Hello everyone and welcome to the pod and the Pendulum.

We are the horror movie podcast that covers all the franchises one movie and one episode at a time.

And as always, I'm your host, Mike Snoonian.

And this week we are wrapping up another franchise with the latest entry in the long running Predator series with the second entry of 2025, Badlands.

As always I'm not sitting alone in the Co host chair and there is no one who I'd rather be strapped to the back of than our Co host.

He is from Bloody Disgusting as well as Manor, Vallum and many other sites including the upcoming religious theme podcast Holy Terrors.

Mr.

Brian Kuiper, back in the saddle again.

How are we?

I'm back.

I have done more Predator episodes than I ever expected to do.

I know.

This.

Is but hey, it's been fun.

I've I've it's it's nice because I'm, you know, I haven't seen that many of them.

So this is This has been fun.

I think it's been tough because we've been like doing these or the holiday season like Halloween and Thanksgiving and now Christmas.

And I know Devon has covered these movies for Spectre Cinema Club, but he doesn't want to necessarily double dip.

So it's been a little harder than I thought to get.

This is a fun series so but it looks like in the new year we got some stuff lined up.

So for what we have comment, which will be great, but I think because this movie is so new and because you and I, we're in a little bit of a time crunch today, listeners like both of us are like those family obligations are kicking in.

So we are going to forego a couple of things today, such as like our initial thought section because honestly, this movie is like not even a month old.

It's a little it's a little baby potato.

So we can kind of roll that right into the movie discussion.

I think like you're fresh, obscene.

You saw this yesterday.

Right.

Yeah.

So before we do with the background, just a very, very little bit of housekeeping right here.

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All right, housekeeping is out of the way.

And Brian, Are you ready to dig in?

I'm ready.

We are coming along right now.

Well, I'm on my second cup of coffee right now.

I have had no coffee today.

I have had no What I've had is the 3 LB Chihuahua wake me up by like jumping all over me and licking my face and chewing on my hands and eating a pair of socks.

That is how that's, you know, like the most caffeinated dog who recently discovered she knows how to open the garbage and she will just sit in the trash and then bark at us when we catch her, like we're the ones doing something wrong.

Right, right.

Right.

All right, well, Speaking of things that aren't garbage, we're going to talk about a movie I think both of us really enjoyed.

Yeah, yeah.

I think initial thought is I liked it.

I thought it was a lot of fun.

Looking forward to more of these.

Yeah, I think so.

So based on the streaming success of Prey, which quickly became the most streamed and watched movie in Hulu's history, it was decided another stand alone story in the Predator franchise to be directed by Prey director Dan Trachtenberg would follow.

This time he would be given like a larger budget and a theatrical release as well as a pretty heavy marketing push as well.

Like this was considered a big deal.

Like Predator is back, baby.

So in an inner, and I'm going to put you on the spot a couple times here, Brian, because I have some quotes from Dan Trachtenberg highlighted.

So I may have you read those off, but in an interview with Bloody Disgusting conducted by friend of the pod Matt Donato, like we'd call him a friend, right?

Yeah, absolutely.

No, I don't know, Sworn enemy of the.

Show sworn enemy of the show.

Oh, OK, Yeah, so.

Terrific.

They are, they are prey.

We are predator, right?

Yes.

No.

Matt's a terrific writer.

Yeah.

For Bloody Disgusting, IGN and you should listen to his podcast and check out this site.

He also does with another mat, Certified Forgotten, which is a fantastic film criticism site highlighting highlighting a lot of movies that a lot of folks haven't even heard of, let alone seen.

Anyway, he slips.

Through the cracks.

Good stuff, yeah.

He has a great interview with Dan Trachtenberg from the summer of this year where Trachtenberg discussed his influences for Badlands.

And they include like the films of Terrence Malick, which I wrote as Carrots Malik in my notes for some reason, Text to Speech Baby, the westerns of Clint Eastwood, as well as a post apocalyptic, wide open, dangerous terrain of Mad Max movies, especially Beyond Thunderdome.

So that's where we're going 4 here.

And I think that fits.

I think we said when we did pray that Malik's Badlands felt like a huge influence on like, the visual palette of that film.

And yeah, I think a little bit less here where everything is like CGI driven, but you can tell that like he loves those like wide open vistas when he's shooting.

Yeah.

And even though it's an alien world, there's still, you know, the background plates are somewhere on Earth and that.

Yeah, that's a nice touch.

It's it feels like a throwback to great stuff.

You know that the best of stuff like Star Wars.

Yeah, Well, it's recognizable.

I would say.

It's like, yeah, It's like, you see that?

You can see the shades of our own world in it.

So yeah.

Exactly.

So like, this planet is just made of volcanoes.

You're like, that's great.

All right.

So stepping into the Predator suit this time as a 24 year old Australian actor Demetrius Schuster, Kola Matanji, who was a child actor, not a child actor, who as a child thought he was going to become a professional rugby rugby player because his family was filled with athletes.

And it wasn't until about middle school when the performance bug caught him.

He started acting in school plays, he says.

He had a YouTube channel that was shut down due to copyright infringement, which at 12 years old he was like, I didn't know that was even a thing.

And he had starred in a number of Australian television projects, including one called Panthers, which is about a group of Australian teens that take their political cues from the American Black Panther movement.

But this is considered like his, well, a breakout role for him.

And it's a role that he first had to compete in a number of like, physical challenges with other stuntmen and other performers that were possibly up for the role.

Like before anything else, because the role is so physical, Trachtenberg wanted to make sure that a, he could actually do the stunt work inside of the suit, but also could move in a way that he wanted to.

And Trachtenberg felt like he really appreciated the way that Schuster Kalamatanji moved around the course.

And Brian, I will have you read a Demetrius's quote here in the blue if you want to do an Australian accent.

I was going to.

I think it'd probably.

Throw a couple shrimp on the Barbie.

Maybe I shouldn't try to offend any Australian listeners by attempting that.

So what he I said was I was like, what am I even doing here?

They had stuntmen hanging around doing flips and whatnot.

The people that I was auditioning with, a few of them were stunt people.

And that had been that had been in the game for a long time.

It would have been easy to kind of overthink it.

But I don't know, I grew up playing sports and just having the mindset you're supposed to be here, not getting too caught up in imposter syndrome, you know, just give it your best.

If it doesn't work out, it's not meant to be.

But it was really exciting.

I felt like I was in Wipeout.

That was my son's favorite show for a long time, by the way.

So I've seen a lot of Wipeout over the years.

I was just missing the big red balls.

It was cool, man.

So, yeah, he did pretty well.

He said, like one of the things he said in the interview as well, this one was on variety.

But one of the things that Demetrius said was like, he had to kind of pace himself.

He had to say, like, it's not a race.

It's like not who's going to get through the course first?

It's going to win, but like, who looks the best?

So at times, he says he like, caught himself having to really slow down in order to perform it better rather than just kind of rush through it.

Sure, yeah.

So for the speaking part, he came back into edition and he performed once with written lines and then another time in a made-up alien dialect of his choosing.

So he says that he used a combination of Samoan and tongue in gibberish words in order to come up with the alien phrases that he would use during the second audition.

And that worked out well.

And he thought thought he would be doing this throughout all of the filming once he got the role.

And he was actually surprised, like we'll talk a little bit about who wrote the dialect later, but he was surprised when he got the script.

And he was like, oh, I have to say all of these lines which are in a made-up language, like there was an actual language that he had to use.

So that kind of took him for surprise.

How hard do you think that would be because you're a performer?

And this is where I think like Steven, where he has a lot of more acting experience.

Like, it's one thing to just have to memorize lines, but to memorize lines not just in a foreign language, but a made-up language.

Yeah, of point that's that is interesting because, well, I mean, they're like all kinds of stories about like James Duan and Star Trek, who played Scotty.

He invented the first words of Klingon and the first words of Vulcan.

And so he was actually really good at that kind of thing where he could come up with made-up languages and actually speak them thoroughly.

And he was good at all sorts of accents.

If you've ever heard him speak, he actually didn't have anything resembling a Scottish accent at all himself, so.

But that's just an.

Example No.

Yeah, yeah.

But it's just.

Is it a Chicago accent?

No, he's, he was, I think he was Canadian.

OK.

And so he, he actually, I'm here in the Pacific Northwest.

I think he was like in Vancouver, Canada.

So I mean, oh, wow, far from where I am, but it was just sort of, I just found that stuff kind of interesting.

So.

But yeah, trying to memorize something in a, in a completely made-up language, man, I, I don't know that that's, that's, that's tough.

Yeah.

And it was like, how, how do they want you to speak it?

Because what are the rules for this language too, you know?

Yeah, I think of, you know, things like, you know.

It's very guttural, I would say, like it's a very, yeah, it's a very guttural language.

Like it's not a.

Yeah, I don't know.

I mean, if it has, you know, something like, you know, Klingon, which obviously is an invented language, has that sort of guttural thing kind of came partially from German pronunciations and, you know, like Russian and various things like that.

So I don't know.

Yeah, I even the people who come up with that kind of stuff, I, I don't know how they do that either.

It's a skill.

It is.

It is a skill.

Well, the other big change like the the Predator films by and large have always been like a series that focuses on like practical effects like the BET, the best Predator movies and almost every Predator movie.

It's like a stuntman in a suit that's giving an actual performance there.

But that and that also included the facial movements, which were operated either by like puppeteers or some sort of like animatronic that allowed like the mandibles to come out.

But the issue there is like that is going to severely limit the amount of like facial expression and emoting that can be done.

And because, like, unlike the other movies, like the Predator, here the Yelcha is the central character of the film.

Like it's deck isn't just about every scene of this movie, with only a couple exceptions.

Basically, they're like, yeah.

The other ones, I mean, the predators pretty much just roar, right?

Yeah, yeah, there's not there's not a sense that they actually have to have an articulated speech.

So this that actually at the beginning of the movie, it almost it threw me a little bit.

It's like, wow there.

But of course they would have a language.

I mean, these this is a very advanced, you know, species of I mean, it's obviously a warrior species, but that's their focus.

But they but like we talked about on one of our episodes, you know, there's got to be Yaocha who do all kinds of different things on this planet.

Right.

That's what Deck would have been like.

Deck would have been like, I work as a pharmacist, you know, that would have been his job.

But because they need so much more movement in the face and much being much more expressive, what you have here is like a a suit that is like based off the designs of the great, like Stan Winston and his special effects studios.

But you they also like Trachtenberg employs Weta studios, you know, the folks behind like the Lord of the Ring movies, you know, probably along with like ILM, like one of the premier FX studios.

It's out there right now for like digital effects in particular.

So what you have is like.

Do they do like the face mapping thing, like they use for Avatar, that kind of thing, Yeah.

That's pretty much what it is where it's like an open mask where you could see his face and then the facial characteristics are then like superimposed later on using effects.

Matter of fact, like Trachtenberg says that unlike especially Prey, which for the most part is practical driven, he said that there's like not a single shot in Badlands.

It doesn't have at least some digital enhancement that's made to it, which is maybe why like when you see the budget for this, I think prey's was maybe 15,000,000 and this one is a hair over 100 million, which, you know, like Prey.

It's not a big movie.

Like there's not a ton of sets.

There's not really like a ton of performers in it.

You don't have any.

You have like the fun Waylon Utani, what you would call it Android that's just kind of cloned over and over.

And then you have Elle Fanning doing dual duty.

And then you have a few Predators, but it's not a massive cast.

And yet the budget for this one is like almost 10 times that.

It's about 8 times that of what Praise was.

It was definitely a risk, you know, to do this, especially after, I mean, as successful as Prey was on streaming, I mean, there was no guarantees that this was going to do well theatrically.

And right, boy, did it pay off for them.

I mean, yeah, that's getting a little ahead of ourselves, but you.

Could have run back Prey too and done that in theaters and and we've done it for about the same amount of money or a little bit more and had a moderate success.

This is like not adjusted for inflation.

Like it's made more than any other predator entry.

So it's hard to call it like a not a successful film.

Like it's definitely exceeded what they thought it would do.

Yeah.

So since this was envisioned as a standalone story, Trachtenberg wanted to use it as an opportunity to explore, for the first time, a bit more of the culture of the Predators.

It's the first film to have an extended sequence on the Predator home planet, the prime planet.

And it's also the first entry to actually use the phrase yelcha in order to name the Predator species, although that term had been around since the early 90s as part of the Dark Horse comic adaptations.

Like this is kind of the first film you hear them referring to themselves as yelcha, as that's what the species called.

And Trachtenberg enlisted in linguist specialist Britton Walken, who had led the team that developed the Navi language in Avatar, in order to come up with like, the spoken language for the yelcha.

So that's where that comes from.

Like her work there.

And then for the score, he re enlisted composers Sarah Schnachner and Benjamin Wildfish, who had done the score for Prey and Killer of Killers.

And one thing that stood out to me, like watching this film is like, I loved the score of this movie.

I really enjoyed it.

Yeah, that's one of the things that just stood out right from the beginning.

Part of it was the theater I saw it in played this movie laugh.

Wow, did it.

Which which was fine and and you could just feel the grind of that guitar and everything that was going on.

It was so the score really stood out as far and and just the sound in general is really strong.

But man, I love the score of this.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I found this really enjoyable.

It's something where I'm like, if they if they release that on vinyl, I would be more than happy to kind of pick that up at a reasonable price and add that to the collection.

So it was released this November 7th of this year, and to date it's been a hit.

I don't know if it's a success because of that budget, but it's definitely been a hit.

It's close to about 180 million worldwide.

Like, it'll probably cross that threshold this weekend and it's been out a month, but you know, it's probably going to come in somewhere between like 190 and 200 million.

Yeah, and it's it's done.

You know, I've talked to several people actually.

Yeah, we saw Predator who really enjoyed it.

And so people I wouldn't expect to see Predator.

So I mean, it's not as big as the Wicked for Good crowd or Zootopia crowd, obviously.

But you know, it's an R rated space monster movie.

So I mean Zootopia is a Disney property, so you could foresee a world where Zootopia.

Crossover.

Zootopia 6.

They're hunting down A and I'm there for it.

Well, I there was a Avatar 3 preview right before this and I as I was going into this, you know, I'm thinking I can imagine Yaocha on Pandora.

I don't think Cameron would ever allow that.

But you could, you could picture, you know, alien versus Predator versus Navi going on, you know, they're all under the same umbrella versus Wookies if you want.

My God, you.

Could you could have Yelcha versus Xenomorphs versus Wookies versus The Avengers at this point, Right, Yeah.

I mean, the way things are going, eventually it's going to be all.

Yeah, they probably have.

The Ewoks beat them all right.

What is?

Kidding, probably.

I mean, we're recording this a few days after it was announced that Netflix is going to acquire Warner Brothers Studios.

And that's going to take a year or two to go through.

Like if and when it goes through, it's going to take.

It's not going to happen overnight.

I feel like at some point, maybe in our lifetime, Disney is just going to own everything.

Like that'll be the next.

Step.

Eventually like Disney will buy Netflix at some point.

Like as far as I know Netflix still doesn't make any money.

No, I, I don't, I don't know how they throw in all this money around because I.

Don't know they.

Make it.

Yeah, it's really.

It's investment in venture capital in stock, but they don't make like they have I and.

The thing is they could and I that's what drives me nuts is like do theatrical and physical releases.

You will make money at that.

I can guarantee if they release some of their tent pole projects to a wider theatrical release they will make money.

Yeah, I don't get.

And what really worries me is that now you're going to get this world where movies like say, I don't know, by the time it goes through like say The Batman 3 or the next PTA move or the next like Ryan Coogler movie.

That rather than get or a Zach Kreger film rather than get like a real push and word of mouth and audiences like excited to see it on the biggest possible format and biggest possible screen with the best formats that you're going to get.

2 weeks maybe?

I know.

In a theater.

It really and and I find myself wondering what the hell did Warner Brothers do with all their money that they made off of sinners and weapons and bloodlines and on and on and on down that list.

Well, they had been hurting for a while.

Like, this was a year that, like, turned things around.

But that studio had been struggling.

You know, like everybody should fail as successfully as David Zasloff.

Who?

Oh my gosh.

Stands to become a billionaire based off of this sale.

Off of running this all into the ground, it was the thing.

I mean, he, he ran.

I cannot think of a person who has made more bad choices for as a studio head in recent memory.

I mean, it's just ridiculous.

When it comes to, there was a not to go too far off track.

I promise listeners, we'll get back to it in a minute here, but give us our soapbox.

I I think This is why listeners come to us to.

Hear old men yelling clouds.

No, but I mean, we're movie nerds.

We're movie nerds and we care about we care about movies.

Like that's what we do that there is an article on The Ringer this past week because like this like television week on The Ringer where they're talking about like the best episodes of the century, best shows of the century, thus thus far, you know, stealing our top 25 of the horror movies.

Like they stole that idea.

Bill Simmons, like we gotta, you know, always following what the part of the pendulum does.

Absolutely.

But there was an article how like YouTube is overtaking like traditional television is what people are watching.

And to put it in perspective, like YouTube, like minutes watched on YouTube tube versus Netflix is about like 10 to 12 times multiplied more overall, right?

So that's first.

So what is Netflix at a certain point like the it's just not sustainable.

Like they've kind of all they can do is raise prices.

They can't necessarily add a ton more subscribers, but they can raise prices and I can tell you they went up to 25 bucks and we cancelled it.

I'm like, we don't use it like we we watch the Great British Bake Off Stranger Things isn't appealing to us after season 3.

And I'm like, meh, we're good.

So and I think more and more people like it hits.

What's the cut off?

Like 3035?

At what point are you like, there's just nothing that I want to watch here.

And again, if they opened up and said, hey, we're going to release Frankenstein and wake up Dead man.

And you know, I don't know what else is coming to mind.

Even Train Dreams, you know, it's been sort of a nice little hit for them.

You know, they release those theatrically.

I bet they would make their they would make profit on that.

Yeah, yeah, it's a disappointment.

Well, what wasn't a disappointment was the opening weekend of Predator Badlands.

You said it's on close to 100.

It's over 180 million worldwide as we record this had the largest opening of the franchise at 40 million, which was between like 10 and 15,000,000 more than they actually projected it to do.

Like it was came out and people were thirsty for it.

It got great reviews and Rotten Tomatoes, like 80% of the tomato mater critics generally dug it like it looked.

It looked very cool.

And Trachtenberg wants to do more.

And he knows where the third one's going.

And in an interview with SFX in June, he spoke with him and Brian.

I will have you read his little quote here as well.

After Pray came out and I started thinking about sequel stuff, there were three ideas I had.

Killers is 1, Badlands is 2, and the third one is something else.

OK, there we go.

The reason why I felt possessed to make them and sort of why I rushed, I did 2 at once because I I think is what that's I could multitask with animation.

OK, That was because I was so eager to get to the third thing.

So that's interesting.

This idea that he wants to just I'm doing these so that I can get to this, the real thing.

It's So what it sounds like.

That's pretty cool.

Yeah.

I like that idea.

Killer and killers in Badlands like don't feel related in any way.

Like that's what's interesting.

It's not like you need to watch one because it leads into the next one in order to get the full picture.

And the same thing.

The end of killer of killers in the post credit sequence does have a direct tie in to pray as a little bit of a Stinger.

But even there, like you can watch all of these stand alone as stand alone films and walk away completely happy.

So it'll be fascinating to see what comes along in order to tie all of the Trachtenberg films together.

I know that he's an active talks with Arnold Schwarzenegger, like who for years is like he's coming back to Predator.

Just it's never happened either because he, you know, won the his gubernatorial campaign and couldn't act or because the roles weren't well, that was written for him, just didn't feel it felt too slight for him to return.

So it'll be fascinating to see, like, what he decides to do if he's offered like a beefier role in another Predator film.

Which, you know, I think that would get people pretty excited, you know, especially, you know, because you don't do 180 million without getting repeat business from Predator fans.

Yeah.

So I have a feeling that they would just eat up a return of Dutch for the series.

Oh yeah, and I think, you know, if he comes back of Amber mid Thunder comes back to refer to do you know re replay her role as Nauru how bring Danny Glover back?

I mean, have you watched?

Have you seen Killer of Killers?

I haven't seen killer of.

Killers, it's really good.

Chance.

Yet it's shockingly good.

Yeah, I'm gonna put that one on high priority to catch up with.

Yeah, do that.

Absolutely.

Do that, I guess.

Do you my I guess we talk about the film now.

Like, would you consider this a horror movie in any way?

That's where I yeah, I I technically ended up putting it on my horror of 2025 list, but I consider it a sci-fi action film.

Yeah, it's, I mean, I don't know.

It's for me, the Predator franchise as a whole is just kind of it's, I guess it's horror.

I I guess I don't really even most of the series qualify as horror personally, but that's just I mean.

That feels like a slasher movie.

Yeah, the first film is like a action movie mashed together with a slasher movie, and that's the closest that comes to horror.

And maybe pray, because that one mirrors the beats of the first one.

But after that I'm not sure.

Yeah, I mean, sometimes it's splitting hairs.

I mean, there's a there's a big scary, weird looking monster in it.

I mean, I don't know.

But I guess sometimes the the two genres really intertwine.

And I mean, I don't think this intertwines with horror as thoroughly as something like Alien does, which, you know, especially the first one feels like an old dark house movie with a modern alien creature in it.

You know, So I don't know.

But like I said, I I think there's a lot of splitting hairs that can happen here.

I probably wouldn't put this on my 2025 horror list just because it feels a little bit outside the genre, but I still I've greatly enjoyed the movie and I'm, and I'm so I'm, I'm, I mean, this is carrying us into the movie discussion itself, right?

That's.

Where we are now still.

Yeah, I think what I like about Trachtenberg's approach is he really understands what it is that makes the first one work, you know, and that, you know, the characters, you actually care about people when they die.

And this he's just taking that caring about the characters thing and applying it to the monster that we've always been opposed to this whole time.

It's like now it's like, no, our lead character is the predator is a yaocha.

So it's really but the he's given just as much death as any of the best characters in the any of the previous movies.

So I think that's that's really smart and I think it's entertaining and fun and boy, what a picture.

What a bit Steven would say.

What a picture.

Yeah, I I really enjoyed this as well.

And it's funny because I was very late to seeing this.

I meant to go opening weekend and just for whatever reason, like every weekend couldn't either couldn't make my way to the theater or something else took priority.

And I ended up seeing that instead.

And it wasn't until like last weekend, literally like the last screening of the weekend at the Little Theater up the road where, you know, I, you know, some of my daughter, like, yeah, just finish whatever homework you have.

And, you know, I know you said you're pretty bored today.

Why don't we go see Badlands?

And she had already seen it, like with a friend, Like she and a buddy went to the little Theater up the street from us, which I find herself going to more and more since, like, some new folks bought it.

And they've made it not like, heads and tails better than it used to be, but just a little bit nicer.

So I'm like, all right, I'm happy to go support these guys.

Yeah, I wish we had something like that around here.

I'd tell you I'm on.

We haven't had something like that around here in decades.

It is nice having a movie theater a 5 minute drive from home and it's one that doesn't do 30 minutes of trailers like right before the movie.

Like if the movie start time is 6 by 6 O 3 opening credits are rolling like they do like 1 trailer and that's it.

And that's kind of a very nice feeling.

Fantastic.

I think mine was supposed to start at 11 O 5 or something like that and by.

Noon.

The movie started.

It was at least 11:30.

Yeah.

So and it was, you know, their commercials 1st and then the trailers and then.

Yeah, anyway, I should know better by now.

I'm going to see Kill Bill, the whole bloody affair Monday.

I'm going to do like a.

Tomorrow.

1230 matinee of it on my day off and I'm worried I'm not going to get home until like 7:00 at night basically just because it's there's so much.

Well, the next showing, I was looking at the times on mine and then that is set to be 4 hours and 25 minutes long, right, or something like that, including an intermission.

And so the, the first, the showing I'm going to is at noon and the next showing is at 5.

So I'm thinking, and they may not be doing a bunch of that extra stuff unless they're in different theaters.

But, yeah, so I'm keeping my I'm.

I'm optimistic that they're not going to saddle us with, you know, half hour trailers.

You know, the.

I think if I go the rest of my life without seeing the trailer for Emerald Finnell's Wuthering Heights, I will be happy with my life.

Yeah.

I think I'll see it tomorrow because I'm taking Claire and I are going to a new British film that's coming out, which apparently is a spoof on Downtown Abbey.

Hall Yeah, yeah.

So she's like, I want to go see this.

And she so rarely picks the movie.

I'm like, sure, let's go.

And she picked a couple great ones, a couple good British films over the past year that I'm like, wouldn't have made my top 10, So sure, but.

Did you the little letters or whatever?

That yeah, that was like a top 10 for last year for me.

That was so good.

Yeah.

I thought this was a blast.

I think it's in my top three of the franchise overall.

Like I think it's pray the first film in this in like some order just cause it's so fun.

And I think Trachtenberg, like you said, has a real he has a real handle not only on like the human characters and making you feel for them even in the animated films, like each of the vignettes, like you really feel for each of those protagonists, but also like Deck is a character, Al Fannings Thesa is a character.

Like, it makes you care about an Android in a way that you don't typically do outside of maybe, like, Lance Henrickson, really.

Exactly right.

And a lot of that is just it's Lance Henrickson.

Right.

Well, part of it, that's kind of what I felt with that is, you know, and come on, bringing in Waylon Yutani was nice and it but it didn't feel to me, it didn't feel like fan service.

There wasn't a lot of that feeling in in this at all, really.

Yeah.

And I I like that Elle Fanning she she nails it on both versions as Tessa, sort of the evil version or the, I guess the the ash of this movie.

And then as as Thea, which would be more akin to Lance Henriksen's version of of, you know, sort of the benevolent Android of the company.

I yeah, I agree.

And I love that they are kind of leaning into these two universes being connected with one another because they both fall under the Fox Studios umbrella.

And obviously going as far back as Predator 2 where you have like Danny Glover seeing the Xenomorph skull is one of the trophies.

Like going back as far as like 35 years and having the two film series connected in these like small ways all the way through, like the 2 Alien versus Predator movies, which are less successful.

But I'm all for like, Yep, they live in a shared universe.

It doesn't necessarily mean that they're going to cross paths with one another, but you can have like a butterfly effect where like what happens in what should be the Alien universe has a ripple across the Yelcha universe.

And I think that's a real really cool thing, and it's something you kind of wouldn't mind seeing other franchises do if it's handled this deftly.

I agree, and I think that the idea of Waylon Utadi going after this unkillable creature makes total sense.

That fits right in with what we know of the company and just the exploitative nature of the company and, you know, bringing in sort of that technology that we're familiar with from the alien world.

For example, when she's putting herself back together on that table inside the, you know, sort of the, the Med, the whatever, the maintenance truck or whatever it is, it's a little bit like in Prometheus when she gives herself the, you know, the, you know, like gets the alien out of herself.

Right.

In that scene.

So I like that it's it's, but it's the, IT still feels organically like a Predator movie for the, you know, for the focus.

For the sake of setting up like, an evil corporation, Like if you're at all familiar with the Alien series, like as soon as you say Waylon Utani, that's already like, as a fan, you can't.

OK, I know what these guys are about.

There's going to be nothing benevolent here.

There's, like, no hidden agenda.

The agenda is.

We're going to run roughshod and do what we want.

Versus if you have like generic evil corporation that you just create for this film, then you have to connect dots that don't necessarily need to be connected.

You have to do extra work and all you're doing is padding things out at that point.

I thought this also.

You know, I've watched about Half a Alien Earth and the way that like Waylon Utani is portrayed here, I think it ties in nicely to like one of the motivating points of Alien Earth where it's the company of Waylon basically going out into space and collecting all these alien samples, right.

For like product and research development, which, yeah, yeah, that's what it.

So without explicitly tying into that television series, you get the you get the feel for like, OK, this is kind of continue to pace.

Sure.

Yeah, totally agree.

I think it was just a great way to, you know, shorthand that aspect really well.

Here's the other thing.

Here's the other franchise this reminded me of.

This felt like Predator by way of Star Wars.

Totally.

I was thinking that when they're having the battles between the brothers at the beginning, they're do a few hits with their laser ish swords and then they they have some banter back and forth, you know, and then they hit do a few more moves.

Yeah, it's just like right out of prequel trilogy territory there.

But you know, it was pretty fun.

I think there was, I felt that especially I think on Youcha Prime.

So the sort of the mythic storytelling of the father clan, you know, sort of thing.

And then having the very end with the spaceship.

It's my mother, you know, that felt all felt very Star Wars and in in a way that was.

I don't know.

I will always love Star Wars, even though the fan base has made it kind of insufferable.

But I just I can't I don't know how to quit you.

Yeah, when it comes to.

2027.

I know I saw the news that's that was that was the good news of yesterday or.

The day before listeners that don't know if you go back and listen to our killer of killer episodes.

I, I raised the point that I do believe at some point, especially with the 50 year anniversary coming up, Disney was going to re release the original Star Wars into theaters as it was presented in 1977, not the special edition.

And I was, I was poo pooed.

I'm going to I'm going to say it.

I was.

The.

Food by the host and Co host Hope and Steven on that episode who were like, that'll never happen.

And I'm like, Disney likes money.

Disney really likes money and what do you know, like reading?

I think the same day that Netflix says we're acquiring Warner Brothers, Disney is like God damn it.

You know, like we could have waited.

They announced and it kind of went under the radar in 2027.

The original Star Wars is being re released into theaters in its original cut, not the specialized edition.

And what I, I would have probably initially, here's the only thing that would have made me think that maybe they were going to do this is that a couple months ago at I think the Academy Museum, they showed that cut.

In London, correct?

Or yeah, or somewhere.

I can't, I can't remember where it was, but it was like a big to do that those elements even existed.

Exactly.

Because.

George Lucas has told everybody they don't exist.

He's lied.

Exactly.

Yeah.

So I don't know.

I mean, I'm excited to to see it in that form again.

And I I know everyone's going to go, but the the space battle looks so clunky.

But yeah, at least Han shoots first, though.

I mean, so, I mean, so there's going to be pluses and minuses.

I think there's a happy medium between, yeah, the special edition we have and the original cut, yeah.

I don't hate the special edition like I I don't.

Either I'm not I.

Hate people that hate it, of course, like any, like any film.

Yeah.

Just like there's gonna be aspects of the original where like, well, that didn't hold up.

But yeah, I hate that it's the only way I can see it.

Like I can legally.

See.

Exactly right, Exactly.

And.

You know, that's one of the things I never understood about George Lucas was, was doing it that way where you just obliterate the possibility of seeing the original version where Spielberg, you know, he's released however many different versions of close Encounters of the Third Kind, and you can see all of them, you know?

I think the thing about George Lucas is he's really fucking weird, You know?

I mean, I just don't know another, And I'm not saying he's a bad guy.

I'm not like, what a horrible no.

I just think he's a strange dude.

I think that's true.

Right.

Yeah, so.

And I think he has, I think he's like somewhere along the way became less enamoured of making films and more enamoured of like, pushing technology for it.

Right.

It's funny because because in sort of a, in a Hollywood film making sense, he began as the renegade Luke Skywalker, the rebel, and then he ultimately became the Emperor.

Yeah.

And it was just, and I think honestly, him selling to Disney was probably the best thing he could have done for.

Him probably, I mean, he was done with it at that point.

He was just like tired, you know?

So I want to enjoy.

I don't even think he kept any of the money.

My understanding is like, he donated every penny, but it's my understanding.

I could be wrong, but he's like, I don't need it.

I just kind of want to be done with this.

So good for him.

Whatever.

But this reminded me as we get on these tangents again.

I know I.

Know this reminded me a lot of Star Wars by way of like Elle Fanning and Decker.

Their banter back and forth had a very big Luke, Yoda or C3PO.

Like Fanning was a combination of like Yoda and C3PO in that she provided like a lot of Comic Relief, but not in a way where I'm like, I don't really like this.

Like, I found it super charming and I found it absolutely yes.

And I'm like, why can't I get this in my Star Wars Movies Now?

Like, why can't I have like this level of whimsy?

I get the word I would use is like whimsy.

No, that's a great word for it.

And I think I, yeah, that was one of the and to to have this.

And she's a voice for the audience, right?

She she understands Yaucha culture, but she also understands Earth culture.

So she can translate for us, more or less.

And that's a fun aspect to have.

But then also to have sort of this Tin Man character, you know, the Android with a heart of gold is a lot of fun.

And then to have the opposite version, you know, with Tessa is just kind of great too.

And for her to really pull off both characters so well.

I, I just loved that.

And there's just a lot of fun.

And I think, I think she also nudges the subtext along nicely that empathy and sensitivity or strengths, not weaknesses.

And that's, I think, and being part of a being a clan, part of a group, part of a community, rather than having to be the one that brings home the prize alone.

That's I mean, that's a good message for right now.

You know, I think that's not to get too deep in the political weeds, but I think that's there in this movie, yeah.

And that's, you know, what's sad is like by saying that like empathy is a strength.

You then have to apologize and say, I don't want to get political, but being kind to other people is a good thing.

The fact that that's become like a political talking point.

Which is crazy, really.

Terrible at this point because for me, like this film, it really serves as a tremendous exploration of like, masculinity and masculine roles.

Not necessarily toxic masculinity, but the way that, like, men in the current climate and current culture view themselves.

And you see Deck's whole journey of being like, well, I'm going to be when he's told what an alpha is, like the alpha is the leader of the pack that when he's told like here what wolves are, he's like, well, I will go to Earth and I will hunt the wolf that kills the most other creatures.

And being told was like, well, that's not what makes a wolf an alpha.

The alpha for wolves are the ones that protect everybody the most.

Like they are serving that role and him.

And it's not an immediate transformation, but over the course of the film going up, I can serve much better as a protector of others, of my found family that it would just by going out and being a killing machine, which he still is.

I mean, yeah, a lot of those androids and let's not pull punches.

He commits patricide at the end of the time, so.

And he gets his.

He gets his new friend to do it for him.

Yeah, right.

So it's, it's not like he's like a kinder, gentler predator, right.

But it's a different role with a different purpose.

Exactly.

And, you know, you can really feel that right from the beginning when his brother saves his life at his own expense, I think that is.

And you'll hear, hear his brother, who he had, who he just adores, you know, and is sort of the ultimate version of of what he feels he should be, who is demonstrating this sacrifice, this ability to be a protector over being a killer.

And I thought that was it's it's it's pretty well done.

I got to admit I was there was a part of me that was feeling like about halfway through the movie that would the movie have been better if it was just him crash landing into the planet without that opening sequence?

And because we're kind of filled in on the story during his his sort of quest on on the planet because he kind of slowly reveals it to Thea.

But then I don't know if you get the payoff at the end in the same way.

I don't know.

It's hard to say.

I mean, sometimes it's like I think about, you know, how would I?

I don't do this very often, but sometimes I think about how would I?

How would this movie play if it started at a little later point?

At a different point in the film, you got a little less preamble.

For me, the preamble works like it's an extended.

It's like basically an extended opening credit sequence is what?

It is.

The prologue to things, and you're right in that like that, that back story is revealed throughout the film.

For me, it works because you're meant to see Deck and you're meant to see the Yelcha in a different light.

In this film, where Deck is the protagonist, the Yelcha is the protagonist in over the course of eight other movies, by and large, like the Yelcha have just been basically hunters and killers.

Like you're not really seeing them in any other way.

So to see a little bit of like family bonding, to see Deck and his brother bond with one another, you know, his brother tells him, like, you fight with a lot of rage.

I fight like father.

And that is why I win because I'm more in control.

I'm not letting my emotions get the best of me like him.

But also saying later on, hey, that time when you lost like one of your mandibles, one of your teeth, like you saved me.

Like you have a purpose, like you're able to.

And then how they both demonstrate in front of their father how they both assume a more submissive position in the pecking order to their dad.

Seeing all of those things play out and seeing the father's like utter, not just like just contempt for Deck for seeing him as weak and saying like you should kill your brother, like in front of Deck is really powerful.

I don't think you get to make that emotional connection later on that you really need this movie to make if it's just deck hunting on the planet.

And if it was what I thought it was going to be like, what if it was almost a silent movie with little communication?

Then that would be, I don't think it would work.

I don't think you would get that kind of like, because I do think this movie in Trachtenberg, they make you invest in what's going on rather than just say, cool action sequence, bro.

Right.

I, I agree.

And that brings me back to my very first point, you know, is that what makes Trachtenberg's vision of the Predator world work is that he's very good with characters and getting the best to really connect with them no matter who they are.

Right.

And so I agree with you because I, I, I that was just the thought that came into my head part way through the movie.

But then when it got to the end, it was like, oh, OK, yeah, that that needed to be there at that.

When he's offered a chance to like, have his cloak and take a role of prominence in the pride and the and the in the clan.

When his father reacts with pride at what Dec has been able to accomplish instead of Disdain, and Deck is able to say Nope, like this is no longer what I want.

Like, I don't need to be part of your clan.

I've started my own.

Like, that's a pretty powerful moment for this movie.

I thought that worked really well.

It's agreed.

And, you know, we talked like, it's not like this is not like a Predator light.

You know, we did Alien versus Predator a few weeks ago.

And like one of my complaints of that movie is how it was watered down.

Like a lot of the violence of that movie that you would expect was just watered down.

Like things were cut away from rather than watch them play out.

It felt it was very odd because both of those series have been hard Rs throughout the whole franchise and all of a sudden you're dialing it back.

This also has APG 13 rating.

Like that's one of the things, you know, we saw a lot of like, kids and teens at this movie.

How much, if at all, do you feel like the rating holds this back?

I don't I didn't even know it was PG13I.

I mean, I I could care less most of the time.

And you know, The thing is, it is it is sci-fi action because most of the things that are killed in this movie are either robots or, you know, CGI animals of some sort.

So I, I get why it's PG13 and I don't think it really has any effect on the overall sensibility of the movie because I mean, because for example, like the, the, the Oucha bleed neon green, you know, so it's just a different kind of.

Yeah.

Thing, you know, But yeah, I just don't think it comes into play that much for this movie for me.

Yeah, I'm of the same boat.

I I definitely feel the same way in that I don't feel like the violence is held back in any way in this movie.

In fact, it's a pretty violent movie.

Like there's the catfish, there's a lot of quote UN quote blood in this movie, which a lot of times is just like, and what android's bleeding.

And I think that's something Trachtenberg talked about when he talked about like this, like trying to reassure fans, like don't worry about the rating.

Like the reason where PG13 is the MPAA said, well, you're not killing humans, so and you're not killing like actual animals, so it's OK.

Like it's that sci-fi kind of cartoony violence.

You know, I think that he was a little bit even surprised that the movie got like the rating that he did.

Well, it's funny because, you know, like he literally cuts an entire animal in half at one point in the in in the movie.

It's pretty good.

That's a pretty good scene.

And the part afterward is what sticks in my mind is when they're sitting at the campfire and she and she says, I loved it when this happened or whatever.

And he says and asked, what was your favorite part?

When I pierced his head with my sword and the blood ran down my Yeah.

It was funny.

It was funny.

That was hilarious.

Is very funny and I used the word whimsy earlier and I don't know if anyone has ever said you know what the Predator movies need is a sense of like whimsy whimsy but it didn't hurt this movie at.

All it did not I.

Never felt like I was being pandered to.

No, in a way.

And I know you have characters like Bud, who's like the CG baby callus, who you know is like if there's an Ewok in this movie, it's it's Bud.

But I still like him.

Like it's not like you definitely get the feeling they're like let's baby Yoda this thing up a little bit.

Sure.

But I.

Don't even know why I don't feel offended.

Well, one of the things they don't do is they don't overuse that.

You know, he's he's in for a little bit and then he's gone for a long time.

And then, you know, the I didn't even really think of it until, Oh, they show the adult one.

And then it's like, oh, wait a minute.

And and he likes it, like spits, it smells.

It was like, oh, wait a minute.

So that and it doesn't really need to spell it out that much.

You know, you kind of get the sense.

Wait a minute, that it was, you know, the the baby version of this and, and so that was.

Action right away you're like.

Yeah, yeah.

And so there was, I mean, they say it, obviously, but it's not in a way that felt like pandering, like you said.

So I didn't, I didn't get that, that we did this to create a sellable doll.

The way I feel about Baby Yoda, because, you know, he's cute, but he's not like that cute.

He's not like huggable, you know?

I'd hug bud.

You'd hug Bud, I.

Would hug Bud.

Yeah, but all Bud wanted to do was kind of help out a bit and get a little bit of that kind of meat from the creature, the gut, you know, cut in half and, you know, yeah, I, I would hang with Bud.

I also like, and I will never do this because it would RIP my face off.

I've I would love a pet monkey that I would dress in a tuxedo and roller skates and I would have a little monkey Butler.

Like if I could have one wish, I don't know if that would be my number one, but it would be in the top five.

Like Mr.

Teeny on The Simpsons.

Just have Mr.

Teeny.

He's the he's sideshow Mel's helper on the clown show.

Or Mojo.

He's, yeah, he's pretty much a monkey Butler.

Yeah.

Pray for Mojo.

One of my top five favorite bits on The Simpsons.

Yeah of all time.

God, that show used to be so good.

It was.

It really was.

Used to be a country that did things yeah.

The other question about like Bud and the Callusk and like tying into the Xenomorph a bit, do like space aliens have this?

Like just all of them had this extremely accelerated growth cycle because it goes from like this tiny little fella to this ginormous creature in the span of 1 scene.

Yeah, but we don't know how long the trip was from the planet back to Yaocha Prime either, right?

You thinking it was years?

I don't know about years, you know, weeks I can imagine.

That's still a lot of growth.

That's still quick, you know, I mean, but hey, as someone who has.

The youngest?

How old's your youngest son?

My my youngest son is 15.

If he woke up to like 2 week on January 1st, he woke up and he was like 6-6, you'd be a little surprised now.

Oh, what is?

He oh, but he's, he's like 6/2.

How tall are you?

I'm 6/1.

You.

Oh my goodness.

So aside from me, this is of and Nicole, this is a very tall podcast.

I see.

I feel like Devon is like 6 two, I think and much like but I'm a little and like deck in this.

I am a short king.

OK, Yeah.

Yeah, well, that's cool.

That's cool.

But I will say, OK, I'm going to think of it this way because my dog, we got a poodle.

Yeah.

And how much he grew week to week when he was little.

You know, I, I don't know, I can believe it.

I can believe that you go from from, you know, little bud to big bud, you know, in, in a in a few weeks.

OK, if we took our so let's say you Devon, Jess is pretty tall or not saying she's a giant folks, but she's like tall.

Yeah.

How do you think we would fare 5 on five?

Like what podcast could we take to task in A5 on five full court game?

You wouldn't do this.

You know you want to go up against Halloweenies, don't you?

Well, Gerber's I think, like they're pretty tall.

OK.

And I'm guessing Rachel, like obviously she's team Halloweenies at this point.

Sure.

So I don't know.

And they're I'm pretty good at basketball.

Like I'm actually surprisingly not too bad.

Yeah, I wouldn't mind.

Like who else could we go up against five on five?

And I don't know.

Listeners, let us know in the.

Comments let us I I yeah, I don't know.

It's like what other shows have, have a have a cast of five or more, you know, I mean.

Losers Club.

Sure, yeah.

Yeah, not a lot of us have like, we hate movies and I think we could take them even if we went down to three on three.

I don't know, They seem like a bunch of schlubs anyway.

Moving.

I don't right on.

It's like I this OK, I I dropped this disclaimer, you know, opinions on the show or solely those of the host and not of of the rest of the.

Podcast as a host, like yeah, I know I am.

I am writing some checks right now that I am not sure the show can bounce, but like look at like the last podcast on the left.

Sure.

Like look at those guys on our worst day, we should be able to take those guys to school.

On our worst day, we should be able to crush them.

So anyway, moving on, moving on.

And we're kind of like rapping.

We're kind of coming close to the end here.

I I like this exploration of like dual of of sorry, Elle Fanning in a dual role is like Thea and Tessa as like this exploration of like the evils of late stage capitalism in that Thea sees her relationship.

And I think both like Thea and Tessa view themselves as sisters.

They see themselves as close to one another.

But that doesn't mean anything ultimately to Tessa that she says like, yeah, what caused me to get injured when we first went up against the Callusk is I cared about you.

I looked out for you.

You have fulfilled your purpose.

And now we're just going to cast you, decide we're going to decommission you.

We don't need you any longer.

And if there's not, like a better analogy for capitalism in 2025, this idea that, you know, like, and I have this conversation a lot with persons, I'm like, your company won't do anything for you.

Your company will like cast you aside, fire you, let you go and not think twice about it.

Like you don't owe them anything.

I felt like that would say pretty good example of it here and how Waylon Utani would so quickly and the fact that they're just sending these androids, which do seem sentient and do seem capable of personal and individual thought, but yet they're being cast aside.

Yeah, I got a lot of tech bro AI vibes from from all of that, especially on the tester side of things.

And then, you know, the idea of Thea sort of overcoming that was was interesting.

I mean, the the it's interesting that they call Thea a tool, you know, for a lot of this.

I mean, and, and, and she's used in, in that sense, but like not in it because, OK, when it comes to AI, I'm sort of, that's a hairy subject, but I'm, I'm not like totally like this is awful and can never be used for anything good.

I think that there are good things that AI can be used for as a tool, but then there are the things that where it takes away from humanity that I am staunchly opposed to.

And I felt like there was a sense of Thea representing one way and Tessa the other in that sort of debate.

I, I, I, I, I.

It's hard for me to articulate it all because I haven't, I've only seen the movie once.

I haven't really processed all of that aspect thoroughly, but I really kind of got a a sense of that kind of theme happening with those characters in particular.

I feel like as the film goes on, you're meant to see the less and less like a sentiment robot and more like a living, breathing character and that is in your own Tesla is this embodiment of AI is just how AI is being used in like negative connotations is that you're seeing healthcare providers or healthcare insurers look at the run the numbers through AI and like who and what should be covered based on some sort of risk analysis versus the fact that like I'm a human being.

If I don't get this coverage, like I will cease to become a human being.

I will be dead.

And it being like coldly projected to the numbers or where I feel AI is at its most insidious in the arts is that, like, art is hard.

Like, not everybody is creative.

Not everybody is talented.

Not everybody is meant to create.

Like not everybody can be Martin Scorsese, Not everybody can be Dan Trachtenberg.

Not everybody can.

Writing is hard.

I don't write nearly as much as I used to.

I don't have the time.

And it's a hard skill that you have to practice and you have to hone.

And what you use were tech Bros.

And I think that's exactly right in that you have these like persons that feel entitled.

I should be able to create just as well as the most preeminent top of their field, creator, artist, musician.

And all I have to do that is plug a bunch of information into a machine, tell it what I want, and have it spit it out for me.

And that's not creativity at that point.

Like there's nothing creative about that.

It's, I think it was, I really liked Vince Gilligan's quote.

It's like the world's least efficient plagiarism machine.

And I've it's sort of latched on to that and you know, I have, I see people using it all over the place and it just grinds my gears and passing it off as art and and saying that people who people who oppose AI quote UN quote art are elitist is I, I don't know, I just find that very ironic.

And it's like, are we really here?

I can't believe that we are willingly turning ourselves over to the pod people is just insane to me.

And what's scary is like it doesn't feel like people want it.

Do you know what I mean?

Like, I don't, no.

I think it's crept into our lives in a lot of ways that maybe we're not even aware of at times.

Yep.

I again, we're going.

I think this does tie into the themes of the movie.

I think it does too.

But this idea that we're always being watched, and 30 years ago, that was a scary sentiment.

This idea that like all of our information, we used to talk like you would find guys on street corners holding up the end is nigh and the government is watching us signs.

And that was a really scary thought, this conspiracy that like everything we do and say is being recorded by some secret government, government cabal.

And instead of that being scary, I mean, I have an iPhone, I have a smartphone, I have a smart television.

I have a couple Alexa devices.

Like I have willingly signed up for to the idea that like someone is tracking my movement, someone is tracking what I'm saying, someone is tracking my buying purchases and I am willingly giving that to someone for a bit more convenience.

And that's a, you know, I am guilty of that and it's something that I hate.

But I don't see a way around it at this point that like things are moving towards this inevitability and inevitability in a way that no one seems to really want, but we don't know how to defend ourselves against it.

Yeah, we don't know how to stop it or even close to reverse it, because reversing it would be highly inconvenient, you know?

Here is like this.

This AI bubble is propped up by a few venture capitalist billionaire like tech bro billionaires that are totally against any sort of social safety net but at the same time are like if you don't pump more money into this the bubble will collapse and this will go away.

Well, I say, let it burn.

The problem with that though is so much is tied into that.

Financial now if.

You look at like.

Yeah, you're right, You're right.

And I know not if you have like a 1K or some sort of pension that's tied into the stock market.

If all of a sudden like that burst tomorrow, how many persons retirements would get blown up at that?

Point sure, sure, but then again, you know, we had we've had Internet bubbles and housing bubbles and all those things that have burst in the past and you have this period of where it just as it it crashes, you know, but it builds back up usually stronger than it was before.

So like my mom is really, she's she's a financial planner and she's like, because she, she went through the, her four O 1K, you know, during the tech boom, you know, and the burst and the housing crisis in 2008, all of that.

And she knows like just stay the course on this and, and they're fine.

You know, I mean, I know that's not the case for everybody, but I mean that these things do tend to correct.

So we'll we'll see what happens, but I have a feeling AI is probably going to burst at some point.

I hope.

Crypto is probably going to burst and I think both of those things, I think we're better off without both of them, to be honest.

That feels inevitable and it feels like we don't really need these things.

Yeah, I agree.

I think this I foresee a future where we're moving towards like a Wayland Utani type corporation having its.

Fingers super corporation over everything yeah everything is owned by Disney and I mean it's like it's you know watch idiocracy everything's owned by subway, right yeah.

So there's I, I think we're, it feels like we're closer to that sort of large super corporation, you know, where you think Amazon, Disney and Netflix and Walmart own the world it feels.

Like it's become like a Voltron esque super corporation.

That.

It's, and I think this does a good job of, you know, to get that message out there, to get that portrayal out there of like this is not a good thing that this company is like like, oh, like this thing is unkillable to a large degree.

We can use this for humanity.

Like the how they go about doing that and the actual cost of doing that, like what you have to sacrifice both in terms of actual physical items, but also the piece of your soul that you have to sacrifice.

And I think that is part of the why it's it's a bit telling that you're sending just these like androids out there, these like soulless man built creatures.

Like what you actually have to give up in order to create something that doesn't necessarily have a discernible value that makes things better, but just makes a company more profit to do that in a Disney movie, like to sneak that message in in a Disney movie.

That's why when people, you know, I really enjoyed the new Running Man movie.

And that movie is one that you could say it's like my daughter was like, I didn't know this movie would be so based.

I didn't know it would be so woke.

And when others are like, well, but it's Paramount, which is a pretty shitty company right now.

It's like that's not Edgar Wright's fault, you know, that's not his.

That's not his problem.

And I think like to get that out under that umbrella is sometimes the more kind of like insidious and kind of good thing you can do to use that to kind of get that message out.

And I got to give a lot of credit to like, Stone and Trey Parker for just with South Park this year, using that massive deal they got from, again, Paramount, just to just to take every advantage they can to just scorch the earth.

It's been has been kind of inspiring.

Yeah.

You know, Yeah.

Well, I guess in closing, where do you want to see this go?

Like film ends, like they're about to take off, like mother has shown up to kind of lay the smack down.

Where do you want to see Predator head necks as to this point, all nine movies, Like you can watch any of them in any order and pretty much be OK.

Where do you want to see it go now?

I think it would be interesting if Trachtenberg took all these sort of loose ends from like we've mentioned Dutch, we've mentioned Amber Mid Thunder's character, we've mentioned all of these things that are out there, you know, Danny Glover, etcetera.

And then you have this little cliffhanger on this one.

Is there a way to bring it all together?

You know, to almost, I mean, I, I guess to Mike Flanagan, this thing, so to speak, you know, like with taking the Shining book, the Shining movie and somehow making them work in the same universe.

I don't know.

I don't know if that's interesting or not, to be honest with you.

That might be too much of a cop out.

But if it's.

But if he does it as smartly as he's done the other 3 movies he's done, I could see that really.

Working.

It doesn't feel like a Marvel thing where everything was building towards all right.

The Avengers are the end of this phase.

Infinity War is the end of this phase.

It doesn't feel like it's building to that.

If it is like it'd be interesting to see how he pulls it off.

Like I know I want to see more.

I want to see a resolution to like Naru, Amber Mid Thunder's character from Prey.

I want especially when you see the end of Killer of Killers, you're like, OK, now you have to do something with that.

I'm intrigued.

I need to watch that.

Yeah, it's, it's solid.

It's again, like it's might even be the best Predator movie of the year, although I'm giving this one just a slight nod over.

I really like the character of Deck, but I think the franchise is in good hands.

I know he said he wants to do one more and even if he doesn't direct anymore, I wouldn't mind him having the kind of role that you're seeing like I think Fede Alvarez or Ridley Scott are having with Alien.

Like we're going to oversee things, but let others kind of play in the sandbox a little bit, so.

Yeah.

Should be interesting all right.

It should be.

I mean, this was, this was so much more fun than I maybe even expected.

I think there was a lot of criticism before the movie came out that the Predator looks wimpy.

It's like, well, that's actually the point of the movie.

That is the point, yeah.

So it's like, let's maybe not criticize movies before we know anything about them.

People have an odd definition of wimpy.

Yeah, no.

Smaller, but it will still mess you up.

Yeah, it's like, you know, I'm, I'm not going to Yeah, I'm yeah, exactly.

Not going to mess with with deck any day.

So yeah, it's I can't think of another franchise that has rebounded from like the depth because Predator series, like it just seemed like it was left for dead.

Like after the 2 Alien versus Predator movies and then Predators and then the Predator, it felt like, OK, there's really nowhere to go with this.

And to have something not only commercially but like critically and amongst the fans rebound so much where this is probably at a higher peak now that it was even after the first fail.

In terms of.

Interest of the in the series as a whole, that's kind of a fascinating thing, so should be interesting to see like where this goes.

Well, I think having a unifying vision is really helpful too

because you know, between 1:00 and 2:00, you know, you just have a completely different team, a completely different scenario, all of that going into that second movie.

And so that and then each one was just kind of a reset, you know, and so to have.

Trachtenberg come in and say, well, praise good.

Let's make stuff that actually maybe builds to something.

Yeah, I think that helps a lot.

I mean, that's why that's why Child's Play and Chucky has been going on for, you know, 40 years now is because you've got a singular vision.

You've got Don Mancini behind that whole thing, you know, and I think that helps.

Yeah, I agree.

Well, Brian, what do you have coming up?

It's kind of coming towards the end of the year here.

Do you have any like year end wrap UPS with like Bloody Disgusting or elsewhere going on?

I do, in fact, that this is coming out what Monday?

My piece I was told that my piece about my inexplicable love for Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 will be dropping on Bloody Disgusting.

Oh, boy.

On Monday.

Yes.

I unapologetically love that mess of a movie.

I I cannot, I do my best to explain why.

So it's a it's a love letter, if you will, to Silent Night Deadly Night Part 2.

I'm bloody disgusting.

Yeah, so there's that.

And then coming from Manor Vellum, I have a piece that I'm actually really proud of too.

Both of these are kind of tongue in cheek.

I think that's it's fun to write in that style sometimes.

And so it's basically about why I hate Christmas.

It's coming out from Matter Vellum.

So that one's going to be called Christmas is Horror traditions of an incurable Grinch.

So that's what I've got coming out over the next couple weeks here and I'm very excited about that.

It's funny, I gotta tell you, like in the line of work I'm in, like a lot of people like probably would agree, you know, like the holidays are tough sometimes.

So, and I think it's.

I'll admit, you know, a lot of this is pretty tongue in cheek.

For me.

It's, it's, I'm, I am.

I get a little bit grumpy, but I kind of play the character a little bit too.

Excellent.

Yeah, also news on the Holy terrors front, we are launching on the beginning of the year come hell or high water.

So we're just going to, I, I don't think it'll be on a network, probably just going to launch independently and, and we just decided, hell, we're just going to pull it and do it at the in January, so right at the beginning of the year.

Episode What's the first film you're tackling?

So we have a little.

I think it's Little Nicky.

This Little Nicky actually we're covering from 2024 heretic.

Excellent.

So, and we brought on our so it's Pat and I Pat, Patrick Brennan and I are hosting the show.

And for that episode we brought on a guest who comes from a Latter Day Saints background, TJ Tranchell.

He's an author friend of ours from Manor Vellum.

It's a terrific conversation.

We do have a little bit of a prelude episode.

We'll probably release those pretty close together though, so that so that we can just get right into the meat of the show.

Very cool.

All right.

We'll, we will definitely help promote that as the time comes.

And here is what's coming up for us, folks.

OK, so we've covered all the Predator movies and because there's nine of them next week we should be doing a Predator ranking series that takes us into mid-december, like right up to Christmas week.

We'll be dropping an episode Christmas Day and then after that will be our top 10 horror movies of 2025 for each give our individual rankings.

That'll probably be the last episode of the year, and that is typically like one of our most popular episodes.

I think our, I think our 300th episode was the most popular one this year, followed not too far behind by the top ten of the year.

It's kind of a bummer because the 300th episode I had some technical difficulties on my end, which was a bit disappointing, but listeners seem to really like that one.

And then we launched into Psycho and we could start it sooner.

But I think I want to just do it clean rather than like start with one and then do these like year end things, right?

Which is just can make things.

We've done that before and I just think it gets convoluted.

Brian and I have talked like Brian is going to take over hosting, I believe for the Psycho series or the bulk of it.

So our roles will reverse a little bit.

I think we've talked about that.

Or maybe I'll just read that.

Maybe you dreamed that.

That's OK.

No, that's good.

That's good.

I could do that.

I'm OK to post as well or we trade off, but I think one thing we're going to do is before we do Psycho, we're going to do like a Hitchcock in the East primer.

We're going to talk about the commercial and critical successes that he had throughout that decade, which kind of gave him the power to do whatever he wanted, but also what made Psycho like such a risk.

And that will, because I think that in and of itself is worth an episode.

And if we rolled that into just Psycho, the episode would be like 6 hours long.

And nobody wants that, including me.

So the research has begun.

I've already started to watch a few docs and, you know, jotted down a few notes.

I started reading probably the book that I've read most about the making of a single movie The most is Stephen Rebello's book about Hitchcock and the making of Psycho.

I've read it probably 3 or 4 times already and I'm reading it again.

So good.

I mean I.

You'll be pulling that from the shelf like reaching over and like.

I don't actually own it on a hard copy.

I only have it on my Kindle, so I can't do that.

I can pull my Janet Lee book on the Making of Psycho down from my shelf.

However, it's a little high up there.

I can't reach it.

That's OK.

So that will be fun.

So we have the next three franchises we have like these are the ones that we put on the wheel for 2025 and then we haven't missed any weeks.

It's not like we've missed anything, but we just had like a a lot of series with a lot of entries this year.

Sure, but Psycho, The Omen and I believe Stevens gonna like sit in the hosting chair for that.

And then Creep and we'll do the two Creep films and I think we're going to do like Creep season 1 and 2 because they're about movie length.

Like when they watch them, they're movie length.

So we can just cover be a little different format.

But yeah, that's what's coming up.

That is what we have and that for like really that'll get us through spring and we'll start looking at like what other franchises we want to cover next year.

Brian, you look like you have.

You've got ideas.

I've got an idea.

OK, we'll talk off air very briefly and that's it.

Listeners, we hope you enjoyed this.

Like I've kind of enjoyed these past few weeks being a little bit looser and kind of just like talking about whatever takes our fancy.

The episode Killer of Killers Like is definitely a lot of like wherever our brains went that minute.

But as was today.

Yeah, but I think once we get into the first few Psycho movies, those first two, and I honestly think the remake as well, that kind of like laser sharp focus will come back.

All right, that's it.

Take care everybody.

Brian, you look like you have.

I was like, should I, should I warn people ahead of time that the remake of Psycho Episode is going to be me just screaming for 90 minutes?

It'll be like you OK, it'll.

Be like your.

Takes on better or worse than Nosferatu.

Way worse than.

Way worse than Nosferatu.

OK, got it.

All right, well, that will be that will be a fun one.

It's 8 bucks on Blu-ray right now.

Is that all 8 bucks?

I don't know if that's worth it to me.

Wow.

I don't know if I would have spent that much.

So it's going to be like more like Gus Van Kant that whole episode.

The other thing is, I love Gus Van Sant movies.

I love so many of his movies.

Yeah, Good Lord.

OK, that will be very fun.

That will be a fun one.

I'm really looking forward to Psycho.

I'm really looking forward to digging in, digging into something like that.

So which I don't think is a top five Hitchcock movie.

There, I've said it.

I'd have to think about it.

I'd have to seriously think about it.

Like think about what are you taking out of that top five when it comes to like Vertigo and Rear window North by Northwest 39?

Steps you.

Know you know what I prefer I prefer is it saboteur or sabotage the one that's.

More, they're both American.

Yeah, so so, so many.

Like where would Psycho actually fit?

So.

But that's coming up next month, folks.

All right, have a great one.

We'll be back next week with our Predator.