The Weekly Planet - The Wizard & Super Mario Bros. - Caravan Of Garbage

Episode Date: April 6, 2023

Nintendo has a very strange relationship with the adaptation of it's propeties into film. Before the release of Super Mario Bros. in 1993 and even longer before The Super Marios Bros. Movie in 2023 t...he closest thing we got to on screen reputation was The Wizard. Basically serving as a promotion tool for the upcoming Super Barios Bros. 3 along with other Nintendo licenced products like the Power Glove, the Nintendo hotline, Zelda, Ninja Gaiden, Mega Man, Contra, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and more it certaining is a weird and roundabout way to promote something. Thanks for listening!SUBSCRIBE HERE ►► http://goo.gl/pQ39jNHelp support the show and get early episodes ► https://bigsandwich.co/Patreon ► https://patreon.com/mrsundaymoviesJames' Twitter ► http://twitter.com/mrsundaymoviesMaso's Twitter ► http://twitter.com/wikipediabrownPatreon ► https://patreon.com/mrsundaymoviesT-Shirts/Merch ► https://www.teepublic.com/stores/mr-sunday-movies The Weekly Planet iTunes ► https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-weekly-planet/id718158767?mt=2&ign-mpt=uo%3D4 The Weekly Planet Direct Download ► https://play.acast.com/s/theweeklyplanetAmazon Affiliate Link ► https://amzn.to/2nc12P4 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 As women, our life stages come with unique risk factors, like high blood pressure developed during pregnancy, which can put us two times more at risk of heart disease or stroke. Know your risks. Visit heartandstroke.ca. 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 00:00:26 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 00:00:47 You know, I've always had this kind of fascination with a movie that's sole purpose is marketing a very specific product. Absolutely. And we've got a bit of a history with that. I'm not just talking about James Bond, you know, he'll use a car or a gadget or whatever. James Bond presents Cars. Get a car.
Starting point is 00:01:04 Are you walking to work? What are you doing. Get a car. Are you walking to work? What are you doing? Get a car. Do you want to sleep with the most beautiful women in the world? Get a car. Think about it. So I'm not talking about putting a product into an existing narrative. I'm talking like, and there's been a few examples of this,
Starting point is 00:01:17 Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory was funded and made specifically to sell a new Quaker Oats Wonka bar. What? Do you mean the new one or the old one? The old one in the 70s. What? Well, the new one's called Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Mason. Jeez.
Starting point is 00:01:31 Wow. But anyway, so... I don't remember a Quaker Oats bar in that movie. Well, they had a weird chemical formula in them, and they had to recall them all. So it didn't end up happening at that particular time. Wow. Transformers, the movie, the animated one,
Starting point is 00:01:43 which we'll probably talk about soon, is just to sell a new line of toys. Absolutely it is. And making sure that kids couldn't play with the old line of toys by killing them all. Ironhide gets shot in the head, James. Yeah, good. He's begging for his life and they shoot him in the head.
Starting point is 00:01:57 I like it. It's a kid's movie. As a kid, I loved that. I felt Justice Mason. That's right. Like Mac and Me, for example, is just like a mcdonald's commercial and also used by paul rudd to trick conan into watching that clip of a kid falling off a cliff or whatever this movie though the wizard please leave a like it is the most roundabout way to
Starting point is 00:02:18 promote super mario brothers 3 it kind of is that you could ever do yeah I mean, for me as a kid, you could just show me clips of a video game, right? Which is what I liked this movie for as a kid. Maybe not as much now, but nowadays we've got a Super Mario Brothers movie because- That's why we're doing this, by the way. Oh yeah, that's why we're doing it. You message me and you're like, can we squeeze this in?
Starting point is 00:02:39 Can we squeeze in the movie The Wizard? Do I pack schedule? So, you know, they'll just make a movie about Mario. Yeah. You know? And throw in $100, $200 million or whatever. Which they did. Which they did, exactly.
Starting point is 00:02:51 Twice now. Yeah. What a bizarre narrative, though, you know? It's a little bit. What a long bow to draw. They've clearly gone, okay, we want to make it, you know, sort of a coming of age thing. We want it to be a little bit stand by me.
Starting point is 00:03:02 We want it to be really low stakes Rain Man. Yeah. We want all this sort of stuff we want to open with a little kid walking down the road for three minutes three full minutes yeah we want to see how many people leave the cinema so the narrative of this is that there's two kids yeah children of divorce there's technically three kids but christian slater doesn't do anything. Well, there was four kids. Because the inciting incident to one kid wanting to go to California, which we will not spoil here, we'll come back to it, is that his twin sister drowned. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:03:35 This is the narrative of this movie promoting Super Mario Bros. 3. And he's so traumatised, he can only say the word and head for California. Yeah, yeah. Why? We don't know. For a Red Hot Chili Peppers concert? Exactly. Maybe.
Starting point is 00:03:49 Is this pre-blood sugar sex magic? Oh, yeah, very much so. Wow. But also, like, he's got a dead mother and his family is split up and we've got, like, Fred Savage and their father, Bo Bridges and Christian Slater in this movie. And there's child kidnapping and endangerment. There's video game addiction.
Starting point is 00:04:07 There's underage gambling. What an era of movie making, Mason. Pretty fascinating stuff. Very much so. And Nintendo approved this, apparently. Yeah. Wow. Well, they kind of, after all this and then Super Mario Brothers,
Starting point is 00:04:20 the live action movie, which we've talked about before. We're not approving anything anymore. Yeah, they really kind of, they held onto that super tight for a really long time. And for good reason, I feel. Do you remember watching this as a kid though? This is the first time I've ever seen this movie. Okay.
Starting point is 00:04:34 I didn't, I didn't say it to them. I don't know why. I love video games. I love this era of video games. Yeah. But I think I knew the twist. I knew, twist. I say like it's a- What a twist. I knew... Twist. I say, like, it's a...
Starting point is 00:04:45 What a twist. Do you mean the... Whose head's in the box? Mario Mario. It's Mario Mario, yeah. I knew that they were introducing Super Mario Bros. 3 in it, and I'd already seen...
Starting point is 00:04:55 I already knew about Super Mario Bros. 3. James, you know why? Because I read Electronic Gaming Monthly. Thank you for bringing that up. Well, also, this came out so close to the release of Super Mario Bros. 3, like, at the end of 1989. And that up. Well, also, this came out so close to the release of Super Mario Bros. 3, like at the end of 1989. And that's fascinating for like a month until that game comes out.
Starting point is 00:05:12 Right. Then everybody's already played it, and they're like, we don't necessarily want to watch a kid play it on the screen. Anyway. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or what? We'll play it.
Starting point is 00:05:21 We'll talk about that later. But, you know, as a kid, I would have been excited to see, and I was excited from my vague memories of this, of seeing like Super Mario Brothers 2 and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Rad Ridge Racer, whichever one that is Mason, and Mega Man and Super Metroid, or I think it was just regular Metroid and Contra and Ninja Gaiden
Starting point is 00:05:38 but now as an adult or even if you're a kid now, if you want to see this, there's a million hours of it on YouTube, and for me the interesting thing about this movie is adult or even if you're a kid now if you want to see this there's a million hours of it on youtube and for me the interesting thing about this movie is this bizarre narrative that's weaved around it and not so much the split seconds of video game playing that we might see christian slater play in a hotel or whatever i guess christian slater's role in this is to subtly introduce video gaming to Bo Bridges, his dad, and then get him addicted to video games.
Starting point is 00:06:08 Exactly. Well, Bo Bridges swore off video games since his brother Jeff Bridges got trapped in a weird video game world. That must be the case. I can understand that. But what I also like about this movie is what a weird, mean world. And by that I mean I guess it's a lot like the real world because there's multiple muggings. They get mugged for $87 by two truckers at one point.
Starting point is 00:06:31 That's right, yeah, yeah. Mugging children. And also I guess, you know, this was a dire economic era because it came after the big crash, the big video game crash, basically. Oh, I thought you meant just generally in human history. There was also a big crash around this era. But I just love the weird and mean little hijinks. There's a
Starting point is 00:06:49 moment where Jenny in this just clean knocks out Fred Savage with a punch. Yeah, and there's that weird stock punch sound which gets used again later. Indiana Jones kind of. Yeah, yeah. Which reminds me, I mean look, what I liked about it, great casting, Fred Savage, obviously Christian Slater,
Starting point is 00:07:06 little Jenny Lewis. I didn't know she acted. I thought she was the musician in the band of Rilo Kylie. Oh, really? Well, now you know. It's good to know things, isn't it? Yeah. I love the story of how Bo Bridges gets so addicted to video games
Starting point is 00:07:18 that despite his son going missing, because his son goes missing in this because they go to a video game tournament. Who he presumably loves. That's right. He just becomes so enraptured in video games that he just forgets yeah and christian slater's like we should go and find my brother and he's like ah let me just do more video games for a second bo bridges what are you doing but speaking of the mean world also there's like a truck speaking of the truckers there's like a trucker who seems to be like mentally not all there and
Starting point is 00:07:45 he looks like a giant Luigi. Jenny keeps taking advantage of him. Yeah. Telling him lies so he'll beat up a man and so forth. Getting him to gamble. Oh, absolutely. This is also a bad, this is a bad mother movie. Oh my god, is it ever?
Starting point is 00:08:02 Like it's all about the bad mums in this. Jenny Lewis's character she's like well i'm i'm on this journey because my mum got addicted to gambling and it broke up our whole family and now i live in a trailer or whatever and this one the in in the other family the the mum's like well i don't i'm split i'm i'm divorcing i'm splitting up this family i'm getting with bad business dad who's like i don't understand kids i only love business i love wearing a tie and doing a business and she's a bad mom she's like i don't care i don't care about some of my kids yeah i only sort of care about one of my kids which is why i'm sending
Starting point is 00:08:36 him to a school for bad disabled boys or whatever yeah wayward sad boys. But is there another dead mother, though, in this? Because I think they're stepbrothers, right? Yeah. I'm not really sure of the family tree and dynamic, because I was under the impression that there's another mother who's also not present. Wow. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:08:57 Wow, very complicit by her absence, isn't she? If she's even part of this narrative at all. If she's still alive, I hope she goes to jail. But I do enjoy Beau Bridges and his kind of Smokey and the Bandit style hijinks with the child kidnapper, who's been sent by Big Business Dad across multiple states to kidnap this child.
Starting point is 00:09:14 And you ought to understand why he's so successful in this job, why he's in such demand, because he just looks like a man you would trust with kids. He looks like a man who would come up to you and go, have you seen these kids? I'm not explaining why, I just need to get these kids. He looks like a man who would come up to you and go, have you seen these kids? I'm not explaining why I just need to get these kids. And you'd go, yeah, they're over there. Yeah. You wouldn't go, hello, police. Yeah. Like the precursor to Robert Patrick's T-1000,
Starting point is 00:09:33 except he's just burnt out and really bad at his job. Oh, what a horrible man. But he does get his comeuppance because he gets accused multiple times of touching a 12 year old girl. That's an ongoing joke in this movie. That's a fun joke. That's a fun joke. A fun joke. I mean, we've got to talk about the power glove scene. This piece of tech had just come out.
Starting point is 00:09:53 I thought you were going to say piece of garbage. Well, I was going to get to that, yeah. And it had just come out, so I think perfect opportunity to market this thing because what an absolute piece of shit that did not work and was completely pointless to any kind of playing experience. And Nintendo were known for their, like... It's the metaverse of its day.
Starting point is 00:10:09 It really is, yeah. Just the thing, it's way easy to operate whatever you need to use just with the regular controller, you know? Exactly. Yeah, Nintendo had, like, so many bizarre licensed and unlicensed peripherals, and they were all terrible. Like, Rob the Robot. I mean, I've seen the Angry Video Game Nerd video, Mason.
Starting point is 00:10:28 And the Gaming Historian's video as well, Mason. Two wonderful channels about retro gaming that have slightly different spins on it, Mason. And just garbage. And I guess it needs to be brought up because somebody else will. Like the actor who plays the Power Glove kid. Maybe don't Google that. Maybe don't Google it.
Starting point is 00:10:47 I went to the Wikipedia page for The Wizard. Yeah. And I was like... What are they doing now? Because I'm like, this guy's got a bit of charisma, you know? What did he do after this? And he's the one person on the cast list that doesn't have a clickable link. And I think he should, but for different reasons.
Starting point is 00:11:02 Completely agree. Yeah. I also enjoy they managed to squeeze in, well, the whole thing, again, is marketing for Nintendo, but they managed the Nintendo Game Counselor scene. Oh, yeah, that's right. Which was a real thing. In order to, they don't know what games are going to be played
Starting point is 00:11:16 at this video Armageddon tournament, but they know it's going to be Nintendo, so they insist that this kid, who doesn't speak and is clearly very traumatised. Some kind of whiz kid. He's some sort of whiz kid. They should call it the whiz. Anyway, they're like, we should train him on like 90 games just in case one of them.
Starting point is 00:11:36 You're not going to announce this ahead of time? That means that rich kids have the advantage. That's true. Most kids don't have 90 games. They've got one game and it's bad. They picked the wrong game. Also, where did these guys get all the games? Rich kids.
Starting point is 00:11:47 Oh, they stole them. Maybe. I don't know. Oh, I meant they're rich kids. But yeah, maybe they stole them from rich kids. I don't know who owns anything in this because everybody's just stealing from everybody else. Who's the original purchaser of anything in this movie? Was there like a massive financial crisis around this era?
Starting point is 00:12:02 Yeah, there was. Truckers knocking over these kids for 80 bucks or whatever madness yeah i think the police are gonna anyway yeah what are we talking about they are game counseling called oh yeah so they're like insisting this kid there's a line in this where the kid's like no actually i do want to play in this tournament so it's not slave labor anymore yeah but they they i want fifty thousand dollars they train him on all these games 90 games or whatever and then they're like we should call the nintendo helpline what's the number exactly uh and and this guy's you know
Starting point is 00:12:37 super helpful whatever but i kind of feel like for most nintendo games he'd just be like you just don't get hit by the thing yeah so much of it is that it's like see the things move away from the things yeah it's either don't get hit by a thing or you missed an invisible door and that's why you've been that you would never know was there and that's why you're stuck yeah yeah yeah no you're absolutely right so like what is the premise of this competition like surely most of these games are not a visual spectacle that you would want kids to be what like they're not going to be thrilling kids you know what i mean like absolutely that you want games that are like an immediate visual tetris is a perfect example like
Starting point is 00:13:17 it's it's men as women our life stages come with unique risk factors, like high blood pressure developed during pregnancy, which can put us two times more at risk of heart disease or stroke. 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. 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+.
Starting point is 00:13:57 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. From May 27th to 31st, people across Canada will rise together
Starting point is 00:14:12 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
Starting point is 00:14:24 at sunrisechallenge.ca. today at sunrisechallenge.ca that's sunrisechallenge.ca mentioned isn't it maybe probably yeah i don't know but like that's a game where you can see what's happening in real time and you understand it you see the score and you see you know the tension rises as the the all the tetris blocks rise up. But some of these games, it's like, oh my God, look how far he's getting in Castlevania 2. Is he? I don't know. He leaned down and a tornado took him because he was holding a cross or something.
Starting point is 00:14:54 Is he dead? Is it good? Is that good? Do the points matter? No, you know because there's three jousting knights running side by side. And there is a lot of people saying, oh my God, he got all the points.
Starting point is 00:15:08 That's good, I think. That's good, I think, yeah. Let's talk about the tournament. Can we talk about video game representation, first of all? Absolutely, because video game representation matters, Mason. Very much so. Not promising. Not a promising start because...
Starting point is 00:15:22 Yeah, but parents don't know it this year. No, that's true. Fred Savage leaves his little brother in front of a Double Dragon machine. Yeah. And then he comes back and he's like, wow, you got 50,000 points on Double Dragon. First of all, you left him alone for 45 seconds. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:15:35 There's no way. And then later, James, Jenny Lewis challenges them to. You got so excited then and angry you stepped away from the microphone. I'm frothing. I'm frothing with rage, James. Jenny Lewis Jenny Lewis' character, who's Jenny, challenges them to a game of Double Dragon
Starting point is 00:15:53 to see who's the best. And first of all when you see the high score it's like 25,000 points. What happened there? Exactly. Very sus. I agree. And then she dies and she's like alright you go and he just continues from where she was. Ridiculous. Ridiculous.
Starting point is 00:16:08 It's not a fair representation. Even in real life, it would be an unfair representation. You can't put in another quarter and continue your game. That's right. I never played Double Dragon Arcade. I don't know. Wow. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:16:17 Well, it's wrong. No, I believe you. And I'm mad about it. You stepped away from your microphone. I don't know. Anyway, what I'm saying is there's almost no way to make people playing 8-bit arcade or Nintendo games exciting on the big screen. Well, maybe that's why they show it so sparingly.
Starting point is 00:16:31 You get a glimpse of Ninja Turtles and you're like, wow, look at that underwater section. There's a moment in this where our three intrepid kids who want to get across to California, they're like, we're going to hustle some people and there's some businessmen playing a video game. And they're like, hey, fellas, you want to play against a real champion or whatever?
Starting point is 00:16:49 And then it just cuts to later. And they're like, we got them. We hustled them. Are you kidding me? The reason they didn't show any of that is because obviously the adults would be like, no, we're not paying, actually. And you can't do anything about this. And we're going to rob you.
Starting point is 00:17:03 There's a moment in the video, when the video game tournament starts, it's just like 10 kids on stage in front of regular sized TVs that the audience can't see. Exactly, yeah. And it's just like, whoa. Also, if you look at, I mean, I feel like the whole movie should have been focused around the tournament or at least we see more of it.
Starting point is 00:17:21 Because, you know, this actually whole thing was based around like very loosely the Karate Kid. And you see that through line. There's even a montage with Nintendo Power Hotline or whatever. Like a training montage. Oh, I get it now. Yeah, but they even take a break during the tournament to have a little run around. And it's like, you don't need
Starting point is 00:17:38 to do a little run around in the middle of this. Let's just do the tournament. No, but adult men need to be accused of touching kids. That's true, they do. You're absolutely right, yeah. Also, if you look at the controls that they're playing on for the big reveal of Super Mario Bros. 3, it's like this giant joystick with a ball on the end. It's enormous.
Starting point is 00:17:56 It reminds me of the Australian TV show Amazing, hosted by James Sherry Mason. There's a local reference for you. Just, it doesn't make sense. And like the Knights, who's putting the points into the Knights running machine? Great question, James. And I don't even understand how that works.
Starting point is 00:18:13 I don't know. Because he goes back to the start of the game, Super Mario Brothers 3, twice. And you'd think that would be it for him. You'd think that would eliminate his points. It seems it's like some, some of it is like, okay, who can play the longest without getting eliminated? seems it's like some some of it is like okay who can play the longest without getting eliminated sometimes it's points sometimes it's how far do you get like if
Starting point is 00:18:31 you yeah if you finish the game i guess you would be the winner by default but if nobody finishes the game it's who got the furthest or who got the most points yeah depending on the games this madness but also a joystick are you kidding me give him a D-pad. They've all trained on the D-pad. It's not very visually interesting, though, is it, to give him a D-pad? No, none of it is. It's all bad. No, I think that reveal of the big screens opening up, like seeing Mario on a screen that big.
Starting point is 00:18:56 Yeah, all right. But also, if I were a little kid and I'm like, oh, there's a video game competition happening in the room, I'd go in the room and I'd see the 10 kids on the 10 little screens and be like, I can't see anything i'm gonna leave yep yep most of those kids would be gone before the big mario 3 exactly well i did appreciate the guy that signs him into the tournament being the guy who was in dungeons and dragons yes recently fantastic cameo appearance uh anyway this does have a big twist reveal as we mentioned oh actually before i was gonna say
Starting point is 00:19:22 before we go into that i was just gonna say to say, you know what I did like? There was no scene in this where somebody's like, you can't play video games, you're a girl. Oh yeah, that's true. It's just regular. People are playing video games.
Starting point is 00:19:35 People are playing video games. Yeah, you're right. I mean, that guy plays with that girl's pigtails in a weird way. Boy, does he. And you don't like that? I don't like that.
Starting point is 00:19:41 I don't like it either. Yeah, nice. We're on the same page. So the reveal at the end of this, the California twist, if you will. The M. Night Shyamalan style twist. That's right. The wizard, our little friend the wizard, he wins the game tournament and everybody's like, we're on board with this kid now again.
Starting point is 00:19:57 Because he won us $50,000 after a video game and financial crash. All it took was a once-in-a-lifetime win from this kid, and he's back in our family again. Hooray! You still have to live in that weird home, though. That's right. And so then the families, they're driving through California, and they see this strange little dinosaur park.
Starting point is 00:20:20 And the kid's like, California! It's from Pee Wee Herman as well. And then the car stops, and he runs out to this dinosaur park, and they're like california from peewee herman and then the car stops and he gets out and he runs out to this dinosaur park and they're like where are you going what's happening with this kid and they never see him again he's gone they follow him in there they find him he's sitting down in this little dinosaur park and he opens up his little his little lunchbox of treasures and he shows them a photograph of them all as a family in this dinosaur park, all the brothers and the mum and the dad
Starting point is 00:20:50 and the little sister who died. And they're like, oh, we were all here. Not that long ago either. Quite recently. Everybody looks the same age in this photo. You didn't figure that out? You didn't look at this kid who was clearly traumatized by the death of his sister.
Starting point is 00:21:08 Didn't open his little box of trinkets. He kept saying California and walking towards California. And none of you, none of you, not the dad, the mum, Mr. Businessman, the school counselor or whatever, the people in the... Christian Slater.
Starting point is 00:21:20 Christian Slater. You're better than this Christian Slater. You're better. You're in Mr. Robot. You've got a fine analytical mind, Christian Slater. You're better than this Christian Slater. You're better. You're in Mr. Robot. You've got a fine analytical mind, Christian Slater. You were in cuffs. None of you went, oh, California. Oh, like that time we went to California.
Starting point is 00:21:34 Six months ago. All together. Yeah. Do you remember that? Wild. You didn't even figure it out when you were going into the dinosaur park. Oh, that's the dinosaur park we all went to. You were in the dinosaur park. You didn't figure the dinosaur park we all went to. You were in the dinosaur park.
Starting point is 00:21:46 You didn't figure it out. Yeah, yeah. Incredible. But also there's a moment where his mum and Mr. Business are there at the tournament at the end, and they run into the child snatcher. And the mum's just like, come on, it's been nine days. What are you doing?
Starting point is 00:22:01 And it's like, you should be way more distressed about this situation. She's just like, ah, come on. What are we even paying you doing? And it's like, you should be way more distressed about this situation. She's just like, come on. What are we even paying you for? Where are the police? Great question. What's going on? Anyway, green trivia.
Starting point is 00:22:14 Sure. But also the guy who shouts Rodney. Yes. So you're going to hate this. And I'm so sorry. You don't know that about me. All the video game footage in this game is pre-recorded. No, I do hate that. Thank you. right you know me so well uh so i looked into the background of the
Starting point is 00:22:29 nintendo hotline including costs apparently they received between 1987 and 1995 42.6 million calls and the idea for this hotline was that it was initially free because they just want to get the word out there sure but then it became the cost of a local call and then as of 1995 it was initially free, because they just want to get the word out there. Oh, sure. But then it became the cost of a local call, and then as of 1995, it was 95 cents per minute in the US. 95 cents a minute? Yeah. My God. Just get the internet at that point. Yeah, yeah.
Starting point is 00:22:53 There was some terrible version that you said, kick it around then. Sure, yeah. God, what an absolute rip-off. Just wait for an email forward that tells you how to beat all the games. Exactly, yeah. And how to make napalm. And there was like...
Starting point is 00:23:03 Atticus Handbook? Yes. And there was, as you mentioned, beat all the games. Exactly, yeah. And how to make napalm. And there was like... Atticus Handbook? Yes. And like, there was, as you mentioned, like Nintendo Power and whatever. We had Nintendo Magazine System here or whatever, didn't we? Yeah, we did, that's right. Yeah, and those guys are like shuffling through just binders of Nintendo hand-drawn maps and stuff, I assume.
Starting point is 00:23:23 Yeah, yeah. Did you want to be one of those guys as a kid? I think I wanted to be a video game tester as a kid. Yeah, I don't think that's a good job now, though, or even then, right? No, that's true. You've just got to try and break a game. I think that's the idea.
Starting point is 00:23:33 So director Todd Holland said that Universal demanded to cut down the length of the shooting script, right? So he actually shot the entire thing, and it ended up being about 150 minutes, but this was then edited down to 100 minutes for its theatrical release. But the length 150 minute cut which we should have watched mason i don't think we should have was it more sad family stuff i hope so sad family that's the stuff i like in this uh the the slow walk along the the road the desert road by the kid at the
Starting point is 00:24:01 start is 53 minutes long and that was actually released for the first time in 2020 on DVD and Blu-ray. Now, oh, you're going to hate this as well. You don't know that about me. Some promotional artwork for the movie shows Fred Savage wearing a power glove on his left hand. However... That's a right-handed glove only.
Starting point is 00:24:20 Exactly. As a lefty, I know that. They never made a lefty version. But I'm furious. Well I was going to say because they never produced a left handed power glove and good because it's against God and nature. And also somebody would have purchased two and tried to play
Starting point is 00:24:35 with two at a time. Exactly. It would have destroyed their brain. Ridiculous. Now I don't know if you know this. I bet I don't know it and I hate it. I think you'll like this one. This features a very early appearance of a mulleted toby mcguire i saw him he's one of he's one of lucas's goons he's like yeah get him yeah i don't think he ever speaks yeah wonderful wonderful to see you toby mcguire uh the box office for this on a budget of six million dollars it only made 14.3 million but i feel Imagine a mulleted Spider-Man. Oh my
Starting point is 00:25:05 God. There was a mulleted Superman. Why can't we have a mulleted Spider-Man? Great question. But the box office return was $14.3 million, which is an okay return. This made its money back. Did it make its money back on Nintendo Power, Nintendo Hotline? That's what I was going to say.
Starting point is 00:25:22 I think as a promotional tool, even if you didn't see this movie, everybody knew about this movie when I was going to say. I think as a promotional tool, even if you didn't see this movie, everybody knew about this movie when I was a kid. And I think as a promotional piece, it does its job. Right. And I just want to say also, Ben, who edited this with Lawrence, he absolutely loved this movie. He was enamored.
Starting point is 00:25:37 He was enraptured. He felt all the emotions. This isn't a joke. And I understand where he's coming from because I think there are, like there are some touching, genuinely touching, I mean, illegally and also legally. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Some alleged touching.
Starting point is 00:25:51 I think there are some nice family moments and good kind of interpersonal relationship stuff in this. Genuinely. Look, you're probably right. I think everybody's charming in this, Bo Bridges especially. I think it's a delight. And Christian Slater. He was in cuffs. You better believe he was in cuffs. Anyways, if you want to see this early, and Bo Bridges especially. I think it's a delight, and Christian Slater. He was in cuffs. You better believe he was in cuffs.
Starting point is 00:26:06 Anyways, if you want to see these early, and you might want to, because we've got a big week next week, Mason, here's the hint. Is it Batman and Robin? It's Batman Forever.
Starting point is 00:26:15 Oh yeah, okay, right. And then we'll do Batman and Robin. Okay, right, right. All you need to do is head over to bigsandwich.co,
Starting point is 00:26:20 where the videos always go up there early. In addition to our podcast, The Weekly Planet, where we talk movies and comics and TV shows, that normally comes out Monday, but it comes out there on Sunday, but it's got its own YouTube channel and Apple and whatever. We're going to be talking about the new Mario movie.
Starting point is 00:26:32 Aren't we Mason? Yes. And there's also a bonus podcast, movie commentary. So many things there that you might be interested or just stay, stay subscribed, stay subscribed. Listen to the podcast.
Starting point is 00:26:42 Listen to the man, Rilo Kiley. Run to the podcast, like a little animated jousting night. You know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's how I like to think of it. We don't care how you get there. No.
Starting point is 00:26:51 We don't care that it doesn't make any sense. As long as you're dressed as a jousting knight. That's right. Yeah. All right. Thanks, everyone. Grab that gem, you guys. We'll see you next week.
Starting point is 00:26:58 Goodbye. He was in cuffs. I know. I told you he was in cuffs. No, I'm telling you. Did you know, though? I didn't know. As women, our life stages come with unique risk factors,
Starting point is 00:27:12 like high blood pressure developed during pregnancy, which can put us two times more at risk of heart disease or stroke. 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. 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+.

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.