The Weekly Planet - The Abyss - Caravan of Garbage

Episode Date: December 1, 2022

We're on the road to Avatar 2: The Way Of Water! And on that road there there were three movies from James Cameron's filmography that made it happen, the first of which we'll be looking at is The Abys...s from 1989. Starring Ed Harris, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio and Michael Biehn among others it tells the harrowing tale of a civilian diving team, a rogue nuclear warhead and aliens of The Deep. I hope you like submarines because boy there's a lot of them. Thanks for listening to our Caravan Of Garbage review! SUBSCRIBE HERE ►► http://goo.gl/pQ39jN Video Edition ► https://youtu.be/KIgK5t1vlcA Help support the show and get early episodes ► https://bigsandwich.co/ Patreon ► https://patreon.com/mrsundaymovies James' Twitter ► http://twitter.com/mrsundaymovies Maso's Twitter ► http://twitter.com/wikipediabrown Merch ► https://www.teepublic.com/stores/mr-s... Amazon Affiliate Link ► https://amzn.to/2nc12P4 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Starting point is 00:00:00 FX's The Veil explores the surprising and fraught relationship between two women who play a deadly game of truth and lies on the road from Istanbul to Paris and London. One woman has a secret. The other, a mission to reveal it before thousands of lives are lost. FX's The Veil, starring Elizabeth Moss, is now streaming on Disney+. Will you rise with the sun to help change mental health care forever? Join the Sunrise Challenge to raise funds for CAMH, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, to support life-saving progress in mental health care.
Starting point is 00:00:33 From May 27th to 31st, people across Canada will rise together and show those living with mental illness and addiction that they're not alone. Help CAMH build a future where no one is left behind. So, who will you rise for? Register today at sunrisechallenge.ca. That's sunrisechallenge.ca.
Starting point is 00:00:54 Hello, everybody. We are... Hello. Hello, everybody. I'm everybody. You're one of everybody. That's true, but I'm representing everybody today. Well, thank you, everybody, for being here.
Starting point is 00:01:04 What happened to your red arrows? Where are the red arrows? Where's the big text? I just, a lot of people do trailer breakdowns now and it's just not that interesting to me. I mean, to me at this point, Easter eggs and look,
Starting point is 00:01:13 I love this stuff, but like, I don't want to just list things anymore. List a few things. Okay. Well, I'll list three things. Okay,
Starting point is 00:01:20 great. Yay. So we are on the road to James Cameron's Avatar 2. That's one thing. We're in the water, everyone. Nice. And to do that, I feel like there are three films that absolutely are the stepping stones to that.
Starting point is 00:01:35 Oh, yeah. One is Avatar 2009. I'm sure that helps. For obvious reasons. The other one is Titanic. And the first of which we're going to cover out of all of these is The Abyss, Mason. Which is fascinating.
Starting point is 00:01:47 Which part? The fact that you and everybody, because that's who you represent, is leaving a like on this? Clickety-click. Great. What's fascinating about The Abyss is that we were like, let's watch and talk about The Abyss. And I thought to myself, well, it's from James Cameron, The Terminator movies, Titanic, Avatar, some of the most well-regarded and most profitable movies of all time. True lies.
Starting point is 00:02:08 True lies. I'll just find this on one of our local streaming services. It's not there. So I'm like, I'll go down to my local DVD purveyor. That guy who sells DVDs out of the trunk of his car. Yeah. Wasn't there either. I thought I'll get it for five bucks or whatever.
Starting point is 00:02:23 It's probably different in America, but you just can't get it for five bucks or whatever it's just it's it's probably different in america but you just can't get it well it is this is fascinating it is one of those ones that is due for like a restoration 4k update but james cameron hasn't done it as of yet he's too busy in the in the world of pandora it's probably too soggy once we've dried this out we're gonna put it we going to put it on a beach towel on the beach. Exactly. Now, I've got to say, I just assumed that maybe I've seen this. I remember the water face,
Starting point is 00:02:52 but watching this, I'm like, oh, I don't know anything about this at all. Same. I think I've like vague flashes of it from my childhood, but no idea it was about, I knew it was aliens, but I didn't know it was like a lost nuclear warhead and et cetera. But we also looked at the extended cut. That's true, we did. I knew it was aliens, but I didn't know it was like a lost nuclear warhead and et cetera.
Starting point is 00:03:07 But we also looked at the extended cut. That's true, we did. 30 minutes more extra stuff going on. I think the flashes of it that you remember are probably advertisements for it on like Channel 10 when we were kids. It would have been the 8.30 Sunday night movie. It would have gone until after midnight probably. It would have probably gone to three or four hours, this thing. Or over two nights with the extended version,
Starting point is 00:03:28 which came out in 93. But what did strike me about this movie is that it might be the most James Cameron thing that's ever happened. Because we've got the ocean, we've got aliens, we've got little underwater submarines. That's right. This is everything that he loves.
Starting point is 00:03:43 Yeah. And he's trapped a whole lot of actors and crew on the set and tortured them for months which i will get to there is a whole section about how everybody nearly died and hated making this movie interesting yeah and you see it maybe that's why it's not available on dvd in this country because of evidence it's it's it's required as evidence in various criminal cases that are still ongoing. Yeah, but there's not a lot of stunt work in this. It's mostly the actors doing it themselves. And 40% of the principal photography is underwater.
Starting point is 00:04:11 Yeah. And you can see that. For sure. Like, it's quite refreshing to, I mean, water, first of all, is very refreshing. But it's quite refreshing to watch an old, quote unquote, old movie that is kind of a big, a lot of big set pieces and action, what have you, that is kind of a big set piece as an action, what have you, that is filmed on real sets and it's set underwater and it's filmed underwater.
Starting point is 00:04:30 It's not just green-screened. Well, even back then. I mean, you couldn't do it. No. I mean, a lot of this is like miniatures or really bigotures because one of the ships that they built. Bigoted miniatures? It's a Peter Jackson thing from Lord of the Rings.
Starting point is 00:04:45 They're not bigoted. They're very accepting, Mason. Go back to your own model railway. It's an example of a bigoture. That's really good, Mason. But the thing is, I feel like this movie does scale really well a number of ways, and one of them is with big miniatures, bigotures
Starting point is 00:04:59 if you will, Mason. Oh, I will. I feel like the stuff that is lit up and floats around and breaks up, it's all very convincing. And one of the model ships that was used for this was so large and they filmed it on the open sea, which meant they needed to register it with the Coast Guard. Like that's the kind of stuff that they're working with.
Starting point is 00:05:19 Yeah, as a buoy. And they used a nuclear reactor housing, which was a 55-foot tall bowl, 240 feet in diameter, which they shot in, which meant basically they put in 7.5 million gallons of water and they built that superstructure within it, or some of it at least. Sounds like somebody was smoking a huge bowl, if you know what I mean. You're not wrong, Mason. It's all done.
Starting point is 00:05:42 And as a result of that, it feels vast. You don't see the you don't see the walls of anything it was obviously the biggest tank that had ever happened at this point sure and it was nearly the biggest tank when it went to the box office which was not quite we'll talk about it that's pretty good did you prepare that no i didn't did you like it though i liked it and you're everybody it's true so that means everybody liked it but things like the sinking of the station incredible the crane comes down. And the idea that after that accident happens,
Starting point is 00:06:08 they never cut back to the surface. I mean, we do at the end, but we're just trapped down there with all these dirty people. Yuck. A man sticks his hand in the toilet and it stays blue the entire movie. What is that, Mason? I don't know. Maybe that's what happens when you stay underwater for too long.
Starting point is 00:06:24 Your poo goes blue. His hand is blue the entire movie. Uh-huh. Yeah. Just a man living his life after putting his hand in a blue toilet bowl and not washing it. I'm sure it was some kind of chemical agent that they probably used in submarines or whatever.
Starting point is 00:06:38 Great cast, by the way. The great Ed Harris. Amazing. But later in the movie, he does tenderly touch the cheek of Mary Elizabeth Mastro Antonio. She isn't like, did you stick your hand in the toilet? It's still blue. It's toilet blue.
Starting point is 00:06:51 It is toilet blue, isn't it? It's toilet duck extreme. It might just be, yeah. So yeah, a young Ed Harris. A lot of young. Yeah. Mary Elizabeth Mastro Antonio, obviously. We've got a young Chris Elliott, who's a great comic actor.
Starting point is 00:07:04 We get a young and beautifully mustachioed Michael Biehn, the world's favourite Mr Biehn. I think so. Between you and me, Mason, I'm going to agree with you on that one. It's too beautiful to put a turkey on his head, though. Absolutely. It'd be a waste. You actually asked me this before the show, and it's absolutely true.
Starting point is 00:07:22 You were like, was James Cameron going through a divorce when he made this? this because the female lead in this everyone up top in this movie is just like what a bitch look at this bitch and even when she's dead and ed harris is trying to revive her he's like wake up you bitch and then at the end wake up so you can take some more alimony payments you bitch and then at the end when she's talking to ed harris when he's diving depths and whatever she's like i'm a bitch and this is why I'm a bitch. I'm like, what is happening in this fucking movie? Here's the thing. It's spectacular and it's cast well, but it's not great, is it?
Starting point is 00:07:55 No, but as you were going to say, as you mentioned just then, the scene where he has to revive his ex-wife, that's so tense. And tense in real life, which we'll talk about. It's on my list of harrowing things that happen, basically. But just, you know, because we've spent so much time underwater and we don't know these characters very well, I'm like, what's going to happen, James? But I think it was very, very well done.
Starting point is 00:08:19 Yeah, I completely agree. But yeah, also shout out to Michael Bean, who's just a paranoid man with some kind of ocean madness, which may or may not be a real thing that's going on. And I love that he's... It's scurvy. That's what happens when he gets scurvy. He's got scurvy.
Starting point is 00:08:34 And he's like entirely mad for the length of this movie, even before he goes under, really. Apparently it was Michael Biehn's idea to be like, maybe we give him a reason to just go insane and go after a nuclear weapon. But everybody knows that he's going insane and that he has a nuclear weapon, but the only guy keeping an eye on him is the guy with the rat. Sure.
Starting point is 00:08:53 He's got his little submarine and he's giving him a good look-see. Keep a closer eye on Michael Biehn in this movie if you could. I think this got out of hand several times because of Michael Biehn. Agreed. Yeah, even though he is the best Mr. Bain. But this is also like a babushka dolls of submarines coming out of submarines. Oh, yeah, okay. My goodness.
Starting point is 00:09:13 Some of them real, some of them model work, some of them like puppeteered on wires and whatever, but just incredible mechanical effects, Mason. What about the visual effects? Do you have any notes on the visual effects? Because all I remember from this, i'd never seen this before but my only memory of it was in the um it's a big water face isn't it well it's the big water face but i only remember it in the lead up to terminator 2 because i remember all the press was like he's built on the incredible
Starting point is 00:09:38 effects from the abyss to build the t1000 it's the same technology but it's massively evolved and i guess i was expecting something better than this. Really? I thought it was really impressive. For the time, absolutely. Especially for the year. Oh, this is how they did it. So it was initially going to be a cell animation
Starting point is 00:09:53 or it was going to be a tentacled sculpture in clay. A Roger Rabbit style situation. Yes, that's right. Please let me in. I'm a water snake. You didn't even like the bit where they closed the door and all the water fell down or whatever? Look, I'm being too harsh, obviously. In the lens of 2022, I'm a water snake. You didn't even like the bit where they closed the door and all the water fell down or whatever? Look, I'm being too harsh, obviously.
Starting point is 00:10:07 In the lens of 2022, I'm like, well, that being said. Not as good as a better movie that I saw this year. But still better than everybody else who tried to do a T-1000 effect post-Terminator 2. Still way better than that. Yeah, fair enough. I was also considering maybe we do this stop motion with water reflections projected onto it. Oh, as a M It was also, they were considering maybe we do this stop motion with water reflections
Starting point is 00:10:25 like projected onto it. Oh, as a Muppet. As a Muppet, exactly. Okay. Please help me, man. Yeah, but, and the way they did it is they filmed that first,
Starting point is 00:10:35 which meant the team working on it had nine months to get it right. Okay, great idea. Which is amazing because now you could just do this on your phone. And it wouldn't look as good as Terminator 2, Mason, but you could get it, you could get it pretty close you get it 95 on the way there yeah
Starting point is 00:10:49 i think that's perfect yeah just and and perhaps a lesson that present-day filmmakers could learn if you need somebody to do some special effects give them nine months do it first and don't change it every month yeah i think there's two things that are like the focus of this movie and one is done really well and they're both done really well. I'm going to start that again. I don't know what the fuck I'm saying. Mason, I'm fucked up.
Starting point is 00:11:14 Let's quit. No. Let's start again. Okay, so I think this movie is simultaneously incredibly harrowing. You know when they've got like the dead submarine crew
Starting point is 00:11:23 and those are all real people just holding their breath being like, I'm dead. I'm a submarine've got like the dead submarine crew and those are all real people just holding their breath being like, I'm dead, I'm a submarine crew. Like going through and seeing all those people. Now you're an extra.
Starting point is 00:11:31 You've got to focus really hard on two things. You're dead and you're a submarine crew. Yes. And there's incredibly harrowing... We can hand out some t-shirts if necessary.
Starting point is 00:11:39 If you can't do it, we'll turn your face away from the camera and let you wear the t-shirt. But I think it's really good at harrowing moments. You know, just people being claustrophobic and stuck and like water's rushing in do it, we'll turn your face away from the camera, we'll let you wear the T-shirt. But I think it's really good at harrowing moments, you know, just people being claustrophobic and stuck and, like, water's rushing in and they're putting on helmets
Starting point is 00:11:50 that are filled with water also and it's all terrifying. But at the same time, there are way too many just loving shots of stations and submarines and underwater vessels. And stirring music. And I think a lot of that could probably go. And I think also that this is the... What do you want, dubstep? You want a dubstep soundtrack to this?
Starting point is 00:12:08 Yes, I want a dubstep Jamie Foxx monster coming in to liven things up. But I think also this is the extended version that we watched. You know, often we're going into this, we think, you know, which version, you know, which version do we look at? Which best represents maybe the vision of the director?
Starting point is 00:12:22 And then I was like, oh, this one. This is the one I found first so great terrific i mean this is obviously this this evidently had greater themes of uh u.s versus the soviet union kind of conflict uh which you know perhaps weighed it down a little bit but then it also had a big wave that was going to crush the whole world and everyone was like oh no and then they went we don't have the budget for a big wave that was going to crush the whole world. And everyone was like, oh, no. And then they went, we don't have the budget for a big wave to hit anything. Yeah. So we're just going to stop the wave. But then, as I understand it, then years later,
Starting point is 00:12:53 when the opportunity for a director's cut was on the table, ILM, who did many of the visual effects, was like, yeah, we can do a big wave now. Yeah. So initially in the test screening, James Cameron had like a placeholder, which was like a storyboard that was like, there's a big wave. And half the people were like, this sucks, we hate this. And then he took it out, but then he realised,
Starting point is 00:13:15 oh, I shouldn't show people unfinished effects because some people are too dumb to be like, oh, this isn't what it's going to look like in the final movie. So that for him was the indication that, oh, I'll put this back in. Yeah, right. The way that they get rid of Michael Biehn, which is two submarines crashing into each other, isn't as interesting as, say, like an alien versus a person in a mech
Starting point is 00:13:34 or a person versus a Terminator. Sure. Or a Terminator versus a Terminator. Or Billy Zane versus Kate Winslet. Sure. I think this idea of just two underwater vessels crashing into each other, there's not a lot you can do with that. Okay.
Starting point is 00:13:48 You know, and it's just like clang, and then they back up, and then they clang again. Okay. But I will say this, Michael Biehn, the best Mr. Biehn, his death, that explosion, and it kind of folds in,
Starting point is 00:13:59 and then the bubble comes out of the ship. Very good. Like that a lot, Mason. So overall, your opinion of his death is neutral yeah that's right exactly straight down the middle big zero yes okay and then of course we get like the close encounters ending or if you'd prefer mason i know you would the mission to mars ending with gary simmons where the aliens are like hello do you think this movie was highly inspirational or influential on future movies obviously Obviously, Terminator 2, we've got the effects evolution there.
Starting point is 00:14:25 I'm talking movies like Interstellar. I think so. Or Mission to Mars. Mission to Mars. What was that one with Kirsten Stewart and it was underwater and everything was sinking and it was aliens? Twilight. We're seeing it on a pier and the pier's hit by a speedboat
Starting point is 00:14:40 and we go underwater. Speed 2. Yeah. I think so, definitely so i think especially the movie making of the 90s as well where you know like for backdraft for example they built a big set that could catch on fire and all of that i think that's all sets actually well not yeah that's true but i mean intentionally oh terrific which they could then put out that's not something i feel like they do as much now but yes i think there was a lot of filmmaking in this
Starting point is 00:15:06 which showed what could be possible in terms of scale and scope and if you put the money and time into it. What do you think of the alien design, though? Or that ending where the alien's like, humanity's not great, Ed Harris. And Ed Harris is like, humanity's great, actually. And then the aliens are like, here's a slideshow of all the wars. And he's like, we taped this off the telly yeah you got me okay we get the history channel down here yeah surprise i didn't
Starting point is 00:15:31 think you'd have any of that i didn't think you had the antenna for it shit as women our life stages come with unique risk factors, like when our estrogen levels drop during menopause, causing the risk of heart disease to go up. Know your risks. Visit heartandstroke.ca. FX's The Veil explores the surprising and fraught relationship between two women who play a deadly game of truth and lies on the road from Istanbul to Paris and London.
Starting point is 00:16:03 One woman has a secret. The other, a mission to reveal it before thousands of lives are lost. FX's The Veil, starring Elizabeth Moss, is now streaming on Disney+. Will you rise with the sun to help change mental health care forever? Join the Sunrise Challenge to raise funds for CAMH,
Starting point is 00:16:21 the Center for Addiction and Mental Health, to support life-saving progress in mental health care. From May 27th to 31st, people across Canada will rise together and show those living with mental illness and addiction that they're not alone. Help CAMH build a future where no one is left behind. So, who will you rise for?
Starting point is 00:16:40 Register today at sunrisechallenge.ca. That's sunrisechallenge.ca. But he gets out of it I need some talkback radio Listen to these people They're all insane Yeah Here's Jerry Springer Look at this
Starting point is 00:16:56 We've seen it Why's that man hitting that other man with a chair? It's rude It is rude Lift your game, humanity Yeah Anyways, as I mentioned This was a nightmare of a time. I bet.
Starting point is 00:17:07 And here we go. This is a section of the show called What a Nightmare of a Time Everybody Had. Wow. So the cast and crew for this did, on average, 70-hour weeks for six months. Right? That's a long time. I agree. And this was changed dramatically because at one point,
Starting point is 00:17:24 a lightning storm ripped a hole in a black tarp covering the tank, which was making it look much darker underneath. And since repairing it would take too much time and production was already running over, they just started shooting it at night. So everybody's just rolling in in the cold, just jumping around in the water. Ed Harris also actually said this about the revival scene, right?
Starting point is 00:17:41 You remember the famous revival scene, Mason? Sure, sure, sure. I was slapping her across the face and I i said they've run out of film in the camera there's a light on the camera and nobody has said anything and mary elizabeth stood up and said we're not animals and walked off the set they were going to just let me keep slapping her around it was very difficult so if he hadn't have noticed just slapping her for no reason wow michael bean also claimed that he was in south carolina for five months but only acted for three to four weeks he remember one day being 10 meters
Starting point is 00:18:10 underwater and suddenly the lights went out and it was so black i couldn't see my hand i couldn't surface i realized i might not get out of here and that was probably the nicest nearly drowning story that i have mason that's. Was he going through a divorce with everybody on this film? Is that what was happening? Reportedly, Ed Harris punched James Cameron when he nearly drowned. I think it might have been the moment, you know, when he puts the bowl over his head? Yeah, sure.
Starting point is 00:18:35 Of the water rising. That was real. And often times, he would be underwater, swimming about with a bowl on his head, filled with water. So that wasn't like a secondary plate? They would sometimes do that, but it was mostly just a bowl of water in a big bowl of water. Right, because my assumption during most of that was it was two layers of glass with pink liquid in between the glass.
Starting point is 00:18:58 But that wouldn't explain how he was exhaling and bubbles were coming out because you couldn't do that. You couldn't do that these days. No, and it was chlorinated. So he had contacts in to stop it stinging, but he said on the day that he nearly drowned, on the way home he pulled his car over because he burst into spontaneous crying.
Starting point is 00:19:15 Ed Harris. Wow. James Cameron had a drowning experience as well, Mason. Oh, wow. So he was in the underwater set. Everyone tried to drown him simultaneously. Everybody dragged him underwater. The AD who was supposed to monitor the director's oxygen levels was on a break
Starting point is 00:19:32 and Cameron needed air quickly. So he stripped off his gear, including the helmet, and tried to rise to safety. A safety diver went to help by offering him a spare breathing regulator, but it was faulty and Cameron ended up accidentally sucking in a lot of water. Cameron struggled to get free, but the safety diver assumed he was distressed and kept a hold of him until Cameron punched him in the face. That's true. A lot of punching, a lot of drowning.
Starting point is 00:19:54 I feel those are two of the least desirable features of a film set, punching and drowning. I would agree with that. The assistant director and the diver were fired the same day, no shock there. James Cameron and producer Gail Ann Hurd, as mentioned, divorced while the filming was in pre-production. I think it was also dating Catherine Bigelow at the same time as well,
Starting point is 00:20:13 so I don't know what his mental state was, Mason. Based on this movie, great. The tank was so huge that it had its own weather and the water was often too murky to film in. Local goats sometimes invaded the set, destroying equipment and urinating on the floors. The constant cold and submersion caused many to come down with ear and sinus infections. Too much exposure to chlorine burned divers' skin and turned their hair green or white. Filming was also delayed once due to a bomb threat.
Starting point is 00:20:42 Ed Harris had such a traumatic experience making the film that he refused to go into detail about it for years. One of the few things he said about it was, asking me how I was treated on the abyss is like asking a soldier how they were treated in Vietnam. Plus, I had toilet hand for the next five years. They had to make up my hand on every subsequent movie. In The Rock, I've got toilet hand.
Starting point is 00:21:04 You can see it. Michael Ben's in The Rock. It's true. Anyway, it's time for green trivia slash the guy who yells Rodney until he's killed by Swamp Thing. Nice. Now, according to the studio, there was a rumor that a real rat was drowned during the making of this film. But that's in fact false. Five rats were used to film the drowning sequence, and they all lived. So real oxygenated fluorocarbon fluid was used
Starting point is 00:21:27 in the rat fluid breathing scene. Does that make sense? Yes. It only makes sense because I've seen the movie. If I hadn't seen the movie, I wouldn't know what you're talking about. This technique was actually pioneered, real technique, and there was detailed instructions on how to prepare the fluid. Now the only reason they cut away...
Starting point is 00:21:44 Pour it into a bowl, stick a rat in it. Three bobs your uncle. The only reason for cutting to the actors' faces was to avoid showing the rats defecating from momentary panic as they began breathing the fluid. So they say it was, like, harmless and the rats survived, but there is a moment of, like, I'm drowning. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:22:02 Yeah, and also, apparently, I don't know whether this is true... Cameron kept yelling at the rat. It's a fluoridated carb. It's fluoridated fluoridated carb. You idiot. Stop panicking and pooing. You bitch. You rat bitch.
Starting point is 00:22:17 I also read that one of the rats died and James Cameron resuscitated it and then he kept it for a year. But I don't know, man. That sounds like a bit of PR from his team, just like, say you brought a rat back to life. Yeah, you don't want to get in trouble with Big Rat. In England, I think they had to take out... That's Mickey Mouse.
Starting point is 00:22:34 Yes. In England, they had to take out that scene because it was, you know, cruel. They had to take the nunchucks out of his hands as well. That's good, Mason. The studio was considering, for the lead role, Mel Gibson, Dennis Quaid, William Hurt, Harrison Ford. Can you imagine Harrison Ford doing this?
Starting point is 00:22:52 I just don't think he would have just done it or put up with any of this. Yeah, I don't know if James Cameron would have made any movies subsequent to this because he would have been punched in the head too many times. Or maybe they would have gone along famously because James Cameron is the master of the ocean too many times. Or maybe they would have gone along famously because James Cameron is the master of the ocean.
Starting point is 00:23:07 Harrison Ford is the master of getting stoned and flying a little plane. Well, you might be right because that speaks to somebody involved in this and we'll talk about in a minute. Also considered were Kurt Russell and Patrick Swayze. Now, James Cameron actually suggested Ed Harris, but the studio was concerned about his lack of experience as a leading man as well as his receding hairline. Uh-oh.
Starting point is 00:23:28 But James Cameron felt that this added to his everyman appeal. So Harris actually convinced the studio. He looks like a divorced man, like every man's been divorced. Harris convinced the studio with a screen test where he wore a motorcycle helmet as a diving helmet. So they were like, oh, we can put a helmet on him for some of this. Yeah, nice. That's great.
Starting point is 00:23:47 Now, Ed Harris actually is kind of crazy. He considered getting a hair transplant procedure for his thinning locks. However, his donor hair area on the back of his head was considered too sparse for follicular harvesting, and that, coupled with the bluish hue of his hand, led to the working title of this movie being Blue Harvest Mason. That's very good. I think you telegraphed it. That's actually the working title of this movie being Blue Harvest Mason. That's very good. I think you telegraphed it.
Starting point is 00:24:06 That's actually the working title of Star Wars, original Star Wars. Go on, though. I was going to say, I think you telegraphed it too hard by going, this is quite interesting. Here we go. Here's a fun interesting fact. I should have, I'm going to keep it low key.
Starting point is 00:24:17 Yeah, it's true. Right, okay. James Cameron's brother, Mike Cameron, played a dead crewman inside the sunken submarine. You had the T-shirt on, remember? Yeah, yeah, yeah. To accomplish this, he had to hold his breath. He killed his brother.
Starting point is 00:24:28 To accomplish this, he killed his own brother. To accomplish this, he had to hold his breath under 25 feet of water whilst also allowing a crab to crawl out of his mouth. I remember when I saw that, I'm like, I think they would have had to use a real crab for that. Like a man would have held a crab and it scuttled out, and that is what happened. And this is what I was talking about earlier.
Starting point is 00:24:49 Orson Scott Card, he wrote the novelisation of this. Also, don't look into him. You're not going to be happy. He described working with James Cameron as hell on wheels. He claimed that Cameron was nice to him because Card could afford to walk away, while Cameron was miserable and unkind to everybody else. Card also stated that unless he changed his way of working with people, I hope he never directs anything of mine.
Starting point is 00:25:11 Now, there's a whole lot of stories similar to this on Titanic, which we will cover next week. But this didn't have the box office of a Titanic or a Terminator 2, Mason. On a budget of $47 million, it only made $90 million. It was considered a moderate hit, but not by much. Maybe by Hollywood accounting, perhaps. Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah. And it has done well in distribution and additional release and TV rights and all of that.
Starting point is 00:25:38 They sold so many DVDs. They sold them out. We can't get one anymore. Can't even get a single one. Not even that guy you know who sells them out of the boot of his car and whatever, Mason. I think in America they call it a trunk. Yes. And in the UK they call it a biscotti. Huh. Is that
Starting point is 00:25:51 true? No. I think it is. Don't look into it. Mason, what do you think of the Abbas? What? The movie we watched and have been talking about. I see. Yeah. I mean, technically I think it's a you know, an incredible... Technically they nearly killed a bunch of people. Yeah. I mean, technically, I think it's an incredible feat. Technically, they nearly killed a bunch of people.
Starting point is 00:26:08 Well, I was going to say, technically, I guess it's an incredible feat, but I guess that is easier when you don't care about anybody who's helping you make it. So, you know, points down for that. It's, you know, I think even if we'd seen the two-hour version, I think it probably would have, it could have done with with an edit just to speed up the pace a little bit. Sure. Yeah, fair enough.
Starting point is 00:26:28 But I mean, maybe... It's interesting, right? It's interesting, sure. But I understand why it's not Aliens or Terminator or True Lies. Because there's no Aliens or Terminator or Mr. True Lies. Well, there's Aliens in it. Oh, True Lies. Different Aliens, though.
Starting point is 00:26:42 Don't mind that at all. Anyways, here's a hint towards next week. Is it Titanic? Is it? Yeah. You've never seen Titanic, have you? I've never seen Titanic, except for snippets when I would turn on Channel 10.
Starting point is 00:26:52 Sunday Night Movie, 8.30. You know, it's on for four to five hours. Yes, absolutely. Or over two nights. So, yeah, no, I've not seen it. Well, that should be very interesting. My only memory, of course, is Billy Zane going, another round of drinks, my good man.
Starting point is 00:27:04 Ah, which doesn't happen. I'm pretty confident, but it just seems like a thing he would do. It does, doesn't it? But if people want to say that early, and they can, Mason, if they head over to bigsandwich.co, where the videos always go up early. But that's not the only thing going on there, Mason. What? We've got bonus movie commentaries.
Starting point is 00:27:23 We've got audio podcasts, Mason. My goodness. We've got a bunch commentaries. We've got audio podcasts, Mason. My goodness. We've got a bunch of things, just thousands of hours of stuff that we keep paywalled only for our very best friends. Isn't that right, Mason?
Starting point is 00:27:32 That's exactly right. And if you pay that $9 per month, you are our best friend. That's right. Or you can just listen to our podcast. That's true. You can still be one of our regular friends if you listen to the weekly planet.
Starting point is 00:27:44 It's got us on YouTube channel Spotify Apple all of those different things we're obviously going to do an avatar 2, 1, etc
Starting point is 00:27:50 and so forth Mason yes alright thanks everybody I grabbed our gem you guys we'll see you next week don't grab it
Starting point is 00:27:57 with your blue toilet hand though don't do it don't do it like that just gross and yuck or would it stop the gem from melting you
Starting point is 00:28:03 if you had the toilet duck on like extreme toilet duck would you stop the gem from melting you? If you had the toilet duck on, like, extreme toilet duck. Almost certainly, yeah. Would you melt the gem, maybe? Just ksss. Yeah, I guess so. Yeah, great stuff, Mason.
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Starting point is 00:28:34 between two women who play a deadly game of truth and lies on the road from Istanbul to Paris and London. One woman has a secret. The other, a mission to reveal it before thousands of lives are lost. FX's The Veil, starring Elizabeth Moss, is now streaming on Disney+.

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