Transcript of 70mm’s Mad God (2021) Episode.
SLIM Hey, it’s your old pal Slim and this is 70mm, a podcast for film lovers. Every Monday I sit down to talk about recently watched movies with my close personal friend and artists, Danny Haas.
DANNY I mean, it’s disgusting. Like, this is an absolutely disgusting movie.
SLIM And our own spiritual advisor and Movie Insider, Protolexus.
PROTO Yeah, it was bodyless head who was connected to tubes and it was just swallowing it all. Yeah, I mean, but we can’t confirm that it’s poop…
SLIM 30 years in the making, later in the show, we’re covering Phil Tippett’s Mad God, streaming now on Shudder. Is this the most disgusting movie ever made? The answer’s yes. But did we like it? Find out… now.
[70mm theme song ramps up, plays alone, fades out[
SLIM Should we about Batman Beyond, just a little bit more? Batman Beyond, just a little bit more. Proto, you love Batman Beyond right?
PROTO Uh… Oh, the animated show? Yeah.
SLIM What if they did a movie? Michael Keaton as old Bruce. Who would you cast as Batman Beyond, Terry?
DANNY See, you got to be prepared for this. This is tough.
PROTO Yeah, I’m gonna say something stupid. Some stupid answer, no one wants to hear it.
DANNY Don’t say Chalamet.
SLIM Austin Butler.
DANNY Don’t say Austin Butler. Don’t say Chalamet.
PROTO No, we have to go deeper. Ohhhh — oh.
DANNY Oh.
PROTO Hold on a second. How about Elliot Page?
SLIM From the Umbrella Academy?
DANNY Whoa, whoa, whoa!
SLIM I’m listening.
DANNY Whoa, whoa, whoa! Elliot Page as Terry McGinnis?
SLIM Listening.
PROTO Mhmm.
SLIM That would be dynamite.
DANNY Excuse me!
SLIM Is that the greatest casting in the history of this podcast?
DANNY Someone call us… Warner Brothers. [Slim laughs]
SLIM Bill Warner, can you get on the horn and talk to us? Discovery Brothers, whatever your company is called these days. [Danny laughs] Nobody knows. You know, they’re folding all the Discovery shows into one app, Danny?
DANNY Where’s my Expedition Bigfoot going? That’s what I want to know. [Slim laughs] Where’s Destination Fear going?
SLIM Oh, yeah. We do need a new season of Destination Fear coming soon. Maybe for watchalong episode, we should watch Destination Fear with Proto.
DANNY That’d be fun.
PROTO Yeah, that’d be fun.
DANNY There’s some good eps.
PROTO You guys seem to have quite a lot of fun watching all these shows. [Danny & Slim laugh] That’d be fun.
SLIM Mad God is our featured presentation — this is our 125th episode. It’s 30 years in the making, Mad god. We’ll be getting into it. It’s streaming on Shudder. Get that free trial beb, fire it up, log-in and hopefully send your kids to bed before he watched Mad God. We’ll get into it, later in the show. I do want to remind everyone that our theme for next month is picked — 90s action. It was a vote in the Discord. Our supporters on Patreon voted. And this is Proto’s pick. So Proto, you’re going to be revealing your first movie for 90s action later in this show.
PROTO Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s true. [Danny & Slim laugh] I got it. Yeah. I’ve got it written down right here in front of me. My pick is locked in.
DANNY Oh, we’re locked in.
SLIM It’s locked.
PROTO It’s locked. Stone-cold lock.
DANNY Oh my gosh.
SLIM Did you go to Walmart in the $2 bin and just fish your hand around to see what came out with a DVD? [Danny laughs]
PROTO Yeah, I was perusing the Walmart bin. They got, you know, it’s 20x20 bin there, five feet tall.
SLIM It’s like a ball pit? [Slim laughs]
DANNY Jumped in and swam around.
PROTO Dump truck. Yeah.
SLIM Danny, did you watch the movies this week?
DANNY Yeah, I watched two movies. We were perusing the HBO Max catalog the other night and watched Goodwill Hunting. It’s been a long time probably, I may have only seen this movie once before years ago. And good lord, this movie is still good. Still slaps. Ben and Matt were cooking with gas. But Robin Williams, it’s so hard to watch him in these roles now because I miss him so much. He’s incredible in this film, like top tier Robin, I couldn’t get enough of him in this. It was amazing to watch this movie again.
SLIM Isn’t this the movie that like kicked off the Affleck and Damon careers, right? Did they write this? Am I making that up?
DANNY They wrote it super young, for sure. Robin won for this too, Best Supporting.
PROTO 97 —
SLIM Could be a great ep. I’ve never seen Good Will Hunting.
PROTO Wow.
SLIM I don’t think.
DANNY Wait — ever?
PROTO Damon I was 27 when they wrote the this.
DANNY I can’t believe I haven’t seen Good Will Hunting, that’s surprising. That was almost by Fall Vibe pick.
SLIM I remember Matt Damon is like solving a math problem on a chalkboard or something. He’s a janitor, he’s like a genius, right? Something like that?
PROTO Nailed it.
DANNY Nailed it. You did it.
PROTO That’s the climax of the movie. Sorry, everybody. [Danny & Slim laugh]
SLIM Robin Williams Month — there was talk about doing a John Candy Month in the Discord.
DANNY I would do Robin first though, please.
SLIM What other white man can we prop up for an entire month in this podcast? Let’s get them all in. Make it a whole year. White Year.
DANNY That’s what we’ve done for 125 episodes. [Danny laughs]
SLIM We’re trying! Okay, folks? We’re trying to spread the diversity around on this show as best we can.
DANNY Good Will was great, great movie. Last Father’s Day weekend, I got a lot of telling a story and how we got to watching Angels and Demons recently. I was getting a tattoo my Petite Mana tattoo. And it’s on my watch arm. And so I’m wearing this old Mickey Mouse watch. The tattoo artist was like hey, this is the watch from Angels and Demons. The one Tom Hanks wears. I’m like, what are you talking about? Apparently he’s wearing some old Mickey Mouse watch. It’s a part of the story. And so Casey got to reading it, because of how much he said the book was great. Casey read it. So now that she finished reading it, we watched the movie and man, what a fun movie.
SLIM Three stars.
DANNY Three stars, good time. I love Tom in this. But I’m all for these Illuminati Secret Society type stories. I love them. I can eat them up. Puzzles, hunting.
PROTO Was that the sequel to DaVinci Code?
DANNY Prequel to — yeah, so it’s second movie but it’s a prequel to DaVinci Code.
PROTO Oh, okay.
SLIM Does Jesus wear the Mickey Mouse watch? Is that the big reveal?
DANNY Yeah, Tom Hanks is Jesus in it. [Slim laughs]
SLIM What are they searching for in Angels and Demons? I never watched any of them after the first one.
DANNY Angels and Demons, the Illumina — I don’t want to spoil it for anyone who hasn’t seen it it. Illuminati kidnap four of the Cardinals after the death of one of the old Popes. So it’s coming into time when they need to get a new Pope, et cetera. So it’s Tom is like, you know, the the the forfront of this, I don’t know finding out of the Catholic Church stuff.
SLIM You watched it with Casey?
DANNY Yeah, yeah.
SLIM Did she like the book better or the movie?
DANNY I don’t know that answer. She’s in chat. I’m gonna guess she liked — there you go, equal.
SLIM The main thing I remember from the first movie is that Tom Hanks’s hair is like, very strange.
DANNY It’s better in this movie. It is strange and DaVinci Code, I do remember that. I thought that was a fun movie though.
PROTO His hair is giving me Tom Cruise Mission: Impossible 2 vibes.
DANNY Yes. Yeah, that’s true.
SLIM Did you — hold on. Did you just compare Tom Hanks’s hair in DaVinci Code to Tom Hanks — or to Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible 2?
PROTO Yeah, isn’t that the one where he has the long hair? Or is that three?
DANNY It’s two, but he’s got great hair is two.
PROTO No, it’s less about the hair. It’s a bit more about the shock value. Like I’m sure I was shocked seeing the Tom Cruise hair, I’m shocked seeing the Tom Hanks hair. I’m equally shocked. [Danny & Slim laughs]
SLIM Paul just posted a photo with Tom Hanks’s hair, it’s like, he just sucked on a lemon. And they took a photo of his mouth after that. Poor Tom.
PROTO Look at the fade on the side of his head.
DANNY Yeah, he’s got that fade. That’s the movies I watched this week. [Slim laughs]
SLIM Thank you. Let’s see. Do I want to mention some friends that joined our Patreon this week? You can do so at 70mmpod.com Get access to uncut apps, exclusive episodes that are just for supporters. We got about 30 in there. And there’s another tier for interns. We don’t talk about too much. But there’s another tier where intern level gets access to watchalongs, where we three watch a movie together, we record it and send that out and wouldn’t it be great if there’s like a video attached somehow, maybe you could just watch it and listen, that’d be cool. So we have our next watchalong picked, by the way. We have a movie picked. It’s locked. We’re not going to reveal it now. Just FYI. Just for interns. Proto, did you watch any movies?
PROTO I did watch a movie or two. Oh, I finally got to watch Stanley Kubrick’s 1957 Paths of Glory. This has been on my watchlist forever. And every time I go to think of it when I see it on my watchlist, I’m just like, now’s not the time. I’ve been saying that for years. You know, just like, I’m like black and white, 1957, Stanley Kubrick, do I really want to go down this road? But the other night, I was like, you know what? Let’s do it. I was feeling it. And smoothly rules. I gave it five stars. Couldn’t believe it. Honestly, was not expecting this. But I do have a soft spot for Kirk Douglas. For sure. He plays it’s, yeah, it’s in World War One, the French line. He is a colonel. And he so he’s in charge of like a battalion of men or something. And there are sent on like, on this mission doesn’t go well. And then after that, most of the movies centers around this court martial in involving some of his men. And yeah, I mean, it’s gorgeous. It’s a gorgeous Stanley Kubrick movie, as you would expect, you know. It looks great in black and white. Kirk Douglas, that chin, god, no one’s ever done it like him.
SLIM Chin for days.
PROTO He’s got that dimple.
DANNY Have you seen 20,000 Leagues, Proto? Singing and dancing?
PROTO Um… I don’t know. I’ve seen Spartacus. That’s the movie that I watched, I don’t know why, but I watched Spartacus many times as a kid, which is another Stanley Kubrick movie, and Douglas stars in that, so I love Douglas for that. But yeah, this movie is fantastic.
SLIM I want to read from your review, if I may.
PROTO Please.
SLIM Quote, “Kirk Douglas in a uniform, Mamma Mia Pizzeria!” Did you watch this on Paramount+?
PROTO Yes, I did. Yeah, I did. It’s on there and Amazon, I think I thought it was Criterion but maybe it’s not on there right now.
SLIM Ismael is asking about The Killing. I feel like a bunch of folks in our Discord watched The Killing and kind of went over like a wet fart.
PROTO Yeah, Killing sucks.
DANNY I turned it off. I didn’t finish it.
SLIM Yeah, I had that on my watchlist as well. And then when some reviews came in, I kind of went lukewarm. What about this How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World?
DANNY Oh no.
PROTO My wife took our kids to the library. So they were looking for a movie and they came away with this. There was two other movies that they wanted to get, but I said we can watch these on streaming, I’m not paying for this.
DANNY Wait, the library is free?
PROTO Not this library, you have to rent the movies.
SLIM Wuuut?
DANNY What?!
PROTO It kind of sucks. Yeah, that’s why I don’t really go there.
SLIM This country.
PROTO I don’t believe in paying for movies, alright? [Danny laughs]
SLIM Shakin’ muh damn head.
PROTO Yeah it’s terrible how to pay for a DVD. But yeah, so we got How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World which is the the third movie in the series. It was fine. You know it’s okay. I don’t really love the art style in these movies. I think it looks great for what it is but it’s just not really my cup of tea. But then the really the worst part is is that the guy who voices — what’s his name? Jay or something — it’s terrible. I don’t know what’s who, why. Who’s in charge of this? But his voice is just very bad. And he’s the star of the movie. He’s the lead and you have to listen to him the whole time. I don’t know what they were thinking.
SLIM He’s got an interesting voice.
DANNY Before we get one star reviews for this, I’m just going to be the one host who says How To Train A Dragon as a perfect trilogy. I love these movies dearly. I’m really shocked you don’t like him as much, Proto. first two are great.
SLIM First two were great. I really loved the first two.
DANNY Third one is great too! What?
SLIM Third one, I don’t know. I didn’t vibe with. Third one, I felt like I didn’t want a third one. I think I remember the ending of two being pretty good.
DANNY I love these movies so much.
SLIM There’s whispers on YouTube, I’ve been getting YouTube recommended videos on rumors and this new unit or Epic Universal land and there’s gonna be a How To Train Your Dragon land. I also got like a YouTube algo suggestion that they’re going to make the Ministry of Magic in this new land, the whole walkthrough area.
DANNY Big deal.
SLIM And then you can go through the teleporter, what’s called it called? Floof? Go through the floof —
DANNY The floof. [Danny laughs]
SLIM And you’re walking through a whole different area. So I’m excited. Big Harry Potter fan right here.
DANNY Sounds like it.
SLIM Let’s give out a free year of Letterboxd Pro. Every week we try to if I remember to give out a free year of Letterboxd Pro for folks that share the show on social media. A disclaimer, I am a Letterboxd employee. This week’s winner is Philip Marinnello. He shared our Booksmart episode: “Still haven’t seen this yet. But sharing for a shot at that Letterboxd Pro.”
DANNY He shot his shot.
PROTO Give it to him.
SLIM Very bold and it worked. So you just got a free of Letterbox Pro.
DANNY Goodness.
SLIM Um, I saw a movie last night, went into Center City Philadelphia. Got in my car, drove down there. Got a screening of Marcel the Shell with Shoes On. Any of you ever heard of this movie?
PROTO Yes. Honestly, I didn’t know this was coming out until like a week ago.
SLIM There was a short, a series of shorts made like a decade ago that were pretty popular. Jenny Slate, you might know, does the voice of Marcel. Dean Fleischer-Camp is the director but he’s like, the plot, it’s like a mockumentary film where he goes into an Airbnb and realizes that there’s a shell that can talk. And he starts like filming her, filming him, rather. And Marcel reveals that like, you know, me and my grandmother got separated from our family, our community of shells, and I would love to try to connect with them. And he posts one video on YouTube and it like blows up. So that is the plot of the movie and it was, I gave it five stars. Five bang, hard.
PROTO Is Chris Pratt in it? [Slim laughs]
DANNY Stop. Stop. [Danny laughs]
PROTO Sounds like a Chris Pratt vehicle.
SLIM There is no Chris Pratt. Jenny Slate is amazing. I believe she’s like a co-creator, co-writer to the story with Dean, I’m trying not to hype it up like these five these five stars coming out from everybody yada yada yada. Try to see if you can. The last 15 minutes are incredibly inspirational. I was a mess in my chair as I left the theater.
DANNY Ew. [Slim laughs]
SLIM I was a mess. But I think we should talk about Mad God.
DANNY Gosh.
SLIM 30 years in the making, three Kickstarters. Did you know that? There’s three Kickstarters.
DANNY Big deal.
SLIM The first, I didn’t know that until I started doing my little internet research. The first Kickstarter —
DANNY Where were you in 2012?
SLIM Said the movie would be delivered in 2013 to backers. [Proto laughs] Kickstarter part two, movie will be delivered in 2015. Kickstarter part three, delivery will be 2017. So here we are, 2022.
DANNY But he shared it in parts, though, right?
SLIM I mean, the Kickstarters were called parts. I don’t know if he just delivered a third of the movie.
DANNY Yeah, you could watch parts of it. Those parts. Let’s not drag Phil right off the bat.
SLIM I would never, I would never drag Phil.
DANNY Thank you.
SLIM I would never drag Phil. Okay? It’s been a long journey.
PROTO This is not a dragging.
SLIM This is not a drag pod.
PROTO Don’t get it twisted.
SLIM You want to listen to a drag pod? Go listen to our last three episodes where we talked about Obi-Wan Kenobi. [Danny laughs] We’ll never talk about Obi-Wan Kenobi ever again, this is a positivity palace moving forward.
DANNY New leaf.
SLIM Proto, what’s this movie?
[music from Mad God plays]
PROTO A diving bell descends into a black abyss of ruins and death. onboard a masked figure known as the Assassin has a map and a suitcase. Finally landing on the surface, the Assassin begins their trek on foot, careful to avoid the many horrors that inhabit the land. There is an army of faceless drones, giants in electric chairs, bodyless heads kept alive only to feed and writhing mutations of flesh and metal that cannot be described. From a corpse is pulled a screaming fetus that will be liquefied, smelted, crushed to powder and finally flung into a portal only for a New World of horror to be made once more. This is… Mad God.
SLIM Smelted is a great word. I just want to give you props for that.
PROTO I wanted to use emulsify, but it actually doesn’t fit with what happened, unfortunately. [Slim laughs]
DANNY Something was emulsified at some point in this film. [Slim laughs]
SLIM Danny’s soul was emulsified, I think, while watching it. This is a big release on Shudder. I’m always excited when Shudder gets like some, some new stuff like they’ve gotten some kind of like never released movies finally distributed. They get the rights to it. It’s pretty cool. So I’m a Shudder subscriber. I will not be canceling the trial, because I’ve already had it. So I had heard buzz. I think we talked about the buzz and the show together and then we’re like, in our DMs, like man, it’d be really cool to do this movie. Proto, do you remember anything previous to that or anything about this live action mix stop motion movie?
PROTO I just remember when the trailer came out and seeing it. And knowing I had to see this. You, it’s how often do you see, you know, a full stop motion animated movie? I mean Wallace and Gromit? Was that the last one? Chicken Run?
DANNY Once every five years.
PROTO Yeah, it’s like every 35 years. You can’t miss this. So I was very excited.
SLIM Hailey’s Comet. What are the what’s the studio that does the stop motion movies, though? Yeah. What’s that gif from Daniel Cura?
DANNY That’s Kubo on the strings, Five Strings?
PROTO Oh, yeah. Aloka studios.
SLIM Yeah, that’s studio’s pretty cool.
DANNY Kubo is top tier. That’s some of the best stop animation film ever.
SLIM Danny, what about you? Did you have any any Mad God vibes? Previous star discussion?
DANNY I knew about the Kickstarter, because of how much I love Phil. I didn’t back it. Obviously that was years ago. I didn’t probably didn’t really know what Kickstarter was. But yeah, I had known that he had done this from just any sort of Star Wars research with Phil and what he’s doing these days. So that’s that’s about it. But yeah, this was my first time seeing any bits of it.
SLIM Yeah. First time seeing the bits. I mean, there were definitely some bits. [Danny laughs]
DANNY Lots of bits.
SLIM We’ll get into that, special section dedicated to the bits. Who wants to go first? Let’s hear from Proto first, to kick things off.
PROTO Yeah, the thing that really blew me away, first of all in this in that something I don’t remember seeing in stop motion was the fire. And the lighting in this was like absolutely insane to me. I don’t even know. I mean, I don’t know how it was even done. Because obviously, stop motion is you know, they’re they’re shooting each into individual frame. I forget what it is, I don’t know if it’s like 20 frames or somewhere around there. But this, like, you couldn’t even tell that there was a break in the light, or I don’t know if they layered it over top of each other. Like they shot the light and then added it in and then like, you know, did like post effects. But it just looked amazing to me.
DANNY I think it was some After Effects. Not after effects the program but probably but I think the fire was brought in afterwards. I don’t know if it’s actual stop motion type trickery for that in the lighting itself. But I agree there were so many scenes that were just and if I mean the first like five minutes of this, the different the descent into basically hell is like magic. It’s just watching what he created. How its lit how its film. It’s just It’s insane. Like I couldn’t it was gorgeous.
SLIM Yeah, there was a there’s one shot where the soldier is going underground. See if I haven’t in my notes. But the camera moves in such a way while it’s being stopped motion that it just looks impossible to like yeah, actually put the time and effort into this shot. It’s like coming down and then it loops up and then it loops around these pipes while the character is walking through it and just like oh my god, this is like so hard that you were able to do this. And this is a complete product. Like that was one of my main notes was that this is a finished thing. And that Phil Tippett with the help of you know, probably many people over the course of years, was able to finish this and it’s a complete product like a passion project. And I felt like I could see that in almost every shot. Like every scene that I was looking at, I was like, Oh my God, this took forever.
DANNY There was there were some the shots where it was like panning through the city and the little putty monster guys are like walking. But then like, it would come down like an alleyway. And then like further back, there were things walking around and moving as well. So they’re not just stop moshing, what is in the foreground? There still stop motion happening in the background as well. And just the, the idea that I mean, just the foresight to see that you have to be doing all this at once is what makes Phil an absolute legend.
PROTO Yeah, there was, there was a scene early on where it was. It was like so intricate, but it was it only had like two seconds of screen time. And I just thought like, he like how much time was devoted to making the set, and then only having like two seconds of it being on this. And the final product. It just seemed like, like unbelievable, because you know, every everything in this movie is handcrafted. Really incredible.
SLIM For new folks, we usually each host has you know, three bullet points that we write down or watch. And we’ll go roundtable until we get through all those before we give our final rating. My first note is, well, I have some thoughts on the vibe. But the first note that I had is that first seen him floating down for what felt like 15 minutes, the first part of the movie is just him descending in that tube. And kind of going through like centuries of change and ruin in that city. And you see like the buildings you see bones, you see statues, and like an alien head, kind of like in the dirt. It reminded me of in Futurama about the mutants that live underground, like during the nuclear fall because they just build society. On top of that. It’s like all still underground. But seeing that stuff was so cool. And such an amazing start to the movie because you get like excited and like, oh my god, this is so cool. Like I hope we just explore a percentage of any of this stuff that I’m seeing on screen and I’m all in.
PROTO Yeah, that stuff was, yeah, all that stuff is incredible. And to me, it doesn’t even like matter. I know a lot of people were saying a lot of reviews that I saw of like, well, you know, I don’t get the story, or I couldn’t make any sense of it. But it was pretty to look at. But to me, that’s like the whole point of this. Honestly, I got like I don’t, I almost didn’t even care if it made sense or not just the creativity that was oozing out of this, which is so incredible. I thought about like, if I were to go to make a stop at a stop motion story like this, right? How do you even come up with a single set? Like everything had to be decided? Like someone had to envision all of this before it gets created? And the thought that you have 90 minutes of it? Is is amazing. Yeah.
DANNY I want to say I was in that boat of what is the story? Like I am 45 minutes into this film. And I honestly couldn’t tell you a plot point at all. Or like what is happening? And I feel like I got to the end of the film as well. Like almost frustrated that I couldn’t pin a narrative of what was going on. But also, I was in love with it as well. I mean, it’s disgusting. Like this is an absolute disgusting movie. But it’s insanely creative. And you just know that he didn’t hold back anything. Any decisions on what he wanted to make. He was making this grotesque movie that was just a nightmare fuel. I mean, that’s all I can think about.
SLIM How about the scene — the electrocution pooping scene?
DANNY Excuse me.
SLIM What a moment, walking by that.
PROTO When you gotta go, you always go. [Slim & Danny laugh]
DANNY That was disgusting.
SLIM I mean, and those things were big. He was like a miniature compared to the thing that were the guys that were getting electrocuted to poop to death.
DANNY Wasn’t it going down something’s throat? It was going on to another guy’s mouth.
PROTO Yeah, it was a bodyless head who was like connected to tubes and it was just swallowing it all. Yeah, I mean, but we can’t confirm that it’s poop… [Slim laughs]
DANNY I mean, it was some sort of innards coming out of the bodies.
SLIM Innards coming out of your rear orifices.
DANNY Like Slim watching Marcel. [Slim laughs]
SLIM They’re coming out of my eye orifices, not my rear! Number one, Danny, or was that your number one?
DANNY Number one I wanted to talk about Phil, and the making of this. So it’s being promoted, like it’s been the 35 years in the making. And that’s like, it’s a real, like, I kept thinking like, oh, he thought about this 35 years ago. And then you know, 2012 ish, let’s just make this movie but he really started making this film 35 millimeter film cameras after he did Robocop too. And the reason he stopped has got called away to do Jurassic Park and we talked about Phil for a second on our Jurassic Park episode. Because he created the when they’re trying to figure out how to the T Rex as he created the T Rex the stop motion T Rex. And that’s when Dennis Mirren came in and did the ILM and the CGI, but they still used Phil’s T Rex as like a mo cap for the animators, because obviously they couldn’t. The animation was tough. So he shelved it, he shelved MAD GOD right after Robocop to him before Jurassic Park. And as his studio started getting more popular, I mean, if you’re listening to this and don’t know Phil, Phil worked on a new hope Empire Strikes Back turn the Jedi Temple of Doom like Robocop Jurassic Park, Starship Troopers like anything Twilight. I mean, he ended up doing Jurassic Park film worlds and stuff like that. So it’s insane. The stuff he’s worked on. But this for as gross as this film is, and I don’t know if I’ll ever watch it again. It’s insanely inspiring to see an artist like Phil to just be at the top of his game and create this film over 35 years with help of people that just wanted to work with him and make this happen for him it’s incredibly inspiring to see this happen for him and it’s it’s it’s an amazing movie.
PROTO Yeah there was there’s a four minute doc on YouTube that I that you can watch where it’s just like they talked to Phil for a few minutes and he just said like he couldn’t he couldn’t not make this like it’s it’s like all he does all he thinks about it just like consumes all his free time. He’s just making stop motion animation which is wild.
SLIM Proto, number two for you?
PROTO Number two is the scene with the surgeon so our boy the assassin or girl whoever whoever they are gets captured and is taken into this what seems to be like a hospital hospital if you could call it that. Yeah. An amazing an amazing set where the camera comes down and it’s you know, you have the like half of the building gone and you see each room and it’s just like a body that’s been you know, taken apart and the assassin is laying there and this surgeon and nurse come in and they start cutting them open and then but it goes on for about five minutes that the surgeon just pulling so long. his guts out but then like jewelry, coins, books, paper. Finally too they get to this creature fetus type thing with basically a set of teeth and tail and a tail. Who won’t who won’t stop screaming. But that is just an amazing scene with amazing also like this the sound in this is incredible. If you if you ever want to know what guts sound like, here it is.
SLIM This would be aI now that I think about it probably should have listened while my Roku pro remote headphones during that scene. Yeah. I mean, how about the scene? I thought my head was gonna explode. But when the camera focus on the clock scene felt like it was 30 minutes long, just going slow. And I was like I was going nuts. I was like, Oh my God, how long is the camera going to look at this clock? Like I feel like the dude or gal the assassin on this table right now like I’m gonna die. Right? We’re going to hear this ticking clock again. And then that surgery scene. I mean, he’s pulling guts out for a long time. For a long time I was starting to be like what is going on Phil? What’s happening here? But yeah, just nutty nutty scene I love the how they were like people watching when they first took like their clothes off in the shadows like it was a show almost for the initial like bringing the assassin in but yeah that scene is is nuts for them I don’t know I’m guessing there was some kind of metaphorical meaning in the jewelry in the chest that’s all I could get out of that
DANNY I’m gonna go with probably not, he just thought was a good idea.
SLIM Maybe, maybe.
DANNY I will also have those great about that scene was our introduction to the live action actors and having actual real people but the way he filmed it they’re jittery like they almost look stop motion which I thought was genius to add in because it doesn’t take away from the film as much when you have the stop animation of the the assault the assassin being cut open, but when you cut back and it’s the two actors kind of their the way it’s kind of I don’t know, it feels like there’s just like frames taken out. And yeah, they almost look stop animation themselves when they’re putting on the gloves or the scalpel. And it was great. Great scene.
PROTO Yeah, I thought there was some crossover because I thought some of the stop animation then looked so incredibly smooth at times that it didn’t look like stop animation. Or stop motion which was cool.
SLIM So I’m kind of the opposite. I didn’t love the live action switching I maybe this is my own fault for not like realize that there could be live action in this at all. So when like the real people came on, I was like, oh, let’s call them on here. Get out of my stop motion animation. At the onset they did I did look like they were like stop motion ish. And I wonder if that was just kind of like to get the viewer used to seeing actors like real people on screen because if I felt like it left later, especially when they showed that like main bad guy with the fingernails, the old dude. Like he didn’t I feel like I didn’t get that like frame per second thing when he was on screen. Oh wait the plague doctor. No, that was the old guy the plague doctor.
DANNY The one that takes the fetus because that’s my axe. No, good. Oh, that’s just my that’s my favorite scene. That the design of that plague doctor the flowing of the like, the the like pieces of cloth and I honestly think that’s I think that was like a stop motion character as well. But like a full size figure. Yeah, I couldn’t tell. But it’s very smooth. I love the way it flowed. i That scene was trippy as hell and I went it when it ground up that fetus into like, shiny, lightest, right? Yeah, it was. I don’t know. I loved
PROTO it. It was incredible. You knew they had to do it to him.
DANNY But yeah, for me that scene that was like my favorite. That was my favorite character. I think that the way that play doctor looked I really loved the design of that character. He was very, they were very creepy and
SLIM flowing robes stuff was cool. I couldn’t really tell how I was looking at like what I was looking at and how it was made. I was it was too blurred for me.
DANNY Yeah, there was a shot of Phil in one of the docks where he has like the long fingered puppet and it’s he’s controlling it by like cords and or like the pulley system type things closing and opening. So I think I think that was a full like a giant stop motion figure.
PROTO Wow. Honestly, that the Plague Doctor Doctor, was the thing that creeped me out the most in this movie. I just was very unnerving the way it was moving. And then the like when the hands came out. It was like so much detail, but it was hard to see. Right? It was it was yeah, it was very, very creepy.
SLIM My number two is is about like the vibe it reminds the whole thing reminded me of a late night MTV Music video that I would see. Like do you remember the Genesis song land of confusion? Yeah. Where it was like Ronald Reagan. And I think his wife like if you put land of confusion in the back of any of these scenes like it would work perfectly it like was one of those like weird out moments. Like if I had seen this a kid. I would have like vague memories of that like, effed up music video that I saw as a kid just like landed confusion like land confusion. I think I saw when I was wait too young and it just warped me. Like, if anyone has time Google that on YouTube. But that vibe I love so much. I mean, there’s there’s not really anything like this mainstream that is like this weird or gory in any way, shape or form. So that was just something that jumped out at me 100% While I was watching it, so I watched this twice. And the second time, I started to get like more of the so like, there’s like these, what did you call them GUI workers that work with people at a party people. They’re like this society, all the work is being done by these laborers. They look like they’re like made out of like, hair, Ash, or whatever you want to call it. And they’re just like, easily destroyed, like heavy things fall on them. They’re dead, but they’re making more of them to run this society. So in the second viewing, I started to get like, big time. I don’t know if this is Phil’s intention, but like big time anti, like, corporations stuff, like how you just work and you work and you die. And that’s it. Like every scene that these like, like party people get killed. It’s just like, oh, yeah, that’s like you working to death for the man for big corporations that don’t give a crap. And then later in the movie, when they kill the fetus and grind it into sparkly things, and they try to like rebuild the world. The same thing just ends up happening again. And it’s just like this never ending cycle. So I started to get like, some deeper meaning on the second feeling that I did not get on the first feeling for sure, just because I was able to just kind of like look at things differently. So that was just the vibe that I got.
PROTO Well, my third point was going to be the story because I don’t know. But for me, this movie made like perfect sense. Like, even the beginning watching the whole thing. I just felt and I don’t know, I don’t know if like what Phil intended with the story. But to me, it felt like very clear, at least how I how I was watching it of, I mean, it starts with the Tower of Babel, where they’re trying to build a tower to heaven, that’s a story in the Bible. That’s like the first interaction that people after leaving the Garden of Eden, that’s when they after they fall from grace, that’s the interaction they have with God to try to reach heaven, they build a tower and then God confuses them. And they can’t anymore. And, and he even starts with showing a chapter or like some verses from Leviticus and has some pretty strong words from God. Just about like help, you know, tear people apart and rip them from their wounds and all that kind of crazy stuff. So to me, this was like a very much like an inverse of what you would hear from like the Judeo Christian version of God, like, instead of a God of grace, you have a God of madness, or a God who’s like, extremely pissed off. And there’s so many things that like, line up to me in that, like, if you take everything and like try to flip it around. It makes sense. I could talk about it for a while. But I think the most like the thing that stood out to me was most was like so these assassins are leaving a high place and coming down, which is like, what, what Jesus does. And then instead of trying to save the world, they’re trying to destroy the world. So they bring this this suitcase and they go there and instead of being unique and one there as we see there’s there’s 1000s of suitcases there. So instead of being unique as like the Son of God, they are countless fodder to try to destroy this world. And instead of like when you save the world, giving eternal life to everyone. They’re giving eternal death to this world if they could just like set this bomb off. And like that’s just like one thing but there’s like so many things in this movie. I think if you look at it from that perspective, and just say like, what is the opposite of what the story is in the Bible? It all like makes sense to me. Like so as I was watching it, I was like yeah, Phil right on and this is crazy. So I had like the title of my life watching this. Like just I have a lot of knowledge when it comes to like, you know, like that story of the Bible. So just watching it it just it just made a lot of sense to me as I was watching it. So I was having a great time
SLIM Bible insider art in chat. We always bust arts chops in discord art washed it I think before everyone gave it three stars. Mad Gods we were all blacked out. That’s it and for all May God is a three stars. close personal friend art might be the end, but we’ll see where things shake out. Let’s see. So Danny gave his second part of that was your third I think Danny technically we’re on your third,
DANNY my third about what I might my One of my notes is Well, I think it was also my letterbox is Phil okay? Because some of the creation of these characters is discussed. Like I’ve said disgusting plain times they’re terrifying. There’s there’s one in particular where I’m gonna do my best to not be too vulgar. Let it where there’s a character that has giant balls. But also these balls are eyes. And he’s stomping and eating. I think I looked away for a second from the screen because I don’t know. I was so confounded on what I was looking at. It was it was gross, like insanely gross. And I there were so many moments of that in this film, where I’m just like, how did he think this up? Like, how did he come up with some of the stuff? And it’s just, I would love to just sit and talk to Phil, and be like, Phil, Hey, man. How did you like to do sketches? Like I would love to see like, pre concepts of what you were thinking about making this stuff? Because it’s, it’s it’s incredible. Like, it’s, it’s some I think this is the grossest film I’ve ever seen. That has to be top tier.
SLIM How about when that man bolt was getting Jade off? Okay, that ally
DANNY I’m glad that was a quick scene too, because I wasn’t sure how much I want it. Oh
SLIM my god. I didn’t catch it until my second bochur worth it. Yeah.
DANNY Yeah, did catch it the first time though. I
SLIM didn’t catch it the first time. I just saw the bull man in the his harem Lord. And then secondly, I looked down. See what was going on.
PROTO Danny, you say those are giant balls. I thought they were giant boobs hanging off the back of them. I
DANNY Bucha No, because it had had a penis. Okay, all around. This whole This was amazing. There was a lot going on in that scene watched a lot of
SLIM W’s flying around. There was that one cheetah character. The characters were they getting the poop on they had those masks, and then they were getting electrocuted. Oh my god. We’re off scene. Rough product you already gave your third. Yeah. My third my third is probably going to be honorable mentioned. So. The surgery scene looks like it looks like the blood was barbecue sauce. It looked like Stubbs barbecue sauce. I wanted to have a little taste of the city in ruins portion with that second assassin. I thought that was badass. I want to I want to hang out in that world like for 10 hours in some kind of like mini series. I wanted to know how that motorcycle was working or the jeep. I feel like throw some kind of nuclear fallout that would prevent those things from working right.
PROTO How would the shot of the Jeep that overhead shot where the there was like the crossroads where you could clearly tell it was just like mud and then he just like, took like a razor blade and like cleared it out. It looks so cool, though. Yeah.
SLIM Also one of my honorable mentions I’m pretty sure that’s the first assassin I heard was the first or second assassin they’re looking at a house in the distance and look like the Psycho house. I pretty sure I saw a hot dog. Oh Hunter going in and out of a bun. Very quickly back and forth. My wife Kay,
PROTO speaking to you.
DANNY There were so many action figures hidden throughout it. So did you catch the No What’s that? What’s the Ed from Robocop to Ed 209 Yeah, there was an AED just sitting there was was a Robbie the Robot is that what his name is from? Lawson space. I guess there’s any toy that he had was just like laying around. It was insane. I love them.
SLIM The poop monster the electro pooping scene the moving camera shots. So those are those are all my other mentions. That’ll be that’ll be my top three so proto honorable mentions last last thoughts.
PROTO Honorable mentions, there’s a scene I think it’s after the surgery scene where it’s the scene. You see that guy? The the real live actor Alex Cox. I forget I don’t know what his name is. But he has the long fingernails. But before that you see him like looking out a window and it’s like this giant windstorm going on and there’s these figures out there who look like the divers. The assassin guys like working out and that the weather effect in that scene was just incredible. Like the wind whipping around really amazing stuff. Yeah, The scenes with the Jeep there was this one he’s like looks at his map and it has like little spikes and then he looks up and it’s just like a valley of of skulls on spikes that looked amazing as well there was there was like a warzone that he was traveling through with amazing explosions Yeah, I I mean I understand everybody can have you know different opinion you don’t you know, I get this movie it might not be for you. But to me this is a friggin masterpiece. This isn’t a five star movie. What is this? Just like the spoke to me? This spoke to me on a different level like Phil does Phil make this movie for me? That’s why That’s why I want to ask him. I love this. This felt this Yeah, this felt like it was made for me. So
SLIM Oh, incredibly cow. Sheesh, Leviticus does it again one other note about the car Oh, there was obviously like that when the assassin was driving the jeep. It was just like you know the camera pulls away it’s just like a remote control Jeep with the severe pushing guy and they’re just like chillin I thought that was hilarious. I was probably at three and a half stars on my first viewing but the second viewing you wouldn’t think watching Mad got a second time would make it more enjoyable but I got more out of it the second time so I’m at four stars for Mad God Wow. Yeah, I greatly enjoyed it. mad respect for Phil just getting this completed in pushing over the finish line.
DANNY Incredible Yeah, I this is this is like I said I don’t know if I’ll ever watch this film again. Maybe maybe that get that 4k release from someone. Oh. I honestly had like, it was like a love hate with this movie. I hated like so much of what I was seeing the man it’s incredible what he created over so many years what his team created the creativity alone the stop animation alone. I’m sitting at four stars as well for this. I really did think that this is a feat of zee cinema like to be able to create something like this and have it out there for people. People are gonna love it proto loved it. Like this is going to connect for people somehow. And I’m here for it.
PROTO I’m watching this every Sunday morning
SLIM MAD GOD ends 90s action month begins next week on this podcast. We’re finally choosing our own movies for this podcast. Oh my gosh, Danny. It’s been like 40 episodes since we’re able to choose our own movies. Individuals tell me I’m wrong. I can’t I didn’t do the math. I can’t do the math on that’s not possible. Before we get Pardo’s pick. Do you want to guess at all? You want to guess where produce pick you want to guess not 90s action? What do you think pedal pick?
DANNY He’s going to it’s going to be shocker. It’s going to be a shocker. It’s not going to be something we expect. That’s the thing. So guessing is going to be impossible, I think. Is it going to be our first Mel Gibson movie? Our first Bruce Willis. Like that’s the questions I’m asking right now.
SLIM He teased in discord by the way if you’re not a member of discord you can join our Patreon he teased the Star Trek The Next Generation movie universe as a 90s action Peck
DANNY I’m What are you gonna guess slim
SLIM I feel like it has to be an Arnold he’s texture all his all his talk for all these months. You think he’s not going to pick in Arnold? He’s been like I want 90s movies. What if we did Arnold, Arnold Arnold. Arnold.
DANNY I think it’s true lies. I’m gonna lose it.
SLIM That’s gonna be a library rental today that much right now. All right. Let’s hear your thoughts.
PROTO My thoughts? Well, you know, sometimes I do like to go on a limb and take a chance on myself and on everyone else. But I figured you know, I, I won this the poll, you know, my category got picked. I’m the first pick of the 90s action month. So I don’t want to set us off on the wrong foot. Okay, we’ve been there. I don’t want to do this wrong. So I’m gonna go some might call this a safe pick. But I also think it’s, I think there’s redemption here. This is also a redemptive Oh, there’s a move b that has come up in the past and got overlooked quite a few times. So I wanted to have it have its time 1990 beginning of the decade how much more fitting can you get? 1991 Patrick Swayze piano Reeves so
DANNY we break.
Oh, my God.
DANNY Let’s go.
SLIM God. Katherine Bigelow.
DANNY Excuse me.
SLIM We have a Kathryn Bigelow pin.
DANNY I know. The storefront right now.
SLIM It’s streaming on HBO. Yes, the chat. I can’t even keep up with chat right now. Chat has
PROTO made sure that it was it was streaming somewhere.
SLIM To get one car weighed off the wall one. Smokes Patrick Swayze back on the show,
DANNY he’s back Mater Roadhouse.
SLIM 100 the tagline for this movie. 100% pure adrenaline, God.
PROTO Yeah, I’ve never seen it. Yeah. Which is another reason I don’t
SLIM remember the last time I see it. I haven’t logged as watched. So I haven’t seen in last few
DANNY years. I watched it recently. It’s a recent log job for me reason. Let
SLIM me check out Danny’s log. See if I can find
PROTO sir, check out his log Phil. Tippett style
SLIM Danny’s got a nice juicy hard on this one. Onward and upward. We did it. We left the negativity behind us. Yes, we don’t forget it. We keep it in the back of our minds is how we grow. We left it somewhere else. But we’re moving onward. Are any closing thoughts this week before we move into 90s Action Point? Bree?
PROTO Yeah, thinking about Phil Tippett having a passion project that took 30 years to complete. You know, sometimes I get I get demoralized after a week of working on something. So you know, whatever you’re working on out there. You know, just it might you know could take a week it could could take a year could take 30 years. And Phil Tippett did it so we can do it to stick with it. That’s all I have to say.
[70mm theme song ramps up, plays alone, fades out]
