I'm Your Buddy
A film and TV podcast hosted by best friends, Nick and William. Join us weekly as we watch imperfect but excellent works and discuss storytelling, friendship, and, in our current season, the film and tv scripts of Alex Garland!
I'm Your Buddy
Episode 228: It's Our Job To Be Prepared
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This week we watch Attack On Titan S1E3 "A Dim Light Amid Despair/Humanity's Comeback Part 1" and S1E4 "Night Of The Ceremony/Humanity's Comeback Part 2" and discuss Jack White, anime action, and adjusting to the show.
Hello and welcome to season 11 of I'm Your Buddy with Nick and William, a podcast where two best friends are watching and discussing the anime series Attack on Titan. I'm William, the one who has never seen Attack on Titan.
SPEAKER_02And I'm Nick, who also has never seen Attack on Titan.
SPEAKER_00And today we're going to talk about episode three, a dim light amid despair, slash humanities comeback part one. And episode four, night of the closing ceremony, slash humanities comeback part two. God damn it, dude. Long ass time.
SPEAKER_01So fucking funny.
SPEAKER_00And it's not dash, it's it's slash this time. Yeah. Sure, why not?
SPEAKER_01Mix it up. Yeah. Throw semicolons in next time. Maybe it's a code.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah. Decipher it later. That would be amazing, actually. How's it going, William? I haven't seen you for a week, I think. It's been exactly a week. I don't think we didn't hang out last weekend.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's right. We did we hang out sometimes on Saturdays, but we didn't. Uh it's okay. Um uh I'm on PTO. I've been off this week. Yeah. Which if you've listened, you know I do horrible with PTO, and it's no different. I hate it. And it's just it Well, did you take off all week?
SPEAKER_02Because you were saying you might work a little bit and then go in.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I I worked a little Sunday night and then that's it. And then uh Monday I spent a lot of time talking to my coworkers because there's a lot of work drama stuff going on. Sure. So uh it was kind of still in my work brain. It's just, I don't know, man. It's the thing of like, it's my time, it's free time, no obligations, can do literally whatever I want that'll make me happy. Yeah, and it's just a further example of nothing makes me happy. Like, I don't enjoy like life. I don't know, I don't know how to say it. Like, you know, I'll watch a movie and I'm like, oh, this is cool. Having fun watching a movie, and the minute it's done, I was like, that's well, that's done. That's a moment gone. I'll play a video game, and while I'm playing, I'll like zone out. And I'm like, eh, I don't know. I don't give a shit. Just stop. I just there's a mental block. There's a few, but it's you know, I just I don't do good with free time because I do put pressure on myself to enjoy the free time.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, instead of living in the moment, you try there, there's some kind of obligation to it. Exactly. Pressure to it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and then it just it doesn't work out. Uh I did see Spider-Man, which we won't talk about because Nick hasn't seen it. I gave him one spoiler. There's a Bad Bunny song. That's the only spoiler I'll give you.
SPEAKER_02My boy Bad Bunny. So I'm even more excited now.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Um, I wish I had another spoiler to give you. I'm sure there's a ton. Yeah, but a funny non-sequitur like Bad Bunny.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00It's like a random detail. Yeah, I do enjoy giving you random details. But yeah, I saw that uh last night. Yes. I saw that last night. Wednesday, I was like, yeah, I got free time. I gotta do something. And I can't just sit and keep playing Diablo 4. So I wanted to at least get one of the days to do a decent little workout. So I put on, and I'm sorry for everyone that's sick of us talking about this, or specifically me, put on Transformers 3, Dark of the Moon. Oh yeah. And on top of having a lot of fun and Michael Bay being Michael Bay, it did hit me of like, oh yeah, this is I don't know if we talked about this all the way, but it just keeps hitting me more and more obvious when I like watch the Doomsday trailer or any other superhero thing. Spider-Man doesn't count, it's a little different.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00But it it's kind of one of the last movies, the Michael Bay Transformers, where the action scenes are it's in a city, it's like people are there, cars like it's not just an empty field. Even Transformers 5, The Last Night, they do Scotland, Stonehenge, empty field.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, man is Man of Steel ruined city action because of all the deaths in Man of Steel.
SPEAKER_00Which thanks to Zack Snyder. Yeah, because he just doesn't care. And then Michael Bay's like, well, yeah, it's the point. They're invading Earth and killing all of us. So it's in there, but it just watching those scenes, not really even paying attention because I've seen the movie and it's a dumb Michael Bay Transformer movie, but just every action scene, I'm like, that's a real car. Yeah, that's a real explosion, it's a real car, it's a real street.
SPEAKER_02It always uses real stuff, it's never full CGI anything.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and it just it it changes everything visually. I'm watching, you know what I mean? Like it just feels like Earth, it feels like the world. And I remember Infinity War, like the Avenger movie they had to fight in Wakanda on a big giant flat plane, and I was like, Yeah, and they say well, endgame, like then it's just like grays and blues of like twilight, blown-out asteroid, essentially a crater. Yep. And I was like, Yeah, but like, yeah, no, this midday Chicago. Yeah, someone's like, Yeah, this is it, it's fun to watch chaos in a city.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, but I think they need to bring that back a little bit because it does happen and well in Avengers, which of course they didn't film in New York, they filmed here in Albuquerque, and but they actually built some actual sets.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And yeah, it's them dealing with the city, trying to save people, that kind of stuff. It's really good. Which actually, yeah, isn't that the same year of Stark of the Moon? Yep. That was 2012, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, when I met Whedon. I yeah, I made the joke of like, oh, I heard you were maybe gonna do in Chicago. He goes, I just every time I went to a city, Michael Bay was just there.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, he's like, Can we just wash it down before I come in? So that's very funny. And then and I forgot in the moment, ooh, if I could go back in time. Ooh, if I could go back in time, it's on my list of he went to school with Michael Fucking Bay. I should have asked him. Yeah, how's he like?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. Is he as much of a talented prick as he presents himself to be? Which could also go for Whedon. Uh I think they have more in common than Whedon wants to admit. Exactly. That's it's the whole thing of you you don't like someone who's exactly like you. Yeah, I don't know anything about that. Yeah, that'd be it'd be cool to have that come back a little bit.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And I don't know, maybe Spider-Man does. They do it's New York, maybe they do some New York action.
SPEAKER_00Um well, that was one of the biggest things the new Spider-Man movie did just as promo. I don't know if you remember how big of a deal it was. It's like, yeah, it's him in the suit, swinging the whole thing.
SPEAKER_02I'm sure there's they digital takeover a bunch of it, but yeah, I'm sure, but getting it in camera in that way is very cool.
SPEAKER_00Because I think the first thing they filmed, because it was their whole promo run, was the there's a runaway tank thing. So it's just him on a tank down a real street, and I was like, Yeah, this is cool.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, get back to the the neighborhood spidey. Yeah, but yeah, it's super stoked.
SPEAKER_00It's fun watching action scenes where you can you can place how much of this is real.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well, and it's it's very enjoyable.
SPEAKER_02And I think that movie, uh much to our audience's chagrin, uh, still discussing it. We've been complaining about trailers lately too. Yeah. And that is one of the last like amazing trailers to still think about all the time. Oh, yeah. Especially the music. The music in that fucking trailer, yeah, the and the and their Decepticons are coming out of the fucking dust of the moon and all that shit. Yeah. And just Shia yelling Optimus.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Holding a gun saying, Where is she? Is cool.
SPEAKER_02Like it's a really fucking good train. And then it all cuts out, and it's the fucking the what this worm thing chewing and eating the fucking building and stuff. Like, yeah, so good.
SPEAKER_00Which is funny. Uh, people on my Twitter timeline, it feels like every like four or five months someone rediscovers Michael Bay films and they'll post clips of like, how is this not the greatest thing ever? But someone has to say, they go, No, that's the thing about Michael Bay, is it looks like the best movie you've ever seen in your life if you only watch 20-second clips of it. Exactly. Because there's so much shit you're cutting out that's gonna make you go, Oh, yeah, I forgot it's also the worst movie I've ever seen in my life. Yeah, exactly. And that's also why his uh his films uh cut trailers so well. Yeah, because they're like, yeah, there's so many cool, epic things, and I don't have to give you context why TJ Miller blew up the way he does. He goes, You don't want to know about what's going on in this scene. Yeah, just it looks cool.
SPEAKER_02He's all about stop thinking about it, making dynamic moments, basically, in effective ways where Zack Snyder can't, you know. Not to shade Zack Snyder for the second time in this, but yeah.
SPEAKER_01He's doing a war photography journalism movie next. Because he likes taking pictures, yeah.
SPEAKER_00That's his passion project, he said.
SPEAKER_02Well, we know how those last two turned out. That was his passion project, too, right? Brutal, whatever.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Star Wars, wheat Star Wars, yeah, essentially. Wheat Wars, yeah, brown Star Wars. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, CPS Star Wars. I have a question for you, William. Whatever. And maybe it'll transition into Hold on, hold on.
SPEAKER_00Five but it's thick.
SPEAKER_02Well done. How to get it in. Well done. Uh, there's the 30 rock bingo for our listeners. I have a question, and I think it's gonna take us into the uh another topic. Is Toby Keith dead?
SPEAKER_00I don't think so. I think he is. He might be. Now that I'm thinking about it, because he should have made a song about Charlie Kirk. He should have yeah. There's a Toby Keith song about Charlie Kirk shuffling around up in heaven.
SPEAKER_02I think he got some kind of illness and and passed away. But I saw it's I mean, so much shit has happened in the past fucking 10 years, I guess. Yeah, like I I don't know if it was last year or 10 years ago, but I was scrolling something, uh, maybe it was on Instagram or something like that, and I saw uh something with Toby Keith, and I'm like, is he dead? I literally this was 30 minutes ago, and I was like, I'm gonna ask William on the podcast.
SPEAKER_00No, he yeah, now that I'm thinking about it, he has to be. He didn't make a George Floyd shitty like knee on your neck that's the American way. Like there's so many scumbag songs he could have done over the years that he didn't, that I'm like, yeah, he has to be dead. Otherwise, we've he would have done the the uh the white people Super Bowl halftime show if he wasn't dead. So he's has to be. He has to be. Yeah, okay.
SPEAKER_02I figured that he was, which that's a good thing. Yeah, I think I'm okay with this. We can mostly agree.
SPEAKER_00I'll accept it. But speaking of music, I thought you were gonna say speaking of dead people. No, no, luckily because I gotta think, but we don't have to talk about it. Do your thing. It's not it's a celebrity thing, it's not dead.
SPEAKER_02Oh, so yeah, celebrity deaths. You asked me last week if I listened to the new Jack White record.
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah, I did ask you.
SPEAKER_02I had not, but I did. I listened to it on a run uh the other morning. And it's a Jack White record. Yep. And it made me think a couple things. And I I'm curious to hear, you know, I mean, I guess we have a couple musician friends that listen, but yeah, I'll be maybe Dave will write us and let us know. I'd I'd be curious, but if if they feel the same way about one of the things I'm gonna say. First of all, it's undeniably Jack White, and I think it's very impressive that when you know someone's been making music for as long as he has, he just doesn't give a shit and he just does what he wants, and it always sounds like him. Yeah. And I think that's cool. And you can always tell that he's having a good time playing stuff. Whether he has anything to say anymore, I don't think so. But I I I still have to give him props to be like, you're still doing your thing. Yeah. I didn't like the record. It's cool that he's he's too much of the same. It's it's all the same. Yeah. It's this is a cut like a lick, a riff, a chord progression, it's the same thing over and over again for the song. And that's what prompted this in my mind, where and I believe this to be true, at least for me, and I'm curious about other musicians. I believe that not every riff deserves a song. So having written music stemming from the guitar, that's how I write music. I that's the first instrument I learned how to play. You know, some people learn on piano, they start there, whatever. I don't know how uh singers start to write music. You know, I just if it's my instrument, that's the that's where I start. I start with a riff. You know, you everyone knows I love a tasty riff. And so that's where it all starts for me when I was when I write music. I get something in my head. I don't usually fuck around on the guitar very much to find stuff I have in the past, but generally it's like, oh, I have an idea of I want it to sound something like this, or I want to use this drum meat. What's a cool uh riff to go on top of it? And every once in a while you'll you're you're fucking around and you this is like a stinker. It's like, oh, this one's kind of cool. This is a kind of a cool riff, write it down, and then oh, maybe I'll come back to it. I don't always come back to it. The good ones stick and they become songs. The other ones, I'm like, ah, that's just kind of fun to play, but there's not enough meat to it, so it doesn't deserve its own song. And this record to me was like Jack White just rolls out of bed, he's like, Okay, here's a riff. All right, let's write a whole song about this. And it's a it's a C tier riff. Maybe you could shape it or workshop it or something like that into something a little more substantial. But he's not interested in that, and I get it and I respect it. He's got his own method, but to me, I'm like, that riff didn't deserve a song. That riff didn't deserve a song, that riff didn't deserve a song. And I'm so curious about how other musicians work and if they have those same things where you're like, oh, this is kind of cool, I kind of like this, that this has some kind of potential to it, but I don't I'm not gonna use it because it doesn't speak to me completely, or I don't think it deserves a song. But that clicked in my brain that I I think that kind of way, and I was thinking, like, yeah, how would I want this record to be different? And whatever. I don't want any musician to change the way that they want to create music, but I would like to see saying, like, oh, I the record would be better if X, I don't want to say that kind of shit. That's stupid, it doesn't fucking matter, it's not useful. I would just be interested to see an album where he worked with a producer who was like, Jack, you have nine songs, that's it. You don't have you have 30 minutes and you have nine songs, maybe ten songs if you want. But no, and this record isn't even that long, it's it's 48 minutes or something like that. But I want to see him concentrated. I want to see the fucking instead of the drip coffee version, I want the fucking espresso version of of Jack White, the fucking pressure.
SPEAKER_00I want Well, I'm just I'm laughing because I'm like, there is an album where like he only had like three weeks worth of money to book in the studio, and he had a a non-drummer be the drummer, and they're like, Well, we gotta we gotta make an album, like he's done that.
SPEAKER_02I know he did it. I'm just saying at this point in his in his life, do it as a solo, not a white stripes thing. Yeah, because that was born out of necessity. Yeah. Right? And that's when you're young, that's when you're scrappy, that's when he's that's before he's Jack White. Right. So that's part of the molding process. Now I think, especially with these bigger artists who have been doing it for a long time, I think they make some of their most interesting work when they're challenged, they're given a task or they're given a theme, or they, you know, sometimes they because you you're a musician, it's your job. You make records to make records. That's your profession. So I get that not every album is inspired, especially for people with long careers, even though they're playing music, doing their thing, you know what I mean? But like I like the idea of giving someone like him who is not a legacy act sounds like a fucking insult, and not and he's not a boomer legacy act or something like that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, but he is established, yeah.
SPEAKER_02He's an established huge star, considered one of the greatest guitarists and rock music of all time.
SPEAKER_00Like maybe the greatest riff in the last honestly, like one of the greatest riffs in the last 50 years.
SPEAKER_02Seven Nation Army is the sports chant, it broke a cultural barrier. It is a worldwide phenomenon, everyone knows it, everyone chants it at every sports game. Yeah, like and he did that. That's fucking insane. And he's still alive and he's only 50 something. Like it's it's madness. He's basically created like a folklore song, basically. But I would be interested to see a producer try to challenge him a little bit in that way.
SPEAKER_00I um I like that idea. I do want to see him work with uh a producer, like uh name somebody to to hold him.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, because it's like I agree, he has pioneered like okay, three man records, you can fucking go record on a booth, go straight to vinyl. Cool. Get it done. Yep, get it out. That's cool, but you've done that a bunch. So I just it it'd be fascinating to see and experiment a little bit more instead of just like cool, it's this one riff, and then the fucking organ comes in and it does a solo, and then oh, there's this one riff, and then the organ comes in and does a solo. It's he's I need I need a distillation, I need him to be challenged. He doesn't seem challenged, it just seems like he's just fucking around.
SPEAKER_01And I think that's he's a which that's part of it, that's fun.
SPEAKER_00I think he's a particular person because he came from such a in-limits, you know, with the drummer just uh guitar drum vocal, guitar piano, or drum piano vocal, like the three, Meg as a specific drummer, blues rock, like giant boobs.
SPEAKER_01It was so god damn. I mean, no, sorry, but uh that those aren't the instruments.
SPEAKER_00Formative is the word I would use uh watching Meg White, but it I think because he came from such tight limitations, then he joined other bands and branched out, then he did his solo stuff, and his solo stuff was I'm getting crazy. Yeah, I'm getting weird, I'm doing all the noises and all the weird shit. And then the last two albums are essentially the closest he's done of back to form of like just we're a garage blues rock band, that's it. It's it's pretty by the numbers, by the book, in a positive super, super bluesy, especially this one.
SPEAKER_02I can't I didn't listen to the one before it, but this one I'm not gonna do.
SPEAKER_00I think the one before it's better. Okay, but very similar. Like you can tell he's like, I know what I'm doing, but that's the thing that I was gonna say is like he he does turn into that guy of like when Dave was here, we talked about Metallica or Iron Maiden. Like, there are certain bands that like guys, I know what our sound is, I know what our song structure is. We're making a Metallica album, and it's good, we know what those songs sound like. Yeah, they're they're modern versions of it, but it is when you hear it. I hope you go, Oh, yeah, that sounds like a Metallica song. Yep. I think he is that guy, it's kind of hard to branch out, and even when he did, people didn't love it because he's a weird experimental branch out type of person. So it's like you want it to sound like him, but you you want it more serious, I think is a word for it. Like take it serious, because it does feel like at a certain point he's making the album to make the album. Like you said, he goes, All right, give me a riff. He goes, I can make anything into a song that sounds like me. That's how good of a guitarist I am, how unique of a I play like myself. Yeah. So he goes, Well, here's the riff. Oh, yeah, this is a Jack White song, we're done because I already know what the chorus and the bridge sound like.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's just it's just blue, yeah. Let's just do a blues fucking structure and boom, what we're doing.
SPEAKER_00He knows how to do it, so it's like how how would you do what he does differently, yeah, or more focused? And I'm curious about he's worked with some of the guys from Queen of Queens of the Stone Age. I would be curious what it would sound like if Dave Grohl produced something of his. A little more focused, yeah, yeah, a little extra on the heavy, yeah, yeah. Maybe and I think Dave Grohl has a good enough anthem pop sensibility. Yeah, I think that's a guy that would do something interesting with Jack White.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and give him a con yeah, give him a concept to to riff on. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. Be it yeah, fucking stadium rock or or whatever it is, or heaviness, or even like a thematic thing. Tell a fucking story or something, you know, because A lot of his stuff with Irak Contours, which goes with the name, right? You know, telling these little stories in songs. Um, and he used to do that in the white stripes all the time, and he still does it here, but it's it's the the blues narrative, yeah, kind of way, instead of like, oh, I'm making 10 songs about this concept, and not it doesn't have to be the loust in the commodorial, yeah, but uh you know, nonsense. That's on one end of the spectrum of concept albums, it could just be fucking something simple, yeah.
SPEAKER_00I I think he's just having fun, yeah. Like these are this is a victory lap. Yeah, he did it, he did the damn thing, so it does feel like he's like, I want to keep touring, I want to keep playing live, I want new stuff to play. Yeah, that kind of feels like why he does those albums. And then it I always think about this is when new bands keep making music, not younger people that just found Jack White and this is their second album they've ever heard, because that person might listen to this and go, That's track five's my favorite song of Jack White's. That's my favorite song. That might happen, but someone like me that's like the White Stripes from the very beginning, would they listen to this album and go, That song's one of my favorite songs ever? I don't know if that happens. Like, I don't know if he's writing for that. Yeah, that's you know, and he's probably not interested in it. It feels a little safe, yeah, for sure. I think The Rock on Tours was the last time he wrote something that I was like, some of these songs are some of my favorites. He's oh yeah. On that, it felt because that was the first big difference. Yeah, but I get that. I think it's I always think that's tricky. I've been thinking a lot about uh bands and stuff because Warp Tour did another thing.
SPEAKER_02Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_00And um, I watched a few people's sets and stuff like that, and I watched Glass Jaws. I think I saw Martin post about Instagram. They play new, they play old, they play they play the whole thing, you know, their whole career span.
SPEAKER_02They have like two albums and an EP, right?
SPEAKER_00Complicated. Three albums, two EPs. But they it's not just the hits of old. They'll play the newer stuff, but I always think of like watching that. That's my new person. I always get sad sometimes when they're like in their 50s and he's got a playlist song that he wrote when he was like 23 about a heartbreak. Yeah. I'm like, ah, that kind of buns me out a little bit.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Because no one's connected to your new stuff on the same level where they go, please just play the new shit. There's certain bands that get that. I think certain rappers get that.
SPEAKER_03Sure.
SPEAKER_00Like, I I think when you go see certain performers, you're like, just the new shit. I'm in love with whatever, you know. I think Beyoncé's someone like that. Yeah. You know, they it's like, please give me what this is. Sure. And then there's certain acts, and I think it's a lot of rock where like everyone's like, don't play the new shit. Yeah. I get stressed out thinking about music in terms of that. I don't think filmmakers or anybody else really has the problem music has. One, it's live, so film, television, it's you you make it, it's a point in time and it's over.
SPEAKER_03That's how albums are.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, Christopher Nolan's not constantly touring, going, all right, fucking run the prestige again. Yeah, yeah. Like he's it's always the newest thing. Sure. And it's the same for stand-up comedy, is at a certain point, they do. If you curate your fan base, they want to hear the new shit. They want to hear the thing they've never heard. There are certain people that fall prey to come on. Like, I think Brian Regan, Jim Gaffigan, their on tr encore is yeah, I'll do hot pockets. Yeah, yes, I'll do the golfing or the parrot bit. Like, there's certain people that are like that, but no music is like if you keep making albums, there will be a fan base of yours, a certain sect of it that's like, just play the one album I like of yours. Yeah, you know what I mean? They're like, don't fuck around with all that. Don't you dare play Danger Days, play a Helena, yeah, and get the fuck out. The minute you start with Danger Days, is like, nah, man, yeah, that's not what anybody hears for. For sure. No one is like, I hope they play sing, you know, like it's just it doesn't happen. So I th they're in a tricky spot. Yeah, absolutely. Think about that a lot.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and it's it's a very difficult thing for bands to continue to make good music for decades upon decades. There's something about music that's just different, you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, because uh the trends and the fads of it change so much. Yeah, like we I talk about it a lot in rap, is like every one to two years, it's a completely different sound. Yeah. And you can try and chase it or stay away from it all the way, but like if you stay away from it, you're not gonna grow young new fans. Yeah. And if you try and chase it, you gotta really be good at what you're doing, otherwise it gets pathetic.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you gotta try to integrate it into your own thing, but you can't try to imitate it or you're a fucking hack. Yeah, it's tough. And then rock is dead.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I mean, bands. That's what Charlie XX is saying is completely dead. I I think I've always felt like the end of it was the Mumford and Sons era. Like, that was it. You know, the whites always come back around. They do. Somehow they'll find another way, but like I was talking to Sean about this because he's like, Why what happened to Rock? Because he was kind of bummed listening to some band's album. He's like, I just don't give a shit. Tap out. And I was like, I think everything rock used to do, electronic and rap does now. Like dubstep took breakdowns.
SPEAKER_04You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_00Like those electronic noises, it's distorted. Yeah, yeah. And then hip hop and rap took it too. Like those early Takashi or like baby Kia, those are hardcore songs. Sure. Like drill rap is hardcore.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's in highly influenced by heavy rock.
SPEAKER_00And then rage beats. Like, there's so much that you can hear. They took all of that, and so they're using that. So it's like, what does rock, what can rock do different that isn't being dominated by other genres? And that's why I always lean back to like that's why in my head, Monfern Songs was the end, because that was like the counter to the EDM dubstep, is like these are real instruments, acoustic. This is acoustic, it's real, and it's also the the vintage outside of the vintage hipster part. Yeah, the flannel suspender bullshit, it's real instruments, like this is acoustic, actual. Yeah, you're hearing it, you're feeling it, yeah, not electronic. I mean, they could only pull that off for so many albums, and then they had to start going with electronic stuff too.
SPEAKER_02That's when people were like, nah, which actually that's probably their best record.
SPEAKER_00But that I was gonna say, I'm sure the songwriting's fine, but once they go into everything else, it becomes everything else. Then everybody's like, now I'm kind of out of it.
SPEAKER_02Yep.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So what can rock do that electronic or rap isn't doing and we just haven't found it yet? Yeah. And then uh we also hit the other cycle of pop music came back.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00The ladies, Sabrina Carpenter, and all of that, like brought like 90s pop.
SPEAKER_01Well, and that's where it's gonna be butt rock.
SPEAKER_02New metal squared. Yeah. I mean, yeah. It'll it'll be whatever corn, limp biscuit, new metal, it the heaviness could come back to pop rock. You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_00Black people started playing with rock music more directly, and you started getting black metal and black hardcore bands and uh black front lead bands and stuff. So I could totally see the rap rock thing coming back. I mean, Denzel Curry's playing with Knock Loose, a hardcore band, and he's already talked about he's singing for them and screaming and stuff. He's like, I kind of really like doing this. I might do a full-on hardcore album. Nice, that'd be fun. Like it's yeah, uh rap rock will be the next thing. Maybe it'll come back.
SPEAKER_02Maybe, yeah, yeah, it definitely could. I mean, everything it's all cyclical.
SPEAKER_00Shout out Vince Staples, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, the record's definitely very rock influenced.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's yeah, they because I wanna try and write music, but I always stress you have to make a rap rock album.
SPEAKER_02That'd be fucking amazing.
SPEAKER_01Oh man, yeah, that's brutal. But you I don't listen to rap rock, so I don't know those riffs.
SPEAKER_02No, it's the inverse. You do the rap music with the rock singing, just trap beats with you do rock row.
SPEAKER_01That's disgusting. Hey, you wanna fucking break some barriers? Yeah, I was gonna say switch the whole genre up.
SPEAKER_00You know, no one will see it coming. Yeah, exactly. Ugh. That's so gross. I hate that so much. I hate you said that. It's alright, exists in the world now. Yeah, I mean, because country does rap. Uh yes, yeah. There's rap country, and then there's rap or country rock, there's all of that. So yeah, rap with country singing, or rap with rock singing.
SPEAKER_02Hell yes. Yeah. Yeah. It's the next big thing, whatever I'm calling it here.
SPEAKER_00A Mike Will made it song or Take Heath Beats with Chris Martin singing from Coldplay.
SPEAKER_02That'd be amazing.
SPEAKER_00Oof, god damn it. Yeah, hear Chris Martin on a Bugatti. You heard that. You can hash that up. Yeah. I don't know. I want to know what that sounds like. Yeah, yeah. Yikes. Yep. That's disgusting. Williams debut EP. I hate that. Spider-Man is a sad boy. And I love sad Spider-Man. Oh, I know. I can't wait.
SPEAKER_02I can't fucking wait. Yeah, he is the best. Spidey. He absolutely is the best.
SPEAKER_01There's he really is.
SPEAKER_02I mean, bigger opening. That's the biggest opening weekend in US Bar.
SPEAKER_00Oh, this is what I can talk about because we can't talk about Spider-Man. I re-watched No Way Home before the lead up. Because I was like, I know I've seen it uh recently, but I just I want to get in the mood because I'm very excited for the new Spider-Man. So I watched the last one again, and yeah, so obviously there's some things that don't work that great, and then some things that are relying a little too heavy on the meta of it. Sure. But there's a thing the internet's been doing lately where they are shitting on John Watts, being like, don't ever let him near Spider-Man again because the new guy, Daniel Dustin Creton, the guy who did Shang-Chi. Yeah. It's it's uh Tom's in the suit, it's in city, it's not all green. Like he's doing back to basic stuff and it's working. People are excited for Spider-Man, did a huge opening. So the the typical internet is just washing away John Watts, like he's yeah, like he's just like he did nothing for the characters. Yeah, so I rewatched this and I was like, No, John Watts is also good. He gave us the Michael Keaton in the car with the red light. Yeah, he pulled a gun out and said, I'll just fucking kill you. Yep, I'll just shoot you in your face.
SPEAKER_03Yep.
SPEAKER_00Like he gave us that scene. It's one of the best Peter Parker Spider-Man scenes in any movie ever.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00He he made the funny he's in the suburbs and there's no web swinging because they're all one-story, two-story houses. That is funny. That is good stuff.
SPEAKER_03Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_00The Mysterio Dream sequence is good. Yes. And catching the gun, like he gave so many great, and then he gave us On May Dying. Yep. And it worked really, really well.
SPEAKER_03Yep.
SPEAKER_00He gave so many really high Spider-Man Peter Parker moments. I was like, you guys are being such assholes, and I forgot how much the internet is assholes. I do forget, like I legitimately forget when they can be that stupid. Yeah. I was like, God, you guys are just being so mean. And then a switch hit, and the new thing the internet is doing is they're comparing Nolan to Kubrick. And all these young guys in their 20s are going, there is no comparison. Kubrick fucking sucks. This is esoteric art house bullshit. No one will ever want to watch 2001 when you can watch Interstellar instead. No one's gonna want to watch Paths of Glory when you have Oppenheimer. Like, they're comparing these movies. Who would watch The Shining or Clockwork Orange over the dark fucking night? And they're like, Nolan is so much better, and all you pretentious douchebags are just holding on to the fact that Nolan makes money and he's successful, that that's what you hate. And I was just like, it it really bugged me. I'm getting caught in it and I'm getting upset, but they kept trying to compare Nolan to Kubrick, and then someone was like, Nolan's not on the level, but he's not chasing Kubrick, he's probably chasing James Cameron. And I was like, that's closer. Yeah, I was like, Cameron's still leagues above. And then I was like, okay, well, then who is Kubrick? And I was like, oh yeah, that's right. Fucking nobody.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00There is no Kubrick. Yeah. There is just Kubrick. Yeah. Like when you study film history and you get into all the different waves of, you know, the Italian and then the French and then the Japanese, and then you come to America in the 70s, all of that is happening, and all of these waves. The one thing that always felt like to me is no matter the timeline, pre-war, post-war, you get here, you get here, you get here, there's always one weird little blip on the timeline of film history, and it's Kubrick unto himself.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, he doesn't give a fuck what's going on.
SPEAKER_00And he's not a part of any other mo movement.
SPEAKER_02Nope.
SPEAKER_00Like he's just him, he's the fucking guy on his own.
SPEAKER_03Yep.
SPEAKER_00I think the only other person I would say you could potentially say the same thing to is fucking Hitchcock. Like it's just boom, boom, and then there's movements.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Scorsese's not on his own, he's the American team.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00You know, Goddard was his thing. Like Kirasalo, they are parts of movement.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Kubrick was just a blip on it on his own. It's his name for that part, and that's it.
SPEAKER_02He's doing his own thing.
SPEAKER_00And no one is Kubrick except Kubrick. And I was like, that's fucking awesome. Yeah. That's beautiful. That's so fucking cool. I love it so much.
SPEAKER_02Oh, yeah. And it gets it's I mean, whatever. And it's young people being young, you know. I'm sure we had just as stupid and uninformed opinions when we were that age. Oh, yeah. But yeah, it's like comparing apples and oranges. Stop comparing shit. Who gives a fuck? Yeah. You know, they're completely different filmmakers. I'm sure Nolan loves Kubrick. All filmmakers love Kubrick.
SPEAKER_00Yes. But Nolan doesn't make Kubrick movies. Nolan doesn't bite from Kubrick. Nolan bites. I guys, he bites from Terence Malik and James Cameron and Spielberg. Like, that's who he bites from. That horrible tenant line where they're like, oh, the whole world's gonna end. She goes, the whole world, including my son. That's that's a shitty Spielberg line. That's a David Coop written line.
SPEAKER_02You know what I mean? He loves Spielberg, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, the sentiment.
SPEAKER_02Honestly, like I think the closest to Kubrick is James Cameron. James Cameron's on his own shit. He doesn't give a fuck. He makes the movies he wants to make on his own timelines. He's just he's only influenced by technology. And Kubrick was fucking obsessed with technology. But he's a he's a often a pretty cold filmmaker in a lot of people's minds. They'll see their movie his movies and then they're not gonna re-watch him again. Yeah, you know what I mean? It's like one of those sometimes it's it's one of those things where it's like, okay, I saw that I've I can move on. Um even people who are you know film fans are are often like that with Kubrick movies. Definitely. So there's a coldness to them, and I think people think Nolan has a coldness to him, but the difference is I I think Kubrick's trying to say something with his coldness, and it's about a point of view about humanity. Yeah. And Nolan just can't be Steven Spielberg.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, Nolan's just not that good of a writer, that's why his characters feel cold. And he doesn't know how to tell a story with a fucking camera. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Uh because they have to say he knows how to capture a story, you little bitches who are gonna be fucking mad at me for saying that. But he doesn't know how to use a camera to enhance telling a story.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and that's where uh every time they're like, I just can't connect to the characters. It's like, yeah, because they're they're poorly written, and he has to say what he wants or can have instead of you feeling it.
SPEAKER_02That's exactly what my father-in-law said. Because I went and saw the gate on IMAX, the Odyssey, uh, what we're referring to. And uh and yeah, the first thing he said when he got out, he's like, you know, I didn't really emotionally connect to the characters until maybe like the very end. And I'm like, Yeah. Only CRISPR Nolan could make a dog dying not sad.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, such a good point.
SPEAKER_02So fascinating to me. That moment should destroy everyone, and it doesn't. Yeah. How does that happen? Like you give that scene to I want to see ten filmmakers do the same scene. You know, it's that fun thing that they do it in comics a lot where a different artist will get the same script and they'll uh lay out the page differently and you'll get all these different angles and stuff. I would love to see ten directors from shitty to amazing direct that fucking scene and just see it from another perspective.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And I bet you even some of the shittiest guys could make us fucking crack a tear. You know, it's just so fascinating to me.
SPEAKER_00I but it's also everybody knows you you're supposed to. Exactly. Like you're the focus would be emotionally, this dog is dying. Also, emotionally, this is how he knows that's my dad, that's dad, because oh, you care about that dog, only my dad cares about that dog. Like all of that would play through the scene, not through the dialogue of Tom Holland going, You're my dad. That was my dad's dog. That means you're my dad. Like he had to say it. Yeah. But I don't know.
SPEAKER_02I still enjoy the movie, but yeah, it's it's it's it's different, it's different.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and if and all the memes of people doing it, I do like Nolan did tap into something of Matt Damon stringing the bow and plucking it before he clears the room, is really cool.
SPEAKER_02It's John Wick shit. Yeah, yeah, it is fun.
SPEAKER_00Epically, like, okay, now I'm gonna fucking I gotta warn my prey.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, it's cool.
SPEAKER_00It is real, like he doesn't always go out of his way for a badass thing. Yeah, that was one of the times where he's like, guys, we're gonna have some fun with this. Exactly. This is fucking fun.
SPEAKER_02I know there's so yeah, that and that's uh he's such a confusing filmmaker to me sometimes because there are so many moments in that movie where I'm just like you have that little fucking badass epic moment, and then what do you cut to? Fucking confusing shit. You can't tell because he can't shoot action because he uses one camera and he doesn't think about this stuff. It's like I mean, his stunt coordinators do, they're all doing stunts and shit, but they're not planning the fucking camera moves or anything like that, or at least he isn't. But there's so many of these, those contentious moments in the movie where it's like this is such a fucking cool moment, followed by god damn it, this could have been so much cooler. Like you were right fucking there because you start with this cool moment and then it kind of just like just kind of farts out, you know.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, um, but then he also is good enough to give you Matt Damon with a spear and arrows in him. Yeah, as he's fucking walking and everyone, yeah. He fucking drops the sword, clangs it. Yeah. Again, another like this. I think that's also why Inner Cellar works for me is like when he's trying to be cool, yeah. I think it works. The docking scene, whether the science or anything, it doesn't fucking matter. It's no one going, This is gonna be cool. Yeah, and that's where he gets the camera spinning, the light, the music, like it's just cool and it works. And that's where I'm like, yeah, I want you to have more fun. Yeah. Like, be cool. You did Dunkirk, you did Oppenheimer, you did Insomnia, like you've done it.
SPEAKER_02Lean into the Bay of he likes be cool. You love Michael Bay, exactly.
SPEAKER_00He's one of the few.
SPEAKER_02And what is Bay great at? Fucking fun coming back to Transformers 3. Yeah, and it's like Learn from that. Have a good time. You know. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Don't I mean he's often criticized for being self-series for sure, but I think that's a that's that's a script problem because you watch his movies and you're like, oh no, he's having fun. He just it feels like it's missing something because it is.
SPEAKER_02Because stiff upper lip.
SPEAKER_00He needs a he needs a writer. Yeah. He desperately needs a writer. I don't know why him and John don't work together. I assume it's on purpose. Christopher just wants to do it himself.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, well, and John likes doing his own stuff. I mean, he's busy with Fallout and all that kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_00I'm sure John would have helped on the Odyssey. Yeah, that's true. You know, I'm sure he would have. But yeah, no, it Nolan needs a writing partner. Because god damn it, dude.
SPEAKER_02And yeah, some of his best scripts. I mean, he's got the the got the writing partner, even though it's David Goyer. Uh but hey, those Bamboo movies are good.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02You know.
SPEAKER_00His brother wrote them too, so it wasn't David Goyer, it was his brother. And they well, they plotted it out at least. I refuse to believe David Goyer has talent. He's I got something. He's one of those guys I shouldn't have a problem with, but I have a problem with. It's the early comic book guys bug me. It's Simon Kinberg, A. Rad, and David Goyer, they bug me.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I don't want to. You guys fucked it up too many times. Let's not bring up Avi Arad because he's producing the Zelda movie.
SPEAKER_00Dude, I know.
SPEAKER_02I don't want to think about it.
SPEAKER_00I know they got a good director, though. We'll we'll hold hope.
SPEAKER_02And yeah, they were saying Sam Neil filmed a part before he died. It might be his last movie.
SPEAKER_00Really?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I bet you there's no way he's not playing the king of Hyrule. Yeah, he's got to be no fucking way.
SPEAKER_00That's a good king.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00That'd be sick if it's a good one. Was that Zelda's dad?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00That's a good king. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01So we'll we'll see. We'll see.
SPEAKER_00Speaking of hope.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_00I like these episodes way better than the first two.
SPEAKER_02I agree.
SPEAKER_00And Sean said, let's keep track with this, because Sean loves this show. It's one of his favorites. He's very excited we're doing this. And he told me because he listened. He goes, I'm so happy you guys hated the first two. Oh good. I don't know what that means. Okay. Because I didn't ask him. He probably just didn't like it either. No, I think he goes, Yeah, hate it. Okay. Because it's gonna flip on you and you're gonna love like I think he's excited that we're down on it and then we're gonna come up.
SPEAKER_01And I think I can kind of And I felt that with these two.
SPEAKER_02I can kind of sense it, you know, a little bit where I was telling Henry, my uh co-worker, who also really likes Attack on Titan, and he hasn't been spoiling anything for me, luckily. But I told him, like, I'm glad we're past these four because this is all set up. These two are just like the first two. The first two are this is the bad thing that happened when they were children, and they're gonna move into their next stage of life and start the show. Yeah, and then it's like, okay, now these next two episodes are gonna be about them training to get where they're gonna go to fight the titans. And then what does it end with? Here comes Lord Zed Giant Titan. Yeah. So they're back. They're back. So we're back to the beginning. So now I'm just like, okay, cool. We can finally start the fucking show.
SPEAKER_00Now we know what the troops are, we know what their weapons are, we got names, and I don't know anybody's name.
SPEAKER_02But we got side characters, I know the full casts are fun. Yeah, we get these different little archetypes and all this kind of stuff. And yeah, they there's some fun stuff. I like the in episode three, you have like the older kind of bully guy picking on Aaron, and they don't fight at first, where it's like, oh, I wouldn't expect that necessarily out of an anime. I would think there'd be some kind of thing, and then it's just set up for when it happens later on, and Aaron can, you know, do the little tripping thing that the Scandinavian woman taught him or something. But like there's these little inversions where I'm like, okay, this is fun, I think this is cool. And the whole time Aaron is less whiny than he was makes sense. Big time. He was a little kid who saw his mom got chomped in the first couple episodes. Now we get to see him and have his confidence shaken a little bit. He's not good at the fucking balancing thing. And I love the line of like, it's you don't get to decide if you're gonna be good enough to be a soldier.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's a good line.
SPEAKER_02I'm like, fuck, I like that. And it's something more eloquent than that. But it's he's as a main character to follow. He's more interesting, and there is zero chance that him just continually being like, I'm gonna murder all the titans, I'm gonna kill all the titans, I'm gonna kill them, I'm gonna I want all of them to be dead. I'm like, there's no way this isn't coming back around. This is gonna be a bad thing. Like, yeah, like, and I don't I don't know where the story's gonna invert. That's that's kind of the problem with this, is we know that there's something cool on the horizon, and it's it's slight expectation spoilers, which I talk about every once in a while. We're like, and yeah, I mean, I guess this podcast was the perfect example of it actually, because you didn't say what you liked about Spider-Man. Yeah, you didn't say if you liked it or not, because that's an expectation spoiler, right? Yeah, I'm trying not to tell you because if you say, Oh, it's amazing, then uh me as a as a little boy who's very influenced or something like that by the opinions of my friend, I'll be like, Oh sure, it's gonna be great, and then it goes in and I don't like it that much.
SPEAKER_00Or if I say I don't, it's annoying every time you're thinking, Oh yeah, that is annoying. Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_02You're heightened to the yeah, yeah, yeah, it just makes you pay attention to details in different ways. Absolutely. So we've had a little bit of that for this show, but M.
SPEAKER_00Night Shyamalan. I'm assuming there's a twist. Yeah, yeah. I don't know how late or early into the show, but I feel there's there's more to be understood, and it's a different show at a certain point.
SPEAKER_02Exactly. So I and I told Henry, like, I'm trying not to think about it while I'm watching it. I'm actively not trying to be like, oh, what's how is this narrative gonna invert? What's gonna happen? Are they gonna become the bad guys? Blah blah blah blah blah. I'm like, just try to calm down that storytelling analysis brain and just try to witness what's happening on screen and and don't worry about it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02But it's definitely a challenge.
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah. I think I do that with a lot of shows because I even did that the rehearsal doesn't count because that's uh bonkers weird thing. But I I remember even doing that with Better Call Saul of how much of that show at a certain point turned into well, Kim's not in Breaking Bad, so what the hell happens to Kim? Yeah, you know, like at a certain season, that was the forefront of my mind every episode of how do we get to a world where she doesn't exist?
SPEAKER_02Which they play with brilliantly in that show because everyone's like, Well, she's gonna die, well she's gonna die, well she's gonna die. It's like, no, she's just not there.
SPEAKER_01She moved away. Yeah, that's it. To a boring Cohen Brothers episode life in the suburbs. Exactly.
SPEAKER_02And someone does die, and it is very shocking, and it ties into Breaking Bad in a brilliant way. Yeah, it's just not who you think it is.
SPEAKER_00So it's like they're yeah, they know what's on your mind. Yeah, that's yeah, that's we're running back the hits, guys. Michael Bay's underrated, such great action. Better Call Saul is one of the best TV shows ever. So fucking good. The more I watch other TV shows, I I really do stamp for me. Mad Men and Better Call Saul are two of the greatest TV shows of all time. Yeah, it's maybe two and three. And the first one, I don't know. That's hard. I I get it. It's uh Seinfeld, MASH, The Wire, Friday Night Lights, The British Office. There's so much it could be. Sure. But in the top three and four is for sure for me, Mad Men and Better Call Soul, without a doubt.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00It's over the Sopranos, it's over Breaking Bad, it's whatever bullshit else you want to put up there.
SPEAKER_01No, those two are up there, dude. Oh, yeah, they're amazing. So fucking good.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, fun fucking stuff. But this show isn't top four yet, but so much better. I immediately checked of like, uh yeah, I feel good. Less yelling. Yes, no more yelling. Even when they're arguing, yeah, they're not yelling. Exactly. Even when they're fighting, they're not yelling. Which even when he falls and bonks his head, they're not yelling.
SPEAKER_02And it tracks. If he's a little kid, he's gonna yell about shit. They're scary giant monsters. I get it, but it's just definitely abrasive. Yeah, but yeah, I and I can't tell if it's the same voice actor. I think it might be the same voice actor, but just playing, having a little bit deeper voice, you know. So much more enjoyable to watch. And I mean, we're starting to get a little bit more of the lore of what's you know, the haves, the have nots, that kind of stuff, uh, how their military works. There's these two fucking I don't know if they're leaders or they're scientists or whatever, walking around kind of commenting on shit. I'm like, who are those guys? You know, what's the history with the fucking drill sergeant? Getting the difference between the three types of military branches, police and then garrison, yeah, exactly. And yeah, seeing them train to kill the titans, and you have the thing on their neck, like you gotta chop it three times. Are you you have to decapitate them or what's that right there? Yeah, and yeah, the animation's much more dynamic with their flying contraption things, whatever they're called.
SPEAKER_00The mobility suit things, yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_02And I was like, okay, now it's kicking in right at the end when Lord Zed shows up and blows up the wall, and they all fling off and they're going down the wall. One of them's trying to catch the other one, stabs him in the fucking leg.
SPEAKER_01Fucking awesome. So cool. Because they're grappling hooks. Yeah, it's not Spider-Man Webb. Nope.
SPEAKER_00She just not gonna wrap around, just stabbed him in his fucking calf to catch him from dying. Try not to move. I was like, yeah, this is cool. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02I was like, Yeah, that's this is the kind of shit I want to see. This is the action's kicking it, and I think that's what this show is known for, is like fucking crazy action. So I was like, okay, cool. Now we're here. I enjoyed these more than the previous two, but now I feel like we're gonna start the show.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02That makes sense.
SPEAKER_00No, 100% it does. And I also they're doing a good job where a character's not all the way just one archetype, even when they say they are. Oh, this one's really smart, but it's scared. This one's tough but dumb because they still give you moments of let's go for a walk at night, yeah, and we're just talking, or we're friends here, but we're not here. Like they're they're playing with the dynamics really well.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and they're saying that people can be multi-layered, exactly.
SPEAKER_00They're that's set up now because this is you're right, this is still the setup. This is the show's about to fully kick in. They're also playing with the um the show will get quiet. Yeah, the show will have quiet moments and it will have introspective moments, and then also the big loud moment.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and that's I love that juxtaposition because we have Aaron and his pals joining the scouts, we have them go to the wall where they're like, okay, we're gonna fucking take back our home, whatever we're gonna protect from the fucking Titans who haven't shown up in a while. And look, all these other people from our class joined the scouts too, when they could have joined the military police and gone to these cushy jobs.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, everyone's scout now.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, but it's like the gang is together now, and we have for the first time in the show so far, out of these four episodes, Aaron's looking optimistically forward into the fucking sky, and then lightning, and he's there, and they immediately get blown up. I'm like, that's great. I love that. I love that.
SPEAKER_00Him just literally just like arms on his head, yeah. Yeah, fucking like the breeze. Yeah, pretty cool, and then the devil, just some immediately breaks. It looks like a centibyte from Hellraiser, just a 50-story tall look.
SPEAKER_02Exactly. Yeah, so I'm like, okay, yeah, this is this is fun, this is cool. I like that juxtaposition. Happiness cannot exist in this world so far. Shout out Spider-Man.
SPEAKER_00Exactly, exactly. Ooh, Spidey. There's one scene I wanna just talk about with Spider-Man. I can't wait. For William, one of the top Spider-Man. I need to tell you this is my spoiler for you. Yeah, it's not when you see it. I need you to go. That's gotta be what William's talking about. Yeah, yeah. He does a thing where for William, that's my Spider-Man. That's my Peter Parker. Is that that is I'm like, yes, I would do that. That's amazing. That's what William would do too.
SPEAKER_02He lets anxiety win.
SPEAKER_00Oh, dude, he lets it all win. Oh, yeah. Yeah, there's just one little and I was like, oh seeing yourself on screen. Oh, dude, a million percent. That's amazing. And it's I think for me, the first time they've they've played into that type of idea of Peter or uh Spider-Man. And so seeing that, I was like, Yeah, and shout out to the director that he lets it go for a while. Like he lets whatever that same thing action is. It's like, yeah, we're gonna sit here for a little bit. And I was like, This is my favorite. Like, yeah, I get it. The people put his hand on him in the subway. Yeah, yeah. The you mess with us, you mess with all yeah, sure. Sure. This is William Spider-Man. Oh yeah. Yeah, there's one bit for yeah, that's for me, man. That's all for me. I can't wait. No, happiness can't last, Nicholas.
SPEAKER_02No, it's fleeting.
SPEAKER_00Peace and calm can't last.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you wouldn't. It would just be flat if you didn't have the hills and the valleys. Yep. Life would just be flat.
SPEAKER_00Should have more hills, though. You know, John Denver's. Depends on if you're looking down or you're looking up, you know. Shout out Dumb and Dumber. Thought the Rocky Mountains would be a little rockier.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. John Denver's a piece. Is that what he says? Yeah. Jesus. Full of shit, I think. John Denver's full of shit. Jesus.
SPEAKER_00Fucking dumb and dumber, man. Yeah, a few more hills, a little less valleys, and don't hurt nobody. Come on, it's a boy to do. For me, my thing with that scene that happened to me is he's looking, he's looking out at the town. He's up on the bridge and he's doing the whole, oh, the same band. But they show where the Titan kicked the hole in the first time, and they built like houses and structures in that hole. I love that. Like I was looking at that going, I like that kind of world building where they didn't just build the wall up again, they filled it with like buildings. I thought that was cool. Yeah. And I was like, I'm looking at that being like, oh, that's cool. I like that.
SPEAKER_02Because they have limited space.
SPEAKER_00And then they just blow through it again. It's like, ah, damn it. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02And I do like that they you get to see the damage to the buildings, and they show that in the first episode as well. So it's like you have the dust rushing in, that kind of stuff. It's like that, it's like almost like natural disaster or you know terrible war footage or something like that. You know what I mean? I they're trying to elicit that, I think, pretty well. And yeah, there's still a little bit of the odd transitions where I'm like, okay, that's a little weird. Uh, we're cutting from this scene to that scene, or you have the fucking still image that you're just fucking panning and scanning uh with some action lines. But again, they're saving the money. Which is smart. And yeah, you gotta you gotta spend where you can. And yeah, I'm I am genuinely curious to see this kind of like modern action anime style. Uh because I'm not familiar with it whatsoever. I I don't, you know, all most of my references old, and all my only new animation, Japanese animation stuff is Studio Ghibli and the fucking The Boy and the Heron. Yeah, is the most expensive Japanese movie ever made. Really? Yes. Have that man turn into a bird's mouth. Yeah, because it takes a lot of fucking money to pay people for years to hand draw animation. And when they're not on fucking deadlines, they're like, oh whatever, Miyazaki will get it done.
SPEAKER_00And my reference for this type of action, the closest I could do, which is um, I guess homage would be Korra. Legend of Korra goes pretty hardcore with the action scenes. The metal, that's the sisters fighting with the metal bending. Yes, it's kind of epic. So when I see this, that's where I'm thinking it's like that's the closest I can relate to. Yeah. I haven't watched anime that's like heavy, crazy action.
SPEAKER_02And you can see it a little bit.
SPEAKER_00I am excited.
SPEAKER_02You should watch Avatarang, the new movie with the grown-up gang. I see the kind of I think Josh Jenkins mentioned this and us text he was texting us about it. But uh, you can see the modern anime influence in that a little bit more, uh, than even more than Korra. But there's still really good stuff in it for sure. But yeah, that does make sense. But in terms of like CGI backgrounds coming really fucking close to the camera, and you have the character in the foreground doing running or whatever, I'm just like, okay, yeah, I've seen this a little bit before. And it honestly, all this anytime I see crazy modern action anime clips, all I think about is Scott Pilgrim and Ed Garrett. I'm like, it's a fucking live action anime, like it just fucking is. He's the only person who could get close to fucking doing that.
SPEAKER_00It's the greatest thing he's ever made. Yeah. Uh yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02You might be you might be right, actually. Yeah, that's a tough one.
SPEAKER_00That's so good. It's only gotten better with time. That yeah, absolutely. And I think that shows you how good it is because it should be the opposite. It's so that should be a time capsule movie where you rewatch it and go, ooh, it feels of its time. Yes. And it does. I mean, come on, guys. A movie with Aubrey Plaza, Anna Kendrick, and Brie Larson and Michael fucking Sarah should be a little more cringe, and you should look at it going, that was only cool that year.
SPEAKER_02Barry of the time. But it's but no, it feels like a time capsule.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And it's the filmmaking is so fucking good in it. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00You're encouragable. I don't even know what that means. Yeah. Let's watch this. Let's go. No, I'm not trying to be mean. I I am liking Attack on Titan. I'm excited that it's kicking off and we're officially in it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's yeah. This is these are just some interesting episodes. It's literally just introductory shit. Yeah. Which I'm okay with.
SPEAKER_00Four hour episodes is perfectly fine. They go very much. It means they're not rushing. Yeah. Even with a lot of montages. Because it's a lot to get in. Yeah, it's a lot of world building. Boot camp, and there's a lot of characters, the mobility suits.
SPEAKER_02And I like hearing about their the these side characters' lives where they come from. Because like the other guys who saw the Titans, the other two dudes that they talked to to try to train with, but like, oh yeah, oh shit, you guys were in this mountain town. It's just like that's cool. Yes these walls are fucking huge enough that there's like mountain ranges where people haven't been to the other cities.
SPEAKER_00Maybe different biomes. That's cool.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I'm like that. I I I like that idea that each little spot has their own little culture or whatever they do. So yeah, it's it's it's this is a unique season since neither of us know what the fuck is going on. Yeah. Where usually it's just like, oh, I'm picking up on this and stuff, and then the other one's like, oh yeah, yeah, exactly. That's gonna tie into whatever in the future or whatever. Yeah. But we're both just like, yes, it's this show is starting.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Which I'm I'm very comfortable with the show taking time. I don't uh bail on shows too much. I always talk about it as like obviously Friday Night Lights, one of my favorite shows. If anybody ever goes, should I try and watch it? I always say watch two episodes. Boy don't just watch the one. If nothing in the two clicks with you, like nothing, the show's probably just never gonna click for you. Sure. But I I'll give a show a good long while. I didn't love the first half of season one of Better Call Soul. I was like, eh. I didn't either. Yeah. So like I'm I'm very okay with taking time. So just this being four episodes, I was like, oh, cool.
SPEAKER_01I think we're here now.
SPEAKER_02First seasons are so difficult. First seasons are brutal. They're finding their footing with it. Uh, we talked about this with pilot episodes, but it really extends to the first season. Yeah. The first season of The American Office, very painful. Yeah. The first season of Park. Don't watch it. Most people don't.
SPEAKER_00Most people skip uh season one of both of those. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Community takes because it's like forty episodes, it takes like twenty before you're like, oh. Oh, this is the show.
SPEAKER_02This is what it is. This is because they're finding it out at the same time. They get an idea, they get a premise, but you hire all these actors and you have all these different characters, and it takes a while to explore them, and then you find avenues to go down and and find what resonates.
SPEAKER_00Nicholas, if I had to name a sh show or two that don't have that problem, The Wire and Mad Men.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Season one's incredible.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Like some of the best stuff is season one of both of those shows. Yeah, we'll have to see. We're we will do a wire season eventually. But yeah, Mad Men and the Wire, I think, are two that come to mind where I'm like, no, out the gate. You're just like, oh, this is different. It's just very rare.
SPEAKER_01It is.
SPEAKER_02And I think it has to have somebody who has like a very strong idea or perspective or something to say.
SPEAKER_00It's a different talent. It's not just you're good at what you do. You you gotta like really know the story you're telling because you come out the gate with it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And that's you know, if we use Mad Men as the example, is like all the metaphors of what the entire show and Don Draper's about, it's in the images in the first episode. Yeah. Where you go, oh, and you watch the whole thing, you can look back at that beginning and go, Oh, yeah, that's he was fully that, and you were telling it visually, literally in the pilot. Yeah, like you had it all figured out. Yeah, you didn't hit a certain point where you go, What is this?
SPEAKER_03Yep.
SPEAKER_00And tons of shows do that because tons of shows get sold on a premise, not on a story.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I would say most. It's very rare if someone goes, I got a full ass story to tell you. Most times it's a really good setup. Yeah. And you have an idea where it goes.
SPEAKER_02Which and that's that used to be the point of television. Nowadays it's really not.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, they just take a movie and make it eight hours and chop it up.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_00It's different. And then this is 2013. So this is kind of modern, which is interesting to me.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I don't know the book it's based on how old that is. The manga. Can you look that up? Jamie, pull that up, please.
SPEAKER_012009 is when the manga started. Modern.
SPEAKER_00Ah, see, this is so interesting. 2009 to 2021. Uh, so 2009, 2013. Guys, we've said this a bunch on this show. We're gonna keep saying it. Dropping two A-bombs on an entire culture really fucked them up. Like, yeah, it's how do you not watch this show and go, oh yeah, that was probably a really shitty thing to do to people.
SPEAKER_02So I was, yeah, I was and we we haven't really addressed this. I mean, we talk maybe we talked about it a little bit. I mean, we definitely talked about that, uh, what you brought up on uh the evangelion season. But I was talking to Henry about this, who I got to watch Evangelion, and it's one of these things where he, because Evangelian is so divisive, you either love it or you hate it, and he ended up loving it. Uh pervert. And exactly, even though he comes, he came from the church, he used to be really into the started out Catholic, went in to uh Ooh, that shinji hits his Catholic ass so much. But then he switched to Protestantism and all this kind of stuff, got married, got divorced, all that fucking doxing him basically on this podcast.
SPEAKER_00But Henry, it gets better, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, not for me, but I've just heard other people say that. No, but now he was like, I went back and I revisited the last episode of Evangelion, uh, just which stems back to people reaching out for help and Shinji's whole thing of he thinks he's alone and he's not alone, this kind of stuff. And we were talking about I told him we'd watched these most recent two episodes of Attack on Titan and just how with even just these two series, it's fascinating how the culture of repression works in in Japan, yeah. Where you have characters literally yelling exactly what they think and extremely passionately to each other and screaming at the world kind of thing, where that's not how they are in real life in Japan. They're very not conservative politically, but they're conservative people that don't outwardly express emotion a lot. And I mean, this is why you know, like the salary man's stuff is like socially acceptable because you go to work, you fucking grind it out, and then it's socially acceptable then to get fucking plastered at night, piss your pants on the street, and then go back to work the next day and fucking uh really lock in and get out. Yeah, exactly. Like it's these highs and these lows, and it's a culture of of modesty with bowing and that kind of stuff, you know, and like not sexual modesty necessarily, I don't think, but well, yeah, because some of it's censored still. Well, yeah, very true. Yeah, I think human pornography is censored, but you have this on the surface, relatively conservative, well-mannered society, and they 100% pedal to the fucking metal, express their emotions literally by screaming characters in their manga and then their anime. All these characters say exactly what they feel to a very heightened degree, but it's only an entertainment. You don't necessarily see that cathartic. Yeah, it's so fascinating, and you don't I mean, it makes sense with the you know, quote unquote repressive culture. That's what I was telling Henry too. It's like, yeah, you come from Catholicism and you know that kind of shit, but like it's so fascinating how much and how strongly they express themselves through their art and through their stories, yeah. Yeah, it's just and I love it. Yeah, it's it's so unique to their country.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, the way they do it's unique, but I think uh culturally people that have dealt with oh, it's very interesting because Japan's been aggressors a lot of their history, but like the black and Jewish community a lot of oppression and their art speaks to it and talks about it a lot. Yeah, you know, uh that there is something to the idea that a lot of the superheroes and mythology came from Jewish people. Yep, you know what I mean? Like there's a lot of people. Superman and everything, yeah. Yeah, so yeah, it is it is very interesting that Japan what they go through Jewish. Nope. They didn't write him, we did. That's our sequel. Unofficial. I don't know if we had the rights to it, we just did it anyways.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, uh, yeah, but that's very, very true. And yeah, the Japan was known for they've been bad boys for a couple uh ages.
SPEAKER_00Bad boys to a few different people, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, not good, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Guys, their uh their history's complicated.
SPEAKER_02But yeah, it's the art that has come out of all the fucking hundreds and hundreds of years of trauma in such a specific location, just like a single country. It's just so yeah, it's so fascinating to watch.
SPEAKER_00That sounds yeah, the a white man going so how fascinating. How bad you're just Henry blooming. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Uh yeah, so scientific with another culture's uh I don't mean it in the colonial way or the colonist way, colonialist way. Yeah, I don't mean it in that way. Uh just humans. We are weird creatures.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. But that's uh that's one of my favorite things that when we get to watch stuff from other cultures when it was Shangodzilla, uh, Evangelion, this is uh it's one of my favorite things is seeing how they process what they've gone through historically and culturally. Like I make the joke all the time of like their art talks about having a bomb dropped on them so much, but it's also the tsunamis and the earthquakes and Fukushima and the reactor, like so much of their art is about that, yeah, because there's perseverance there, yeah. But it's just like it again, it comes out somehow. Oh I love watching something come out through art with cultures that aren't mine, yeah. It's my favorite thing, it's so fucking cool. Yeah, that's why it'd be interesting to do like a Turkovski or something like that, you know. I mean, Stalker they filmed in radiated areas and the camera crew died after from fucking poisoning and cancer and stuff, yeah, isn't it? Yeah, isn't that nuts? Yeah, but yeah, that's that's also why um white people in America are kind of lame. Country music nowadays, yeah, pretty lame. Their movies, pretty lame, like their art is grabbing at pastiche instead of expressing something.
SPEAKER_02Well, I think, but at the same time, it's also saying something about the country. I think America is absolutely extremely fascinating, and our art does reflect it in terms of even though it's hollow, even though it's shit, that's reflective of us. Yeah, yeah, we're such a weird fucking moronic melting pot. And as much as I mean, and would I rather this not happen, as much as you know, Trump has ruined the world basically and and sh destroyed our country in in many, many, many ways. Um name seven. Just kidding. He he's the president we deserve. That's I even though I don't want him to be that's why you voted for him, because we deserve it. Even though William voted for him three times, uh four times if he could. Uh I did on my grandma's name. It's it's fucked up. Yeah, but it's like it's as Mr. Gambino says, This is America. Yeah, you know what I mean? Like, yeah, it's but we don't have to get into it, but it it still is saying something about it. Absolutely. That's uh we're we're just very close to it. I legitimate harder to see.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and I we make jokes about it all the time, but like I legitimately liked that they did the turning point USA halftime show because it says all the things we're saying right now. Go watch that and see what it means and what it represents. Like, if we're gonna say that's art because it's music, music's art, it's an artistic expression of something. Go watch that and try and think about what is it saying. Yeah, what does that represent? Because, like, that's coming off the Kendrick thing. Uh yeah, where he had things to there's a reason why Kendrick was in the middle of a divided flag with the colors, and it's black men of the flag, like Uncle Sam was a thing, the the the bad bunny, them dancing on the power lines meant something. Yep. The flags and the colors meant like this is art saying and expressing something. Watch the turning point one and just legitimately ask, what does this say? Yeah. And that's that's where we're at as a modern, I mean, uh white American society culturally right now is like, I don't know if we are saying something. I think we're trying to have a counter argument to say we should we should be allowed to speak, and then they go, What do you gotta say? And it's not and it's well, I'm mad that it feels like you don't want me to speak. Okay, what do you want to say? Yeah, well, I sitters wasn't that good, that's what I want to say. It's like, why is it you know what I mean? Like it's always just uh you guys are talking too much.
SPEAKER_02That's one of the most succinct ways that it's ever been put, honestly. That was that's that's a fucking great way to put it. Yeah, that's absolutely a hundred percent true. Yeah, there's a lot of fucking dumb people out there, unfortunately. Yeah, I'm just one of them. And if you're dumb, what are those people?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, the George Carmen thing. Think of the average person, and then half the people are dumber than that guy.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think about that almost every day.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, every time you're like, that's just a normal guy. Yeah, half is dumber than that.
SPEAKER_02Oof.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. Fun times.
SPEAKER_02Yikes. But I'm glad we're finally starting the show. Yeah, especially into it. We saw Aaron's motivation, we saw him get through this shit. We have some characters that are cool, so let's have some of them die and we'll still feel sad. Yep. And yeah, because I will I genuinely was thinking, like, this is just the very beginning. I'm excited to see where it goes. Yeah, there are four seasons in a movie of this. I know. So I'm like, all right, let's fucking go.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, we're in it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And so just so people know, we're we're still trying to play it by year of how many episodes of the show we will do per episode of the podcast. We looked ahead a little bit. This next batch of episodes is like a nine-parter. So next week's episode is gonna cover the next three episodes. Yeah. So we're gonna be watching season one, episodes five, six, and seven. Yeah. And we'll so we'll do this next nine part uh uh arc or whatever you want to call it in three episodes of the podcast. So yeah, watch the next three for next week. And yeah, we'll be back. Hopefully, shit's gonna fucking hit the fan. We'll see some crazy shit happen.
SPEAKER_00It did end on a cliffhanger, which was cool.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I'm glad. Looking forward to see where it goes.
SPEAKER_00Me too.
SPEAKER_02I love you, man. I love you too.