A.I. Artificial Intelligence (w/ Zachary Lee)

Eli (00:01.47)
Hello and welcome to the establishing shot a podcast where we do deep dives into directors and their filmography's I am your host Eli Price and we are here on episode 74 of the podcast Still making our way through Spielberg movies This is we're into the 2000s now His first film of the 2000s AI artificial intelligence no colon just just the the

the letters and then what they mean. So he kind of did the same thing with ET though. So yeah, but I'm joined by a returning guest. This is his third time on the joining me for, well, I guess the first time it was like one episode, but the last time is when I started splitting to two. So technically this is your fourth.

Zachary Lee (00:58.638)
That's right.

Eli (01:01.46)
This will be your fourth episode, but third time, third time with us recording together. yeah, yeah. cause now we're going to be doing a draft episode together. So we're going to hit four and five as far as your episodes with me. so you're a establishing shot veteran at this point. Zachary, I didn't say your name yet. Zachary Lee. yeah.

Zachary Lee (01:03.802)
there we go. That's right. That's right. But you split it. That's right.

Zachary Lee (01:24.192)
Yes, no, thank you Eli. It's great to be back here.

Eli (01:28.296)
Yeah, I'm excited to have Zachary on with me again to talk about AI, artificial intelligence, Spielberg's, another entry into the Spielberg sci-fi, I guess filmography. could probably, we could, you could probably do a whole podcast just on like his sci-fi entries, which would probably, probably be interesting.

Zachary Lee (01:47.974)
100%. You should group those together on the website, you know, when you, when you do it like this fieldwork episodes. Yeah.

Eli (01:53.064)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that that's a good idea. It's probably yeah, it's probably a good idea to maybe throw some like genre tags on those. That might be good. Yeah, Zachary is he wears a few different hats. He does some writing, some freelance writing and does some writing about film, which is why I really enjoy having him on. brings his own perspective and and you know,

Zachary Lee (02:01.602)
Yeah, suspense.

Eli (02:22.388)
has some experience analyzing films through his writing. so, yeah, I'm excited. I've also seen that Zachary has been attending some festivals, some film festivals recently. What's been your favorite, maybe a few standouts from the festivals you've been able to make it to?

Zachary Lee (02:34.69)
Yeah, that's right.

Zachary Lee (02:42.219)
Yeah.

It's a great question. feel like for reference, it was funny, like September, I was talking about this with my supervisor today where I'm like, I feel like October and September just didn't exist as months, for a variety of reasons, but partly because I was traveling, but I was able to go to the Toronto festival and then Fantastic Fest and then here in Mesa in Chicago. So Chicago had their own festival as well. So happy to shout out.

Eli (02:57.056)
Mm. Yeah.

Eli (03:05.197)
Yeah.

Eli (03:11.591)
Mm-hmm.

Zachary Lee (03:14.764)
like a wreck from each fest, just something to keep an eye on and think about. I'm trying to think, I really enjoyed this movie called The Return out of Toronto, if you all have heard. It's coming out in December of this year, but it's like an, I'm a sucker for any like Odyssey adaptation or like Greek myth stuff. And this is an adaptation of like the last part of the Odyssey where it's Ray Fiennes as Odysseus.

Eli (03:17.225)
Yeah.

Eli (03:28.282)
you

Eli (03:34.37)
Okay.

Eli (03:41.546)
Gotcha.

Zachary Lee (03:44.002)
Julia Vinoche as Penelope. And it's just like a, I don't know. It's like, that's like one already a fun, like this is third time those two have collaborated. And it was a very like, it is like a slow burn, somber meditative piece, but you know, just having those two there, I feel like elevate the material. I feel like we haven't had, like the last Greek, like mythology movie I remember was like Clash of the Titans.

Eli (03:45.994)
Hmm.

Eli (03:54.053)
Yeah.

Eli (04:03.646)
Yeah, for sure.

Eli (04:11.011)
yeah.

Zachary Lee (04:11.34)
Which is not, you know, known, you know, as many things, it is not historically accurate. yeah, exactly. So Return sort of gets you there, which I thought was really great. Fantastic Fest, this one you guys can actually stream right now. It's called Mads. It's this, the cool thing about this is it's a zombie apocalypse movie, but it's shot entirely in one take. So that's all I really want to say. It's on shutter. It's like a crisp 90 minutes.

Eli (04:15.732)
Not peak cinema.

Eli (04:40.265)
Mmm.

Zachary Lee (04:40.46)
very fun, very high intensity. it feels like, know, movies that can be multiple, like one take, you're kind of like, well, that just feels like a gimmick and not really like, I feel like the way they use this to like build tension and follow different characters is really cool. So, say MADS and then at Chicago, ooh, there's this documentary I saw called Between Goodbyes that I thought was really great. It's about this Korean adoptee who,

Eli (04:54.932)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (05:05.01)
Okay.

Zachary Lee (05:09.71)
visits her original mother and soul and her family and it's just like I don't know it's a really touching story of like You formed your own life apart from you anyway, it's just you know, and then you come back to meet your family and you're just like how do we like What's what's our relationship now and we've lived so much of our life apart? So, you know and in some ways the idea of family ties well with what we're gonna talk about for this episode, too So that's what I'll shout out. Yeah

Eli (05:28.83)
Yeah.

Eli (05:34.862)
Yeah, yeah, it reminds me of of two other Movies that are not documentaries, but well one of them is I guess like a a quasi It's like a dramatized You know written out version but the farewell is a real story Yeah, but it passed lives too from last year's kind of deals with some of that stuff

Zachary Lee (05:53.344)
Yeah, that's a great connection or great point.

Zachary Lee (06:00.406)
Yeah, very, very, that's a great like mood board for those movies. Yeah.

Eli (06:03.944)
And yeah, ironically, all, you know, East Asian subjects as well. Maybe.

Zachary Lee (06:11.804)
maybe there's something there, you know, well, gotta write a piece about that. are East Asians and longing to connect with their families? Great observation, yeah.

Eli (06:23.029)
Yeah, we can make maybe a litter box list of those movies. Well, sweet. Yeah, I'll have to definitely check those out. The return sounds very enticing to me. Just.

Zachary Lee (06:25.422)
Exactly. Honestly, that'd be really good. but yeah.

Zachary Lee (06:35.884)
Yes, are you an Odyssey or Iliad

Eli (06:39.922)
You know, I feel like I've read sections of those while I was in school and haven't really returned to them since. but there, you know, there's a, I guess there is the kind of timelessness of those stories that is always intriguing, but even more just as having finds in Binoche. I'm like, yeah, I'm interested. Yeah. I just,

Zachary Lee (07:01.922)
Yeah, that's how I felt too about it.

Eli (07:05.8)
I was just able to see Conclave. We're recording on November 1st. This will release later. This will probably be releasing... this will be releasing maybe in January. So it'll be a while before this releases. So we're way ahead.

Zachary Lee (07:09.436)
No.

Zachary Lee (07:17.534)
yeah. Okay, good news. Y'all can, we'll have seen the return hopefully by then or.

Eli (07:24.476)
Yeah. Hopefully you'll have seen a return. If not, it'll probably be streaming, you know, somewhere able to rent. yeah, I just saw Conclave with fines and I, I liked, I thought it was a good movie. not great. It's one of those movies where the end is kind of like, okay. you know, I don't think you really earned this ending, but, it's like an unearned twist.

Zachary Lee (07:28.406)
I mean, you know how it is these days. Yeah. what'd you think of that?

Zachary Lee (07:45.781)
Hahaha

Eli (07:54.322)
think like it, it, kind of plays into some of the discussions and themes that lead up to it, guess. But, but yeah, I, didn't like, dislike the ending. was just kind of like, okay. I didn't, you know, I didn't know we were getting like a twist ending, but okay. Yeah. Yeah.

Zachary Lee (07:54.497)
Interesting.

Zachary Lee (07:58.968)
you

Zachary Lee (08:17.089)
In a movie of many twists already they had to they had to throw another one at you. Yeah

Eli (08:22.1)
But no, it's really, really well done, well acted, compelling. I mean, cause even though like the twist ending kind of like, was like, okay to me is, you know, it's still compelling. And so, yeah, I thought it was good. It's not one of my favorites of the year, but I enjoyed watching it. So, but yeah, finds anytime finds is coming in for a, for something I'm like, yeah, I'm interested in.

Zachary Lee (08:42.401)
Yeah.

Zachary Lee (08:49.942)
I'm interested, that's great. wow. I know. You've been busy on your letterbox too though, you know, I've been seeing. was like...

Eli (08:52.426)
Uhhh

Eli (08:56.596)
Yeah, I have a lot of catching up to do on my letterbox. it always gets to the end of the year and I have like a list in my notes of like movies I've watched and the date I watched them. Cause like, as soon as I finished a movie, I'll like pop it in the note and I'd be like, I'll log that. And then it'll be like, months will go by and I'll have like a bunch of movies to log. Yeah. So like some, sometime at the end of the year, I usually always like just go back and log all of them eventually.

Zachary Lee (09:07.82)
Yep.

Zachary Lee (09:18.124)
No, it's great.

Zachary Lee (09:27.023)
totally. You you got to get those. You can see your stats for the year, you know, that's just gonna be. Yeah. The all important stats to know.

Eli (09:30.749)
Yeah, you gotta get those stats. It's the all-important stats. yeah, I guess we can, you know, there's not a good segue here, but we'll just hard cut to talking about AI artificial intelligence.

Zachary Lee (09:48.182)
Yeah. Let's do it.

Eli (09:52.4)
Yeah, so this is, like I said, Spielberg's first movie of the 2000s, coming off of Saving Private Ryan, which I haven't recorded that episode yet. So I'm interested to see how that's going to play into him going that transition from Saving Private Ryan to this, which just very different movies. But yeah, I guess the turn of the

Zachary Lee (10:15.048)
Right, exactly. Totally.

Eli (10:22.036)
turn of the decade slash century slash millennia called for, I guess, a switch in Spielberg's, I guess, film subject. But AI didn't start with Spielberg. I feel like it's decently well known that this was actually a Stanley Kubrick project.

Zachary Lee (10:36.653)
Yeah.

Eli (10:51.818)
And, it started all the way back in 1982, the year that ET came out, Kubrick, bought the option on the rights to adapt a 1969, story by short story by Brian Aldis, which was published in Harper's Bazaar magazine called super toys last all summer long. and did you, did you happen to like read that or listen to it?

Zachary Lee (10:56.998)
wow.

Zachary Lee (11:19.692)
You know, like Super Boys or just the... I had it, no. I knew the Coover connection, but I didn't know about that, yeah.

Eli (11:21.546)
the super toys last all summer long. Yeah, Yeah. Yeah, so it's, it's a, I guess you would say it's an adaptation of it. It's in this, in this short story, it, no.

Zachary Lee (11:47.803)
Sorry, there we go. Okay, I think you're back. Okay, Continue that's refresh Okay, great

Eli (11:49.802)
You back? No worries. I have a good, jump in point. All right. Yeah. And this story, so it, it has David and Teddy and the mom and dad. So David and this story is kind of like having conversations with Teddy about love and what's real and what's not real. and eventually it,

Zachary Lee (12:03.25)
Mm-hmm. Great.

Eli (12:17.246)
The mom kind of interacts with them some, it's kind of like, it kind of has the feeling of the first act of this movie where there's like this kind of unease between everyone. and then at the end of the short story, the dad comes home and he's like, Hey, we we've been given permission to have a child. and then, so they don't have a child yet in the, in the short story and they're, they're given permission, I guess, in this future world to have a child.

Zachary Lee (12:26.12)
Yeah.

Zachary Lee (12:36.938)
interesting.

Eli (12:46.642)
And so David overhears it and then it just kind of ends with like him and Teddy just like wondering what's going to become of them now. and that's the, that's the end of it. So, yeah, so, you know, the, that's just like, it's similar to like the first act of the movie. so it's interesting that, you know, Coobert kind of took that idea and that store in that short story and just like,

Zachary Lee (12:53.988)
Yeah, that's kind of wild.

thing.

Eli (13:14.748)
expanded it out a whole lot. yeah, so obviously Kubrick had interest in artificial intelligence that had only grown since making 2001, a space Odyssey, which had come out in 1968. So, he was an avid reader of scientific magazine. He had, he'd even had like a bunch of discussions with a pioneer in the field of AI, named Marvin Minsky.

And this is a quote from Kubrick that I wrote down. said, quote, one of the fascinating questions that arise in envisioning computers more intelligent than men is at what point the machine intelligence deserves the same consideration as biological intelligence. You could be tempted to ask yourself in what way is a machine intelligence any less sacrosanct than biological intelligence? And it might be difficult to arrive at an answer flattering to biological intelligence.

So that kind of shows you where Kubrick is like his headspace and like wanting to take on this story. He's interested in those ideas of like what's the separation between biological and machine intelligence? Where like what are the lines? At what point do they start to like blend? And even like, you know, I read elsewhere that Kubrick kind of was interested in the idea of like

Zachary Lee (14:19.453)
Yeah.

Eli (14:43.954)
artificial intelligence being like the vessel that carries on our existence after we're gone as human humans, which kind of plays into the this movie. and so, yeah, so Kubrick contacted, Brian Aldis about adapting the book. and, Aldis is like interested in helping them, but then Kubrick tells him,

Zachary Lee (14:48.619)
Mm, yeah, which is interesting. Yeah, totally.

Eli (15:07.626)
that he plans to mix in the story Pinocchio by Carlo Colodi, the 1883 book, and, and also repercussions of global warming. And all of this is like, nah, I don't really like those ideas. They didn't, they didn't really like Jive with his taste. And, you know, and so he was like, you, you know, you go ahead and do your thing, but I'm not going to be involved. And so, yeah. And so, so really like.

Zachary Lee (15:24.784)
Interesting, okay.

Zachary Lee (15:31.55)
Crazy, okay.

Eli (15:38.07)
All this early on, you know, he's already thinking about how to mix in Pinocchio into this, this story. and that's Kubrick's idea, not Spielberg's, which a lot of people thought the Pinocchio stuff was Spielberg because you know, right. Right. And so I actually listened to a Pinocchio on audio book this week.

Zachary Lee (15:47.784)
Yeah.

Zachary Lee (15:54.278)
Right, it seems most like that he would do something like that given his, his filmography, you know.

Eli (16:07.37)
because I'd never read it before. it's much harsher than the Disney movie for sure.

Zachary Lee (16:14.258)
The Disney... Why do I feel like all... It's like there's always this like second coming of age as like once we grow older, we're like, wow, like Disney really did not give the full picture about our, these other stories that

Eli (16:21.121)
Yeah.

Eli (16:28.86)
Yeah, yeah Guillermo del Toro's version is is much more like He does his own like twists on it, but like the the general like tone Feels much more like the book No, no not at all not not in the least bit

Zachary Lee (16:30.587)
Yeah.

Zachary Lee (16:41.732)
Is Mussolini in the book? just need to know for my own question. That's what I wondering. That did seem like a del Toro embellishment, but hey, I want to give him credit, know, for what he said.

Eli (16:55.018)
yeah. mean, the book came out in 1883. so yeah, it, yeah, all that is del Toro, which I love. love that. his, his version. but yeah, it's, mean, the story, the story is basically like, Pinocchio does something. He does, he tries to be good, but then he does something bad and then he's harshly.

Zachary Lee (16:57.671)
well, there we go.

Zachary Lee (17:03.186)
That's right, good to do. Yeah, that's great.

Eli (17:23.762)
he had, there's some like harsh consequence for it. And that's just like over and over again through the whole book. so it kind of, the movie kind of follows a similar pattern. Like David tries to be a good boy, but then does something that somebody doesn't like and there's harsh consequences for it like over and over again. but, yeah, so the, the Pinocchio thing though, like in, in just the idea of like,

Zachary Lee (17:29.362)
Totally, yeah.

Zachary Lee (17:41.492)
Yeah. That's what happens, yeah.

Eli (17:52.746)
crossing fairy tale with sci-fi is a big reason that in 1985 Kubrick told Spielberg about this project, which seems unlikely because Kubrick was pretty like held his like projects with a tight grasp. But yeah, he just felt like this was something that Spielberg would be able to help him with in some way. But their relationship

went back six years, even six years earlier, they had met Spielberg and Kubrick and had occasional conversations. There was even an occasion on Temple of Doom that was maybe listeners remember in Temple of Doom, I talked about where Stanley Kubrick's daughter was lobbying against the treatment of snakes and reptiles on the set. And so there's a little bit of

Zachary Lee (18:46.736)
that's so interesting.

Eli (18:50.704)
of friction there, I guess, at one point. yeah, Kubrick and just kind of his like laser focus on his craft and searching for like new information about like directing and other the way other people do things. He I read that he had kind of a habit of calling Steven Spielberg on his own terms and grilling him.

Zachary Lee (18:51.154)
Yeah.

Eli (19:18.374)
about his job and his life and his projects. and Kubrick never gave any detail of his own life or projects or anything. He was just like, it wasn't like Spielberg would call him. It was always like Kubrick calls Spielberg on his own whenever he wants to talk and then grills him about his stuff. And then it's like, okay, I got what I needed. Yes, very much so. but yeah, so you know,

Zachary Lee (19:37.234)
Alright.

He's setting the terms for it. That's really funny.

Eli (19:47.69)
Fast forward through six years of that and he decides to share finally about this project with Spielberg in 1985. Spielberg loves it. He even says at one point, this is the best story you've ever had to tell to Kubrick. And Kubrick probably shared it with him because

He was aware of like those Spielbergian elements in the story. There's a lost child in search of love, feelings of exclusion. The Pinocchio references, you know, have the, you wish upon a star, all in, all through close encounters. then, yeah, ET kind of has some of that. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, so all that's there. He tells them about it in 1985.

Zachary Lee (20:19.538)
Yeah.

Zachary Lee (20:27.014)
Red.

Zachary Lee (20:33.682)
That's right, yeah. Lots of Rose references back, yeah, to something.

Eli (20:46.43)
I'm sure he's kind of like getting some ideas from Spielberg or telling him what his ideas are. But at this point, he hasn't yet asked Spielberg to direct it. He kind of moves on. He's struggling to get a script written. He collaborates with some sci-fi authors like Arthur C. Clark, who wrote 2001 with him, Bob Shaw, Sarah Maitland, and then Ian Watson, who

actually becomes kind of the most substantial contributor. Him and Kubrick kind of wrote this long, I think even in the credits, like when the credits roll, says screen story by Stanley Kubrick and Ian Watson. And it's basically like this big storyboard of like all the stuff that they were planning on possibly doing. And Ian Watson's actually the one that kind of,

Zachary Lee (21:28.434)
but you can.

Eli (21:44.034)
came up with the character Jigalojo. So there's that influence. But yeah, he also brings on illustrator Chris Baker who goes by the pseudonym Fangorn. And he supplied nearly 2000 drawings for Kubrick. Yeah, and yeah, you can see a lot of them just like online or on the

Zachary Lee (21:47.206)
A lot of questions already about that, but yeah, that's great.

Zachary Lee (21:57.021)
Alright.

Eli (22:13.754)
special features of like the blu-ray or whatever they're they're really good there and when you look at them you're like wow a lot of these are like you can see how like directly they used his concept art to like move it to the screen and you know it really cool but yeah Kubrick really wanted to do a like robot boy to play David and he was just like the technology's just not there

Zachary Lee (22:27.731)
Yeah.

Zachary Lee (22:37.852)
That's right.

Eli (22:42.92)
And so he was still really hesitant to move forward with the project. but Jurassic Park comes out and he's like, okay, maybe I have some hope here. Maybe there's, maybe I can work with this. He, he drafts like an 87 page script and then he even does some like consulting with, Dennis Murin with ILM, about using digital imagery for Mechas. and I think he also talks with, James Cameron's VXF.

BFX which was a digital domain and this other guy Chris Cunningham who had done some like a robotic Bjork in a music video and Kubrick still decides at the end of all that that the technology is still not up to reproducing human appearance and movement and all that that he would need to make the story happen and he had even ordered like an animatronic

modeled after his nephew that just like was didn't work at all.

Zachary Lee (23:44.927)
It's like it's so interesting though this one is like I think about I don't know you'd seen like James Cameron like making technology to like or like not making Avatar movies until the technology was there or like literally making it or I don't know if this is right if like Nolan is he like making IMAX camera like these things that were never made before to like have it happen so it's just interesting I'm like because if like

Eli (23:57.523)
Right.

Mm-hmm.

Zachary Lee (24:11.134)
Kubrick had more time, I mean guess he didn't know, I I know he passed early but it's like, he seemed like someone who wouldn't have mind waiting either. I'm sure, it'd just be weird to think of, he's like I'm not gonna make this until there's the technology that's there to make the replicant boy or whatever that he wanted to do.

Eli (24:16.874)
Yeah.

Eli (24:28.54)
Yeah.

Eli (24:32.144)
Yeah, and it seemed like that was kind of the case. Like he was like, well, I'm just going to wait until I can make it like I want to make it. yeah, so one of the reasons he didn't go, he had considered Joseph Mazzello, who was the boy in Jurassic Park for the role of David. But he just was self-aware enough to know that his like

Zachary Lee (24:52.947)
Yeah.

Eli (24:59.87)
He had like really long shoots and was like obsessively perfectionist and like very self aware about that and knew that that was incompatible with like a child growing. And like you you need the child to like appear the same through the whole movie. And if you're taking so long to make your movie, then the child's going to grow and look different. So.

Zachary Lee (25:06.322)
Yeah.

Zachary Lee (25:12.99)
Yeah, good good for side cubic. Yeah

Zachary Lee (25:19.731)
Hmm.

Zachary Lee (25:25.416)
That's interesting, yeah.

Eli (25:28.67)
But he also knew that Spielberg would not have that problem because Spielberg at this point in his career was usually pretty efficient with his films. And so 10 years after telling Spielberg about the project in 1995, he suggested that Spielberg direct it. He even said to Spielberg, quote, this is much closer to your sensibilities than my own, unquote. And, you know, he...

He says that if he would direct it, he'd be happy to produce it. And they kind of talked back and forth about it. There's a story about like Spielberg had a fax machine installed like in his bedroom and he would be getting like faxes in the middle of the night and his wife Kate Capshaw made him move it out of their room. I'm getting faxes in the middle of the night.

Zachary Lee (26:11.181)
yeah.

Zachary Lee (26:20.742)
It's the same thing with WebA4, like, Kubrick's like, I'm gonna, I can ask you the questions, but that's it. Yeah. You can't bother me, but I'm going to make sure I bother you sort of a thing.

Eli (26:28.434)
Right. He froze up.

Zachary Lee (26:38.081)
oops, okay, got it. think I hear back. Yeah.

Okay, I think you're out. I going good or?

Eli (26:50.439)
Are you back? You kind of froze up. I heard like a couple of the things you said, but mostly.

Zachary Lee (26:50.726)
Yes, I am. I think so.

Zachary Lee (26:55.874)
I was just joking about how like, what is it? It just underscores the point of how Kubrick was like, I want to have you have access to your Spielberg's time at all points. But Spielberg was like, what? No, I can't do that. Yeah.

Eli (27:09.042)
Yeah.

Eli (27:14.123)
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so they just faxed each other and they, they even spent like two months going over storyboards. but like a couple of different, you know, Spielberg really felt like Kubrick should be the one to direct it. And he had his own projects going on and then Kubrick dove into making Eyes Wide Shut. and so the talks on it kind of like died down, but yeah, then, you know, Kubrick

dies suddenly, unexpectedly, in March of 1999, and without ever, you know, really getting anything made for AI. And so this finally convinces Spielberg to make it. His Kubrick's widow and his brother-in-law, Jan Harlan, who was a producer, approached Spielberg and they, you know, I heard somewhere that Kubrick's widow

I can't think of her name, unfortunately, had like called Spielberg and been like, hey, if you don't make this, it's not going to get made. And she really wanted it to get made and so for, you know, in memory of her husband. So, so yeah, Spielberg worked really hard on he was like, okay, I'll do it and kind of saw it both as like an opportunity to have like to do homage to his this.

master's filmmaker and also to kind of like measure himself up to a personal hero, you know, he loved Kubrick's work and So yeah, that's part of the reason why he took on the task of writing the screenplay himself and So he you know, he had spent so much time going back and forth with Kubrick about the project and he just felt like he

Zachary Lee (28:56.983)
okay, interesting.

Eli (29:08.158)
He wouldn't be able to like adequately, adequately relay Kubrick's vision to someone else. and so he just was like, I guess I'll write it. I'm going to write this on my own. So he hadn't, he hadn't done that since close encounters. so it had been, you know, the seventies since he had written a screenplay, himself and he hasn't done that since either. so he really took it seriously, you know,

Zachary Lee (29:33.374)
How interesting.

Eli (29:38.142)
the, you know, trying to be true to Kubrick's story. And yeah, he really ends up sticking to Kubrick's story for like, especially the first and final acts of the film. Spielberg talks about those being like all Kubrick, like he stuck almost word for word to like Kubrick's script and screenplay for those sections of the film.

Zachary Lee (30:04.05)
Yeah.

Eli (30:05.914)
then he kind of puts his own twists and ideas in the middle section so like for example Rouge City is Kubrick kind of had this like replica of Sodom and Gomorrah whereas Spielberg kind of scrapped that and kind of made it more like this mix of Las Vegas and Oz and yeah and

Zachary Lee (30:18.27)
Mmm.

Zachary Lee (30:25.362)
Yeah, that's right.

Eli (30:30.542)
One of the things he really had to work hard on was he had always approached sci-fi films in contemporary contexts. So you think about like Close Encounters and ET and they're like, they were contemporary films, but you know, with aliens coming in. And this is like pure futurism. So he actually had to like create a completely different world for the first time. He'd never really done that before. Which, you know, even like Hook,

Zachary Lee (30:54.855)
Yeah.

Zachary Lee (30:59.004)
Yeah.

Eli (30:59.476)
which is kind of a fantastical world is still like based in, you know, the real world. It's, it's pirate ships and, know, an island and it's not like, it's just kind of piecing together like parts of the real world. This is like a true like future world that doesn't exist. so yeah, I thought that was interesting. but yeah, it, you know, the

Zachary Lee (31:08.69)
Hmm.

Eli (31:28.04)
That was kind of like the beginnings of the movie where it originated from the Kubrick Spielberg relationship. Yeah, I guess take a little turn and go through the cast and crew. The crew is a really a crew of returner returning collaborators. go around Kathleen Kennedy and Bonnie Curtis produce it with Spielberg.

Zachary Lee (31:42.561)
yeah.

Eli (31:56.706)
I already mentioned the Brian Aldis story it's based on. And then even the, like I said, the screen story by Kubrick and Ian Watson get screen credit as well. Spielberg with the screenplay. have Janusz Kaminski coming back as the DP to do the cinematography. know, basically like Janusz Kaminski and Michael Kahn are, we're going to hear those names.

And really John Williams too with the music. hear those names for the rest of Spielberg's career really. Cause Janusz Kominski does, yeah, Kominski does all of his movies from here on out so far, you know, unless Spielberg finally releases another one. yeah, the Gary Rydstrom and Richard Hems do the sound, which they're returning Spielberg collaborators. Rick Carter.

Zachary Lee (32:27.239)
yeah.

Zachary Lee (32:32.252)
He's locking in his crew right now, you know?

Zachary Lee (32:43.838)
That's right.

Eli (32:53.874)
on the production design, another returning collaborator. For the art direction, Richard Johnson and Thomas Valentine are new names to me, think, but William James Teagarden has done some art direction for him in the past. Really the new people are the people doing some of the design work. like the concept art done by Chris Baker,

Zachary Lee (33:22.781)
Yeah.

Eli (33:23.682)
you know, I mentioned he had done some work for Kubrick on the project and Spielberg, you know, brought him on to keep like, to keep doing that work with him. so he kept him involved. So that was a new collaboration. Candice Neal did the hair, V Neal spelled differently. So no relation did the makeup and Bob Ringwood, I think is actually a returner for the costumes. He's done some.

Zachary Lee (33:49.138)
Great.

Eli (33:50.75)
some costume work with Spielberg before, but they really like, those four people really have a huge influence on how this movie looks, just like the design-wise. So shout out to them. There's some cool stuff with them on the special features of the Blu-ray too. Uh-huh, yeah.

Zachary Lee (34:03.356)
Yeah.

Zachary Lee (34:10.47)
Nice, nice. Which, did you watch this on Blu-ray? Did you have it already? no? Okay, that's nice. I was just renting it, so I'd be curious to see what those, hear about those features and stuff.

Eli (34:20.508)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's basically like a broken up making of documentary full making of documentary. That's like not quite two hours long on the on the blu-ray. So, yeah, some more returners. You have special effects supervisor in Michael Lantieri and then visual some visual effects guys and Dennis Murin, Scott Farrar and Henry Labunta.

Zachary Lee (34:32.518)
Yeah, that's cool.

Eli (34:49.268)
Who those those last two don't sound familiar, but Dennis Murin, of course, is the ILM guy. so, and then Stan Winston does the, the robots and animatronics and he's returned. Lanterre, Murin and Winston are like the unsung heroes of Jurassic Park. So, those are, those are, those guys were like crucial for this movie too. so yeah, really like a bunch of.

Zachary Lee (34:53.534)
Hmm.

Eli (35:17.799)
returning collaborators. he's really like... it was probably a very smooth production because of that, I would imagine. But yeah, let's talk about the cast, because the cast is interesting, I think.

Zachary Lee (35:28.68)
Yeah.

Zachary Lee (35:33.586)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, well, it's to your point that it just speaks to like him finding his people and like able to like You know, you'll see it like it gives a certain comfort and familiarity when you create to so when you know when you know the people you're there, but yeah Yeah

Eli (35:40.373)
yeah.

Eli (35:48.411)
Yeah, for sure. yeah, for sure. Yeah, and that probably plays into his casting too, because he hadn't worked with Haley Joel Osment before, but he really wanted a child actor that had experience. He didn't want like some unknown talent to play David. And so, yeah, I mean...

Zachary Lee (35:56.318)
Totally.

Eli (36:13.818)
Osment had been in Forrest Gump when he was five years old at 94. He had been in this movie, Bogus in 96 with Whoopi Goldberg, which I don't know anything about, at seven years old. And then of course, most people remember he was Oscar nominated for his role in the Sixth Sense when he was 10 years old. So, you know, yeah.

Zachary Lee (36:16.914)
Yeah.

Zachary Lee (36:21.788)
with you, Vigilberto.

Zachary Lee (36:32.158)
crazy.

Zachary Lee (36:36.2)
So Stacks, was there another kid actor that acclaimed at the time? I feel like probably not, yeah.

Eli (36:42.994)
I don't think so. yeah, yeah, so, Haley Joe Osment was really like Spielberg's first and only choice for, and, there it's fun. It's cool in the, in the Blu-ray special features, there's like a whole little like, Tim, don't know how long it is five to 10 minutes, of like interview with Haley Joe Osment. and he's like so adult, he's like,

Zachary Lee (36:52.007)
Yeah.

Zachary Lee (37:08.158)
Here we go.

Eli (37:12.734)
The way he talks is like, he might as well be another like adult actor, like talking about his involvement with the movie. Yeah. Like he sounds so like mature and I'm like, man, this kid is something else. yes. But yeah, he, so he talks with Spielberg before the script was done and, you know, had a kind of a casual conversation, which is pretty typical of Spielberg with kids. They,

Zachary Lee (37:18.472)
He's involved with the film. That's so funny. Yeah.

Zachary Lee (37:26.408)
Precocious young lad, yeah, there you go.

Eli (37:42.558)
He doesn't like throw it all at them at once, kind of like ease them in, you know? but yeah, then yeah, he read the script and was excited to do it. and man, he, he really took on a lot for this. He, he had three hours of school each day, which always plays in when you have a child actor. he had, he talked about how they had gotten his makeup down to like 30 minutes. So, they did like this.

Zachary Lee (38:01.586)
Totally.

Eli (38:11.708)
Waxy spray on him to make him Yeah Yeah, so he it wasn't as intensive as Jude Laws makeup because he's supposed to look more human because he's like a newer I guess like David is like a newer Model of of Mecca that's supposed to look more more human. But yeah, but yeah Osment

Zachary Lee (38:12.207)
yes, that's right. To like give that like artificial look or something. Yeah.

Zachary Lee (38:22.768)
which

Zachary Lee (38:31.335)
Yeah.

Eli (38:38.866)
His dad was actually an acting coach or had done some acting, something like that. His dad was able to like actually help him with his acting. He had experience in that. And so he would help him like understand subtext for scenes and stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah. And then, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure it helped a ton for how good he was and, you know, already having as much experience as he did.

Zachary Lee (38:52.888)
Mm, okay, that's good to know. Some added context.

Zachary Lee (39:05.438)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (39:08.394)
But yeah, I mean, he's great. He has to carry Teddy around. Teddy weighed like 20 to 30 pounds. So he had to carry this like Teddy around.

Zachary Lee (39:15.646)
That's crazy to think.

I always forget how props are just never what you think they are. There's always a deeper context to what's being there.

Eli (39:23.833)
Yes.

Yeah, I mean, because the the Teddy, there was like a special Teddy that was a carryable Teddy, but he still like had robotics in him and so that he could like do some movements. And so he wasn't light. He was like 20 or 30 pounds, I think. But and then the the big thing that I was like most impressed with was that I didn't realize. But when he when he said it, I was like, yeah, that's true, is that he didn't blink in any take. So like.

Zachary Lee (39:53.532)
Mmm.

Eli (39:57.076)
Through the whole movie, you never see David Blink.

Zachary Lee (40:00.35)
I need to re-watch through this now. I don't think I really noticed or thought of that. Yeah. It's kind of wild.

Eli (40:03.644)
I know.

Eli (40:07.282)
Yeah, but it adds to that effect though. So I guess he had to really practice not blinking.

Zachary Lee (40:13.736)
Yes. He committed to it. That's crazy.

Eli (40:17.576)
Yeah, but yeah, we'll talk more about the character later. yeah, other cast. But before we move on, mean, Osment is like so essential to this movie working. He like. He really, really like nails it, I think, with the kind of like that feeling of. Not quite feeling human.

Zachary Lee (40:30.28)
Totally.

Zachary Lee (40:45.094)
yeah.

Eli (40:47.114)
So, mean, just huge, huge props to all HJO.

Zachary Lee (40:52.112)
Yeah, exactly. For being able to do that. Very impressive.

Eli (40:55.198)
But Jude Law plays Gigolo Joe and he's kind of coming off the talented Mr. Ifley. So he's pretty like famous right now in the world of acting. And yeah, he does a lot of work too. He does three months of rehearsals with a choreographer, Francesca Jaynes. They're trying to like mix in some different elements for the way like

Zachary Lee (40:59.996)
Hmm.

Eli (41:25.374)
that Jiggle-O-Joe moves. So it's a mix of 1930s Jiggle-Os with their big tailed suits or whatever, and the way they kind of move real classy-like and whatnot. That was Spielberg's kind of input. But then he mixes in some Fred Astaire, the way Fred Astaire moves, and also the more playful way that Gene Kelly would move as well.

Zachary Lee (41:48.114)
Yeah.

Eli (41:55.775)
And he kind of he worked with a choreographer to like mix all that stuff together, but do it like in a sort of robotic way So I really love the way he moves in the movie, I think it's really fun and Yeah

Zachary Lee (42:10.436)
It's yeah, he's a very fluid kind of character, you know, which I think is like hard to get and it speaks to like that him being a newer model, right? Or to like, to Haley's character, right? In some way too. So yeah. So there's like that newness that's there. It's like, well, that's the thing that struck me was I because do you have the like Blu-ray or like the, cause I watched this on Paramount Plus, which

Eli (42:15.315)
Yeah.

Eli (42:26.153)
Mm-hmm.

Zachary Lee (42:38.054)
I mean, I don't know if it's like, could be a variety of things for like my TV. It just didn't, it looked a little weird, but I'm like, maybe that's the point. I don't know. Like not as crisp. Yeah. Like it was a little too, which I mean, we can get into that more later, but I'm like, maybe this is underscoring the theme here, but I don't, I'm curious if like the Blu-ray or 4k or something is like more crystallized or something, you know, if they're. Yeah. Yeah. How he looks. Yeah. That's right.

Eli (42:38.26)
Okay. Yeah, like his character. Yeah.

Eli (42:56.343)
Yeah. No, we can talk about that because that is part of his design. he, he, yeah. So like the, from like the clothes, so Bob Ringwood kind of with his clothes was blending, this, like the three things he mentioned were Dracula, Elvis, and like a romantic hero of the Victorian era.

Zachary Lee (43:24.732)
Great.

Eli (43:25.288)
So he's mixing those three things and the clothes were like basically made of some kind of like plastic. So they, so that the clothes look very like artificial, but then he would put on, so like he had like the artificially slicked back hair. like they really slicked it back and then she would like airbrush his hairline.

to make it look like, you know how you can see like a doll's hairline, like where they like sewed the hair in. It kind of gave it like that sort of look. And then yeah, he had like a latex foam chin prosthetic. And then, yeah, and then like layers and layers of makeup to kind of give that sheen synthetic look. So yeah, it was, it was purposeful. I think the, kind of like

Zachary Lee (43:57.17)
Yeah.

Zachary Lee (44:06.47)
Okay, so was a whole affair to get it there, yeah.

Zachary Lee (44:17.947)
Okay.

Eli (44:20.072)
the way he looks kind of fake. Yeah. Right.

Zachary Lee (44:22.494)
Thank you. Yeah, I was like not like deep fake per se that level but like not Very I mean they I'm like they got the on on inhuman element there

Eli (44:32.783)
Yeah. Yeah. So that, that was all like part of his character was, just fake, fakeness, I guess. I guess we'll never know, how fake things were downstairs. Cause we, cut away, from that scene, from that scene when he's, I think, thank goodness. Cause I don't, I don't want to know.

Zachary Lee (44:53.554)
Which, let me say, I think, I don't wanna know either. This movie, man, it's getting, yeah, I forgot. I'm sure it was a jump to see Spielberg's stuff from before. I mean, guess he had done his one movie at this point, so it's not like he's only family friendly, but I'm like, it's a kid. And then it's like, they're really getting into it here, you know? Yeah.

Eli (45:11.57)
Yeah, yeah.

Eli (45:20.382)
Yeah. it's Jiggalo Joe and this lady is worried about, you know, what he's got going on.

Zachary Lee (45:27.367)
It's crazy. I was like Spielberg? I'm like that's what that's why I kept wondering like is this a Spielberg thing or a Kubrick thing? Is it both of these guys?

Eli (45:30.537)
yeah.

Eli (45:36.584)
Yeah. Yeah, I think, I think Jiggle-O-Joe was one of those characters that was not very fleshed out. So there's a lot of, I think Spielberg developed out that character a whole lot more than Kubrick had. So, which is, you know, surprising. You would think the, the like darker stuff would be more Kubrick, but it seems like a lot of the dark stuff was kind of on, was

In the middle part at least was Spielberg too. So, yeah, I guess the rest of the cast is like, there's not a whole lot to talk about what the rest of the cast, Francis O'Connor plays Monica Swinton. She's kind of a lesser known English actor. then you have Sam Robards playing the dad, Henry Swinton. and I didn't know this. He's the son of Jason Robards and Lauren McCall who are two like,

Just if you look up their like filmographies, they both have like over a hundred films. so yeah, like Lauren Bacall, I recognized her name. and then I recognized Jason Robards face. so, but Lauren Bacall was in the big sleep. She was, the main, the leading lady in the big sleep. So. Yeah. Yeah. yeah. So they, they play the parents,

Zachary Lee (46:38.334)
Whoa.

Zachary Lee (46:51.199)
okay. I'm looking up at some of these people now. That's so interesting. Yeah.

Eli (47:02.088)
Jake Thomas plays Martin Swinton, the real son of the family. And I was like, I recognize this kid when I was watching it. And finally, I was looking at his filmography or and like his IMDB later on and I was like, he's the little brother in Lizzie McGuire. That's why I recognize him, because that was like that was around my time. I was in

Zachary Lee (47:23.238)
It doesn't even go, okay, that's right, yeah.

Eli (47:32.394)
what fifth grade in 2001 which is when that show started and so that was like I was like the prime age for those Disney shows at that at that point so yeah

Zachary Lee (47:42.362)
It's great. No, he I'm just reading this lore. Apparently he was going to be Mowgli in the Jungle Book 2, but Haley Joel, ultimate was cast instead. So the rivalry continues even off screen. It seems I'm sure they're fine. But the robot line exact. What does this say for society?

Eli (47:50.751)
no.

The robot won. Yeah. Jake Thomas might've won the parents, but you know, the robot David won the other roles, you know.

Zachary Lee (48:07.454)
Haley, exactly. Run the rules, this is so true.

Eli (48:14.418)
man, yeah, he's not my favorite part of the movie, but you know, he's fine, I guess. He's not near, he's like, I guess compared when you're like holding up Jake Thomas's acting to Haley Joel Osment's, it's like, doesn't even compare.

Zachary Lee (48:21.947)
Yeah.

Zachary Lee (48:32.334)
Right, yeah. And he's like just an obstacle, you know, it's like to get like, I think for a while I was like, I thought the film is going to be about this like intimate contained story of sibling rivalry. And it's like, nah, we're going past this like very, very quickly, you know, get us to the flesh circus or whatever, you know, that's the flesh fairy.

Eli (48:36.893)
Yeah.

Eli (48:46.792)
Yeah. Nope.

Yeah, the flesh fair. man. Yeah, I guess rounding out the cast, you have a bunch of voice acting. Well, have Brendan Gleeson plays Lord Johnson Johnson, which I could not have $4 million told you that that was his character's name. But that is the character's name, Lord Johnson Johnson, played by Brendan Gleeson. So.

Zachary Lee (49:13.432)
no. That's...

Eli (49:23.038)
And then voice acting, have Jack Angel playing Teddy, which I think he did a great job. I really enjoyed that performance. William Hurt as Professor Hobby, another non-voice actor.

Zachary Lee (49:25.842)
Mmm.

Zachary Lee (49:29.241)
yeah.

Zachary Lee (49:35.463)
Yeah.

Eli (49:40.276)
Sorry. And then yeah, Dr. No played by Robin Williams, very recognizable voice. Meryl Streep plays the voice of the blue fairy there at the end. You have Chris Rock showing up very, very briefly as the comedian Mecca that's being shot out of the cannon, which yeah.

Zachary Lee (49:45.682)
Mm.

Zachary Lee (50:03.321)
yeah, that's so funny.

Eli (50:08.146)
I have questions about the design of that that Mecca. I don't know. It looks like a fake version of like what a black like what black face would have looked like back in the day. So I was like, that's weird. Why does it look like that? Yeah. So I was like, I don't know about that design, but yeah. And then rounding out like the notable ones, Ben Kingsley plays

Zachary Lee (50:23.484)
That's...

Zachary Lee (50:29.884)
Yeah.

Eli (50:37.604)
specialist which is like the main future being at the end. Yeah so that that was Ben Kingsley. Yes and he actually does the narration at the very beginning too. I think I'm pretty sure that's Ben Kingsley at the beginning and the end that's doing like the opening and closing narration which we'll talk about later because I think that plays into some like ways to read the movie but

Zachary Lee (50:41.726)
That's why he sounded familiar. That's okay. I was like, I'm remembering this. Yeah.

Zachary Lee (50:51.917)
Mmm, okay. Got it.

Eli (51:06.858)
But yeah, let's talk about the production. They went from August to November in 2000, the year 2000, and they shot on five sound stages in WB Studios in Burbank. So the vast majority of the film was shot on sound stages, which makes sense because it's like a totally created world. The only things they did

Zachary Lee (51:32.497)
Yep.

Eli (51:35.464)
outside where they did some forest scenes in Oregon and California. And then they, they also did some filming and there's like a geodesic dome beside the queen Mary in Long beach. that, I think it howls something by, what's his face, the guy, the movie, the aviators about him, Howard. What's the guy's name?

Zachary Lee (51:37.33)
Yep, that's right.

Eli (52:04.51)
can't think of it right now, but he had some sort of like big plane or something that used to be housed in that big dome and they used, I think they used it for something in the movie. yeah, so really like mostly they spent their time on sound stages at Warner Brothers Studios. So, what, so the cinematography, what did you think about the way this movie looked? Be interesting to hear.

Zachary Lee (52:04.946)
Yeah, I'll die.

Zachary Lee (52:28.605)
Yeah.

Zachary Lee (52:31.92)
Yeah, it was. Well, it's interesting to your well to your point about this downstage thing, because I was listening to an podcast or just like listening to some reviews and I was like, yeah, it I could tell I think I just appreciated the reach that this was trying to go for. Like you said, like with the like, I think everything when, you know, you know, like with when what when in the forest, right, when David's left there, it's like

Eli (52:51.434)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (53:00.512)
Yeah.

Zachary Lee (53:01.906)
and you get to see all the other mechs, like that's just cool stuff. And I know like them, Tim trying to do that was really good. It's like, it's very like uncanny valley-esque sometimes, you know, which I think, I think that's where, when it doesn't look like that, it's like some of the mechs don't, but like there was that great shot, like sometimes it looks really good. Like who's that? I'm forgetting the actress or the character, but it's like that, that female robot that like cares for.

Eli (53:05.934)
Yeah. Yes.

Zachary Lee (53:31.186)
David, Nanny, and like you see her face turn and you like see that, you know, and like stuff like that's great where I'm like, yeah, like it's underscoring what the film is trying to say about humanity being tied with machinery. So some cool shots individually, I think like as a whole when they're trying to like do the widespread of stuff, I'm like, this looks kind of weird. But once again, I was like, I'm curious your thoughts too, cause I'm like, this might just be my old TV.

Eli (53:31.56)
Yeah, she's like the nanny bot kinda.

Eli (53:36.676)
Yeah.

Eli (53:43.609)
Yeah.

Zachary Lee (54:00.158)
Paramount Plus not having the best version of this film on the streamer But maybe that your your your setup with the with the blu-rays a little is a little better, but yeah

Eli (54:06.11)
Yeah. Yeah. No, I, I mean, I liked the look of it. It's not like the most like stunning of Spielberg's films as far, but it's like one of his most interesting as far as like the visuals. so like, it's like, I mean, when I think like stunning Spielberg shots, I think like, you know,

Zachary Lee (54:18.416)
I would say it too. There's like a griminess, yeah.

Zachary Lee (54:24.722)
Mmm.

Eli (54:34.576)
Schindler's List or even like even like the way like the Indiana Jones movies look they just like look really great but like this one doesn't like have any like pop out things as far as like this looks like stunning but it also like has all the imprints of Spielberg's like framing and the way he shoots

So like has all that, but it's just interesting. It's tons of like really interesting visuals. and I think that probably comes less from like, it comes from Spielberg for sure, but not so much the cinematography as like the concept art and the design. but I did think the cinematography was interesting. They had, they had Kaminsky, in some of the special features talking about

Zachary Lee (55:26.609)
yeah.

Eli (55:33.242)
his choices because there's like in the three different acts there's basically like three different kind of atmospheres going on and so he talked about how in the first act he was going for a more like padded and sanitized clinical look in the the Swinton house which I definitely can see that and then

Zachary Lee (55:41.629)
Yeah.

Eli (55:58.108)
for like the Flesh Faire and Rouge City sequences he's going for more like nocturnal and colorful and flashy and you know all that sort of stuff and then you have like this intense and contrasting Manhattan and ocean floor looks which yeah they're especially like the ocean floor is very like intense and like a lot just a lot going on under there

Zachary Lee (56:25.896)
Yeah.

Eli (56:27.496)
with the kind of underwater Coney Island. Yeah, so the yeah, so it was interesting hearing him talk about like the way he did the lighting for the movie and how he tried to like match the tones because all three acts kind of have different tones to them. And so like he tried to like match those tones with the way he lit it. So I thought that was interesting. And then, yeah.

Zachary Lee (56:29.957)
Yeah, that was wild.

Zachary Lee (56:50.781)
Yeah.

Eli (56:58.687)
But I mean the design is really what stands out like we talked about Jiggle-O-Joe like the costume I thought it was interesting the costume designer talked about how he went with like classic generic middle-class clothes because it felt more timeless and When he yeah when he said that they were like showing you know shot like little shots from the movie and people's clothes and I was like he's right like a lot of the people just kind of have like

Zachary Lee (57:15.06)
yeah.

Eli (57:27.324)
normal clothes on and it does feel like something someone still might wear today, you know, over 20 years later. And even like that outside work, like Rouge City is still like pretty subdued. didn't, he tried not to do anything too wild or fantastical with the clothes. And then like I said, the concept art played a huge part. Rick Carter, who did the production design was able to like,

take all of that concept art that Baker had made and like flesh it out for like the sets. And so like you, when you look at the drawings of Rouge City, like you really like capture some of those drawings with the sets they made. And then even like the, the bridge when they're going into Rouge City with the mouths open, that's like in the concept art and it looks like

just like the concept art and the way they did it in the movie. And so it played a really big part in a lot of the interesting visual ideas came from that art that Chris Baker does. yeah, so he might be a big unsung hero for how interesting this movie looks, for sure.

Zachary Lee (58:45.906)
Yeah, I like that. That's a really interesting. Well, I'm curious. was too, because I was listening to something where that like back to the lighting a bit like that idea of like how those first scenes were David's at home. Like it is supposed to be allegedly feel like you're warm and comforted, but it's almost too much like it's over saturated. Right. Which I thought was an interesting note. So I'm wondering if like the clothing and like

Eli (58:48.51)
Yeah.

Eli (58:55.047)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (59:07.632)
Yes. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's like, it's like it's, it looks

Zachary Lee (59:12.474)
It's like ideally domestic bliss or whatever, like there's still something that's like wrong with it or not quite not quite there. Yeah

Eli (59:27.508)
fine but there's something like too like clean about it it kind of matches like how it matches how David feels like David's like he looks like at first glance like yeah that's a kid but then like you watch the way he acts and it's like something's a little off it's a little too perfect you know he's a little bit too like ready to just do whatever i ask him to do or like you know

Zachary Lee (59:32.242)
That's over, yeah.

Mmm, that's a good way putting it.

Eli (59:57.726)
Yeah, it's just something something's a little off about him But yeah, I mean The the special effects had a lot to do with like the success of the movie too they They even had like so like on the sound the soundstage where they built route the Rouge City They built like the first layer like in

Zachary Lee (01:00:00.584)
Yeah.

Eli (01:00:26.728)
Like it was actually there. So the first layer of like buildings and stuff. But then like anything back like farther is all like added in in post. So they filmed against a blue screen and added all like all the depth and buildings in the background and stuff in post. And the cool thing is they had developed this like.

Zachary Lee (01:00:46.577)
okay.

Eli (01:00:51.718)
All the way back in this seems like, yeah, sure. Anyone can do this now. But back in 2001, this was like cutting edge. They had a pre visualization system set up where they could see in the monitors in real time what was going like, what they were going to be adding in post in the background. even though it wasn't there like on set. so that was like huge for them, like

Zachary Lee (01:00:58.451)
Totally.

Eli (01:01:17.918)
Probably like helped them be a lot more efficient with their shooting too. because they could see like, here's everything going on. Like they could, they could just like, yeah, it, yeah, it's really cool. and I liked this too. Spielberg's pitch to Michael Lentiere and Dennis Murin, for, for joining the film. He said that it would be quote, a quest for love using all the tools that special effects offer us.

Zachary Lee (01:01:21.751)
yeah.

Zachary Lee (01:01:46.994)
That's great.

Eli (01:01:47.334)
unquote. And so they really like used everything special effects wise. had miniatures. Yeah, they had miniatures. They had animatronics. They had prostheses on real people. They had blue screen. They had the CGI elements. And one thing that Spielberg really like laid into was that

Zachary Lee (01:01:52.42)
Yeah. Hey, you might as well, you know, while you're there.

Eli (01:02:12.862)
there should be an element of humanity in every character no matter what the technology was. So whether it was like an animatronic or a real person or CGI, he wanted like there to be elements of humanity in it. to kind of, yeah, right. Yes. and Lanteria was really like in his interviews, he was talking about how

Zachary Lee (01:02:26.29)
What a concept to think about nowadays, you know, with like the AI stuff and everything, but yeah, no, it's a.

Eli (01:02:41.074)
He really, so he's worked with Spielberg a good bit. so, he kind of just like does his work and then he shows us Spielberg and Spielberg would be like, yeah, keep going in that direction or no, like go in this direction. And it's like, similar to kind of, how Kaminsky was talking to Minsky talked about, like, we don't really have to talk a whole lot about what we want it to look like anymore. Lanteri felt the same way. And he said also, that he always felt like.

His work with Spielberg ends up all of it ends up on the screen. So like he feels like he's not wasting any of his work to Yeah, you were talking about the robots and I think that's really interesting Kubrick had The idea to the design them according to function and so Spielberg kind of like stuck with that. So like You do see like a variety of different

Zachary Lee (01:03:21.886)
Mmm.

Zachary Lee (01:03:32.103)
Yeah.

Eli (01:03:39.348)
kinds of robots and mechas and that's because they're like they're supposed to be like designed according to what function they play and so you know I guess like Jiggle-O-Joe is supposed to be like a lover and so he's made to look he's very smooth and like elegant and yeah and yeah quippy and you know knows the right thing to say at the right time sort of thing

Zachary Lee (01:03:53.523)
Hooray.

Right, that kind of fluid element there, yeah.

Eli (01:04:08.746)
But yeah, mean, you have a ton of what was your favorite robot? Do you have a favorite?

Zachary Lee (01:04:16.414)
What was, yeah, well, I do, you I will say, despite all the things I'm saying about like Jude's character being like a little like a weird talus. See, what was the one that was, this is so sad, but it's like the one that was like being strung up and then like ass support. I feel so bad, but I'm like, that was kind of a cool design. I'm not gonna lie, but RIP.

Eli (01:04:35.84)
Yeah, I liked that one too.

Eli (01:04:41.002)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I like, I like.

Zachary Lee (01:04:44.998)
Respect to the Komi, he got destroyed, but yeah. But I'm happy you liked it too. I was like, is this weird if I'm like, this thing that gets destroyed real soon, but yeah.

Eli (01:04:49.236)
He did, yeah. Yeah.

Eli (01:04:56.304)
Yeah, and I liked the one too that was like, it kind of had this like, hologram face kind of thing going on. that was, that was kind of cool too. yeah, they, they had a ton of them. they're yeah, not all of them, like

Zachary Lee (01:05:04.302)
Yes, I'm trying- you know what?

While you two, I'm just gonna look up MEX and AI just so I can get a better visual. yeah.

Which, and you're saying this was in the concept art too, like what you're talking about when they were like making it? Not all of them? Okay.

Eli (01:05:24.458)
But some of them yeah, some of them were in the concept art some of them they kind of like Spielberg just kind of let them kind of have fun and use their imaginations and They even made one that like looked like Stan Winston who was you know, the animatronics guy. So that's fun But yeah

Zachary Lee (01:05:41.65)
That's funny. I am seeing the hologram one. That's a cool design too, actually. do like anything that's like a little more lanky or spindly. Off, See, I think those it's funny. I mean, we were talking off pod before about I saw Nightmare before Christmas recently, and I know you you you had that jack skeleton shirt. So maybe I just have an affinity for the long spindly slender man looking.

Eli (01:05:47.037)
Yeah.

Eli (01:05:51.068)
Yeah, yeah, he's not he doesn't look real like a human at all. Yeah.

Eli (01:06:03.139)
yeah.

Eli (01:06:10.41)
Yes, yeah, yeah shout out to Jack Skellington, you know He's the man. He's the man with the plan the pumpkin king Yeah, I really the robots are really interesting You know, you talked about the nanny one and how like she turns to the side and like you you see the stuff they use like

Zachary Lee (01:06:11.238)
looking robots now, you know?

Yeah.

He is a man.

Zachary Lee (01:06:22.556)
Exactly.

Zachary Lee (01:06:34.536)
Mm-hmm, and you see that.

Eli (01:06:40.66)
Basically like blue screen. She just like was wearing like a blue wrap around that part of her face. And so yeah. So that's that's really. It's really cutting edge because that stuff they still do now is like, you know, people wear like will wear green suits or like wear parts of them that are green and then they'll add in that stuff CGI and post. And that's what they did with a lot of the robots in this movie was.

Zachary Lee (01:06:46.28)
Really? Okay, that's interesting. And that makes sense because I was wondering how they did that, you know?

Eli (01:07:10.558)
She had like basically blue screen, like fabric wrap around that part of her head, except for like the part of her face that was like actually supposed to show. And then, yeah, they just added that in and post like a mirror and even talked about like how it was like pretty tedious process to like get the lighting and shadows right in the CGI. Yeah. And they.

Zachary Lee (01:07:32.318)
It was well done, I will say. Yeah, that makes sense. And that's tough to do.

Eli (01:07:38.182)
One of the other things I thought was really cool was they actually hired on a lot of amputees to play the road. they're the one that I remember seeing in the and both like I remember seeing it when I watched it and also like in the special features, the one that they one of the ones they showed was when all the mechas are like come into the little dump where they've dumped all the peak parts, you have the one guy that's like

Zachary Lee (01:07:43.398)
nice, yeah.

Eli (01:08:06.58)
trying to put on an arm and then there's another one that comes up and it has like a welding tool on its arm. That was a guy that was an amputee and they had like made that little, welding piece to like be attached to his arm that was cut off. Yeah. Yeah. And so, which makes sense because who would know how to like function with a part of you that's not actually like a part of your body better than an amp, a person that's an amputee.

Zachary Lee (01:08:08.818)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Zachary Lee (01:08:19.304)
to his arm. Interesting.

Zachary Lee (01:08:33.906)
That's someone who doesn't.

Eli (01:08:36.714)
So you get some amputee representation in this movie, which is, you you don't hear of that very often, but it's in there.

Zachary Lee (01:08:44.796)
Well, see, it's like what you said, it's like every time Spielberg does that, then he has the robot that looks like it is a questionable depiction of, like you said, a blackface for a character. So you're like, can we have some more? Can we be consistent in your representation here? Which is good.

Eli (01:08:56.554)
Yeah.

Eli (01:09:01.065)
Yeah.

Yeah, maybe that was just my reading of it. yeah, mean, there's even like, there's some sequences where you have like a bunch of robots like in one shot and like when they're all in the cage, there's like 20 or so robots in there and they're all, think I remember there was like 40 something puppeteers or like, you know, people running the controls for all of those.

Zachary Lee (01:09:07.73)
Yeah.

Eli (01:09:34.667)
robots to make sure that that because when you're getting like a shot of all of them, they all have to be functioning and like moving around and so really takes a lot of coordination to to have all those puppeteers puppeteering all of those animatronics to make it look like look good, you know on screen.

Zachary Lee (01:09:36.872)
That's crazy.

Zachary Lee (01:09:54.502)
Yeah, no, really. And like, it just speaks to like, the decision to focus on those scenes and to make them feel like characters. you know, to, like, I think the fact that we get so many elongated moments with those, with them is like, to underscore that sense of like, compassion to feel, you know, they're not like extras, we get moments. It's like, like you said, these are like full scenes with, with people or with, with, with the AI. Yeah.

Eli (01:10:04.214)
Right.

Eli (01:10:14.089)
Yeah.

Eli (01:10:19.904)
Yeah Yeah, and it feels like it's one of those things that Spielberg does really well is like he when he's like on top of his game he's really good at like super efficient character development and And there are like a couple of those mechas in that cage where you feel like you know I would like to see that character actually fleshed out more like what's their what's their background and like

Zachary Lee (01:10:33.021)
Yeah.

Zachary Lee (01:10:43.451)
Right, right.

Eli (01:10:47.164)
It takes like someone like Spielberg to like take, you know, 30 seconds on screen and get you interested in a character. but yeah, the, the star of all the, the animatronics though, of course was Teddy. Ted Teddy's the MVP. Yeah. Yeah. He's, he's like, he might be my favorite in the movie. He's just like,

Zachary Lee (01:11:03.96)
without a doubt. Freaked me out when he first sparked talked, but grew to love the guy by the end. But yeah.

Zachary Lee (01:11:15.058)
End of...

Eli (01:11:16.98)
He's just walking around like, where's David? Have you seen David? Are you taking me to David?

Zachary Lee (01:11:18.959)
I know.

Zachary Lee (01:11:22.598)
We love someone who's focused on a mission, you know? He's losing focus.

Eli (01:11:26.122)
He's laser focused, like, he's like, we're sitting here for 2000 years stared at a statue. Like I'm, by your side, bro. Like.

Zachary Lee (01:11:34.126)
I think that's so funny. It's like, that's a crazy amount of time. Yeah. Is that true?

Eli (01:11:42.236)
man. Yeah, Teddy, he's the real MVP of this movie. But yeah, he is a blend of animatronic and CGI. Of course, just like in Jurassic Park with the dinosaurs, they try to do as much real animatronic work on screen as possible. And usually the CGI is just like if Teddy's like running, which the puppets couldn't really do that smoothly.

then they would like CGI that, most of it is the animatronic Teddy. And you know, they, they like, they'd looked at some animated bears like Pooh Bear and stuff to kind of get ideas for how he would move. So that's pretty cool.

Zachary Lee (01:12:25.826)
Hey, next Halloween you have a new bear costume idea for the kiddos, you know? It's great. As Teddy.

Eli (01:12:29.288)
yeah yes dress them up as teddy or maybe i'll be teddy because i can do the voice better yeah gotta have the the deep calm voice

Zachary Lee (01:12:35.496)
See, there we go, exactly. That's how you trick or treat. Where's David? When you ask for your candy, that's exactly right. Yeah. But that's where.

Eli (01:12:44.308)
Yeah.

trick-or-treat I'm getting candy for David. Yes.

Zachary Lee (01:12:48.355)
For David, it always has to tie back to David somehow to honor the spirit of the character.

Eli (01:12:56.698)
man. Yeah, a lot of different. So they had a lot of different like versions of Teddy too. Like there was one where like he was rigged and attached like to somebody puppeteering him like attached to their feet. So when they were walking, he was walking. So that was kind of cool. They had like different heads for different Teddy moods that they would switch out. Like I said earlier, they had a carryable Teddy.

Zachary Lee (01:13:03.133)
Mm.

Eli (01:13:23.924)
that had more minimal movements and yeah, Teddy, this is crazy. One of the producers said that Teddy worked every day of a 76 day shoot, which is like unheard of for like an animatronic character to like actually be on set working every day of a production. Yeah. Yeah.

Zachary Lee (01:13:39.299)
it's a work though.

Zachary Lee (01:13:45.764)
And being carried, like you said, by Tailey for like multiple scenes, yeah.

Eli (01:13:53.662)
And they had Jack Angel who did the voice on set because they were constantly having to like redo vocals because you know the context of the scene calls for like him to say something in a different intonation or something like that. So yeah, he was on set a good bit too. Yeah, I mean there's a ton of stuff with the production like the underwater stuff like that was really cool. They shot

all that in miniature and they did this thing called dry as wet cinematography. So it's basically like giving the illusion that you're underwater but it's actually not underwater. So they filled the room with smoke and got the lighting just right so that those and you know and it's shot in miniature. So these are like miniature models that they're shooting for this like

underwater Coney Island Pinocchio, you know, theme park thing. But it's but yeah, it was just not underwater. It was just in a room lit well with smoke, a lot of smoke in it and to make make it and it looks like it's underwater. Movie magic. Yeah, and then they they would add the like amphibicopter in post, which props to the name for that thing amphibicopter like that's great.

Zachary Lee (01:15:04.126)
Whoa. That's once again the movie magic there. And like, yeah, that's crazy.

Zachary Lee (01:15:16.062)
That's right.

Zachary Lee (01:15:19.752)
is pretty good. Once again, you get character development with just the name. It's just right to the

Eli (01:15:20.338)
A great name for a vehicle.

Eli (01:15:25.29)
yeah. And yeah, you get more miniatures too with the Manhattan section. The buildings, especially the main building, is a scaled miniature. And then they have some CGI and map backgrounds. And then the water is CGI. The water looks pretty good for CGI water, I think.

Yeah, and then the amphibicopter there is CGI'd some, like when you see it flying around, but then they also do some live action stuff with blue screen for the amphibicopter for Manhattan. But yeah, the main building that they end up going in with the lion waterfalls was like a... I think he said it was like a miniature that was like six foot, like around six foot tall.

Zachary Lee (01:15:53.18)
Yeah.

Zachary Lee (01:15:58.131)
Yeah.

Zachary Lee (01:16:02.184)
Yeah.

Eli (01:16:20.946)
of that building. it's pretty cool. Yeah, the the a lot of I just run through these like miscellaneous fun facts about the so they took plaster casts of Osment for all the Davids. So he had to spend a day like getting plaster casts done of him, which he he talked about being

Zachary Lee (01:16:34.589)
yeah, no, please. They look great.

Eli (01:16:49.406)
very strange experience. They, one thing that I thought was cool, just like movie magic was there was like, they made this trick table for the surgery scene. So, you know, you he's got all the spinach up in his electronic parts and he's like under the rest of his body is under the table and it's just his head sticking out through a hole. Yeah. So like, it's like a trick table, movie magic.

Zachary Lee (01:17:04.018)
Yeah.

Zachary Lee (01:17:12.891)
Yeah, so it's like, but they have the

It's so funny, it's really about illusion and making you think about one thing but not, yeah. Always good.

Eli (01:17:22.169)
yeah, it looks it looks great. You know, it looks yeah The flesh fair cannon was done live-action Lanteri like went to Spielberg and he was like, I know we could probably like CGI this but Let's actually like shoot this animatronic through a fan blades and have it explode So they did

Zachary Lee (01:17:43.888)
Why not, you know?

Eli (01:17:49.386)
They videoed Robin Williams to get inspiration for movements for Dr. No while he was doing his vocal recording So that's fun The Rouge City Amphibicopter had the set was like built around a track So it was actually it looks like it's like uncontrollably like flailing around the city streets, but it's actually on a track very controlled and then of course

Zachary Lee (01:17:54.481)
Alright.

Eli (01:18:18.314)
at this point they're able in post to digitally erase the track and the bass that's holding it up. just like 10 years ago that wouldn't have really been possible and now it is in 2001. And then the other interesting thing was they went through eight tons of real ice per day on the excavation set. So where they're pulling David out of the ice

Zachary Lee (01:18:26.909)
Yeah.

Zachary Lee (01:18:46.694)
Yeah, eight tons a day. That's crazy.

Eli (01:18:47.966)
They wanted to have eight tons a day. That's what they said. Yeah. And so they would like, yeah, they've stolen all of them. That's why Manhattan's underwater, you know? Yeah.

Zachary Lee (01:18:54.386)
That's why the polar ice caps have melted. It's because they were doing this movie. They stole it all of it to make this movie. I hope you're proud of yourself, Spielberg. No, that's exactly why. That's neat. That's, yeah. But I mean, I was gonna say like how they got that that excavation, because you're dealing with like water, snow, things are breaking. So yeah, that's all there.

Eli (01:19:16.478)
Yeah.

Yeah, there's really, really good shots in that. And I think it really like pays off like to have real ice and they would bring it on and get all the ice like three hours before shooting so that by the time they were shooting, it was kind of all melty and wet. And like, I think it looks really good. Like there's the shot of like looking through the windshield of the vehicle at David as like the water's like melting over it. Like looks really good. Yeah.

Zachary Lee (01:19:45.56)
yeah, no, totally, stuff like that, yeah.

Eli (01:19:50.807)
And then yeah, I mean a lot of the things that are the most CGI were the like future beings at the end Which Which are interesting like they're like long spindly dudes to and they're it said they were based on like ballet dancers and like And they were going for like actors that have like a quiet presence

Zachary Lee (01:19:59.902)
Yeah.

Eli (01:20:18.374)
And yeah, they had to do like in the design, like in the way they designed their movements, they had to rely on pantomime because the things don't really have a face to like be expressive. So they have to like be expressive with their bodies. but yeah, the blue fairy, they talked about being like one of the hardest things because of the lighting and how she's supposed to look like both real and like fantastical and yeah.

Zachary Lee (01:20:27.579)
Yeah.

Zachary Lee (01:20:43.548)
Right, yeah, like a figurine, yeah, like that fairy tale is.

Eli (01:20:47.74)
I think out of all the things in the movie that looks the worst to me. Like I get what they were going for but I'm like this is this looks I don't know it's off-putting maybe it's supposed to be I don't know.

Zachary Lee (01:20:50.684)
Yeah, fair enough.

Zachary Lee (01:21:00.592)
Yeah. Well, it's like when I tried to move, you know, like I think when it's like static or a statue, that's one thing, but it's like when you're trying to have it like interact with like, as you said, like real people, it's just like, well, this isn't, this isn't quite working in the best way, but yeah.

Eli (01:21:05.672)
Yeah. Right. Yeah.

Eli (01:21:17.202)
Yeah, yeah, and I think they I mean they did like try to make her look like the statue did But yeah, and I you know, it's these like future beings that have made this like replica of the statue, you know They have the statue as a reference point So I guess maybe that maybe she does look kind of like the statue and that's why she looks like that I guess I guess that's a good excuse but

Zachary Lee (01:21:37.2)
Yeah, for it.

Eli (01:21:48.935)
But yeah, and then, know, Michael Antieri again in the special features said that not one effect in that movie isn't cutting edge. And I can totally see that. They're really like utilizing every possible like special effect they can.

Zachary Lee (01:22:00.467)
Yeah.

Zachary Lee (01:22:05.394)
Yeah, well, and it's like you said with the ending, which I'm sure I know we'll get into the plot later, but it's just like thinking about how the film, like I definitely thought when I was watching it, it ends with him find, you know, he just starts praying and it ends. Like, do we know what happens or not? But like the fact that they made that whole other sequence, right? With like, they had those, which I know is a Kubrick thing, not Spielberg, even though people might think it's more of a

Eli (01:22:21.236)
Yeah. Yes.

Zachary Lee (01:22:33.786)
it gives more Spielberg. It just speaks to like, yeah, they like were pushing the boundaries narratively. And like you said, with the visuals too, that were there. The technology to make that happen. Yeah, that was there.

Eli (01:22:44.91)
Yeah, the technology too, Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I mean, I have some stuff about the sound to, know, Rydstrom, usually you bring the sound guys in late into the production, but Rydstrom was brought on like before they even started shooting. So he was able to play with a lot of sounds.

kind of throughout the movie getting robotic sounds and he talked about trying to record some like tonal and musical sounds like he played this kind of played on the unlike his keyboards this kids choir that ended up being the sound of like the amphibicopter when it's like passing by underwater this like musical tonal sound instead of like an electronic one so that was all interesting

Zachary Lee (01:23:13.97)
Yeah.

Zachary Lee (01:23:32.573)
Yeah.

Eli (01:23:43.444)
But then yeah, and then the score too for John Williams. It was it's a really like kind of a interesting score for John Williams because just like the lighting and the atmosphere for each act is different, the music kind of changes for each app for each act as well. And in fact, John Williams said that the score is very schizophrenic. Yeah. Yeah.

Zachary Lee (01:24:05.828)
As he said his words. Well, at least he said it first, you know, that's that's there.

Eli (01:24:13.438)
Yeah, he said you have like very like tonal melodies with strings at the beginning and then there's like a bunch of like atonal stuff throughout and then you end with like this calm piano score and it's just like it even has like electronic music way more than a typical John Williams score. And yeah, it's a lot going on. They did include this Strauss piece that Kubrick

had specifically requested. Yeah. And I think he worked it in over the top of the score. When they're going into Roosh city through the mouths of the, the bridge mouths, guess, whatever those things are, you kind of hear the Strauss piece. So that was cool that they, kind of honored Kubrick's wish to get that, that piece in there. Yeah, that.

Zachary Lee (01:24:44.294)
Okay, so they got that.

Zachary Lee (01:24:59.026)
Yeah.

Zachary Lee (01:25:08.787)
Alright.

Eli (01:25:13.226)
That's really it. finished the production, like I said earlier, was a 76 day shoot so they really knocked it out pretty efficiently I think. Way more efficient than Kubrick would have been.

Zachary Lee (01:25:31.35)
totally with it. Well, it's like even with the, what is it? It's just interesting to think about them doing this project and like keeping it productive while wanting to honor him too, you know? And like, what's this idea when you're like working through your own grief and sadness. And I like how you had mentioned there's like a lot of emotions here where like he's trying to like, I can do it. I wonder if there's like, I can make a Kubrick film.

Eli (01:25:46.109)
Mm-hmm

Zachary Lee (01:25:58.416)
and faster than him too, you know, in a funny joking way of competition and stuff like that. Yeah.

Eli (01:26:00.967)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, for sure. And then into just like making it like being true to like what he wanted with the story, but also like making it your own to takes a lot of work. For sure. Yeah, they so they did obviously a lot of post.

Zachary Lee (01:26:18.546)
Yeah.

Eli (01:26:25.556)
post-production work. They finished filming, when did I say I'm scrolling back up? So they finished in November of 2000 and it didn't release until June of the next year. So they had plenty of time that they used to kind of get the post-production CGI stuff right. And yeah, it...

Zachary Lee (01:26:46.408)
Yeah.

Eli (01:26:52.666)
One of the things that kind of worked against the movie was the marketing really played into the mystery of the move like It's like one of those like the the trailers like made it very like you didn't really know what the movie was gonna be They were kind of relying on like it being a Kubrick Spielberg piece like and Using that like they they were just like this is gonna be successful because it's a Spielberg movie that Kubrick was developing

Zachary Lee (01:26:57.743)
interesting.

Zachary Lee (01:27:20.602)
so they were just using the names in that sense, just like no brainer, like it's the thing, yeah.

Eli (01:27:23.41)
Yeah. yeah. So, yeah, they were just like, yeah, this is going to hit. like the it kind of like backfired, which we'll talk about in a second, because the critics were kind of confused. They were like they were either like saying it had Kubrick's like pessimism and and opposing that or they were opposing like Spielberg sentimentality or whatever. So they just didn't because like they didn't know what they were getting into.

Zachary Lee (01:27:31.486)
Yeah.

Zachary Lee (01:27:46.363)
Right, yeah.

Eli (01:27:52.894)
maybe backfired a little bit with the mysterious marketing, but yeah, it released June 29th, 2001. The American public didn't give it the expected triumph. It only earned 78 million domestic and went on to earn 236 million worldwide. So it did make back its $100 million budget, but yeah, it was expected to be way bigger than.

Zachary Lee (01:28:09.457)
oooo

Zachary Lee (01:28:14.973)
It's.

Zachary Lee (01:28:20.473)
I mean, when you have these guys linking together for this, mean, it. yeah. It's like.

Eli (01:28:22.984)
Yeah, for a sci-fi movie, you know, a summer sci-fi blockbuster kind of, yeah. Right.

Zachary Lee (01:28:28.742)
I think about like, it's not like they both have done that before Spielberg, Sci-Fi, Kubrick, obviously 2001. And it's like that marriage, like what you're saying of like commercial sensibility with more, you know, like it just like, like this could work. it, yeah. So it makes sense why you'd think it would do that.

Eli (01:28:36.766)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Eli (01:28:48.434)
Yeah, and I think a lot of people just really were confused by the movie. I think a lot of people just didn't know what to do with it. Yeah, mean, so a lot of the articles that were written in the reception were focused on the kind of differentiation between Spielberg and Kubrick. And a lot of them blamed Spielberg, of course, for this.

sentimentalizing it. But as we know now, most of that stuff was from Kubrick. Spielberg said the whole last 20 minutes of the movie was completely Stan Lee's and then the whole first 35 to 40 minutes of the film, all the stuff in the house was word for word from Stan Lee's screenplay.

Zachary Lee (01:29:17.966)
of it, yeah.

Zachary Lee (01:29:24.272)
Right, right.

Zachary Lee (01:29:37.928)
That's what's so, it's like so funny to think of like, he's getting all the flack for like, this is what you did. He's like, my guy, this is not, this was, this was the person. Yeah.

Eli (01:29:44.266)
Yeah. This was not me. This was blame it on blame it on Stanley.

Zachary Lee (01:29:54.212)
Yeah. and it's like, I could change it, but like, it's like, would actually be, he's being true to what his friend wanted and everything. yeah.

Eli (01:29:58.836)
But yeah, he's being true to... Yeah. Yeah. And then, you know, the Flesh Faire was kind of like a later edition. It wasn't even in Kubrick's first script. And so he really had to like, I guess pun semi-intended, flesh that out a good bit. You know, I already mentioned he had to flesh out the Jiggle-O-Joe character a good bit. And then like...

Zachary Lee (01:30:17.192)
Mm.

Eli (01:30:28.062)
When you really think about it, like, he's evoking a lot of like his past work with some of the darker stuff. Like you have these round images of roundups and mass graves that kind of evoke the, the show that he depicted in Schindler's list. you have these like Gothic futuristic circuses with cages that evoke the slavery he depicted in Amistad. and so like, he does have like some darker imagery.

Zachary Lee (01:30:50.738)
Yeah, I was like, yeah.

Eli (01:30:57.214)
that he's done in his filmography at this point. he so, you know, he's pulling from that. So it's not like the darker stuff is Kubrick and the lighter stuff is Spielberg's like, no, Spielberg's made some dark stuff at this point too, that he, he has experience making. So, yeah, I have these couple of quotes from some, some writing at the time, Peter Bradshaw in the Guardian at the time wrote AI wines,

Zachary Lee (01:31:08.157)
Right.

Eli (01:31:28.01)
I think I had a typo, sorry. I was like, that does not make sense. Bradshaw and Guardian says, AI winds up with Kubrick's empathy and Spielberg's intellectual muscle. It is a lethal combination, unquote. I wrote that and I was like, so this guy liked it. But on second thought, was like, wait.

Zachary Lee (01:31:31.795)
No, you're good.

Hahaha

Eli (01:31:54.346)
Does he mean lethal like in a good way or a bad way? But I think, I think he means it in a good way. Cause there's this, there's this other opinion by Didier Perron from liberation, French, a French publication that said, quote, Spielberg bogs down Kubrick's project in his humanist mush. Unquote. So again, you know, kind of a misunderstanding. There was a big misunderstanding, I think.

Zachary Lee (01:31:55.686)
it could go either way at some point.

Eli (01:32:22.122)
from the critics, of like, who was responsible for what in the movie between Spielberg and Kubrick. And it really got judged based on that instead of just being like judged on its own merit of what it was. And, you know, I really think that that Spielberg Kubrick kind of like question of like, is it more Spielberg or Kubrick like really worked against the success of the film for sure.

Zachary Lee (01:32:23.582)
Mmm.

Zachary Lee (01:32:35.184)
Interesting, yeah, yeah.

Zachary Lee (01:32:46.471)
or more cool rig.

Is that something you were thinking of? Cause I'll admit I did fall into that knowing like the bit of research I had. I was, I mean, it didn't completely take over my viewing, but I was like, you know, I'm not gonna lie. was thinking about it, you know?

Eli (01:32:55.208)
Yeah, yeah.

Eli (01:33:00.829)
You know?

Yeah, go. think going in, I already kind of I had already heard that like that was like a misunderstanding of like who was responsible for what. so I, I really, and then, you know, I always have like a Spielberg, like Spielberg glasses on when I'm watching these movies going through this filmography. And so like

Zachary Lee (01:33:11.581)
Mmm.

Zachary Lee (01:33:26.183)
Of course.

Eli (01:33:30.13)
I'm like just laser focused in on, that's Spielberg, that's Spielberg. So like it's, I wasn't really thinking a whole lot about Kubrick when I was watching the movie. I was just thinking about Spielberg. So yeah, I don't think it really affected too much like my viewing, but yeah, you know, how do you think it affected yours when you were watching?

Zachary Lee (01:33:52.018)
Mm-hmm. I think I was just trying to think like there's always an Inherent maybe and maybe this is unfair. I'm happy us. It's like cynicism I ascribe to Kubrick's work and I think like it's like those elements where I Would expect a Spielberg movie to go left but Kubrick's influence went right like think I think about that scene where he meets his counterpart

Eli (01:34:03.784)
Hmm. Yes.

Zachary Lee (01:34:19.848)
for the first time in the office. like, that's such like a scary and sad moment, you know, where he's like, have I made it home? And it's like, I guess in a, and once again, it's not like Spielberg doesn't know how to deal with darkness, but like, I would think in a moment like that, it's like, is this like a Spielberg, is this a Kubrick choice to be like, actually you traveled all this way for nothing. And guess what? You're not special after all. You're just.

Eli (01:34:22.323)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Zachary Lee (01:34:48.124)
Like, what's that line William Hertz said? He's like, you're the first of your kind. And like, that's just like such a gutting, like, you're actually not special kid. Like, I don't know. It's just like, I don't know. It's like, and I think it's stuff like that where I'm like, wow, this feels pretty cynical. And there isn't a lot of hope, maybe. But once again, I don't want to fall into the binary of like Kubrick, evil and dark and Spielberg, joyful and happy. But

Eli (01:34:58.768)
Yeah.

Eli (01:35:05.776)
Yeah, Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, after.

Zachary Lee (01:35:18.286)
Think of the commercial ability of it, guess, especially after like what, after 1973 or whatever. Maybe he wants to be more mindful about what he's, excuse me, doing.

Eli (01:35:30.89)
Yeah, after making a 1971. Yeah. yeah, I mean, yeah, it's really interesting. mean, what I think what's cool and interesting about this lens that obviously everyone at the time and everyone since kind of watches this movie through, is that it speaks a lot to like the endeavor of the show of like,

Zachary Lee (01:35:32.762)
no, I rewind, yeah yeah.

Zachary Lee (01:35:57.118)
Mmm.

Eli (01:35:58.45)
Okay, let's watch through a director's filmography. Let's tune into like what they're about, what themes they explore, how they like put that onto screen with their visuals. And like, this is like, most people though don't watch movies with that in mind, but for some reason, this one like really like stood out as a movie where people were actually watching it, thinking about who made it and who was involved with making it. And it affected like

the they read the film, which is interesting. It just goes to show that, you know, it is important who makes a film. Yeah, so it kind of like validates my endeavor with this podcast. So yeah, I think it I really liked this quote too from from Steph. I don't know if it's Stephanie, Stephanie.

Zachary Lee (01:36:37.97)
Yeah.

Eli (01:36:57.886)
De Lorme is French, so I don't know how to say her name, but she wrote in a French publication kind of talking about how it relied on Spielberg's poetic emotional force and Kubrick's conceptual analytical kind of filmmaking. the combination of those two things. But she says that...

Zachary Lee (01:37:14.6)
Yeah, the philosophical.

Eli (01:37:25.52)
This is going to be like a preview of like how we end our conversation by talking about the ending of the movie. But she said, quote, Spielberg reaches what only we would never have dared to face the morbid truth of his cinema regression to the point of nausea, which suddenly by an excess of candor and sadness is brutally affecting as a Spielberg film had never been had never before been so affecting.

Zachary Lee (01:37:30.555)
Yeah.

Eli (01:37:52.094)
And then she went on to say AI ends with a stunning image, a small child in the bed of his dead and in the bed of his dead mother, two corpses side by side for eternity, two remnants of humanity, a robot and a fantasy. And, yeah, I was just like, yeah, it's in. So it is interesting because what she's kind of her kind of take on this is like, this is really like.

Zachary Lee (01:38:07.773)
Wow.

That's tough.

Eli (01:38:20.922)
Spielberg reaching a point in his career where he's able to like kind of deconstruct his all of his career leading up to this point. Because I mean what she's basically like pointing out is this movie ends with Spielberg saying like these childhood fantasies that I've like made my career off of are like in the end kind of like empty.

Zachary Lee (01:38:28.157)
Yeah.

Zachary Lee (01:38:32.957)
Yeah.

Zachary Lee (01:38:49.832)
That's great. Yeah, yeah.

Eli (01:38:51.658)
Yeah, which I don't know if he was thinking about that when he was making it, but like it's an interesting analysis for sure. and, and then, this other quote I have from Richard Schickel, who says, quote, the film needs Spielberg's warmth enable in order not to be intolerably cruel. And I think that's very true. and it, it's true, but it also like might work against like

Zachary Lee (01:38:58.001)
Yeah, yeah.

Zachary Lee (01:39:11.116)
Intolerably cruel. Yeah, exactly.

Zachary Lee (01:39:18.353)
interesting.

Eli (01:39:22.058)
people and how they read the ending of the movie. But this has been reconsidered for its value, which is like this ode to like the virtues of belief and imagination, but like with a shroud with a shroud over it because it is ultimately about like the death of humanity in a way. Yeah, it I think

Zachary Lee (01:39:50.269)
Yeah.

Eli (01:39:50.676)
people have reconsidered it in more recent times.

Zachary Lee (01:39:52.926)
Well, I would say, like, I don't know if as you think about AI now, which I know is like such a big conversation, like I don't even know where like if this has we can tell this is being revisited or recontextualized and like a more or or for you as you thought about it. Yeah.

Eli (01:39:59.835)
Yeah Yeah, I think a lot of people are So I had I had never actually seen this was my first time seeing the movie. So So I had never seen it. So I didn't really have I didn't really know what to expect going in but

Zachary Lee (01:40:13.969)
Same, yeah, yeah,

Eli (01:40:25.18)
I had heard like, the ending is like overly sentimental. And so when I watched it, you know, I'm going to pause on that because I want to, I want to talk about the ending, like all at once, to end the conversation. because I think it's, I think it's a great way. I think talking about the ending and the way this end is actually like a really great way to kind of like close out the conversation. so I'm going to.

Zachary Lee (01:40:34.941)
Mmm.

All at once, yeah, no, that sounds good. Yeah.

Zachary Lee (01:40:51.57)
for sure, yeah.

Eli (01:40:54.98)
share that thought for later, save that thought for later. Yeah. It did. So this movie did get two Oscar nominations for the score and for the visual effects. It didn't win either of them. It just got those two. Yeah. Which, you know, I think those are well-deserving. I'm surprised it didn't get like any like makeup or costume nominations though.

Zachary Lee (01:40:56.872)
save it yeah

Zachary Lee (01:41:10.674)
Those nods.

Eli (01:41:24.018)
I feel like it would it was like a prime movie for that sort of nomination, but You know it didn't But yeah, I Yeah, let's let's move on to the like really digging into this movie we've we've kind of like touched all around the themes and whatnot, but Let's dig into it and let's start with some quibbles Because I get the feeling that you have some quibbles

Zachary Lee (01:41:38.248)
That's.

Zachary Lee (01:41:47.964)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Eli (01:41:52.666)
and I'm interested to hear what they are.

Zachary Lee (01:41:54.596)
Yeah, well, mean, to the earlier point about the NOMs, feel like that is interesting. You would think the animatron, I mean, especially knowing how all the animatronic stuff was happening. like, you think there would be, well, I mean, I guess I don't know what came out the years before. So maybe what won the Oscars, maybe what won the Oscars were deserving and worthy. I mean, quibbles wise, I think.

Eli (01:42:12.254)
Yeah, I don't know. I'm not sure either.

Zachary Lee (01:42:26.428)
Honestly, nothing. It's just interesting. And this is something I always have to think about. Well, like I'm viewing this having seen a lot of other AI type movies, which we'll get to, you know, later in terms of our draft. But it's just like, I feel like the part of me was just like, like what's new that's being said here. And like, it just feels like a trite conversation, I guess, in some ways. But I really did know like,

Eli (01:42:36.158)
Yeah Next week. Yeah

Eli (01:42:43.298)
Yeah.

Zachary Lee (01:42:57.296)
I will say it's funny you bring up fairy tale because I'm trying to think about how I feel about Pinocchio playing such a role in like the story as a whole. I just wasn't expecting that I think so that's just an element of like is that almost like too simplistic of a parallel like the toy wants to become a boy but this time it's the AI or the Mecha the mech who wants to become a boy so how well but I don't know.

Eli (01:43:21.954)
Yeah Yeah Yeah, I mean the the it is interesting like the fairy tale stuff is definitely like all through

Zachary Lee (01:43:24.712)
Thinking about the fairy tale stuff. I'm still trying to chewing on that, but I know you also have some thoughts there too about that structure and stuff.

Eli (01:43:41.854)
Like this movie almost feels like more of a fairy tale fantasy kind of movie with like sci-fi trappings, I guess. It feels more like that than like a full on sci-fi movie, you know? It's more sci-fi than like Star Wars is. Star Wars is really just like a fantasy movie.

Zachary Lee (01:44:00.348)
That's a good way of putting it actually, yeah.

Yeah.

Zachary Lee (01:44:08.551)
Yeah, yeah.

Eli (01:44:10.334)
but it's set in space. like people say it's sci-fi and I'm like, yeah, it has like a sci-fi setting, but it's not really a sci-fi movie. Like it's not, this is like a, it really is a mix I think of, cause it.

Zachary Lee (01:44:18.972)
Yeah, yeah, but this you're seeing is like...

Yeah, that's a good, I never thought about that. Yeah, like as a blend of those two worlds or genres, yeah.

Eli (01:44:30.991)
Yeah, yeah it's Yeah, now I'm thinking about it it really is like a good mix because like I said like Star Wars I always say like that's a fantasy movie with a sci-fi setting but you could also have like Yeah, so this could easily be like that sort of thing but it is interested enough in those kind of like

sci-fi philosophical ideas that it still feels like enough sci-fi where you can say like, yeah, it's a good blend of fairy tale and sci-fi ideas for sure. But yeah, and you know, it's drawing from a lot of like universal myths, you know, you have like biblical episodes like Cain and Abel and the flood, you have like

Zachary Lee (01:44:57.609)
That's right. That's right.

Eli (01:45:25.3)
fairy tale influences like Goldilocks and Sleeping Beauty and Pinocchio obviously and the you you have the whole conversation with Dr. No about like combining fact with with fairy tale and you know his tricky. I love that Dr. No is like basically just a computer that

Zachary Lee (01:45:28.328)
Yeah, that's right.

Zachary Lee (01:45:39.922)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:45:49.872)
is with the veil of trying to help you but actually is just like trying to trick you into getting more money out of you.

Zachary Lee (01:45:54.468)
I know, right? It's like, you have to adjust your tone of voice too, which I thought was even, which was a great touch. Yeah. There to like say.

Eli (01:46:01.547)
Yeah, yeah, it's a great little concept to like show how ridiculous, you know, our, you know, the way we may try to make money off of people.

Zachary Lee (01:46:13.818)
yeah, totally. And it's all your trick because of Robin Williams' voice and his effable personality.

Eli (01:46:19.867)
yeah yeah yeah that is true that's really good casting with that in mind for sure yep it is yeah yeah i mean quibbles like i don't have a ton of like like the only quibble that i would say is like there's just

Zachary Lee (01:46:29.212)
Very genie, know, Aladdin-esque, guess is an easy, easy comparison there, yeah.

Eli (01:46:46.932)
There's not ever like a clear sense of like the rules of this world. but I'm not, that didn't really like take away from my viewing experience. Like I didn't have to understand why some Mechas acts this way and some act another. It's just kind of like something you accept as part of the world and go along with it. but I did see, I have heard like some people like that were getting stuck on that.

Zachary Lee (01:47:07.346)
Yeah.

Eli (01:47:15.912)
And then another thing I saw like some people complaining about was like the tonal discrepancies, which it definitely has different tones and the different acts. But I kind of saw that more as a strength than a weakness. it, it, it adds to like the different episodes of the fairy tale. Like, you know, in this, in this act, it has this tone because that's like what it's trying to explore. Like the

Zachary Lee (01:47:23.966)
Sure, sure.

Eli (01:47:44.59)
of creepiness of David and how he feels off and then you know the middle part kind of feels more like a fairy tale like adventure in a way it's like kind of it's dark and colorful at the same time and you know he kind of is going from one place to another and yeah so I don't know I don't think the tonal discrepancies are that big of a deal they kind of make sense to me

Zachary Lee (01:48:11.164)
That makes sense. You know, well, really quickly back to the world building part. This was this is just like a funny side point because this is something that's always worked me like I don't like watching things like what is it like the alien movies where you have like the synthetics or Blade Runner. The whole like seeing robots eat. I'm like, how do they process that? You know, and I just it's it's like to what you made about the spinach earlier where I was like.

Eli (01:48:19.9)
Uh-huh. Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:48:38.001)
Yeah. Finally.

Zachary Lee (01:48:38.406)
I just, for me it was just like a fun geeky moment I wrote in my notes from like, see when robots try to eat, it messes up their system. So I mean, maybe the, the, the synthetics of the alien universe or Blade Runner have advanced inner systems to process food. I don't know how that would even work, but that was just something selfish that I love when you, when you're talking about fleshing out a world and, and

Eli (01:48:48.444)
Yeah.

Eli (01:48:58.974)
Yeah. Mm-hmm. That's great.

Zachary Lee (01:49:06.198)
the things that are there. even if other stuff isn't fleshed out, I love that they address that you really can't eat. Otherwise, that specific thing. But I hear you on the other things that aren't super clear. So just want to affirm that,

Eli (01:49:13.544)
that specific thing is addressed yeah yeah no yeah i kind of love that you are so honed in on the spinach thing like and that made you so happy that it it really messed him up

Zachary Lee (01:49:29.096)
totally. Yeah. I was like, see, finally this is, and it's like liquid too. I'm like, it just, it's not going to work well with the servos, you know, what's going on.

Eli (01:49:36.478)
yeah yeah but to be fair you know old martin over there eating just as much spinach like he might have had some messed up insides too

Zachary Lee (01:49:45.394)
They gotta open him up too to make sure, clean up the organs, make sure it's okay. That's right. Yeah.

Eli (01:49:50.826)
Man Yeah, I always to like to talk about like Spielberg distinctives You know, he he has some like distinctive looks that he goes for there's a ton of silhouettes in this movie that look great The the main one that comes to mind, of course is like Joe up against the moon which turns out not to be a moon but

Zachary Lee (01:50:00.273)
Mmm. Yeah.

Zachary Lee (01:50:10.504)
Yep. Yep.

Eli (01:50:19.994)
the little like hot air balloon kind of thing. Which I thought was really cool because they're like the mechas are like it's the moon it's the moon and they start running and then you find out it's because they have this like this vehicle that they chase rogue mechas down in that looks like the moon.

Zachary Lee (01:50:39.962)
Yeah, that looks like the moon. So they have this dark association with the moon or something.

Eli (01:50:44.914)
Yeah, yeah, I thought that was really interesting. Yeah, a lot of mirrors and mirror images in this movie to low, low angle close up Spielberg loves a good low angle close up.

Zachary Lee (01:50:59.442)
Wait, can you point to an example of that in the film? I think I know what a low-angle close-up is, but I'm trying to think about one that stood out to you or...

Eli (01:51:05.058)
Yeah, I mean, there's one, there's actually like multiple of Jiggle-O-Joe, like where it's basically like this thing Spielberg does, like, I know there's some of Jiggle-O-Joe, I can't think of a specific moment. You can, you know, I guess like jumping back to earlier films like,

You think about like Indiana Jones, there'll be these moments where like the camera like pushes in and it's like looking up at him with the sky as the background and it's a close up, but it's like a low angle close up. and there's some of those of Jiggle-O-Joe. I just can't think of like the specific moments they happen. I just kind of like jot in my note. Yeah. Yeah. And so, yeah, he does a lot of that. I talked about the character building efficiency.

Zachary Lee (01:51:32.862)
yes.

Zachary Lee (01:51:37.96)
Right, but it's like closer up. that's great.

Zachary Lee (01:51:48.602)
I know I'm seeing some examples that makes a lot of sense. Yeah, that's great.

Eli (01:52:00.21)
You know, you really like get a feel for the mother father dynamic in this movie really quickly the montage of david's creeping us around the house like Immediately like gets you in the right head space for what's going on? I really love gigolo joe's introduction, I feel like You kind of get his character pretty quickly like you're like, okay. This is what this guy is Yeah

Zachary Lee (01:52:04.146)
Mmm.

Zachary Lee (01:52:23.42)
Yeah, exactly. You know what he's about really fast. Yeah.

Eli (01:52:28.094)
What about like intriguing images? Did you have any like images that stuck out other than the spinach?

Zachary Lee (01:52:34.71)
I know, right? the man, the I mean, even it's like what you're saying. I feel like the like those ending scenes, like I think like under what I think just like the way they render, spoiler renders, like the world and like the it's like images I expect to see, but still be very haunting. Like when you can go up the flood, I was like, I'm probably going to see the Statue of Liberty somewhere here. And I do. But like, I don't know. Just like

Eli (01:52:51.758)
Mm-hmm.

Zachary Lee (01:53:04.57)
It's just wild for me to think about. I think maybe it's like me reading in with the modern lens of like the hurricanes and things that have been affecting people right now in the States. So the way depicting the destruction of the natural world, but like once again, just like a lot of the way things are really well lived into like I'm thinking about the Mecca dump pile, you know, and everything that's there, like all that.

Eli (01:53:12.847)
Yeah. Yeah.

Eli (01:53:28.818)
Yeah, we're still dumping stuff in the forest.

Zachary Lee (01:53:31.026)
Yeah, no, literally. It's like even in the past, right? Like it's all there. Even the opening with like that female mech that like opens, I don't know, just like stuff like that. And like the fact that that's all taking place in like a very uptight boardroom type meeting, you know? But it's like you're dealing with the fall of the humanity there too. So lots of those juxtapositions I thought were really good.

Eli (01:53:50.907)
Yeah.

Eli (01:53:56.062)
Yeah Yeah, and you know, it's yeah the kind of like the The rising waters is kind of like a subtext in the movie. They don't ever really talk about it, but there's imagery there of like You know the Manhattan underwater basically and what one like image that's like was is unintentionally haunting is you know,

Zachary Lee (01:54:14.664)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:54:23.12)
Way in the future when manhattan is underwater there will still be these remnants of the twin towers and like but like humanity is so like The humanity is capable of so much more destruction than even for those towers to still be there, you know, it's Yeah, and they want I think they wanted spillberg to like

Zachary Lee (01:54:30.622)
yeah.

Zachary Lee (01:54:41.65)
That's wild. I didn't even think about that. That's a great, that's a good point.

Eli (01:54:51.056)
let them like take it out for like, releasing it on video or whatever. And yeah, and he, and he wouldn't, remove it, but yeah, it's, it's funny cause I'm literally drinking tea out of my one world observatory mug from New York. you know, they're, they've got the, the, you know, the new, world trade center buildings that they've built there now. And one of them, the,

Zachary Lee (01:54:53.918)
On the blue ray? Yeah, yeah.

Zachary Lee (01:55:06.095)
yeah.

Zachary Lee (01:55:18.696)
Yeah.

Eli (01:55:21.09)
I would actually like this is really random, but it's like really cool if you're ever in New York to do the observatory at the One World Trade Center. It's like it's incredible. Like you can see on a clear day you can like literally see the curve curvature of the earth. You're so high. Yeah, yeah. And you can see like the whole city. It's it's really, really cool. But yeah, that's definitely like an unintentional haunting image.

Zachary Lee (01:55:28.655)
I wanna check it out, Okay.

Zachary Lee (01:55:38.472)
That's, snap, okay.

Zachary Lee (01:55:44.209)
Okay.

Eli (01:55:50.346)
because this released in June, and then September, you know, of course, 2001, they fall. so like, yeah, this is releasing probably. I don't know. I don't know what the turnaround was back in 2001, but it's probably releasing on like DVD probably early than 2002. And Spielberg was like, no, we're leaving those in there. Like it's, it's part of the kind of the.

Zachary Lee (01:55:52.658)
Yep, I was just looking it up.

Zachary Lee (01:56:09.415)
Yeah.

Eli (01:56:20.02)
haunting imagery now, I guess. Yeah. yeah. Yeah.

Zachary Lee (01:56:21.342)
It's interesting because I'm looking at this and it's just like, it's funny to think about these moves. Like there's a list of movies that had these that weren't edited. So you have AI, artificial intelligence next to like, what is it? Donnie Darko, Vanilla Sky and Rush Hour 2. So it's just like, what do all these things have in common? It's like, well, they feature the World Trade Center, but they didn't edit them for their final version on DVD.

Eli (01:56:47.144)
Yeah. That's a good trivia question. Yeah.

Zachary Lee (01:56:51.258)
Literally, yeah, I I guess what very muppet Christmas movie is saying it's here too. So who knows but yeah

Eli (01:56:57.308)
Okay. I'm gonna stow those away for a future like film trivia night.

Zachary Lee (01:57:02.258)
You should, that's it. Thanks for mentioning it. I didn't even think about the, I guess when I think about movies released in 2001, it's like, and 2002, I guess, too, and after, it's just like we're thinking about, but yeah.

Eli (01:57:07.678)
Yeah Yeah, yeah for sure Yeah, I have like a little list of like really intriguing images like there's a there's this part where david is Kind of familiarizing himself with the house and he's looking at the pictures of them as a family

Zachary Lee (01:57:26.257)
Yeah.

Zachary Lee (01:57:34.162)
Yeah.

Eli (01:57:35.618)
And there's this one where he like stops and he's looking at a picture of you know, the mom and dad and the son and he's his reflection is in the picture too and so it's just one of those like really like smarts like visual it's like saying so much visually and like really well shot and framed and everything That Spielberg Spielberg's so good at

Zachary Lee (01:57:47.187)
Mmm.

Zachary Lee (01:58:03.111)
Yeah.

Eli (01:58:05.098)
one of the big like images that I thought was like so good was when she like puts him in his room and then closes the door and He looks at her and it's like that that fragmented glass makes him like look so creepy Through it like that was a great image You know more like adding to his creepiness like him laughing

Zachary Lee (01:58:13.872)
Yeah, that's right.

Zachary Lee (01:58:21.609)
Yeah, I forgot about that one,

Zachary Lee (01:58:34.206)
without blinking this whole time. I have to remember that. He didn't blink.

Eli (01:58:34.346)
Really weird. yeah. there's the image of him, like after he's fallen into the pool with Martin, there's like that image of him just like drifting at the bottom of the pool. and, I think it was, Molly Haskell in her book about Spielberg that I'm listening to, she had, brought up that image and was like asking what's, what's more damaging.

for David the water damage or like being neglected by your parents as you're like drifting at the bottom of a pool. And I was like, ooh, that's good. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we've mentioned the Mecca dump pile, I think was a great image. there's this, so there's this like recurring image. I'm not sure how often it recurs, but there's definitely like

Zachary Lee (01:59:12.222)
That's, that's, that's combining. Yeah.

Eli (01:59:33.78)
this part, you know, I mentioned him laughing. So there's that dinner sequence, his like first dinner where he's sitting there and they're eating and it does this shot like through the ceiling light where it almost looks like the ceiling light is it's like circular and it's over his head and it kind of looks like a halo over this like perfect child. But then there's this juxtaposed image of when he meets his

Like when he meets his self in Manhattan and starts smashing himself and yelling, I'm David, there's this like oblong shape that's like similar, but it's like broken in half. And it's like, it's almost like this juxtaposition of here he is like in his perfect robot, you know, child state. And now after like being with humanity, he's like taken on humanity's kind of destructive tendencies.

Zachary Lee (02:00:04.945)
Yeah, yeah.

Zachary Lee (02:00:13.36)
interesting.

Eli (02:00:31.322)
And that now the halo is like broken Yeah Yeah Yeah, and it's like, you know, it's done with just this subtle imagery that you know, you really have to be looking to see it Yeah, there's there's a lot of great imagery the the image of the blue fairy crumbling is really good. It's like devastating

Zachary Lee (02:00:34.01)
Interesting. I like that reading. Yeah, like a fall from grace sort of element too. Yeah.

Zachary Lee (02:00:57.53)
All that time, 2000 plus years, or 2000 years, and you're just like, nothing.

Eli (02:01:00.54)
Yeah, of course the iconic shot of his eyes, which is on the Blu-ray case right here behind me if you're watching. Yeah, I mean there's a ton of great images in this movie. Yeah, let's talk through some themes because this movie is, I feel like, really interested in a lot of different

Zachary Lee (02:01:10.726)
Mm-hmm. Yep. That's right. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

Zachary Lee (02:01:22.354)
Yeah.

Eli (02:01:30.132)
things like we can talk we could talk about like the like fact versus fairy tale like what's more real we can talk about like parent-child relationships you can talk about AI itself like is what's AI capable of in relation to like like human consciousness it there's so many conversations that you could have

Zachary Lee (02:01:51.421)
Yeah.

Yeah, well, it's so interesting to think to like, how it is spelled out at the start, but like, it really is just like this, the, the, the, there's so many, like you said, that can be discussed, like what does the woman say to William Hertz character about, you know, the, does a human have an obligation to love a child, you know, back and like, that's just the start.

Eli (02:02:09.247)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Was there any like

Zachary Lee (02:02:20.188)
as you were saying of like all the questions that sort of get brought up in this film. So, yeah.

Eli (02:02:27.668)
theme that really like stuck out to you that like when you walked away from the movie you were thinking about.

Zachary Lee (02:02:33.83)
Yeah, think that's a good question. I do feel like the like.

feel like what does it mean to be human and, actually, sorry, this is kind of what I going It's actually something that Joe says that was really making me think about our relationship to technology. this, let me know if I'm going on too much of a tangent here in terms of the theme, but like, there's this.

Eli (02:03:05.353)
Yeah. No, no, no. Yeah.

Zachary Lee (02:03:11.75)
Sort of theologian writer Andy Crouch who I was reading he has he's written some books on the intersection of technology faith and that sort of stuff and he has this great point about how you know Jeff Bezos with Amazon promised drone will have drones by this certain date for Amazon packages, right and like Obviously, I mean, I don't know where you're at Eli if they're doing drones for your Amazon packages. They are not doing it in Chicago right now, but

Eli (02:03:32.409)
Yeah. Not yet.

Zachary Lee (02:03:40.786)
But Andy made this great point, was like, we don't have drones yet, but what we do have is Amazon Prime. So what you have are these humans who are like forced, like slaving away for very little pay to like basically get your packages to you at the speed of like what a drone might do. I mean, obviously it's not the same, but he was making this point of like, what will happen is human ambition will always surpass.

Eli (02:03:48.682)
Right.

Zachary Lee (02:04:09.584)
our means to actually make those dreams happen. So what do we do instead? We create faulty machines that can only half heartedly do the job or we exploit other people to try to make that magic happen, which I feel like that theme fits so well with like the role these technologies are playing in this film about how we want so much as human like companionship.

Eli (02:04:22.938)
Hmm.

Zachary Lee (02:04:38.054)
Secure, you know, but like what ends up happening is We don't really think about the implications of what we're asking or what we're doing and we end up just hurting other people or Hurting the machine, know, and that's I think that's something Joe was kind of saying I'm forgetting the line of like how they're like we're humans are retaliating right because we Actually, they made us too smart too quick and too many and like they suffer because

Eli (02:04:48.594)
Yeah.

Eli (02:05:05.728)
Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

Zachary Lee (02:05:07.186)
they become jealous. And I'm like, just that there. was like, that's so fascinating to me of like how we treat our technology. I mean, I'm here complaining about my wifi signal cutting out and I'm like ready to smash my computer. And I'm like, well, maybe if I do that, that's why the Terminator, that's why the Skynet uprising is going to happen because that's being too mean to my Alexa or the Echo Dot or something, you know?

Eli (02:05:28.806)
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

Yeah, yeah and I think too like, you know along those same lines Well, he says too like that's why they hate us because we'll be there when they're gone and But but yeah along those same lines you have like the you think about like the flesh fare and it's like all these disenfranchised people who have like You get the feeling that they've like

Zachary Lee (02:05:45.892)
Yeah, exact. Great point. I'm happy you brought that up. Yeah.

Eli (02:06:02.322)
lost their jobs because meccas have taken jobs that they would have had. It looks like all of these like kind of blue collar people, know, that don't have any means of like being productive in society anymore because you know the meccas can be nannies and farmers and you know all these other things and they don't need them anymore. And so there is like this there's definitely like a conversation on like

Zachary Lee (02:06:23.134)
I don't need them.

Eli (02:06:31.028)
class struggles and the ethics of techno, like at what point do like this technology doing, making technology, do these jobs go too far? You know, it's, definitely like interesting to think about. and I think even like, I remember Spielberg talking about that at, in one of the special features was just like,

One of things he was interested in with this movie was just that idea, like that ethical dilemma of like, what do we, what is going too far with what we create, what we like try to make our technology emulate and do? Like, where are the lines? Like we shouldn't just do it because we can, but we need to be thinking about what the lines are and which lines we shouldn't cross.

Zachary Lee (02:07:21.288)
Right.

Eli (02:07:28.407)
And yeah, you know, that's something he was, he said he was thinking about while making this movie. So you can definitely see it and stuff like that. Like the flesh fare, I think is a good example of the results of that.

Zachary Lee (02:07:36.061)
Yeah.

Zachary Lee (02:07:40.102)
Yeah, it's a really kind of dark moment, I think, and just like you're really like you were saying, just like

I don't know, it's just like funny. We don't quite get something as colorful or like dismal maybe. I mean, it certainly emotionally dips further as we get along, but in terms of like, it's such a unique sequence and like, I don't know, it's just like so much there. Like it just makes me think about, I I saw it, I've seen, I saw ET very recently for the first time. So I feel like I just can't help like think about the spaceship and the creature, you know, I don't know, just like.

Eli (02:08:01.642)
Yeah.

Eli (02:08:15.691)
wow. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, and Spielberg is always like, you know, you can kind of feel his empathy for the AI characters a bit. He's always like, had a soft spot for people that are like persecuted and, and

Zachary Lee (02:08:20.7)
the othering that's sort of happening in those movies and how that sort of plays a role here too. So yeah, it's all there.

Eli (02:08:42.756)
othered and stuff and that's kind of what the AI are here. So yeah, that makes sense as well. Yeah, you have that, I think to play off of that, mean, you just think about like the state of the world. This is like a future world and it's, you have Manhattan underwater, you know, and it's almost like

some of the subtext there is like, I guess, have we so neglected our responsibilities to our world? Because, you know, we've we've delegated so much to robots and AI and technology that we've like neglected our responsibility for the world and now look at it, you know, Manhattan's underwater. So, yeah, there's definitely that going on, too, as well. So.

Zachary Lee (02:09:31.302)
Right, right.

Zachary Lee (02:09:37.169)
Yeah, the...

Zachary Lee (02:09:41.288)
That's interesting.

Eli (02:09:41.362)
Yeah. One of the things that I think is themes that I think is probably in there and interesting is, like parent, like just like the parent child relationship. you know, there's this, degree to which like, there's this dark apprehension you can have when you're becoming a parent that, that is definitely like kind of there in the movie.

Zachary Lee (02:09:48.286)
Mmm.

Zachary Lee (02:09:53.543)
Yeah.

Eli (02:10:11.214)
you know, there's a certain degree to which the movie is about just like the terror of bringing something into the world and like imprinting yourself on it and knowing that that thing is forever attached to you and whether you like it or not, you know, and you know, that's what fatherhood and motherhood is. Like you bring this thing and it's your child is literally like imprinted with your genetic code and

Zachary Lee (02:10:17.404)
Yeah.

Zachary Lee (02:10:24.104)
Yeah.

It's affecting, yeah.

Zachary Lee (02:10:37.563)
Yeah.

Eli (02:10:38.77)
your like behavioral tendencies and like it's kind of frightening. So yeah so there's

Zachary Lee (02:10:44.254)
I'd imagine, yeah. It's like, I'm curious how this lands for you, especially as a parent too, you know? Because for me, I'm thinking about, I mean, there are similar questions, but as someone who doesn't have kids, was like, I'm sure it will land differently if I did or something like that too, you know?

Eli (02:10:57.001)
Yeah.

Eli (02:11:02.95)
Yeah, well, I think that's like the whole idea of like imprinting. It's kind of twofold. Like you you can think about it along these lines, which is like she's literally like imprinting her self like onto him. And and so like you can think of it of like biological children, like you literally like when you you don't really have a choice but to imprint yourself onto them because it's biological. It's in the

Zachary Lee (02:11:18.002)
Yeah.

Eli (02:11:32.658)
It's in the genetic code, but she's like imprinting herself into his, you know, computer code. and so like he's forever attached to her from that point on. Like she can't, you know, he can't really be like returned after that. He's. Yeah. Right. And so, so there's definitely like that apprehension that kind of plays, but there's also like the.

Zachary Lee (02:11:33.608)
Yeah.

Zachary Lee (02:11:37.906)
Yeah.

Zachary Lee (02:11:48.976)
Right, it's just destroyed or what was it right? Yeah, back to factory. Yeah.

Eli (02:12:02.12)
The idea of imprinting too feels more prescient now because when you think of like our devices, like our devices are kind of like an extension of us now and we've we're like imprinted onto our cell phones and they're imprinted onto us and we can't like function without them. And so that. Yeah, sure.

Zachary Lee (02:12:12.638)
Totally.

Zachary Lee (02:12:22.028)
yeah, I've heard someone described as like we're very inefficient cyborgs, you know, like we're like, we're just, we just, the closest thing we don't have is like literally taking your phone and like embedding it into your hand, but like functionally, you know, how different is it really with what's going on? You know? Yeah.

Eli (02:12:36.286)
Right.

Eli (02:12:39.922)
Right. Yeah. Yeah. mean, so there's, there's like multiple like ways to like look at things in that, which I think, I think, you know, speaks a lot to this moot, like this movie and the storytelling and all that, that there's, it's like multifaceted and the things that it's kind of like able to explore with the story. you know,

Obviously, like, there's just this big question of the uncertainty about the nature of artificial intelligence. Like, how deep is the programming? Like, what is the love that David offers? If it is it real? You know, can if he can love does that mean he has a soul or that he has free will or does he not? You know, or like,

Zachary Lee (02:13:20.018)
totally.

Eli (02:13:38.534)
Is a soul and free will obsolete concepts? Like, do they don't really mean anything? Is that something that AI shows us? Can there be love without all these other things that come along with biological intelligence, emotions and all that? There's just all these questions.

that come along with any movie that's exploring AI. And yeah, it's, it's weird. the, the David, what, I don't know, what was most interesting to you about like David being an AI robot and like it, what did, do you think the movie tackled that well? Do you think it explored like the implications of that? Well, or do you think it didn't?

Zachary Lee (02:14:36.988)
Yeah, I think it underscored this point where like, you know, it's just funny to think about why David was there, you know, like David's, it's just so funny to think about like the purity of David's intentions or you could say programming in relation to all these other forces around him. Like, you know, his mom, mom, I guess I can put an air quotes was like, I want you because I'm worried my son's not going to make it. my son's alive and

Eli (02:14:37.022)
or what.

Eli (02:14:45.417)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (02:14:53.708)
Mm-hmm.

Zachary Lee (02:15:07.088)
You almost you stab me in the eye and all these things I'm gonna get rid like you're a tool you're just another tool like a toothbrush or a Shaver or something that I need to get can get rid of and then like Will I keep I want to make sure I his character's name I keep seeing William Hertz character, but he Alan Hobie hobby. Yeah hobby professor hobby, right? It's just like You know, you're also serving a purpose you're the first of your kind

Eli (02:15:18.506)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (02:15:24.631)
Professor, hobby? Yeah.

Zachary Lee (02:15:36.05)
we wanted to test you. I just find like, you know, David's not really, he's just like, I'm just trying to be a kid, you know, I don't know. And like, there is something like very innocent about that, that I think is what, and like you said, what Hayley Joel Osmond really does to like make that land, you know, the purity of it there. I think it does raise a question though about like, you know, which will impact the ending as we get into more later, but just like,

Eli (02:15:43.25)
Yeah. Yeah.

Zachary Lee (02:16:04.444)
the pursuit of these things and how it's like.

Eli (02:16:04.733)
Yeah.

Zachary Lee (02:16:11.164)
you know, it's a mood thing what he's chasing after and like, what's the point? What's the point of you doing? I don't know. It's just like, so beyond the scope of what's even possible, but like, he's so single, like you said, laser focused on that, the way Teddy is focused on, you know, David, right? It's just like, it's a funny juxtaposition there where like, you can't reason.

Eli (02:16:17.276)
Yeah. Well, it's like.

Eli (02:16:24.99)
Yeah.

Zachary Lee (02:16:37.916)
because it's programming and like maybe there's something that's different versus like if you're a child that's human and rational, it's like you're expecting to grow out of certain phases or something. But like the fact that my guy waits 2000 years till his, you know, I'm like, and like the first thing he does when he wakes up is like right back at it again. It's like, I don't know. That was like a very, this is not human. This is a robot thing, you know, that was there.

Eli (02:16:58.228)
Yeah.

Eli (02:17:03.764)
Yeah. Yeah. And I think like, I think the movie does a really good job of like, kind of like teasing you with moments where you really feel like he is a real boy. Like, so when she leaves him in the woods, like, you know, he's like desperately trying to like get her not to leave him, but you know, and it feels very emotional and like, like this poor boy.

Or whatever or like at the flesh fair when he's like don't please don't hurt me or whatever and everyone's like reacts to that that it feels Wait, why would a robot like not want? Want this like all the other robots are just like Taking their death or whatever and here's this boy like pleading for his life And it's like so yeah, the programming goes deep enough to like really do a good job of like fooling you but

at end of the day, like, he's desperate to survive or to not be left, not because like, he values his own life, but because like, he's literally programmed to love this, this mommy, and to somehow receive love from her. However, he's going to perceive like, when is that job complete? And like, he really can't

It's like a functional. It is it's functional. It's like a functional thing for him. That's what he was made to. Yeah. That's what he was created to do. And he, he can't, he has to survive until he's like accomplished that goal. And like the whole search for the blue fairy is like, like he's really like really wants to be a real boy. And it's like, well, no, he really doesn't care if he's a real boy or not. Other than the fact that

Zachary Lee (02:18:33.848)
It's like he needs to survive, yeah.

Eli (02:18:57.128)
His programming has told him that mommy loves Martin and Martin is a real boy. I need to become a real boy so that mommy will love me, which is what I'm programmed to be. so, so like, but the movie does a great job of like writing that line and, and making you like sympathize with him as a character, even though like. At the end of the day, he is just like following the function of his programming.

Zachary Lee (02:18:59.196)
That's a good point. And Martin's a r- therefore...

Zachary Lee (02:19:07.358)
That's a good point.

Zachary Lee (02:19:25.331)
Yeah.

Still something touching there, like you said, yeah.

Eli (02:19:28.027)
And so like.

Yeah, Yeah, and so like I don't know to me I've never been a person that has like struggled too deeply with the question of ai and like can ai like Love and have human emotions because I come I don't know in my mind. It's like the answer is just like no and because it you know, I

I believe we have consciousness and I think it depends on how you view the world. If you just really do truly believe that like we're just like firing neurons and we don't really have free will or soul, then I guess you can reach the point where you could say like, yeah, AI can become advanced enough where it can have the same emotions and you know,

consciousness that we have. But if you do believe in something more supernatural or something that's not like, if you believe consciousness is something beyond just neurons firing in a brain, not less than that, but something maybe more than that, then it kind of feels like just

it's always going to be a simple answer of no, a robot can't have the same thing as we do, so...

Zachary Lee (02:21:00.296)
Yeah, exactly. No, I mean, I'm inclined to agree with you. Like, I think it's a fascinating thought exercise, but like, I'm not in any way, like, confused about, you know, like you said about those sorts of things. Like, and I think it's worth, as it becomes important, like, stewarding and caring for machines is important. But like, I don't know, it's always, it's just funny to me. I mean, I don't know if you thought of it, but it's like, people care so much about AI.

Eli (02:21:07.806)
Yeah.

Eli (02:21:13.343)
Yeah. Yeah.

Eli (02:21:19.078)
Mm-hmm. Right.

Zachary Lee (02:21:27.394)
treated human like I'm like we don't even treat other human beings well first like let's just like let's think about that animals the environment like let's just think about those things a little more intentionally first but I hear what you're saying though too about about those ideas yeah

Eli (02:21:39.319)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, and then like there's the the kind of like opposite question of like can you know that the lady that you mentioned at the beginning she's like does does the mother have an obligation to love him and it's like well she the problem is like he's I don't know he's kind of unlovable in a way he has he has like I guess like he can really only be loved like

Zachary Lee (02:22:07.269)
yeah.

Eli (02:22:13.094)
as you kind of love your dog, like you really love your dog, but like your dog is like laser focused on just like one thing and that's like being happy that you're around. so, and like, and so like at the end of the day, like that love only goes so far and like, yeah, you might like cry when your dog dies, but it's different than like crying when you're.

Zachary Lee (02:22:26.726)
Yeah, yeah.

Eli (02:22:39.924)
when your father dies or your mother dies or your grandma, like it's just, it's just different. It's not the same. And so like, yeah, she cries when she leaves David behind, but it's more in the way that you would if like your dog bit your child and you had to like go, you know, leave your dog with someone else now. cause that's kind of what happens. Like he hurts Martin and so they have to like, you know, she's going to put them down basically.

Zachary Lee (02:22:41.576)
Yeah.

Zachary Lee (02:23:08.579)
yeah, mean that's a really good like literally into the four like I don't know. That's like a whole thing

Eli (02:23:08.69)
Like you would a dog, but she instead of going taking them back to the factory, she leaves them in the forest. So yeah, it's can she love him? It's like, well, she can love kind of like the faux motherhood that he provided her. Cause she is more like she's in love with like being a mother than she is with like with him.

And so, you know, there's that whole question too. But yeah, let's talk about the ending because there's a lot of interesting stuff to talk about the ending and we'll kind of, I guess, conclude our discussion with this. What? So are you, were you, when you were watching, did you feel like the movie was ending and then there was that whole extra like

like 20, 30 minutes. Were you like surprised by that?

Zachary Lee (02:24:10.974)
I was surprised by it. I don't think I think I mean, I'm trying to think about how I would have felt. This is a funny random example like the side like my friend told me one time he was watching a bootleg version of Toy Story 3 and like the bootleg ended when have you seen Toy Story 3 or like Woody and the toys are like in the incinerator and like for him the copy of the film just ended. for the longest time he was like

Eli (02:24:13.3)
Yeah.

Eli (02:24:26.113)
Yeah. huh,

Zachary Lee (02:24:39.996)
that's a really dark way to end Toy Story 3. Obviously not the same here, right? But just like this sentiment of like, if it ended with them being frozen, I would have been like, that's a really interesting, like, wait, wait for that to happen. But so I was surprised. I wasn't expecting it. once we got to like, which I keep, you would know this for sure, but I'm very surprised. These are not aliens. Those aren't aliens. Those are like advanced.

Eli (02:24:47.069)
Yeah.

Eli (02:24:55.529)
Yeah.

Zachary Lee (02:25:08.622)
AI, which is so cool. I thought it was aliens though, you know? I don't know how you interpreted that.

Eli (02:25:08.73)
Yeah, I think it's I think it's up for debate I think it's a cuz I don't I don't remember in my research ever seeing Like anything explicitly from like Spielberg or the people that made it that said these are Future AI beings, but I do think that that's the best reading of it Based off of cuz cuz when I was watching I thought they were aliens

But then like in high, cause they're, they're made the way they're designed to look like how, like the kind of prototypical alien design. but yeah, in kind of thinking deeper on it, yeah, they, they are, I think they probably are like a future, like they're basically like ancestors of David.

Zachary Lee (02:25:37.81)
Bye.

Zachary Lee (02:25:48.99)
Well, that's what I was thinking too, yeah, exactly.

Zachary Lee (02:26:04.178)
Yeah, yeah.

Eli (02:26:04.924)
I think it's like AI ancestor and well no David would be their ancestor descendants is the word I was looking for they're like AI AI descendants of David yeah yeah yeah so David would be like Moses to them you know yeah

Zachary Lee (02:26:13.23)
yeah, like the...

Right. They're like, David is their ancestor is what you're saying. Yeah.

Zachary Lee (02:26:27.122)
That's crazy. That'd be wild. Imagine. Well, that's an interesting idea of like a messianic or like you're holding the history's character, you know, sort of a thing there too. Yeah.

Eli (02:26:37.391)
Uh-huh. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, know, so like I, yeah, it goes to the kind of frozen underwater and I don't know, you know, it's been almost a week since I watched the movie. but I don't remember thinking like, the movie's going to end.

Like I was talking to my in-laws and they were like, they they didn't like they didn't really care for the movie because and they felt like it had like three endings and you know, then it just kept going and Yeah And I was like when they were saying that I was like, I didn't really get that feeling when I was watching the movie it felt everything felt correct to me But it makes like it does make sense that

Zachary Lee (02:27:17.288)
They said it was Return of the King too much like, yeah.

Eli (02:27:35.358)
people felt that way. but yeah, I, I found it's weird because the tone of the ending is like, it's got this sentimental score going. It's got like a very sentimental narration over the top of it. And it's this like montage of like sweet moments and stuff. And,

I think that a lot of people at the time, especially just didn't understand how like it was basically like a big dark trick at the end of the movie, a big dark joke of like, here's this very sentimental looking sequence that ends with them like smiling in bed together. But like in all actuality, this is like

Zachary Lee (02:28:27.705)
Mmm, but it's like really

Eli (02:28:31.026)
None of this is real and it's all like just a fantasy and then they're both and then he's just dead for forever now.

Zachary Lee (02:28:32.019)
Yeah.

Zachary Lee (02:28:38.426)
It's like what was it Stephanie's quote you said of like the regression to the point of nausea. So yeah, that that whole element.

Eli (02:28:41.512)
Yeah.

Eli (02:28:46.407)
Yeah, it yeah she said it's It's two corpses side by side for return of d two remnants of humanity a robot and a fantasy Because because that's what it is right it's it's it's david who is a robot who is a remnant of humanity and then it's monica who is a seemingly like a biological

Zachary Lee (02:29:00.616)
Yeah.

Eli (02:29:15.292)
recreation of Monica from what it seems like how they explain it in the movie, but she's just a fantasy. She's not like actually Monica, any more than David is actually like a real boy. And so it's just these two haunting like memories of humanity. Yeah. Uh-huh.

Zachary Lee (02:29:35.679)
out of sync not really meant to exist and be on this plane right now.

Eli (02:29:43.016)
What's this one-sided dream that exists in David's imagination? know, the it's Molly Haskell that I mentioned earlier, she said, yeah, it's a one-sided dream that exists only in David's imagination for the mother is long gone and it belongs to a virtual world of memory and dream. Like this, this is just a dream basically.

and, and it's really devastating and not really sentimental at all when you really like step back and think about it. I was touched by one part where like, he remembers how she took, how she made the coffee. And cause I was, cause I was just thinking about like, like it is very touching when your kid remembers some random thing about you and you're like, you remember that? Like that's very sweet. And so like, I was thinking about that.

Zachary Lee (02:30:28.071)
Yeah.

Eli (02:30:43.262)
But like as a whole, it's not, it's like really devastating.

Zachary Lee (02:30:48.542)
Well, that's the thing, he gets the words he's wanting to hear, but not really. He's sort of settling for very much a fabrication of that. Real Monica died never saying that, which is just like a sad, I don't know, it's wish fulfillment, which I guess is its own form of joy in some way, but like, well, it gets to the point of what's real, like, does it matter?

Eli (02:30:56.102)
Mm-hmm. Right.

Eli (02:31:11.334)
Right. Yeah, but it's not real. Yeah. yeah. Yeah, it's interesting. This was a theory that I think is really interesting. could, so I mentioned this earlier, but.

Zachary Lee (02:31:18.588)
that it's not real as long as he gets to hear it. so it gets into what you're saying of him being a robot, that whole element there.

Eli (02:31:38.122)
It seems like it's like the Ben Kingsley, like AI being the specialist character that is like narrating at the beginning and the end. and with that in mind, this could be like this, this ending could be like this fairy tale that these future beings are telling themselves, putting like this happy gloss on an actual like bleak story of soulless love.

Eli (02:32:11.075)
And because like if you think about it like these AI beings are They're still linked to this past of being created with the function of like pleasing humans But humans aren't around anymore. So what would what would like fulfill their function more than like excavating this?

thing that's like a remnant of humanity that actually like interacted with real humans and for them that's like the peak of their existence and so they're

Zachary Lee (02:32:46.511)
yeah, you're right. It was like Revere, David, the proximity he had to those humans.

Eli (02:32:50.318)
Yeah, yeah, and they like they were so they you know, they they're They're like so excited about it. They'll like do anything for him like and so they're like recreating this moment and you almost wonder if like They're like putting this happy gloss on this story to like try to connect with what their function was originally way back in their computer genetic ancestry, you know

all the way back to when, you know, AI existed with humans. And so, yeah, I think that's why, like, it is important to read them as future AI beings, like really advanced AI, because that re that reading makes more sense of like why they were so interested in David more so than like aliens would be.

Zachary Lee (02:33:42.622)
Hmm.

Eli (02:33:48.414)
because he was like basically their ancestor.

Zachary Lee (02:33:51.43)
Yeah, well, it's, mean, and you were sort of saying this, but just like how amorphous and bland they look, like they're just reflecting everything. But like David is very distinctly human-esque, you know, and like has actual personality to him. It isn't just, like, it's funny, cause like, what's that scene where, you know, that scene where,

Eli (02:34:03.997)
Yeah. Yeah.

Zachary Lee (02:34:16.658)
Dr. Hoby's like in the beginning and like you see the outside and there's like that rope, there's like that statue that looks like, and I'm like, that's why I was like, that's, that looks like the advanced version of what we sort of see at the end, you know, in a way I don't know if it's a hundred percent look alike, but that whole idea, you know, like the statue there, maybe that's like a foreshadowing to what they'll end up as. Yeah. But.

Eli (02:34:31.196)
Yeah. Yeah, maybe. We almost perhaps. Yeah. Yeah. And maybe they have like excavated that and have designed themselves to look like that or something. You know, who knows? Yeah. Yeah. And I, I also like wonder. So there's definitely like a parallel here with 2001.

Zachary Lee (02:34:48.936)
to look like that, that's a good point too. Yeah.

Eli (02:35:00.298)
because at the end of 2000, yeah, at the end of 2001, you have like these beings that you don't ever see that are very obviously like observing our long character at the end in this like fantasy room that he's ended up in. I don't know how long it's been since you've watched 2001, but yeah. And so like,

Zachary Lee (02:35:00.978)
Yes, a grabby brought that up. Yeah

Zachary Lee (02:35:23.811)
yeah, I remember that one.

Eli (02:35:26.93)
It's almost the same thing going on here, except you see the beings observing him. They've put him in this kind of fantasy room with this fantasy version of his mother, and they're observing him, and it's like, well, what is their purpose in observing him? Like, is it just for information, or are they planning to try to recreate humanity?

Zachary Lee (02:35:32.37)
Yes.

Zachary Lee (02:35:51.664)
Right, but they actually like speak and share. Yeah

Eli (02:35:55.74)
Yeah, so it's interesting. So it definitely like speaks to like, this ending actually is Kubrickian in that way that like it's almost like a parallel scene with 2001 of Space Odyssey with that ending and wondering like, okay, was because I mean, that's one thing he's interested in in 2001 that he's still interested in here is like

Is AI going to be all that's left of humanity when we're gone? You know that I mentioned earlier, so that's definitely there. Yeah.

Zachary Lee (02:36:29.169)
Yeah.

Zachary Lee (02:36:33.328)
And like, yeah, and what, that's a really good way of putting that too. I didn't think about the 2001 connection. That might make me like 2001 ending better, because I saw that last year for the first time and found it absolutely maddening how I had no idea. That third act just goes, woo, way off the rails in terms of comprehension, but maybe viewing it in conversation with the ending of this film makes that make sense, yeah.

Eli (02:36:52.513)
Yeah.

Eli (02:37:03.049)
Yeah Yeah, yeah 2001 I think like it's a the imagery is so important that like if you miss So, I mean you have the ob the I can never say this word right the obelisk or whatever you call it Monolith yeah Yeah, so you have that like every time you see that there's basically like a leap forward and evolution in a way

Zachary Lee (02:37:17.618)
Yeah, the like monolith or obelisk. Yeah.

Zachary Lee (02:37:28.904)
Mmm.

Eli (02:37:29.866)
and so like, see that right before he goes into like the trippy zone, like so, then like, you see it again before like the baby in space. And so it's like,

I don't know, is this weird look at what does moving forward in evolution look like? are we all just like ants in an ant farm that something bigger than us is observing?

Zachary Lee (02:38:00.35)
Yeah. Well, it's like what you were talking about with the ending too. Like, what do we do? Are we willing to accept our own insignificance with everything? Like, when we think about, like, it's just funny to think of, like, what was the point of all that we saw?

Eli (02:38:09.712)
Right.

Zachary Lee (02:38:17.352)
for like, and what does that mean to David in the last 20? Like, he's the only one who, like you said, has witnessed everything that happened before. And we're just like, what do, how do we, like, what's the point of, well, I don't know. It's just so sad. It's like, that doesn't even matter. Like these beings don't even, these future robots don't even like, we're nothing, you know? And it's just like the insignificance of all of that. But like,

Eli (02:38:23.678)
Yeah.

Eli (02:38:32.991)
Yeah.

Eli (02:38:40.425)
Yeah.

Zachary Lee (02:38:44.048)
It's also weird because we've experienced it having watched the past like two hours of the film. So it's like what you were saying to you there.

Eli (02:38:49.529)
Mm-hmm Yeah, I think it plays I read this I wrote down this quote from Roger Ebert and his this is actually a review he wrote in 2011 So I went back and looked at it. I I kind of just I didn't really read his 2001 review I just looked at it and saw he had he does like a four-star system in his ratings

Zachary Lee (02:38:56.072)
Mm.

Zachary Lee (02:38:59.92)
interesting.

Eli (02:39:13.45)
And so he had given AI three stars out of four in 2001, but then his, 2011 review is four stars out of four. and that was interesting to me. and he talks about that in his, and his like 10 year anniversary review of like how he kind of like read some stuff wrong. thinks when he watched it the first time, but this is him talking about that ending.

Zachary Lee (02:39:17.029)
huh.

Eli (02:39:42.887)
And he said, quote, why would one Mecca care if another obtained satisfaction? What meaning is there in giving David 24 hours of bliss? If machines cannot fill, what does the closing sequence really mean? I believe it suggests the new Meccas are trying to construct a Mecca that they can love. They would play mommy to their own Davids and that Mecca would love them. What does love mean in this context? No more, no less.

than check or mate or pie. That is the fate of artificial intelligence. No mommy will ever, ever love them." I was like, dang, Roger. But it is, and I think that really, really encapsulates the bleakness of this ending is just like...

Zachary Lee (02:40:19.262)
Tell them, Roger. That's right.

Eli (02:40:32.412)
If Kubrick is right and all that's left of humanity in the future is just this artificial intelligence that is like the remnant of our existence, then it's never actually going to carry what we carry into the future. It's always only going to be like a fake recreation of something.

That was real for us. yeah, it, yeah, very interesting. There's a, I also like wrote down a bunch of quotes from a David Ehrlich review. he, he talked about like, he reviewed this movie at shortly after like having his first child. I really enjoy, usually enjoy David Ehrlich's reviews, even if like, I disagree with his take. He's just like a really good writer and critic. And so like,

Zachary Lee (02:41:25.02)
than what he's saying, Of course.

Eli (02:41:30.908)
Even even when like I finish it and I'm like, well, I disagree, man, you really were convincing, you know.

Zachary Lee (02:41:37.436)
Yeah, yeah, no, no, it's true. I know exactly what you're saying. I forgot what he did recently for one, but I...

Eli (02:41:45.768)
Yeah, yeah. So, I'm not gonna read all these quotes I wrote down, because they're all really good, but...

But yeah, he he's talking about how like the interaction of love and time. and how like, you know, he, he talks about at one point to love something is to be afraid of losing it and to be human is to hold on for dear life. And that's why David only begins to seem real quote unquote to us when Monica abandons him in the woods. so that like, kind of adds to your empathy for him. and then

going on the ending he says, knew that David's perfect day with Monica, a parlor trick concocted by the super futuristic robots was supposed to be a happy ending of sorts, but I couldn't even agree to bittersweet. The only, the one I watched had left me in tatters, broken on the shoals of my own two literal interpretation. And he goes on to say, it hurt because

I didn't believe that any of it was true. Love outside the boundaries of time felt like a perverse lie to me. Sitting inches away from the Blue Fairy for 2,000 years and feeling cruelty betrayed by the promise of forever. That seemed more honest. Forever was what I wanted. I couldn't imagine how a robot being loved by his long dead mommy, let alone the clone Monica who's rebuilt for the purposes of David's fantasy simulation.

would make David a real boy. I could only identify with him so far. and I'm going to read these last two, his last ones too, because I think, I think they really round out this, these thoughts. he goes on later in his review to say, I used to be so jealous of his immunity to time talking about David and sad that he was punished for it. I thought that it made David incapable.

Zachary Lee (02:43:33.147)
no, yeah. I'm still chewing on this, yeah. Yeah.

Eli (02:43:51.632)
of expressing real love or receiving it or of being real himself. But now that my father is more present to me in death than he ever was in life, and the joy I take in my son is so frequently articulated through my imagined fears of what the future might hold for him or turn him into, I can't pretend that I still have the same grasp over what makes someone quote unquote real in the first place.

Time is no longer the impenetrable force that I once believed it to be, because I can better appreciate how love moves through it." And then he finishes later on to say, I still shake my head at Professor Hobby's folly, but now I'm also moved by how the android he Frankensteins together from the residual love he carries for his comatose son, who David was modeled after. We didn't really talk about that, but yeah.

Zachary Lee (02:44:42.366)
That's right. Yeah.

Eli (02:44:47.602)
allows them both to cheat death. I'm still wary of how David imprints on Monica after she reads him a string of code words, but now I recognize that human parents hardwire their kids in much the same way. I'm still unsure about the fairy tale logic that allows those super robots to reanimate Monica for a single day, but now I'm struck by the objective fact of how David and Teddy's affections, regardless of natural or programmed,

allows her memory to survive the extinction of our species and then become the memory of our species and his deathless search for love David becomes the ultimate vessel for it and then ending quote he says love doesn't exist in defiance of time love is the defiance of time and so it's interesting it's an interesting take on the movie because his take is like

Zachary Lee (02:45:34.204)
Yeah.

crazy.

Zachary Lee (02:45:42.236)
Yeah, see more about it.

Eli (02:45:44.094)
first glance kind of sentimental but like on second glance really still true to like the bleakness of it all like you know our love you know transcends time kind of like thinking about thinking in like an interstellar Christopher Nolan interstellar terms like love is the only thing that can you know go through

Zachary Lee (02:46:05.094)
Yeah.

Eli (02:46:11.924)
time and space or whatever. But yeah, I just thought that was a really interesting kind of like different perspective on how you can still see this movie as very bleak and non-sentimental, but still like be touched by the implications of it all, I guess, if that makes sense.

Zachary Lee (02:46:13.629)
Yeah.

Zachary Lee (02:46:31.143)
Yeah.

Zachary Lee (02:46:40.52)
sorry, I think you froze. just, heard you say, you're like, you, it's still bleak and sentimental, but it's also.

Eli (02:46:43.816)
Yeah, you froze too.

Eli (02:46:52.358)
Yeah, I was just saying it's it it's he you know, he doesn't I don't think he's shying away from the fact that it's bleak and sentimental but he's showing like That it's bleak and unsentimental. I guess is what I meant to say and So he he doesn't think it's sentimental but it's also and just an interesting perspective on how

Zachary Lee (02:46:52.743)
Yeah.

Zachary Lee (02:47:06.229)
okay.

Eli (02:47:15.464)
You can see the bleakness of it all, still like be touched by it from like the perspective you bring into it. Yeah.

Zachary Lee (02:47:22.64)
Mm-hmm.

Zachary Lee (02:47:26.876)
Yeah, the beauty of films in that way, yeah.

Eli (02:47:27.484)
Yeah, don't... Yeah, yeah, for sure. There's a lot... I think there is a lot of depth in this movie to be explored. That's like beneath the surface, for sure. And we really only scratch on the surface here.

Zachary Lee (02:47:41.54)
yeah. I mean, I've, yeah.

Zachary Lee (02:47:46.696)
Do you feel like what he was saying about like parenting and fears and like, I like this idea that he's getting at, or like was getting at about love being in defiance of time, how you're like pushing against time's forces in a way. And I'm wondering if you feel like that resonates. I'm, that's a really interesting idea. And I'm like, I guess I've always thought about it as working within the fabric of time, but I like this idea of it being this like rebellion against.

Eli (02:48:04.085)
Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah. And I think, yeah, I can definitely get on that wavelength.

Zachary Lee (02:48:16.242)
the corrosive effects of time in a way.

Zachary Lee (02:48:24.765)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (02:48:26.898)
You know, that's obviously like the theme in Interstellar and it's one of the reasons that I find Interstellar like so touching. like in this, in Ehrlich's take on this movie, he's almost like seeing it despite what the movie's doing. It's like he's finding that he's finding that in there despite like the movie actually like kind of doing the opposite.

What he's saying it's interesting. I'll link the full I'll put a link in the Yeah, and the show notes to his review so you can read the full thing but he does explore a lot of like a lot of what he's he talks about is like really feels true like You do when you're a parent like spend a lot of time thinking about You know your kid and what your

Zachary Lee (02:49:00.507)
Please do yeah in the show notes. Yeah. Yeah

Eli (02:49:24.998)
imprinting on your kid and what the future is going to hold for your kid and will anything you do like matter in the end for your child and their children and so there's a definite degree of that and so I just thought it was super interesting his read it's not even really like a read on the film it's just him bringing his own experience and his own like

Zachary Lee (02:49:33.949)
Yeah.

Eli (02:49:55.127)
I guess like his own station in life, like where he is in his life in that moment and like the film not even meaning to but speaking to that, that like that those thoughts and anxieties that he was personally dealing with in that moment. And I think that's a really cool thing that film does and especially when you can get like a critic like Ehrlich who can really like

Zachary Lee (02:49:59.272)
Yeah.

Zachary Lee (02:50:05.886)
Speaking to that, yeah, that's right.

Zachary Lee (02:50:12.125)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (02:50:23.498)
flesh that out and bring it to words is that like a film can be doing one thing but like speak to you in a totally different way than most people because of where you are like in your life. Like art in general I guess does that. You know it speaks to you in different ways than it might other people because of your experiences. But yeah.

Zachary Lee (02:50:40.061)
Yeah.

Eli (02:50:50.622)
Yeah, I'll definitely link that one and it's worth reading the whole thing for sure. Yeah. Do you have any final thoughts on this one?

Zachary Lee (02:50:54.558)
For sure, I know.

Zachary Lee (02:51:01.003)
I think the

What was it? I think to your... Well, I think I was writing a note here.

Zachary Lee (02:51:15.238)
Yeah, I mean I feel like I was thinking you know this comes up I think it only comes up once but dr. Obi's line about Didn't god create something to like like he made human beings to love and just this idea of like do we Want to create do we create things in order to have them love us back and just like this I guess it really speaks to like

Eli (02:51:39.966)
Yeah. Yeah, he did in the end, yeah.

Zachary Lee (02:51:41.81)
this need for relationship and connection that really like is underscored throughout the film and how being in relationship, whether it's like having a child, like I think you did talk about this, right? But just like that idea of even like Joe choosing friendship over function, like that's a huge step, right? And it's like, I just love this way, like when you're in relationship with people, it...

reshapes even or rewires you if we're gonna go into like the mech route like how you're thinking about your obligations and stuff like that and so I just I don't know the exploration of that was really poignant and interesting to me here too that you're kind of getting at yeah

Eli (02:52:09.664)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like it's a movie that like I'll I'll like even more on a rewatch in the future, you know.

Zachary Lee (02:52:29.148)
Yeah, yeah.

Eli (02:52:31.484)
Rewatching it with like kind of having the full scope of it in mind and then rewatching it with that context I think it's one of those movies where I'm like, I'm gonna like this more If I if it were to like watch it again in the future But yeah, yeah

Zachary Lee (02:52:44.946)
Yeah.

Zachary Lee (02:52:48.624)
I wanna see like, we'd Pinocchio or, you know, like he did before. Cause you said you read it before you read, you watched the movie or was it after or?

Eli (02:52:56.745)
I read, yeah, I listened to Pinocchio this week on audiobook, so I had already watched the movie and I was like doing the research because obviously the Pinocchio stuff is in there, but in their research it was like Kubrick really like wanted to work the Pinocchio stuff in and so I was like, well, let me listen to Pinocchio book to see like what the similarities might be and

It's really just like the structure of like, especially for the middle portion of like, he wants to be a real boy and he keeps like doing these things and bad things happen to him and then onto the next thing, you know? but yeah. Yeah. Yeah, for sure.

Zachary Lee (02:53:35.942)
Yeah, I want to read it. I want to see. I feel like you see something in here too for helpful context for the film and everything.

Eli (02:53:48.234)
yeah, I really don't have any other, I mean, there's probably tons more to talk about, but that's really all I have the capacity for after this conversation. I, I did, I gave, I personally gave this like a four out of five stars, eight out of 10. I really, really enjoyed it. And I felt like it's one of those movies that like scratches my fantasy and my, like sci-fi itch.

Zachary Lee (02:53:57.086)
No, no, no, I think you did a great, yeah.

Eli (02:54:17.814)
at the same time and I like movies that like raise questions and you know it can answer it or not answer it but just raising the questions is fun for me and so and I thought it was really fun like there's a lot of like really fun just design and imagery in this movie you know

Zachary Lee (02:54:30.014)
Yeah.

Zachary Lee (02:54:37.738)
yeah, no, I mean, I think, well, I think to your point, like, I really feel like the, I wasn't expecting the scope of the film to be what it was, like, and I just like the ambition of it, and it's something that, it speaks to both the...

Eli (02:54:51.47)
Yes. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, for sure. It does feel like.

Zachary Lee (02:54:54.268)
what you were saying, like the fantasy elements, the way it merges that with the sci-fi ideas too. And it's enduring questions about what it means. Like I think it doesn't time itself in a way, which I think is really interesting. So yeah, all that stuff.

Eli (02:55:14.586)
In fact, I think I heard someone say this was that like, it feels like kind of timeless movie in the way, even though it's like a timeless in the sense that like, you can watch it now or like, you know, 25 years from now and it'll probably like read the same, you know? So yeah, I think that's cool. Yeah.

Zachary Lee (02:55:37.398)
totally. That's why you gotta revisit this one later, you know, like down the line. totally. What season of Establishing Shaw will you be on at that point, do you think? I mean, Spielberg's great, because it's a long, you know, there's a lot of stuff there, yeah.

Eli (02:55:42.098)
Yes, I plan on it. Like probably like a couple years down the road, maybe.

Eli (02:55:52.178)
You know, it depends on the directors. do. cause this is tech. Yeah, it's long. Yeah. This is, this one's lasting a while. And so, yeah, I guess this is still, I guess if you're going by seasons, this would be like, I guess quote unquote season three, cause it's my third director. So yeah. So yeah, it depends on the director. You pick a director that has three movies. It's a quick season.

Zachary Lee (02:56:03.966)
Yeah, it's wonderful.

Zachary Lee (02:56:14.993)
Yeah.

Yeah, how many directors? Yeah, it's a quick season. That's right. I didn't think about that. See, exactly. There you go. Ryan Coogler or something, you know? It's very much there. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Eli (02:56:22.314)
I could do a Jordan Peele Season yeah, yeah Yeah, well that yeah those might be fun to do because then whenever they release new ones you can jump back in and Do the new one, but yeah, it's fun to do ones that have a complete filmography or Spielberg still I think has some movies in the docket, but his Filmography is mostly complete

Zachary Lee (02:56:39.594)
yeah.

Zachary Lee (02:56:50.578)
Yeah, no, it's true. Yeah, apart from the occasional one.

Eli (02:56:51.88)
yeah yeah where does this one sit for you like out of all the spillberg movies you've seen is it like would you say like top tier middle tier bottom tier

Zachary Lee (02:57:03.65)
You know, I will say as it happened, feel like while ending the film, was kind of, it was like for similar things you described. I was like, well, I've seen a lot of these scenes explored already. You know, I don't know how I feel about stuff, but after talking with you about it, I think it would sit on the higher tier. Yeah. I mean, I think there's still a lot of his that I haven't, you know, seen. That's why I'm happy.

Eli (02:57:11.646)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Eli (02:57:27.795)
Right.

Zachary Lee (02:57:29.15)
to have come back for the season, because there was, I forgot what options you gave me, but I was like, I wanna use one where like I haven't, I wanna actually see, you know? Or like I haven't seen before and stuff like that. I haven't seen, anyway, like basically, I guess what I'm trying to say is I haven't seen a lot of his other sci-fi, like the war of the worlds or minority report and stuff like that. But from the things I've seen, I'm like, I kinda get the, it gets the Amblin magic, you know, that I really, I really like.

Eli (02:57:34.142)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I like that. Yeah.

Eli (02:57:48.468)
Yeah, yeah.

Eli (02:57:57.502)
Yeah, yeah.

Zachary Lee (02:57:58.448)
here so high tier for sure I can yeah

Eli (02:58:00.2)
yeah. Yeah. I feel similar. It's I have like, I have some like five star and four and a half star movies. And so this, this really like sits right under those. So it's like, I think I have it right now. My top ranked like four star Phil Spielberg movies. So it's probably like sitting at like five or six. Am I right? I just really, really enjoyed it.

Zachary Lee (02:58:17.926)
yeah, for silver, that's great.

Zachary Lee (02:58:25.667)
that's pretty good. Yeah.

Eli (02:58:28.232)
It's like sitting right there with Empire of the Sun, which was my other film that like, I didn't expect to like as much as I did, but really enjoyed it. yeah. It is. Yeah. It's, and I'll link it, you know, it's probably good for the audience to know too, the listeners. do link it in the episode description of like all the Spielberg episodes. My, my like rankings list. It's like an ongoing.

Zachary Lee (02:58:36.51)
And yeah, that's great. Is your list on letterbox by the way or is it still some? Okay, I'm trying, I just want to look it up real quick.

Zachary Lee (02:58:48.245)
yeah.

Zachary Lee (02:58:53.433)
Yeah, that's right.

Eli (02:58:58.146)
an ongoing list. but yeah, I, so I have 35 movies on there right now. So it includes like movies that I haven't covered yet that I've seen. so I haven't covered 35 movies yet and his shorts are on here and his TV movies. So, they had for, yeah, it's still on here.

Zachary Lee (02:59:00.03)
They're not going less, yeah.

Zachary Lee (02:59:12.702)
Totally.

Zachary Lee (02:59:16.318)
Yeah, of course.

Eli (02:59:25.33)
Sometimes letterbox, it letterbox pulls from the movie database. And so sometimes like movies will get pulled from there. if they don't quite fit into the categories that they're supposed to. So like right now there's a, his episode of Colombo that he did is on here. And so I have it ranked, but like it very well might like disappear because like, technically that's a TV episode, even though it's 77 minutes long. And sometimes like the movie database like sees.

Zachary Lee (02:59:41.992)
Yeah, yeah.

Eli (02:59:55.05)
Because it's like, it's one of those things where listeners can like add stuff or change stuff or users can change stuff in there. And so, yeah, that might disappear, but.

Zachary Lee (03:00:05.158)
Yeah, no, that's great.

Eli (03:00:07.453)
But yeah, yeah, I mean, that's really all I have for this week for that. I don't really have anything else to say about AI. I'm at capacity, but, lucky for, for you, the listener, you get to hear us talk more about AI next week because we're doing a, AI movie draft. so yeah, I'm really excited about that. Should be fun.

Zachary Lee (03:00:14.333)
Yeah.

Zachary Lee (03:00:23.967)
of course.

Eli (03:00:35.708)
So look forward to that, to extending our discussion of AI, the topic, not the movie into next week. and, yeah, but that's all I have for this week. it's great having you on again, Zachary. Thanks for joining me. yeah, that's all we got. yeah. So I've been Eli Price for Zachary Lee. You've been listening to the establishing shot. We'll see you next time.

Zachary Lee (03:00:54.664)
Yeah, thank you.