The Worst Idea Of All Time - REVIEW: The Emoji Movie

Episode Date: April 13, 2020

This was originally a pay-walled episode available only to Patreon supporters. Please consider if you can #PayTheBoiz at patreon.com/join/TWIOAT.Hey man, fuck you folks - this movie full sucked. It's ...a quagmire of terrible story, corporate intrusion and unbelievably bad decision-making across the board. Hoisting a whole film's story on an emoji? Dumb. Putting it on the 'Meh' emoji? Insane. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Starting point is 00:00:00 just play it cool welcome to the world inside your phone where everyone is expected to act one way their whole life oh snap ow my name is gene and i'm supposed to be a man you know like meh who cares my problem is i have more than one emotion check this out son please tell me you weren't laughing just now Hello everyone and also fuck you For choosing the emoji movie in this Patreon Power Special Watch, Desirers Club, episode 30-something Where would this rank alongside the worst movies you've ever seen? There was something
Starting point is 00:00:41 I don't even know how it was as bad as it was you know because it wasn't that long and that's mainly my thing i think uh some of the ways that it was as bad as it was would be in premise see remarkably unclear premise and then within the premise the choice of protagonist uh the idea that we are going to watch a movie around someone who's defining characteristic is a desire to be meh. There's also an area where the movie failed. And, yeah, plot then. I mean, they're all bundled into the same sort of package of shit. I actually just looked it up on Rotten Tomatoes. I was so taken by how bad it was, I wanted to know what the review was.
Starting point is 00:01:36 And so often the critics' consensus on Rotten Tomatoes, I find, is a really accurate descriptor of, you know, it sort of boils down the issue with the movie to its component parts. So the Emoji Movie got 7% on the Rotten Tomato meter, and the Critics Consensus, which is where they have that sort of pithy one to two sentence description. Yeah. At first I thought the webpage wasn't loading because I couldn't see it, but then I looked a little closer, and they've just used an emoji, which is the red circle with a strike
Starting point is 00:02:03 through the middle. Wow. As if to say no. They used an emoji to describe the red circle with a strike through the middle wow as if to say no they used an emoji to describe the emoji movie take that filmmakers they really hammered him and it it tickled me pink because um it is accurate this should not have been made yeah should not have been chosen should not have been watched um i kind of don't want to talk about it at all because I feel like that's giving them too much credit. What did we watch it for then?
Starting point is 00:02:30 I don't know, man. It's really awful. I didn't like it. I don't know why. It wasn't even... I can't... This is a hard one. This is difficult.
Starting point is 00:02:40 Let's start with who was this movie made for? Jittery teens. Unmedicated, hyperactive 13-year-olds. They can't be hyperactive because I've got a pretty mellow sort of disposition and pretty sound attention span at this juncture in my life, I think. Yeah. And that was unsit-thruable. Right.
Starting point is 00:03:01 I think it was made for teens. unsit-thru-able. Right. I think it was made for teens. I think it was made for an idea of a very vaguely painted idea of a teen. The concept of a teen. This was made for the concept of a modern teen at the time of Mac, which was 2017.
Starting point is 00:03:19 And I just want to quickly ask you, Tim. Yeah. Outside of the context of this podcast, are you a completionist? Are you someone who, if you pick up and start a book, you feel an obligation to yourself to finish the book, no matter how much or little you're enjoying it? Generally speaking, yeah, I need to get to the bottom of what I've started. Would that be true of a TV series? Not always for TV series, especially when there's lots of seasons.
Starting point is 00:03:42 A book, yes. And a movie? Yeah, I need to get to the end of the film. You need to get to the end movie? Yeah, I need to get to the end of the film. You need to get to the end of the film? I need to get to the end of the film. When's the last time you didn't finish a movie? The only one I can remember, and I know it's happened I think twice ever, was Save the Last Dance.
Starting point is 00:03:58 With Julia Stiles? I love that movie. I hated it. But this is probably... A long time ago. 20 years maybe. Honestly, it probably... A long time ago. 20 years, maybe. Honestly, it could have been 20 years ago. Do you feel a temptation to do it?
Starting point is 00:04:11 Like, watching this movie, within seconds. Here's what's bad about it. And here's how you find out that it's bad right from the get-go. There is wall-to-wall exposition and dialogue to explain a concept so convoluted it just makes you question how they managed to wrangle the tens of millions of dollars involved to put this project together here's the idea that the emoji movie wants you to think would be a fun idea for a film there are a bunch of emojis living in your phone and the way that we select emojis is we see a representation of them on the keyboard and then when we hit them inside the phone
Starting point is 00:04:57 there's all of these living emojis which then have to be scanned by a laser every time you use one, and that scan is what renders into your message. It could be your Facebook messenger, your WhatsApp, your text, what have you. Well, I mean, arguably, yes, but the emojis in this film deal entirely, they live entirely inside of the text messaging function of the boy's cell phone. Okay. messaging function of the the protagonist the the boy's cell phone because um okay they're unfamiliar i don't care enough to argue with you but i don't think that's right they're unfamiliar with instagram twitter facebook they journey to all of these apps that's true presumably paid for placements and those are all sort of a new part of the adventure if you want to know why the proletariat is rising up to elect bernie sanders and burn
Starting point is 00:05:46 capitalist america as we know it to the ground look to the emoji movie as evidence of what capitalism can do to art if left unchecked can i just say in explaining why i thought a very small and insignificant and technical part of what you're saying was factually inaccurate with reference to the movie i think we may have stumbled into a more interesting prospect which would be you know how emojis rendered differently on different apps imagine a film wherein the emojis from the messenger function of your phone meet the twitter versions of themselves or the facebook versions of themselves hey now that's fun that's kind of a doppelganger thing. You've got crisis of identity.
Starting point is 00:06:27 You've got, you know, tribalism is one set better than the other. These are some juicy themes. This is not what the Emoji Movie is. The Emoji Movie is about, we follow the journey of Gene, who is a defunct meh emoji, who is broken.
Starting point is 00:06:44 So he keeps rendering different faces when it's his time to shine as an emoji your your sole purpose and operation in life is to represent only one expression or and he's meh meh m-e-h sort of indifference i believe would be the longer word for it and it does yeah it's his job and he can't do it and he gets selected as a text message so as in addition to not caring about the emojis within the film the film also goes to trouble of making sure we don't care about the the characters the people who use the emojis to communicate with one another who are distilled to just a boy and a girl who like each other two layers
Starting point is 00:07:25 operating neither of which work and a third juicy cherry on the shit sundae which is uh the star of the show is tj miller who i believe has since been cancelled i think he's cancelled almost at the time of release i feel like uh cancellation has been sort of desperately trying to latch itself on to TJ Miller and the guy's oiled up to some degree because it can't quite stick. I haven't heard Haydn or hear from him for a little while. He's touring. He's selling out shows. I've just been scooching around on the Emoji Movie Twitter account. And while the guy is, by all accounts, a deplorable figure,
Starting point is 00:08:03 his voice is one of the few things I think they got. Like, his voice talent, I can see the merit in the casting. Do you know Alana Glazer was supposed to be the hacker? What happened? Don't know. IMDB didn't tell me. I didn't mind. They had Anna Faris as the hacker, and I didn't mind that.
Starting point is 00:08:18 Yeah, it was fine. Reuniting the Yogi Bear crew. The animation style was good. And everything else was bad. it was a real waste they ripped off the concept of a lot of the stuff from reboot do you know about reboot guy don't know about reboot reboot was seminal to my childhood this was a show made by the canadian broadcasting channel and it was the first ever fully computer animated series. It starred Enzo, a young boy, and Bob, his sort of caretaker that wasn't quite as dead
Starting point is 00:08:53 but took on a fatherly figure. They were sprites inside of a computer, and there were game cubes that would land on them and thrust them into a different environment. There were other characters. They lived inside the mainframe. The baddie was hexadecimal from memory. And it was fucking awesome.
Starting point is 00:09:11 It got real dark because it was a kid show. And, you know, it was an adventure series, but somewhat lighthearted. But then I'm pretty sure fucking Bob died in the end of one of the seasons, like season three. And then there was this huge amount of time that passed. And then season four kicks off and Enzo's growing up to be Bob's age. And he's like this grizzled dude who's been on the internet.
Starting point is 00:09:39 It was wild. He had tattoos and a beard and shit. It sounds good. It was great. And this just ripped a beard and shit. It sounds good. It was great. And this just ripped off so many elements from Reboot, but without that cool, almost cyberpunk for kids edge to it. Yeah, the problem with this movie, I can almost see how it got made, which was whoever pitched it sort of said,
Starting point is 00:09:59 so I'm thinking about a movie that goes behind the scenes of emojis, which is intriguing enough as a prospect. Is it? I think so. I can see how if you're pitching a movie for kids or teens and you say, hey, kids use emojis all the time. Imagine if there was a world behind the screen where they live their own lives and they get into all sorts of mischief and hijinks.
Starting point is 00:10:19 And you go, that's intriguing. Well, tell me about the plot. And it's sort of from that point where the entire pitch unraveled and then i feel like it maybe got greenlit just on the basis of the elevator pitch and at no point i i often think about if i'm trying to conceive of an idea myself or i'm watching an idea there are certain things that certain questions that you know you can ignore in the hopes that you're ignoring that means that all audience will also ignore them and not acknowledge them.
Starting point is 00:10:47 And this movie felt like it was constantly asking itself questions about the laws of the universe and the rules of logic that all of the characters had to abide. And it was asking them at every turn and it never had the right answer. And so instead of just ignoring it, it had asked it and then they panicked and they would move on to a different, also unanswerable question. And so it was just pivoting from sort of conv ignoring it, it had asked it, and then they panicked, and they would move on to a different, also unanswerable question.
Starting point is 00:11:12 And so it was just pivoting from sort of convoluted, nonsensical idea to the next. You just need to have the confidence to not ask the question. Exactly. Just take me there. At one point, we're in Just Dance, which is a dance app game thing. We just take a break from the movie to explain what the rules of just dance are. I'm watching a fucking movie. I'm not playing the game. Don't give me this.
Starting point is 00:11:30 I don't want your rules. Yeah. It's bullshit. Conversely, in the other scene where we watch a game being played in the movie Candy Crush, they had that fucking decency at least to not. No, actually, do you know what? They do explain how Candy Crush works. It's just instead of it being from the voice of the host of candy crush the characters are explaining it to one
Starting point is 00:11:49 another we watch characters play candy crush apps must have bankrolled this movie oh yeah i think what you're saying about how this movie got made is entirely incorrect i think think Mark Zuckerberg in a cocaine binge when, how can I fuck up a younger generation to grab them as part of my fold as part of the tribe. But this movie is not a way to do that. Kids movie. And he said, what are you talking about?
Starting point is 00:12:23 And someone said, kids love emojis. We're going to make an animated film about what they do where they come from and what they're all about and then he went to his office and pulled out a briefcase that had 68 million us dollars in it gave it to the person said make the film is that how much this movie costs I don't know I'm guessing it doesn't feel like it's wrong it's very easy to complain about the movie
Starting point is 00:12:50 it is how do we champion this no we don't need to champion it there was one moment I enjoyed I actually quite liked the villain
Starting point is 00:12:58 was played by a woman named was an emoji called Smiler who's a very smiling emoji who within the lore of the film was the first ever emoji,
Starting point is 00:13:07 played by a sort of very overwhelmingly positive but also diabolically evil Maya Rudolph. I thought her performance was sound within the very limited range that she was given. At one moment, they enter the world of Instagram, and you can see all the photos in front of you, and they actually walk into one of the photos and the photo is then rendered in three dimensions
Starting point is 00:13:27 so all of the characters are frozen and you can walk around and within the photo and admire different details and elements and I thought that was the first time they really convincingly had fun or at least... This is about 20 minutes before the movie ends, folks. Yeah, after a very confusing one hour
Starting point is 00:13:42 and 15 minute run time and those were sort of the moments that did well but i think instead of just taking pot shots at it because i do think that somewhere within this there is a movie that is of interest or at least a possible film like can we troubleshoot this together and try and build a serviceable emoji movie i want to come i want to say yes and to you, Guy Montgomery, but I can't bring myself to do it. What do you want to talk about?
Starting point is 00:14:10 I don't know because anything in serviceable... I will do it by myself and you can take all of this horrible energy that this movie has planted within you and just direct it towards me. So I will be an unflappable positive presence as I try to fix this. All right. You'll be a smiler. I i want you to embrace i'll be meh yeah this i mean now we're
Starting point is 00:14:31 getting into it well no but it's a risky it is a risky proposition to have a movie like because it's i always think about show titles you're opening yourself up to like the most dismissive reviews imaginable when you know the movie was about the journey of me and i left feeling like i was at you know i was me i don't know they probably they're professional writers some of these reviews they do more than that so i think you'd be surprised some of those film reviewers also suck that's right some of them do not these two boys the mad ladsads. The fucking crazy cats. Meow. I think what you need here. I want to watch cats again. I don't want to watch the emoji movie.
Starting point is 00:15:10 A movie revealing the lives of emojis. I want to see how emojis are conceived. I want to see these sexless little freaks. You want to see them fucking. I want to see them fuck. What's it called? Reproduce. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:15:22 I want to see. Well, let's get into it How do you reckon these little dudes reproduce? We see quite a cavalcade of different emojis So maybe they've all got different Do you reckon they're different species? Yes I want to see some interbestial fucking between the emojis
Starting point is 00:15:36 They all seem to be roughly the same size And communicate of a universal language They're sort of that classic They're rendered in that classic kids movie fashion where they have expressive faces arms and legs they understand the concept of attraction and emotion and love yeah but beyond that it's sort of all left deliberately who do you want to see fuck in the emoji movie i want to see devil fuck shit they had a certain they yeah they had a certain patrick Stewart? Back and forth. I would love to see the Trojan horse and the hacker fuck.
Starting point is 00:16:11 Oh, they're not emojis. The Trojan horse? No. The hacker was? No. She was a princess emoji hidden as a hacker. There's no hacker emoji. But she was an emoji.
Starting point is 00:16:28 Okay, so you want to see a princess fuck horse yes that is a real movie it's called debbie does dallas you can watch that now isn't that a snuff film i don't think so i don't think so i hope not it did the movie you're describing didn't get a cinema release right it's just online uh this is pre-internet their movie that's a bestiality movie from like the 70s Or the 60s even It's about a woman who fucks a horse man Is it a doco? Nah man it's not a doco it's a pornography It is a pornographic material
Starting point is 00:16:55 Are some Pornographic films documentaries by Default? No But some documentaries can be pornographic i guess blended reality i'm just saying if you want to see a woman fuck a horse or a horse fuck a woman however you want to put it i'm trying to fix the movie in front of us i can't see a devil fucker shit because those things aren't animated and they're not alive you know well, unless Debbie is recognized by some established monarchy
Starting point is 00:17:25 within the various different countries on Earth. Yeah, that's true. That movie does not fulfill my wish. Hey, big guy, aren't all women princesses? I hope you get cancelled. I think I might after this episode. So I think maybe just spend more time. Don't worry so much about getting around the phone
Starting point is 00:17:44 and showing us all of the apps. Just spend more time like don't worry so much about getting around the phone and showing us all of their apps just spend more time in Textopolis let us see the functionality of the city like I want to see these because if you have a group of characters who can only perform the emotions that they're ascribed at birth
Starting point is 00:17:59 then let's see how that actually unfolds in a community there's a possibility within that premise. You know, you could see maybe Happy wound up with Sad, and they live a married life together. You can see small domestic scenes. That's more interesting. But every time the concept of an emoji movie
Starting point is 00:18:19 throws up the opportunity for interest, the movie veers the other way. Like, Jean, who is the protagonist, who is the meh emoji, is the child of two other meh emojis. So they just get on because they're both meh and they have a child who's also meh. Happy and sad or like sad and I don't know,
Starting point is 00:18:39 fucking crazy equals a meh. Like give me that, you know. Yeah. There's a story there. There's a lesson to be learned. We've all got our part to play. People are different. You don't have to have a partner who's exactly the same as you.
Starting point is 00:18:53 We fill in each other's gaps, etc. But every opportunity they have to give me something, they fucking run the, they give me a six, I am not shitting you guys. A six minute scene inside of Candy Crush. This movie just exists to shift apps. And that is the most depressing concept I've ever heard in my life. That is so sad to me.
Starting point is 00:19:18 Rome has fallen. Let's not forget that James Corden also plays a prominent role in this film. And it didn't help. Known legend, James Corden. I would like to quickly read to you this approved release on the synopsis of the film from the studio, Sony Pictures Entertainment. I like that you prefaced it
Starting point is 00:19:37 with approved. Sanctioned by, written by, in fact. This movie unlocks the never before seen secret world inside your smartphone. Hidden within the messaging app is Textopolis, a bustling city where all your favorite emojis live, hoping to be selected by the phone's user. In this world, each emoji has only one facial expression,
Starting point is 00:20:02 except for Gene, an exuberant emoji who was born without a filter and is bursting with multiple expressions. Relatable? I think so. Determined to become normal like the other emojis, Gene enlists the help of his handy best friend, High Five, in the notorious code breaker emoji, Jailbreak. Together, they embark on an epic app venture. Fuck you. Through the apps on the phone, each its own wild and fun world to find the code that will
Starting point is 00:20:34 fix Gene. But when a great danger threatens the phone, the fate of all emojis depends on these three unlikely friends who must save their world before it's deleted forever. That's the synopsis. I'm lost in that. That's supposed to be a short, clarifying statement on what we can expect. And even that confuses me. And I've seen the fucking movie.
Starting point is 00:21:00 I've just watched it. Does that sound fun to you? No. It sounds convoluted and insane. And not like a movie. It sounds like maybe a video game. Not a good one. Scrub it up.
Starting point is 00:21:11 Tidy it up. What did you see? Give it to me in three sentences. Oh, okay. The synopsis of the film. The emoji movie. the emoji movie, a story of finding out that,
Starting point is 00:21:31 fuck, it's hard. It's hard after just watching the movie. I feel drained. A little creative energy vampire that film was. It's something about being okay with yourself and not changing. The emoji movie. You're all good, man. So the emoji movie you're all good man so beyond that you're all good beyond the white you're sweet beyond you're fine it's okay so people love you
Starting point is 00:21:57 beyond yeah yeah yeah thank you really good beyond beyond the sort of commercial imperative of the film you think when someone says but what's the movie saying yeah the core message is it's okay to be yourself that's what this movie should be saying and what it could have been saying yeah i think it's probably what it tried to say because ultimately um this you know they go on all their fucking adventures through the phone phone to get to the source code so that the hacker can change it to fix Gene, but he doesn't need to be fixed. That's kind of the...
Starting point is 00:22:34 It's remarkable how long the movie feels for how short it is. It is remarkable. That's the right word for it. It's actually incredible. I don't understand how it had this effect inside of whatever the run what did i say it was like an hour it's an hour it's listed as an hour 24 but they've got i think an eight minute credit sequence so you're really much closer to an hour 15 uh towards the end of it they
Starting point is 00:22:57 arrive at the drop at dropbox which dropbox is in this children's film you know that productivity app dropbox for you to use in your office yeah that's in this children's film. You know that productivity app Dropbox for you to use in your office? Yeah, that's in this children's movie for like, I don't know, four minutes scene. And to upload themselves to the cloud, they have to get past this firewall. And when the three emojis arrive at the firewall, it's a very sort of sound piece of filmmaking because as someone watching the movie, you realize that you must also clear this firewall to be released from the prison in which you are trapped.
Starting point is 00:23:31 In the instance of the emojis, it's the prison of forced normalcy. In the prison of watching the movie, it's knowing that you're watching the movie to completion. And the characters guess wrong several times to zero comedic effect. And you sort of sit there. They've laid it all out for you to know what the password is. Also not what a firewall is or what it does. It's not a fucking password checker.
Starting point is 00:23:57 You know, like, fuck. Just make it a gate or something. You took a lot of issue with the various different sort of technology, the use of technology and technological. Mainly right at the end. Everything gets deleted, wiped from the phone. The phone's in the process of being basically reformatted at like a genius bar.
Starting point is 00:24:17 Apple didn't pay any money to be in this picture. Not a cent. Do you respect that? Yeah, fucking A. It's because, is Steve Jobs still alive? No. 2017. No, I think he's dead.
Starting point is 00:24:27 Of all the phone providers... Apple know better than to get involved in this hot mess. Which phone provider would you marry to this film? Nokia. This feels like a Nokia movie? Absolutely. It's desperate. It's a swing for the fences.
Starting point is 00:24:42 We're putting the whole house on this. It's Kmart and Grown Ups 2. Our marketing budget for this quarter is probably the last amount of promotional money we're going to spend to try and save the company before 3,000 Swedes lose their job. Put it all on 13 black. Spin the fucking wheel. Isn't it crazy to think when i was a teen nokia was sort of the a model of reliability untouchable and their supremacy of the the mobile market you know and actually it's quite a neat marriage because in the same way sony represented the top end of electronics the most high quality quality products, the most desirable TVs or whatever.
Starting point is 00:25:26 TVs, Walkmans. This is a Sony Pictures production about a Nokia phone. I feel like Sony constantly shits the bed. But then this movie made a lot of money, and I think Sony Pictures generally do. So who's really laughing? Probably Sony. I'll tell you who's not laughing.
Starting point is 00:25:41 Mr. Sony. Tim Nogai laughing, and imaginably no one listening to this podcast is laughing at that 6,000 jokes they tried to cram into this movie every
Starting point is 00:25:50 second there was an attempt I just made it up like everything I say I keep thinking it's real you said it during the movie there's just a relentless march of shit gags
Starting point is 00:26:00 one after another I think you're in such a foul mood because this room is deprived of oxygen and filled with CO2. We've been in this room for not just the length of the movie, but also the length of work session and friend zone beforehand.
Starting point is 00:26:13 Work session. And I asked you, I said, Tim, you need to go outside. Yes. Because it will make you feel alive. And you said, no, going outside. It's my sweet treat once I've completed the podcast. And it will be. And it looks so tempting out there.
Starting point is 00:26:26 It's not right. It's negatively. We are in the height of summer right now, and I'm going to estimate it's like 27 degrees centigrade, which is what, like 100? That's outside with a light breeze. Yeah, and we're in a completely non-air-conditioned little box. Non-air-conditioned, non-ventilated.
Starting point is 00:26:47 One of the walls is just glass, which really helps allow heat in. That's a good point. And then also to trap said heat. Never thought about it that way, Guy, but you're dead right. Glass is incredible in this respect. It certainly is. What was a positive experience during the movie? The animation style i liked um which
Starting point is 00:27:08 makes me feel sorry for the visual effects artists because they they took their time and they did it it was very it looked very dreamworksy to me it was like how to train your dragon very rarely do i not take to the animation style of a film a modern film like i think i i as a rule you get on board i will enjoy any animation so i'm trying to think of instances where i've been frustrated i feel like what about that christmas movie we watched the kids of that was unique and it's spectacular badness i really enjoyed it yeah but for all the wrong reasons it doesn't so for the end for this movie yeah again i loved it flies under it's a waste of the technology. You said at some point that whatever it was required to build...
Starting point is 00:27:49 There was a render farm that exported this movie that could have been used to try and solve cancer. It wasn't. That computing power got put into the Emoji movie instead. This is why humanity cannot have nice things. Because we have imbued lumps of rock with lightning, and they do fantastic math for us, and then the application we throw at that incredible process we've made
Starting point is 00:28:13 is producing a movie where Knight of the Realm Sir Patrick Stewart plays human feces and delivers six lines for what I imagine is a million dollar paycheck. We're just animals at the zoo man you can dress it up put your fun flat screen fucking tv big screen tvs in your house but we're just monkeys at the zoo is that what i mean i feel like all of the takeaways you're presenting from this movie are very dark and represent the worst of humanity it It's just, I don't know. I hated it. It's that classic dangerous combo of a writer-director as well. Like there wasn't enough.
Starting point is 00:28:51 Same person. Yeah. To me, it doesn't feel like a one-person show. For me, it does not feel like not enough people. It feels like too many people. Yeah, and that's, I think, probably quite a common problem with animated films because there's so much money that goes into them.
Starting point is 00:29:06 And you kind of like, I guess it's very expensive to remake stuff maybe. I find it. Because you don't want to fuck it up. Yeah, actually, that's a good question. You see the behind the scenes of the Pixar movies and they storyboard them for like four years. I find it more depressing when an animated movie fails this aggressively and is this bad because it does take longer
Starting point is 00:29:28 and it is harder to correct mistakes as they're happening. And so the idea of advancing deeper and deeper into this ongoing mistake or disaster you're creating becomes really like overwhelmed. It's a quicksand sort of experience. You're talking about cats. You're describing cats as well now. Yeah, but it's...
Starting point is 00:29:48 TJ Miller said, and I don't know if this is true, but TJ Miller said this is the world's fastest produced animated feature film ever. That's the sort of soundbite you really want your lead actor to be giving out as the movie is simply savaged by critics. There's not the sort of information they can latch onto and sort of, you know, point to as a reason why the movie might be awful. What's your favourite emoji? Not from the film.
Starting point is 00:30:15 Oh, just in general. I don't really use emojis. But I tell you what it is. Here's your problem. I know what it is. It's the upside down smiley. What does that represent to you? Anything, and that's the beauty of it. hate that do you i like too ambiguous i need to know what an emoji represents
Starting point is 00:30:31 there's an emoji that has like there's an emoji that is like gritting teeth or bearing teeth oh yeah that's a good one which is sort of like this and i never know what when someone sends it to me i don't know if they're happy or sad or isn't that like something's fucked up and i'm nervous about what's about to the other shoe to drop possibly that's how i've always read i like clarity in my the only unclear emoji i like is the sort of rumpled face it's semi-new it's got like it's its mouth does not go in a straight line or a smile it's sort of it's a squiggle and one of its eyes is kind of crushed down it's almost cocking an eyebrow and it's just like wasted it doesn't look wasted it just looks like well we are really in a situation here and that is who should be you shouldn't have matt lead the film
Starting point is 00:31:16 you should have a definable emotional quality exactly or at least you identified that immediately you were like they have backed the wrong fucking emoji here to hang a film off of 100 the only emoji is short for emotional icon i assume that was a gag i liked what at one point uh gene the lead bumps into an emote icon which is for anyone listening who's not familiar with them it's an assembly of characters that are otherwise used in punctuation that could create faces. So it's like a backslash and then semicolon,
Starting point is 00:31:53 which creates a slanty face. Winky face. Yeah. Or yeah, it's like a... So it's not an emoji, but you're just using characters on the keyboard. It's a close parenthesis dash colon would be a smiley face. The internet used to be lousy with him back in the keyboard. It's a close parenthesis dash colon would be a smiley face.
Starting point is 00:32:06 The internet used to be lousy with him back in the day. And he bumped into one of them and part of its face fell apart and he said I hate bumping into old people or something. You're knocking over the elderly. And that was I think anything that
Starting point is 00:32:22 registered as a joke and that I could understand the constituent parts of was fine by me. Feels like we're very drained from the film. How do you feel coming out of a mojo? Or is it the room? I hated it. The room, yeah, I got up halfway through.
Starting point is 00:32:38 I said, Tim, can we please pause the movie? I said no. And I was saying to get a glass of water, and Tim said no. then i i think i probably at that point looked as depressed as you would have seen me for quite a while it was a low ebb i was in a dark zone and then i went outside i got some fresh air i filled up two big glasses of icy water i brought them back and i sat down i said i feel lighter i feel a million times better and so there's some positivity i got from that experience that carried me through to the end
Starting point is 00:33:06 that I sort of was hoping to bring to the podcast. But I feel like you've used your system override in how much you despise the movie, the experience. I am powerful. I'm a powerful black hole of positivity. Yeah. Who was your favorite voice actor in the film? We knew a lot of famous people that were there.
Starting point is 00:33:24 I enjoyed Maya Rudolph. Probably most intriguing was there were some internet trolls. actor in the film we knew a lot of famous people that were there uh i enjoyed maya rudolph probably most intriguing was there were some internet trolls that doesn't make sense by the way no get into it why so there are internet trolls who are sort of these green they're meant to be quite grotesque uh creatures who represent sort of just negativity or, you know, naysayers, people who will be rude to you for no apparent reason. They just were meant to represent internet trolls. But they can't exist in the same world as emojis because internet trolls are people on keyboards who have the use of emojis to communicate their negative thoughts or feelings.
Starting point is 00:34:04 I don't understand. That was an example. Do you know what, though? I didn't question it in the film, which is an example of the movie. You just skipped past something. Yeah, not asking the question and therefore not confusing the audience. If they had had that attitude with everything, though, then you wouldn't question anything.
Starting point is 00:34:21 It'd just be like, here's a bunch of internet-style shit that's here. But because they stopped down, they're like, hey, here's a bunch of internet style shit that's here but because they like stop down they're like hey here's how let's dance works shut up for a second movie guy fucking pay attention to me for a second i'm going to teach you the rules of this app that you're not playing yeah you're in the fucking movies right now it's bad outrageous christine aguilera was the voice of that just dance woman by the way gotcha and the most intriguing casting or the one she did they killed her this is uh just an example of the lack of sort of storytelling now so i feel like they have no care for the characters in this all right we hang out with the so they've made a big human woman sprite instructor for Let's Dance,
Starting point is 00:35:06 and we hang out with her for a bit. There's a bit of back and forth. She's leading a dance. She rewards them with praise and little achievements when they're doing well. And then we zoom out to the human world where the boy's phone is making sound because these apps are fucking around and then the guy like freaks out because he's in class he's getting embarrassed by just starts making noise so he deletes the app and you see all of the edifice and all of the sort of
Starting point is 00:35:35 infrastructure around the app start to crumble away and disappear into the ether and you watch christina aguilera's character die in front of you. Quite horrifying. It's kind of awesome. Especially because this is a kids film. But yeah, one of the internet trolls was voiced by Jeff Ross and I was very familiar with the voice. I couldn't pick it and I actually had to look it up to know. And I guess in creating a question I
Starting point is 00:35:57 wanted the answer to, the movie succeeded. So that was my favourite piece of voice. Would you like to do yours? I've got something to read to you here after you tell me. I don't care. Go. Well, the film was inspired. By Wreck-It Ralph.
Starting point is 00:36:12 They saw that and they were like, we too want to make some money. The film was in fact inspired by the director Tony Leondis. And I just want to quickly see what else Tony Leondis did because he's done. Bad things. And i'm not talking films i'm talking life actions directed one of the kung fu panda films they were good lilo and stitch two uh yeah the guys okay so we know how to do animated animated films the film was inspired by director tony leondis' love of toy story. Could you see that?
Starting point is 00:36:47 Oh, honey. I know. Wanting to make a new take on the concept, he began asking himself, what is the new toy out there that hasn't been explored? At the same time, imagine this. If you're trying to come up with an idea, imagine this lightning rod striking you through your phone. At the same time, Leondis received a text message with an idea imagine this lightning rod striking you through your phone at the same time leon does received a text message with an emoji which helped him realize that this was the world he wanted to explore and fleshing out the story leon does considered having the emojis visit
Starting point is 00:37:15 the real world however his producer felt that the world inside a phone was much more interesting which inspired leon does to create the story of where and how emojis lived well then he just watched fucking four seasons of reboot back to back or however many exists and then bloody set to work on a screenplay tony you made a lot of money at the end of the day what were you here to do this is a film that contains product placement for a lot of the screen time from uh incredibly amoral companies including facebook spotify you know who respectively have damaged our faith twitter we'll hold on for a second as responsible they've destroyed our faith in privacy They're just selling our data Spotify, ripping off artists
Starting point is 00:38:07 What's Twitter done? Not taking the Nazis down People keep telling me that Helping disseminate disinformation Not policing that I guess they had to pay to play in this Because otherwise the company would sue them For having the logos in their name
Starting point is 00:38:22 Instagram, a Facebook property It's all bad news Dropbox however the company would sue them for having the logos in there, right? Instagram, a Facebook property. Yeah. It's all bad news. Dropbox, however. Yeah, I think they're all right. They've had some security breaches over the years, but hey, who among us hasn't? That's right.
Starting point is 00:38:36 Just get some two-factor authentication on there. The point remains, I feel like this was a payday, and in that regard, Tony, you done did it. But the thing is, Toy Story was a commercial success too. And it was also heartwarming. Yeah. Toy Story 4, probably one of the last movies I remember to make me cry. I shouldn't laugh at that. I'm just comparing it to our mood coming out of the Emoji film
Starting point is 00:38:59 and that Tony's reach was to try and replicate that absolute masterpiece of cinema. This has been an entirely depressing endeavor, and I would like to just wave the bird. We are filming this at the Patreon pouts who selected this movie. Well done. Well done, everyone. I'd like to congratulate you on picking such a god-awful film. I feel very affected by it, so I'm going to go and do something else now.
Starting point is 00:39:25 Probably get on a big bathtub with a bunch of ice, drop my body temperature. I'm going to throw a plugged-in toaster in there. That's fine. Tim, I'd like to give you a motivational quote to end this. An emotionative? No. Dang it.
Starting point is 00:39:41 This is a quote from Forbes.com, which used to be some sort of financial empire website and is now, I think, they don't know, like an offshoot of BuzzFeed. Do today's duty. Fight today's temptation. Do not weaken and distract yourself by looking forward to things you cannot see
Starting point is 00:39:59 and could not understand if you saw them. Do today what should be done. Your tomorrow may never come. Today is the pupil of yesterday. That was the emoji movie in a quote. Go fuck yourselves. Whoever voted for this, go fuck yourselves. Vote in the 25th Reich or whatever,
Starting point is 00:40:18 that movie that was suggested. Do something for us, for once in your goddamn lives. Tim, I love you, but this is why I didn't like spending time with you. Something for us. For once in your goddamn lives. Tim. Yeah. I love you. But this is why I didn't like spending time with you. I gave us a primer.
Starting point is 00:40:30 That was good. Negative associations. Negative associations with you. Negative associations with the film. Negative associations with your lovely house. You like Primer though? It was good. It was the time travel one.
Starting point is 00:40:41 We watched in LA. Oh, that was fucking crazy. Yeah, you guys have put me on to some pretty interesting shit. But go fuck yourselves this month. Bye, everyone. Thanks for playing. Okay, son, what do we do after we go potty? Should we wash our hands?
Starting point is 00:41:01 We're number two.

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