold, right? Did I miss that? I'm making that up.

Luciano (01:01:14.89)
There, I, yeah, I think so.

Matt (01:01:15.87)
most of the men are the women seem the like the every one female cycle for every like 15 male cycles. The females did have hair.

Ashley (01:01:25.679)
I don't remember seeing a voice.

Luciano (01:01:26.771)
They all wear masks and going from Krieg they all have like scars and stuff.

Chris (01:01:27.681)
Same.

Chris (01:01:33.292)
Huh, mutations. Maybe, I don't know.

Matt (01:01:33.566)
Mm

Ashley (01:01:36.476)
Mm

Luciano (01:01:36.705)
or infection due to treasure piss.

Chris (01:01:40.707)
Matt (01:01:42.236)
You know what? I said no. I said no. We're moving on. No, we're moving on. Let's make this simple and easy. How do hologram stealth shields work? At the end of the movie, we see a hologram stealth shield used to hide Atlas and his army and also the spaceship with the space cannon. I'm confused. Yeah, there's shields. He also has one on this person.

Ashley (01:01:44.217)
I'm coming back to this thing.

Chris (01:01:45.164)
Do you see where I'm coming from? Do you see that? Save me! Yesh.

Luciano (01:01:46.922)
Alright.

Luciano (01:01:55.174)
no. no.

Luciano (01:02:05.8)
and also to protect him somehow?

Matt (01:02:11.294)
And it blocks stuff until it doesn't actually looked away. I don't know how the cannon got destroyed. It's not important. No one cares. But I do want to how these things work. So could you guys give me some like the technical specs? You know details.

Chris (01:02:11.51)
Haha.

Chris (01:02:15.992)
Hehehehehe

Ashley (01:02:23.185)
Didn't he have on like a bedazzled vest at one point? There was like some vest with like gems on the back. that some?

Matt (01:02:26.942)
.

Chris (01:02:27.028)
It looked that way. Yeah.

Matt (01:02:30.856)
So we just need, could I have this if I bedazzled my t -shirt?

Luciano (01:02:34.912)
think you can only find out if you do it.

Ashley (01:02:34.981)
I should hope so. If you can get a shirt bedazzled backslash of vest, you're winning. Like that is a force field because I feel like people might.

Matt (01:02:37.029)
Alright, well I'll get on it.

Chris (01:02:42.23)
Yeah. Yeah.

Luciano (01:02:44.244)
Yeah, yeah, Matt. Get like a vest, fill it with crystals and go taunt people. Let's see how it works.

Chris (01:02:51.574)
Yeah.

Matt (01:02:51.762)
Why do have to taunt people? feel like I just... I guess. If I have to. All right.

Luciano (01:02:53.28)
Because you have to test it. Yeah.

Chris (01:02:54.741)
Because you're protected.

Chris (01:02:58.839)
Yeah

Ashley (01:03:00.859)
What?

Luciano (01:03:00.96)
I think it's like mystical the way that it works. They say holographic because that's the language of the land. I think it's more like healing crystals, like supercharged.

Chris (01:03:03.371)
Well, hop

Matt (01:03:15.526)
She just said bedazzling. You really gonna try to steal our answer?

Chris (01:03:16.044)
Reiki.

Luciano (01:03:19.02)
No, I'm yes ending her answer. Yeah. Yeah.

Matt (01:03:22.19)
Okay, thank you much better. Yeah, that's great job great job pick hierarchy but they're actually special gems

Ashley (01:03:23.249)
but they're special gems. It's just the patriarchy has established they're most special. The gems.

Luciano (01:03:30.376)
No, I'm just playing on the answer. It's the same answer, only better. No, I'm kidding.

Ashley (01:03:33.019)
Yeah. It's the same answer. I'm just playing with the same. Don't worry about it. Great. man.

Chris (01:03:34.306)
hologram each

Matt (01:03:36.198)
Wow. Wow!

Chris (01:03:41.174)
There's something to be said that was still like, cause we touched on how confusing that like end set piece by the vault was with the hologram curtain of sorts. then.

Matt (01:03:52.36)
Chris, it's Chris. It is a hologram stealth shield.

Luciano (01:03:52.525)
I we touched it on the pressure on the pre -show, but go ahead.

Chris (01:04:01.238)
You're talking about the personal that Atlas had or Atlas versus the Atlas shield versus the hologram curtain.

Ashley (01:04:08.316)
Yeah.

Matt (01:04:08.722)
Hey man, I don't know everything.

Luciano (01:04:09.012)
Yes. Yes.

Chris (01:04:10.882)
Okay, great. So thanks for interrupting me. Don't interrupt my kung fu. Anyways, so it was confusing. With the hologram curtain, it requires a level of... No.

Ashley (01:04:10.992)
All right.

Matt (01:04:14.014)
You're welcome.

Matt (01:04:24.446)
hologram stealth shield. It has a name.

Luciano (01:04:28.0)
It's a curtain now. Let the man cook. Let the man cook!

Chris (01:04:29.536)
It's a, I'm talking about two different things. Atlas had a personal stealth shield, but his entire army needed a curtain in order for them to literally peek out from behind and say, hey bitches, we were here the whole time. Blah, blah, blah.

Matt (01:04:43.666)
Sorry, so those are different things? I thought it was all one same thing.

Chris (01:04:47.222)
They look like different things to me. I perceive them as different things. Atlas has a personal shield and then to hide his army, there's a curtain.

Matt (01:04:55.408)
What about the shield that protects the space stick?

Chris (01:04:59.744)
The space stick? The spaceship.

Matt (01:05:00.988)
Yeah, there's just the shuttle space.

Luciano (01:05:03.136)
Yeah, it's similar to Atlas is only bigger.

Chris (01:05:04.84)
Okay, right.

Matt (01:05:06.066)
Because it was both hidden and then when Lilith tried to ram it, it protected it. Somehow. Yeah.

Ashley (01:05:10.447)
that was so dumb. That scene. She's like getting shot at. She can stop bullets. She gone bonk on some horse field. It broke her. I'm like, really? Sorry.

Chris (01:05:12.339)
you

Matt (01:05:18.27)
Right?

Luciano (01:05:20.042)
Yeah. And then it didn't work when she tried to destroy it, but then it did work. Yeah. Because reasons.

Chris (01:05:20.162)
This is very Captain Marvel.

Chris (01:05:27.17)
because she was dodging in reasons.

Ashley (01:05:29.063)
Sorry, I'm making a lot of faces again. They're all disgust. It's just disgust.

Luciano (01:05:31.881)
You

Matt (01:05:33.256)
They're silent faces. It's everything's good. Chris, you wanna answer this question finally? I don't know why you keep stalling.

Chris (01:05:33.398)
Faces are welcome.

Chris (01:05:38.612)
I wasn't stalling. This is participatory and collaborative. Furthermore, the curtain, you want to know how it works. Okay, it requires a lot of setup. And so you've got different members from the Crimson, what are they called? Crimson something? Crimson Jack Palances, stake in different areas so that the curtain can be supported. And when I think about that scene, someone had to get there. Like, how were they so close?

Ashley (01:05:46.308)
Thank

Chris (01:06:06.476)
How did they put the curtain there? Anyways, it works based on solar energy and panels.

Matt (01:06:15.208)
like panels that are shaped like crystals.

Luciano (01:06:15.549)
Wait, you're saying that there's like a... Yeah. Healing crystals.

Chris (01:06:19.218)
No, panels that are... No, I don't want to co -opt Ashley's answer. Solar lamp stakes that you have to strategically place in certain areas so that you can give the effect of a curtain.

Ashley (01:06:23.382)
That's it,

Luciano (01:06:31.22)
Wait, so you're saying, so what you're saying is that Ashley's wrong is what you're saying.

Ashley (01:06:33.115)
That was on Star Trek!

Chris (01:06:37.032)
No, there are many answers to scenarios.

Ashley (01:06:40.259)
No, but no, no, no, but what you're talking about, that's like the tri pods in Star Trek, the next generation. Yeah.

Matt (01:06:46.428)
Yes, that's exactly what I was thinking. To increase the beaming ability.

Luciano (01:06:48.287)
Yeah.

Ashley (01:06:52.329)
That also means that it was probably like there's a whole job title in that army of just people who got to stand around next to these sticks until they get buzzed or like yo we got we got someone incoming and then they got a tour you on like their whole job is standing there with that That's it

Luciano (01:07:05.482)
Tripod jockeys is what they're called.

Matt (01:07:08.094)
Stick jockeys, come on man.

Chris (01:07:09.324)
Yeah.

Luciano (01:07:09.913)
I didn't want to go the fool.

Chris (01:07:12.596)
you wanted to go down the piss route easily. Twice!

Luciano (01:07:14.27)
Yeah. Well, I got, I got, it got chest diastorid. So I tried to rein it in.

Chris (01:07:20.098)
You went back! Anyways...

Luciano (01:07:21.448)
I know.

Ashley (01:07:21.531)
Hi -yo.

Matt (01:07:22.174)
Hey, Chris and Luciano, I want to ask a different question, so shut up.

Luciano (01:07:28.754)
It's it's fine.

Ashley (01:07:29.329)
Thank

Chris (01:07:30.223)
Yeah

Matt (01:07:32.274)
Hey, how, I think this question is for Ashley specifically. We'll find out. Anybody, not just Ashley, but Ashley, how is Claptrap the real villain of this movie?

Ashley (01:07:35.641)
Luciano (01:07:44.808)
No, you go, Ashley. It's all you.

Ashley (01:07:48.227)
Listen, so it's it's No, because I wanted to love I did I've mentioned I adore the robots. It was all so good, but it was just such a letdown so it's like the villain of Like I suppose it's the opposite

to kind of what was said earlier, like about the hopes that were bound up in it. For me, like it was such a fucking letdown. Cause I'm like, I've never disliked a robot in my life. And so for me, the villainry here is that it was an unlikable robot that wasn't evil. It was just shit. And I've never met one like that before.

and don't care for it and my worldview is fucking altered now because I got a fucking cute robot who should be like a sassy little bitch who isn't, who's just moody and weird and kind of rude and I don't like them and now my whole existence is fucked. That's my issue.

Luciano (01:08:47.657)
It sounds like Claptrap is the villain of your life more than the movie.

Ashley (01:08:51.541)
preach. Yes, that's we're now making this about me. Thank you. Yes, it is ruined my whole existence. And yeah, so I mean,

Matt (01:08:55.248)
Yeah, that's great.

Matt (01:09:00.456)
So by proxy, he also ruined this movie.

Luciano (01:09:03.634)
Yeah, for sure.

Chris (01:09:06.358)
He was in the end credits too.

Ashley (01:09:06.802)
Fairness it was already ruined at the start like there wasn't

Luciano (01:09:09.354)
I actually laughed at that stupid thing in the credits. I hated myself, but I laughed.

Chris (01:09:15.018)
Y 'all remember being in elementary school and there was that one fucking kid who just annoyed the shit out of everybody and no one really addressed it? To me, that's claptrap.

Luciano (01:09:24.906)
Fair. Fair.

Ashley (01:09:25.824)
And it's not likable like you know they're probably hurting on the inside or something, but you still just don't want to hang Because it's so annoying

Chris (01:09:32.76)
Hmm you want you want that you want the distance

Luciano (01:09:34.718)
It's like you you feel bad for them and not bad enough that you want to do something about it

Chris (01:09:41.42)
Cause you're, maybe you're a kid, you're still a kid and you want your own space and your own experience and you want to go and play your own games. But this annoying kid is always finding a way to like, okay, I hate to say it, but like, they're sort of like this. It's sort of like an Urkel effect. Always budding into your home space when you just want to be a family.

Luciano (01:09:56.101)
wow. Wow.

Matt (01:09:57.02)
Wow. Wow.

Ashley (01:09:58.311)
Whoa, that resonated deep though. Okay.

Chris (01:10:03.98)
Hey guys, got any cheese?

Luciano (01:10:07.304)
I mean, tell me you couldn't hear Claptrap saying that in the movie.

Matt (01:10:09.598)
I mean, it's not.

Ashley (01:10:10.843)
I, that just happened in my brain. I wouldn't like them better, but yes, that's.

Luciano (01:10:13.396)
Yeah.

Chris (01:10:14.273)
Yeah.

Did I do that?

Matt (01:10:19.472)
Alright, that's too much, I can't.

Ashley (01:10:21.905)
No!

Chris (01:10:22.369)
I wish you were dead, That's what he would say.

Matt (01:10:24.818)
Wow. Yeah, okay, Chris, thank you. Hey, no, I'm gonna, we need to get out of this topic. And this is the perfect, perfect segue. This is how you know I'm a professional podcaster. Exactly. The cast in this movie is weird. Never makes sense. We talked a lot about Cate Blanchett, but everybody kind of sucks. So let's go through some cast members.

Luciano (01:10:25.045)
Jesus Christ! Yeah, he would.

Chris (01:10:30.658)
She said that!

We're fine.

Luciano (01:10:38.72)
Yeah, because you keep repeating it. That's how you know it.

Chris (01:10:40.447)
You

Luciano (01:10:43.419)
fuck.

Matt (01:10:53.766)
And let's recast them to people that may have made a better movie. I don't care how you choose the person to replace. It's your choice. You can explain if you want. Doesn't matter. But let's go Luciano. You have the most borderlands knowledge outside of me. So you get to replace Cate Blanchett, Lilith, with like the Lilith character.

Luciano (01:11:11.328)
Probably.

Luciano (01:11:17.92)
I see. So we would want someone who would do a better job of representing Maggie Smith.

Chris (01:11:22.818)
I see.

Matt (01:11:29.768)
Great. Perfect. Nailed it. No notes. Moving on. Chris, can you replace Roland, Kevin Hart?

Chris (01:11:34.358)
Yeah.

Chris (01:11:38.226)
I can replace Roland and you know who I'm gonna replace Roland with? None other than one Danny Glover.

Matt (01:11:48.114)
Perfect. This movie is excellent so far.

Luciano (01:11:50.016)
It's turning into borderlands the geriatric edition.

Chris (01:11:54.655)
It's turning into Borderlands the red cut

Ashley (01:11:57.436)
No.

Luciano (01:11:57.468)
Yeah, yeah.

Matt (01:11:57.704)
That's fine. It's great. Actually, can we replace Tiny Tina?

Ashley (01:12:05.777)
Danny DeVito.

Matt (01:12:07.358)
I love where we're headed.

Luciano (01:12:07.981)
my God, that would legit, I would legit watch that.

Matt (01:12:11.686)
I love where we're headed. Great.

Luciano (01:12:13.693)
Yeah

Matt (01:12:15.422)
Luciano, can you replace Jamie Lee Kernis as Tanis?

Luciano (01:12:21.824)
Sure let's see a scientist who needs to be kind of wacky. No okay Matt Damon.

Chris (01:12:24.492)
Yeah.

Ken Watanabe. Ken Watanabe. No, no, don't listen to me. Don't listen to me.

Matt (01:12:37.436)
Matt Damon, OK, interesting. I like it. I like it. Obviously, that's fair. Chris, can you replace Atlas?

Chris (01:12:37.601)
Hmm?

MAD DAMN IT!

Ashley (01:12:40.852)
What? Fuckin'

Luciano (01:12:42.612)
Yeah, like specifically Good Will Hunting, mad dame.

Ashley (01:12:46.969)
snap.

Chris (01:12:51.218)
Atlas, I would like Atlas to actually be... There's something, there's something. I want to see, I actually want to see...

Luciano (01:13:02.12)
Eddie Murr.

Chris (01:13:03.946)
No, it's okay, it's okay. I want it to be, Bryce Dallas Howard.

Matt (01:13:03.986)
Hey man, it's Chris's turn. Don't steal his thunder.

Luciano (01:13:05.76)
He did it to me.

Matt (01:13:13.744)
Okay.

Luciano (01:13:14.258)
As Atlas? my god. No, no, I'm just, I'm trying to imagine this movie in my head. great.

Chris (01:13:15.831)
Yeah.

Matt (01:13:17.266)
Wala Wala

Chris (01:13:21.556)
even better, Catherine O 'Hara.

Matt (01:13:24.442)
Now we're taking, we're taking Bryce Allen Howard. Moving on. Ashley, we couldn't finish this category without asking you who should replace Jack Vlachis, Cloptrap.

Luciano (01:13:25.652)
Yeah, Bryce Dallas Howard, I agree.

Chris (01:13:27.635)
Yeah!

Ashley (01:13:35.761)
Quentin Tarantino.

Chris (01:13:37.778)
You

Matt (01:13:39.753)
I love it.

Luciano (01:13:40.286)
Wait, I have just one follow -up question. Would this robot be obsessed about feet as well?

Ashley (01:13:46.525)
Probably. mean, just all in general is bleh.

Luciano (01:13:47.474)
Okay. God.

Matt (01:13:47.795)
Yeah.

Chris (01:13:47.932)
Lilith's feet, ew.

Luciano (01:13:53.332)
Yeah.

Chris (01:13:53.736)
Everybody's feet. then, then, and then he would, and then Clapjack would break the champagne to get everyone's feet wet. Ew.

Matt (01:13:56.594)
All right.

Ashley (01:14:02.801)
Why are you doing this to this podcast? This is the second time.

Matt (01:14:03.122)
Hey Chris? Yeah. This is on you now. No one, you're just, no, but your brain. No, no, this is still your fault.

Luciano (01:14:08.067)
It's my bad. It's my bad. It's my bad. It's my bad. I asked the question. It's my bad.

Chris (01:14:09.919)
It's not my fault.

Chris (01:14:14.22)
See? Do you see? So they said fees and I plus and I yes anded it.

Luciano (01:14:18.24)
Ha!

Matt (01:14:22.78)
Listen, I love the or yes ending, but pick a different direction.

Luciano (01:14:26.026)
But it's your fault.

Ashley (01:14:28.788)
Go the other way. Turn around. Stop. And go the other way. That would be the direction.

Matt (01:14:30.46)
Yeah, opposite. Yeah.

Luciano (01:14:31.422)
Yeah. I'm telling you, sometimes it shouldn't be SN. Sometimes it should be no, what the fuck?

Chris (01:14:34.155)
Yes, sir!

Ashley (01:14:39.384)
Ha ha ha.

Chris (01:14:40.375)
that sounds familiar.

Matt (01:14:40.895)
Hmm. I mean, maybe. Let's just move off this question and get to something that Chris can't possibly mess up for us. Chris... There is... Okay, let me exprovise to the people at home so they understand. Chris, there's a character you named Bernie in the pre -show. Bernie was the gentleman who was talking to Lilith in the bar with the two hired guards and then Lilith shot both the hired guards as Bernie bent over.

Chris (01:14:49.022)
I'll try not to...

Chris (01:14:59.456)
Thank

Chris (01:15:08.31)
Yeah. Yep. Yeah.

Matt (01:15:09.192)
I think she punched Bernie. And Bernie then has to be the face of Atlas after Atlas' other face guy dies, but he looks like Atlas. We're not talking about that, it's just fucked up and I wanted to mention it. But I do want to ask...

What did Bernie really want to do with his life? Because it doesn't seem like he wanted to be there.

Chris (01:15:26.806)
Yeah, I agree. That makes a lot of sense. And before Atlas Corp, there was a time and place and space when Bernie was, hmm, was on the precipice of unlocking his true potential. The skill tree that was left ignored, you might say. And that skill tree is all encompassing around the delicate and intricate art of

Matt (01:15:46.75)
Okay, yeah.

Chris (01:15:55.078)
ceremonial union bond cake topping decoration, only cake topping decoration. No one gives a fuck about the rest of the cake. It's only the top of the cake. The top requires patience and empathy and presence in order to top the union in a way that is reflective of the beings that are coming together and in loviness. And he didn't get that support. He didn't get that support because he needed money.

Matt (01:16:01.214)
Okay, okay. No.

Matt (01:16:21.306)
What was his favorite, like his grand vision? would be the cake topper in his eyes?

Don't you fucking dare. Don't do it. Don't do it.

Chris (01:16:35.414)
Ashley (01:16:36.027)
your face.

Luciano (01:16:39.648)
Hahaha!

Ashley (01:16:40.957)
No.

Chris (01:16:43.062)
There was a time and a place in his face when he clapped trap and a thrasher.

Ashley (01:16:44.957)
.

Matt (01:16:51.912)
God damn it. God fucking damn it.

Luciano (01:16:53.588)
Listen, I was not going to say Trash or Piss, but...

Chris (01:16:54.314)
You said what was the favorite and all I did was put them together.

Matt (01:17:01.074)
Thank you. Fuck.

Chris (01:17:04.672)
Do you see? All I said was favorite. They could have been battling on top of a cake.

Ashley (01:17:06.118)
I see.

Luciano (01:17:06.314)
This is Chris's fault. I take no responsibility for this.

Luciano (01:17:13.989)
Is the cake yellow?

Chris (01:17:14.262)
Some people want an epic.

Matt (01:17:15.706)
It's at this point of the podcast I have to apologize to Ashley.

Ashley (01:17:20.76)
Ugh. Ugh.

Matt (01:17:22.734)
Maybe watching this movie was a better use your time than being on this podcast. That's all I'm gonna say.

Chris (01:17:26.845)
Ashley (01:17:27.954)
No, this has been fun. You know, I've learned a lot about people. Mostly these people. I might be disturbed now. It's fine.

Chris (01:17:32.436)
You

Luciano (01:17:33.504)
Too much some would say.

Matt (01:17:33.788)
Yeah, too much.

Matt (01:17:43.036)
Would you like to take a crack at Bernie's... what his life was meant to be?

Ashley (01:17:48.289)
Yeah, I think like from what I saw he was wearing like a really fancy suit

He had looked like he gave a damn. And I think like he probably saw himself as like, this is an entry into like the corporate world. One day I'll like get a top it. I'll be a part of this industrial moment. And I think he had like his sites like completely unqualified, but someone with big dreams for a big life at the Atlas corporation doing maybe techie stuff. But this was his first day. This was orientation.

that's why he was so plump. Yeah, that's why he's dressed so nice. Dressed for the press.

Luciano (01:18:24.249)
that was onboarding. see. Yeah. So.

Matt (01:18:27.068)
Yeah, that makes sense. Do you think he was aiming for like an associate director position? Yeah.

Ashley (01:18:32.187)
Yeah, know and dressing for the job he wants not the job he has it was like his first day walking those two glooms around make sure they didn't get lost

Chris (01:18:33.526)
Hmm.

Matt (01:18:35.58)
Right. Yeah.

Luciano (01:18:38.368)
I honestly think Bernie is his title. When you first started Atlas Corporation, you're a Bernie. That's what they hire you as.

Matt (01:18:38.856)
Yeah.

Ashley (01:18:45.447)
You're a birdie, yeah.

Matt (01:18:46.738)
That's fair, because I think in the credits his name was Jack or something like that. yeah, Jack the Burning. Yeah. I think that's it. Junior Burning. That makes sense, actually. OK. OK. Let's see what else I got here. We did that. did that. hey, what is in the vault? Because we see the Cthulhu.

Chris (01:18:50.422)
Yeah

Luciano (01:18:51.07)
Yeah, Jack the Bernie. think it's, yeah. Yeah, Junior Bernie, that's what it was.

Ashley (01:18:52.433)
Poor Bernie level one Jack, duh.

Ashley (01:18:58.461)
I'm saying.

Luciano (01:19:00.756)
Yeah.

Chris (01:19:05.737)
Mmm. Mmm.

Luciano (01:19:15.412)
Hulu and squares. Yeah.

Matt (01:19:16.902)
and some squares that light up with mystical writing. But like, what's actually in the vault? Or like, what else? I don't know. What's in the vault?

Luciano (01:19:25.152)
It's the friends we made along the way. That's what's in the vault.

Matt (01:19:26.962)
Fuck you, Lucian. Next person.

Ashley (01:19:26.971)
of the few men.

Chris (01:19:27.394)
Iridian Bitcoin.

Matt (01:19:32.208)
Okay, okay, that's better.

Luciano (01:19:33.392)
okay.

Chris (01:19:34.771)
iridian i coin it coin it coin and like really and truly it's a vault full of bad choices and so they they don't want they don't want

Luciano (01:19:45.436)
it's Spencer's NFT collection. That's what's in there.

Ashley (01:19:49.467)
Thank you.

Chris (01:19:51.97)
Because it's like, they're trying like the readings are trying to diversify their portfolios and they're like, okay, well, we got to put this somewhere. And so

Luciano (01:19:58.431)
Right.

Ashley (01:20:01.89)
But wasn't it supposed to be like an archive of epic knowledge and shit like isn't that what they were saying it was like all the decisions all the knowledge all the tech all the stuff and we just got like little cubes

Luciano (01:20:13.002)
They never really like specify, they keep it very vague and hazy. Like, there's like awesome stuff in there. Yeah.

Ashley (01:20:19.004)
Mm.

Chris (01:20:21.824)
Mystery.

Ashley (01:20:23.805)
So it's just a big, like one big baddie, like to Sulu fucking hanging with some squares. I mean, but then have books like those little, I don't know, I was getting like.

Luciano (01:20:29.226)
Yeah.

Matt (01:20:31.356)
It's like Cthulhu's library.

Luciano (01:20:34.425)
no, he reads cubes. That's what Tula reads.

Ashley (01:20:39.875)
I have some... yeah.

Matt (01:20:41.682)
Books go, the tentacles and the page turning, it's very, very challenging.

Chris (01:20:41.878)
Maybe the knowledge is.

Luciano (01:20:45.586)
Yeah, it's a whole thing.

Ashley (01:20:46.179)
That's okay, first of all, so that's Skyrim. Right? We've all seen this. The... Don't let me pull... No. No? What?

Chris (01:20:54.721)
It's okay.

Matt (01:20:56.538)
Explain it for our listeners because they might not know. This is definitely not me personally. It doesn't know it's just the listeners

Chris (01:20:57.302)
What do mean?

Ashley (01:20:59.901)
my goodness.

I'm okay. But I, this is like my favorite topic. So I won't go too hard on it. But there's like this entity and it's like the keeper of all knowledge and it has very tentacly, but you get to like portal into its world and its world is built of books.

Matt (01:21:08.338)
Okay.

Ashley (01:21:17.819)
and the books actually move and like everything, every piece of architecture is a page or a book. is like, and dark and magnificent. There's keepers of books that are very demon -y, but like hooded. it's so great. That's what that shit should have been.

Matt (01:21:31.678)
We should we should have watched that movie. Yeah, get it. Get out of here. Get out.

Luciano (01:21:32.32)
That sounds like a cool idea, has no place in this movie.

Ashley (01:21:36.485)
No, I know, but duh. But you said, what is it? That's what it is. But pardon me. No, this film's all about going to this portal to a place with some tentacles and squares. Got it. Yeah, Melo received this real great visioning there.

Chris (01:21:51.02)
Thanks TripAdvisor.

Matt (01:21:51.154)
Pandora saved.

Chris (01:21:54.951)
Luciano (01:21:55.391)
Yeah.

Matt (01:21:57.36)
Alright, I have one final question. At the end of the movie, there are fireworks. And normally our questions are made up. This one's real. It's a genuine question. Why are there fireworks?

Luciano (01:21:57.888)
Two stars.

Luciano (01:22:09.45)
Genuine?

Ashley (01:22:15.697)
What's being celebrated? Are they heroes? Did they do something?

Luciano (01:22:15.796)
Yeah, that's a good question.

like let's think about it they probably never told anybody that they found the vault and that there was just hentai inside right so they never they never told that to people i would say so like what are they celebrating in that city that atlas is dead

Chris (01:22:28.247)
Yeah

Luciano (01:22:37.504)
I think I killed Chris.

Ashley (01:22:38.919)
This is the first thing I thought when I saw the film. I'm not gonna lie, I'm like, right.

Chris (01:22:43.927)
You

Luciano (01:22:44.16)
Maybe they do know it's hentai inside the vault and that's what they're celebrating. Unlimited tentacles for all.

Matt (01:22:47.795)
You know that actually makes sense The the erudite is like, you know, let's say this planet tentacle porn we got this

Luciano (01:22:55.123)
Yeah, there you go.

Ashley (01:22:55.675)
you

Matt (01:22:58.952)
Problem solved.

Luciano (01:22:59.168)
Chris is dead, we lost him.

Ashley (01:23:01.213)
Killed Chris.

Matt (01:23:03.684)
okay. So they're celebrating. There's something to celebrate there.

Chris (01:23:04.392)
Why? Hentai. The secret of the secret of hentai is preserved. And Lilith is all, thanks for it Ashley, one leg reichering of the hentai is protected. okay. And then the little kid's like, do your flaming, that's a sentence, do your flaming dance in the sky.

Luciano (01:23:09.664)
The free, celebrating.

Luciano (01:23:15.518)
Yeah.

Ashley (01:23:24.853)
know.

Ashley (01:23:32.557)
That sucked so bad. That was so dumb. It's like, what now their best like mom, daughter, bestie, I can make an ice cream.

Luciano (01:23:32.702)
Yeah.

Luciano (01:23:39.124)
Not just that, she goes into the sky and for some reason she can do like a drawing with her power for no reason.

Ashley (01:23:44.583)
Phoenix? Yeah.

Chris (01:23:47.584)
I'm sorry, it's actually called air stenciling. I'll have you know. And then the smarmy little look on the kid's face is like, the camera's panning in on me. I better hold this grin.

Luciano (01:23:50.208)
She would call it that,

Ashley (01:23:52.678)
Thank

Yeah.

Ashley (01:24:02.267)
But but but but so okay, but fireworks, right? And assuming this whole premise is that everyone's been fighting and murder death killing each other to get to this portal for like, Eternitas. And now it got done, and people are gonna stop killing? Well, they just attack them.

Luciano (01:24:14.25)
For ages, right?

Matt (01:24:22.77)
Yeah, yeah.

Luciano (01:24:22.776)
Maybe that's what the party is about. They're like, fuck we can stop killing each other. That's great

Ashley (01:24:27.262)
Thank God. yeah.

Matt (01:24:28.466)
Yeah, well, I mean, it makes sense, right? Because famously, if we're all looking to find something because we think it's going to save our life from object poverty and failure, when someone else finds it and we don't get to benefit from that, we celebrate, right?

Luciano (01:24:39.968)
We all celebrate. Of course, yeah. That's just human nature. We're so happy for the other person forgetting what we wanted is the one thing in our lives, right?

Ashley (01:24:43.377)
But they didn't share nothing.

Matt (01:24:52.382)
But what if they share the hentai?

Chris (01:24:52.512)
It's been found, y 'all.

Luciano (01:24:56.416)
so go back to my idea of free identical porn for everybody.

Ashley (01:24:58.971)
you

Matt (01:24:59.516)
I think I'm thinking coming back around to it. Yeah.

Ashley (01:25:02.181)
I mean, what's not to love? I guess. This is crazy.

Matt (01:25:04.914)
You

Chris (01:25:05.402)
We get to have hentai! June, get the good booze! You were right, Ida Mae, I'll go get that. Ma, you ain't gonna get the fireworks! I don't mind if I do. Hey, Clem! Clem! They found the hentai! Finally, our lives are complete! here comes the hold down!

Luciano (01:25:10.602)
Hehehe. Hehehe.

Luciano (01:25:22.272)
I don't think the word hentai has ever been uttered with that accent. Ever. Like not in earnest at least.

Ashley (01:25:26.439)
Thank

Chris (01:25:31.892)
Yee

Ashley (01:25:34.723)
So I guess I'm never invited back. I made this go to places. Thanks team. I've now been, I love you.

Luciano (01:25:35.444)
Hahaha!

Matt (01:25:43.474)
Great. We're going to move on from that like professionals and give our reviews of this movie. We use a very technical scale. S is the highest, F is the lowest. Yeah. Definitely brand new. No one else has ever used that. There's definitely not ranker sites on the internet or anything like that. And so we're just going to give you the letter grade and a brief synopsis on why we give it that letter grade.

Luciano (01:25:48.178)
All right.

Luciano (01:25:54.474)
Yeah, it's our own creation and our concoction not copied from anywhere else. Yeah.

Matt (01:26:11.29)
And now you'll know if you should watch this movie or not if you haven't figured that out already. Chris, would you please take it away?

Chris (01:26:18.006)
Y 'all, anyone listening to the sound of my voice right now, do not watch this movie. What you need to do, what you need to do, you need to understand all of the other possibilities. Take up floral arrangements. Why don't you do something dextrous with your hands? Why don't you step away from the TV for once in a while and hug your family? Don't waste your time watching.

Luciano (01:26:22.476)
Hahaha

Ashley (01:26:23.892)
See

Luciano (01:26:37.886)
You

Chris (01:26:47.83)
this, whatever this was, obviously there's been no foreshadowing of this conversation whatsoever. This movie is an F -bomb. Okay, fuck! Don't do it! Save yourselves! You better not watch it yet!

Luciano (01:26:58.09)
You

Luciano (01:27:05.45)
Jesus.

Ashley (01:27:05.612)
He's not even in his chair.

Matt (01:27:07.538)
I'm not even sure what he rated this, F? Okay, I was just checking. Thank you. I was just checking. It went on for a while and who knows. Ashley, do you wanna go next?

Luciano (01:27:09.55)
F, he said F, he said F, yeah.

Chris (01:27:09.964)
That's an F, Bob. F is an F,

Well, we buttoned it up.

Ashley (01:27:19.207)
Sure, I'm gonna give it an N for no and just don't, cause stop it and ew.

Chris (01:27:23.532)
What the?

Luciano (01:27:23.641)
You

Matt (01:27:24.146)
Mm Good system.

Matt (01:27:29.777)
Okay, I like it.

Ashley (01:27:30.567)
Sufficient? Sufficient. Just, just no.

Chris (01:27:30.818)
said the cover of the VHS box.

Matt (01:27:35.016)
Just now. Luciano?

Luciano (01:27:38.176)
So, like I said in the beginning, I went into this movie expecting that I was going to be head desking for an hour and a half. And I wasn't. I mean, is this a good movie? No. Is this a movie? Like, yeah. Are there better things you can be doing with your time? Probably. Definitely.

Are there worse things that you can be doing with your time? Probably as well. Smaller number of things, but sure. So wait, no. Okay. So no, no, honestly, like I expected this movie to be horrendous. I didn't think it was that bad. think honestly, I think I benefited from having the lowest possible expectations going in. Before talking with you monsters, I was going to give it a C, but I'm giving it a D now.

Matt (01:28:12.267)
This scale is fucked.

Chris (01:28:14.442)
no.

Matt (01:28:30.106)
Mm -hmm. What the fuck? You're still drunk.

Luciano (01:28:35.23)
Because I was like, I wasn't bored at least. That was the one saving grace of this movie. I wasn't bored.

Chris (01:28:41.622)
What were you doing before you watched this movie?

Luciano (01:28:44.488)
I don't know, nothing. I don't remember actually. Maybe that's a problem. Maybe that's the problem. It's narcotic. This movie is a narcotic.

Ashley (01:28:44.747)
Like are you very like chill as a person?

Chris (01:28:47.296)
You don't

Ashley (01:28:52.465)
See?

Matt (01:28:53.48)
We generally asked this once a podcast and we're late on it, but did you watch this movie?

Luciano (01:28:57.092)
Did you watch this movie? That's fair. No, honestly, I didn't hate it as much as I thought I was going to. Maybe that's why. Yeah?

Chris (01:29:03.98)
Did you watch this at 1x speed? That's the problem.

Matt (01:29:07.898)
So listen, it's fine. You're wrong objectively. And I can prove that you're wrong.

Luciano (01:29:08.682)
paying attention to it and writing notes.

Luciano (01:29:13.92)
Listen, I'm happy that for the first time in over 50 episodes I'm the one giving it the highest rating because it's never me. It's never me

Chris (01:29:14.588)
You

Matt (01:29:22.042)
I can prove you're wrong. I can prove you're wrong because I watched this movie and it is awful. This movie doesn't represent the video game Borderlands at all. This movie doesn't represent action movies at all. This movie doesn't represent a narrative driven movies at all. It is.

Chris (01:29:23.052)
This is not, this is not something to be proud of! This is my time!

Ashley (01:29:28.92)
This is distressing.

Matt (01:29:47.248)
It is worse? It is worse.

Luciano (01:29:52.544)
Don't say it, don't say it.

Matt (01:29:55.196)
Madame Web. Yes it is. Madame Web at least was trying to do something and this movie doesn't try to do anything. This movie does nothing.

Luciano (01:29:55.764)
No, it's not. No, it's absolutely not.

Luciano (01:30:01.292)
No, no, no, I'm gonna stop you right there. This movie was not taking itself seriously, Madam Webb was.

Matt (01:30:07.912)
This movie does nothing except exploit your time.

Luciano (01:30:13.716)
Y 'all are haters is what I'm saying.

Chris (01:30:15.586)
It was painful at 2x speed at 1 .5 at 1x speed.

Matt (01:30:15.612)
I'm just being honest.

Ashley (01:30:18.205)
I just like totally jumped. Do you know that that scene of them like shimmy shimmying over the super bad green lava bullshit took 10 minutes? That was 10 fucking minutes,

Luciano (01:30:29.854)
Really? Didn't feel that long.

Matt (01:30:32.816)
because we kept bouncing around. And all they had to do was not go on the fucking thing at the same time and they wouldn't have any problems.

Ashley (01:30:38.619)
Why were they all on it at the same time? Like, did you not see the piece fall down?

Luciano (01:30:40.456)
Yeah, yeah, I was like, it's like, this is gonna fall. Let's all go together.

Matt (01:30:43.998)
If it's gonna fall we're gonna die together That's why this movie is stupid this movie is dumb, and I hate it, and I wish it would die Don't worry about it It's fine. already I gave my review at the beginning of this podcast this movie is a blight on humanity and should be stricken from the record and blasted into space So it's gonna be an F - for me

Chris (01:30:45.344)
Hahaha

Chris (01:30:50.402)
How did Creed get outside to the other side?

Ashley (01:30:51.515)
It's just quintessentially wise, yes. It is stupid.

Luciano (01:31:00.48)
So a C for you.

Chris (01:31:05.433)
Oooooh

Luciano (01:31:06.004)
Listen, there's no minus, there's nothing below F, it's an F. These are your rules,

Chris (01:31:09.824)
We got to end my brother. We got to.

Matt (01:31:12.324)
I know, but I just want the world to know that I'm giving it an F - because it's that bad. I know in my heart, it is the worst ranking of all time.

Luciano (01:31:18.225)
This movie is better than Madame Web, this movie is better than Morbius, this movie is better than the Uni.

Matt (01:31:24.572)
No one - you're objectively wrong. We have to move on because the podcast is over. Objectively. We did it we're gonna do an informal poll. We're gonna let Democracy answer this question. Hey, how many people on this podcast thinks this movie was absolute shit? it's three to one. You lose. Democracy wins again. Moving on. Next week, we're watching a completely different movie. We're watching a movie that probably won't be bad.

Luciano (01:31:25.578)
Yes, no, no, no, I'm not, but okay. All right.

Ashley (01:31:31.507)
You're so wrong, Rufus.

Chris (01:31:38.258)
Sh -SHAW! Thumbs down!

Ashley (01:31:42.247)
Visa.

Chris (01:31:50.271)
It'll be better than this. I'm pretty, I'm hopeful.

Matt (01:31:52.304)
It has to be right Let's just go with no expectations like Lucy. don't apparently that fixes shit movies All right, let's all do it we're gonna watch rebel ridge it just came out on Netflix It is the Don Johnson vehicle

Luciano (01:31:53.194)
It's low bar. It's a low bar.

Luciano (01:31:58.12)
It w - it fucking works, I'm telling you!

Chris (01:32:01.067)
What?

Chris (01:32:07.916)
Sounds like an ice cream.

Luciano (01:32:11.505)
no, is it? Okay. All right.

Matt (01:32:12.671)
Yeah Amongst other things but we're gonna watch it rebel ridge action flick check out. We'll see you next week when we watch rebel ridge You're welcome that we're not watching this again. Imagine we watch poor Lance again. Just meet you come back in

Chris (01:32:24.733)
my...

Luciano (01:32:25.44)
Now we're gonna watch it and we're gonna critique it from the auteur position.

Chris (01:32:31.042)
But the worst part is that someone out there is gonna try and do that, like dice it and slice it.

Luciano (01:32:35.742)
I'm sure there's like a review in a newspaper somewhere that tried to go into the cinematics of it.

Chris (01:32:44.413)
Fuck that.

Luciano (01:32:45.002)
So the thing about Thrasher Piss is... It's kinda there.

Matt (01:32:47.194)
No. No. No. No.

Ashley (01:32:49.039)
No. No.