transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:04] So how annoyed are people going to be that they've got three weeks in a row of us talking about movie trilogies? Hopefully, there is something in between. How many of the comments will be complaining about this? And how many of the comments?

Speaker 2:
[00:13] I think most of the comments will be talking about our choices. And I think there will be a couple of comments way at the bottom. I think actually most of the people who are really sick of us talking about movies are just not going to comment.

Speaker 1:
[00:28] They're just not going to watch this episode.

Speaker 2:
[00:30] They're just not going to watch the episode.

Speaker 1:
[00:31] Fair enough.

Speaker 2:
[00:32] So these might be really low viewership episodes, but that's fine.

Speaker 1:
[00:35] Those of you who tuned in know that I'm getting your Skyward Books signed. You can feel confident that the podcast is continuing and I am signing books as I am supposed to do. And you can rest easy, know that Dan's doing his job, keeping me entertained as I do this mind-numbingly boring job.

Speaker 2:
[00:52] I'll also say in our big three episode marathon, I've maintained my voice fairly well.

Speaker 1:
[00:58] Yeah, you have.

Speaker 2:
[00:59] I thought that it was gonna drop out harder than it had.

Speaker 1:
[01:01] But we have some good ones. So if you want a preview, we have Evil Dead in here, we have Toy Story in here, we have Mad Max. So you may wanna hang out.

Speaker 2:
[01:11] There's gonna be some good stuff.

Speaker 1:
[01:13] Let's talk poorly about movies in a way that'll enrage you.

Speaker 3:
[01:16] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[01:16] All right. What's next?

Speaker 3:
[01:18] Toy Story is funny enough to blow it up.

Speaker 2:
[01:20] Toy Story.

Speaker 1:
[01:21] Toy Story.

Speaker 2:
[01:22] Toy Story is one where my brother would tell you that the third is the strongest one.

Speaker 1:
[01:27] Okay.

Speaker 2:
[01:28] That they get better over time. Number two, in my opinion, is the best.

Speaker 1:
[01:32] Yeah. Not a bad film in that group though.

Speaker 2:
[01:35] Yeah. Even three is very good.

Speaker 1:
[01:37] Well, and it hangs together. Four is the bad one, right?

Speaker 2:
[01:40] Four is pretty bad.

Speaker 1:
[01:41] Four is pretty bad.

Speaker 2:
[01:43] We don't need a fifth.

Speaker 1:
[01:44] But three is like it completes the trilogy. One, new toy comes on. Two, like this whole escalation, he's a teenager. Three, we find somebody new. The cycle continues.

Speaker 2:
[01:58] I don't think he's a teenager yet in two.

Speaker 1:
[02:00] Isn't he? He's a teenager in three.

Speaker 2:
[02:01] But it is, it expands the world significantly.

Speaker 1:
[02:04] Yeah. You're right, he's not quite a teenager yet. But isn't two where he leaves Woody behind?

Speaker 3:
[02:11] No, two is when he's a collectible. Three is when he gets left behind.

Speaker 1:
[02:15] He's a collectible, you're right.

Speaker 2:
[02:17] They're doing a yard sale.

Speaker 1:
[02:19] Yeah, yard sale, yard sale. But no, I swear. No, two.

Speaker 2:
[02:24] At the end of three is where he gets all the toys back from the preschool and he takes them to the little girl.

Speaker 1:
[02:29] But the opening of two is where he saves the little squeaky toy.

Speaker 2:
[02:33] What?

Speaker 1:
[02:34] Yeah, he saves the penguin. Oh, yes, that's correct. They save the penguin, but then he falls in instead.

Speaker 2:
[02:40] Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 1:
[02:41] Yeah, you're right, he doesn't get left behind. Where is it he rips his arm?

Speaker 3:
[02:45] It's on his way out, so from the yard sale, he gets ripped.

Speaker 1:
[02:47] So it is, it is to where he leaves him behind. He leaves Woody behind accidentally, I know.

Speaker 2:
[02:52] Woody gets accidentally sold.

Speaker 3:
[02:54] He gets napped, doesn't he?

Speaker 1:
[02:55] But his arm gets ripped and he's like, I need to leave Woody behind.

Speaker 2:
[02:58] No, that's like a nightmare sequence Woody has. Where Andy says, I don't want to play with you anymore.

Speaker 3:
[03:04] Yes, that's the first movie.

Speaker 1:
[03:05] That's the first movie, I know that, but he does get his arm ripped.

Speaker 3:
[03:08] His arm gets ripped off as he's being taken away by the collector.

Speaker 1:
[03:11] Yeah, yeah, that's what it is, he has to get sewn back on and it's buffer and Bo Peep's like, ooh, it's buffer.

Speaker 2:
[03:15] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[03:15] So, all right, anyway, I'm gonna stick it in S, I don't think it can go anywhere else, respectively.

Speaker 2:
[03:20] I'll put it in S too, and I'm gonna put it above.

Speaker 3:
[03:25] Ooh, is it in S for you, Dan?

Speaker 2:
[03:28] It is in S and it's above Aliens.

Speaker 3:
[03:30] Okay.

Speaker 2:
[03:32] I don't think I'm gonna put it above Born.

Speaker 1:
[03:34] I am gonna put it above Steve Rogers, Captain America, but not above The Godfather.

Speaker 3:
[03:40] Okay.

Speaker 2:
[03:40] I want our audience to know because they can't actually see the graphics that Donald has created.

Speaker 1:
[03:47] Oh, he's gonna put it.

Speaker 2:
[03:47] But he spelled Captain wrong in Captain America.

Speaker 3:
[03:50] Look, I was on, I had to be rushed, all right? I was typing fast. We'll make sure these are up, though.

Speaker 2:
[03:54] We do hope that these graphics will eventually be available.

Speaker 3:
[03:57] We will make sure all of you can see them. Don't worry, post.

Speaker 1:
[03:59] But you don't wanna go look at it immediately because otherwise it'll spoil everything.

Speaker 3:
[04:03] We will hopefully have one at the end of each episode.

Speaker 1:
[04:07] Next week. No, it'll be with the episode. Just don't look. Just don't look till the end. All right.

Speaker 2:
[04:13] What's next?

Speaker 1:
[04:13] All right.

Speaker 3:
[04:14] Next we have Toby Maguire's Spider-Man trilogy.

Speaker 2:
[04:17] Ooh, baby.

Speaker 3:
[04:18] We've done a lot of the current MCU. I thought we'd pull back and see what the old one's like.

Speaker 2:
[04:22] Here's the thing. Spider-Man 2 with Toby Maguire is next to The Dark Knight as my two favorite superhero movies of all time. I think that those are the best.

Speaker 1:
[04:38] It's good, but I'm going to be, I'm going to get people mad at me.

Speaker 3:
[04:43] All right.

Speaker 1:
[04:43] I don't think it's all time great.

Speaker 2:
[04:45] Really?

Speaker 1:
[04:45] They're going to get mad at me. Here's the thing. Well, you just said that here's the thing. Here's another thing. I don't think Toby Maguire is a good Spider-Man. He just doesn't. And I think Mary Jane is really miscast in those films.

Speaker 2:
[04:59] That I'll agree with.

Speaker 1:
[05:01] Like I can't buy their romance ever. But Toby Maguire is a fantastic actor, but he's so weepy and so mopey and so not the character of Spider-Man that I know from reading Spider-Man comics. I'm not a big comic guy, but I've read enough of them, that he's just not a great Spider-Man. And that looms over it. Even though Alfred Molina does a fantastic job, and even though the action sequences are revolutionary for their time, and it is a very strong film, like, Toby Grier is just not a great Spider-Man. I'm sorry, guys.

Speaker 2:
[05:35] I think he's better than you think he is. I think of the three modern live-action Spider-Men, he's the weakest.

Speaker 1:
[05:43] He is the weakest.

Speaker 2:
[05:43] For sure.

Speaker 1:
[05:44] Yeah, but they're still good films. Three is bad, but that's not Sam Raimi's fault. It's the fault of putting Venom in this movie, because Sandman was such a great villain.

Speaker 2:
[05:54] Sandman would have been so good as a standalone villain.

Speaker 1:
[05:56] But we have to judge it as a trilogy, and as a trilogy, it kind of fails a little bit.

Speaker 2:
[06:00] But as a trilogy, it falls apart, because Three is a genuinely bad movie.

Speaker 1:
[06:04] But as a concept for Harry's arc, Three does hold up, like gives a nice arc to Harry Osborn and whatnot. I'll put it in B, I'm sorry, internet, I know this is one that you're gonna hate. It is, yeah, I think it's as strong as the Bourne films and How to Train Your Dragon. I think it is a B. I don't think Three, like some of the scenes people think are bad in Three are not as bad as people say. Like the scene where he's all emo and stuff is really cringe, but it's supposed to be. And in context, it's a fun scene because you're like, you have no idea how to be cool. And that's the joke, and it's very Sam Raimi. But yeah, B for me, kids, sorry.

Speaker 2:
[06:48] I'll put it B as well, and I will put it above Matrix, but below Nolan Batman.

Speaker 1:
[06:53] Okay, so I'm gonna get yelled at for putting in B, and everyone's gonna be like with you, like, oh, we're glad he at least put it in B. I don't know.

Speaker 3:
[07:02] All right, Michael Bay's.

Speaker 2:
[07:03] Make a new tier called Dan Just Wants to Piss You Off, and I'll put all your favorite movies in it. Okay, so what'd you say?

Speaker 3:
[07:10] The Michael Bay Transformers.

Speaker 2:
[07:11] Michael Bay Transformers.

Speaker 1:
[07:13] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[07:13] Okay.

Speaker 3:
[07:14] D.

Speaker 2:
[07:14] None of these are great movies. The first one is good.

Speaker 1:
[07:18] Yeah, I don't think the first one's good.

Speaker 2:
[07:19] I think the first one is good. I will say it is a good movie. Especially if you view it as Megan Fox is the lead character, because she actually has a really good arc in it.

Speaker 1:
[07:33] Yeah, sure.

Speaker 2:
[07:33] Where Shia LaBeouf doesn't.

Speaker 1:
[07:35] Yeah, but it sure doesn't treat her like a main character.

Speaker 2:
[07:38] No.

Speaker 1:
[07:38] Treats her like eye candy because it's Michael Bay.

Speaker 2:
[07:41] Yeah, that's an easy D.

Speaker 1:
[07:43] All right.

Speaker 2:
[07:43] But where in D? Yeah. Oh. Yeah, it's below Star Wars prequels.

Speaker 1:
[07:52] There we are.

Speaker 3:
[07:52] Oh, okay. Same for you, Brandon, I assume.

Speaker 1:
[07:54] Yeah, I don't think any of them are great movies. I wouldn't watch the first one again if you offered to let me watch it. I would rather do, you know.

Speaker 2:
[08:02] I have no need to watch any of them again.

Speaker 1:
[08:05] Now, when we're putting this in D and things like this, you argued kind of to me in the first one that you didn't say it, is that this is in the frame of reference of how we're, like, are these Ds in that they're two out of 10 films? No, they're probably like fours or fives. But in the context of what we're doing here, we don't have a lot of ones and twos. But I don't know. Is it better than the Star Wars prequels? Yeah, it is. Okay.

Speaker 2:
[08:35] Big Transformers is?

Speaker 1:
[08:36] Yeah, they're competently made films. The Star Wars prequels are not competently made films. That's the problem with the Star Wars prequels. Michael Bay at least is able to follow the formula and is able to give you minimal character arcs, and he's able to make scenes that make sense.

Speaker 2:
[08:53] You are correct.

Speaker 1:
[08:54] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[08:54] I think I still am going to put them below the prequels.

Speaker 1:
[08:57] Okay.

Speaker 2:
[08:58] Because if forced, I would rewatch the prequels before I would rewatch Transformers.

Speaker 1:
[09:03] I mean, I would too, but that comes to that because the prequels have gotten bad enough that they're in my negative scale a little bit, and they are funny bad.

Speaker 2:
[09:13] Yeah. Whereas Transformers movies are just boring bad. Yeah. What's next?

Speaker 1:
[09:20] They might just be twos and threes, actually. I don't think they're ones, but anyway. All right. Ant-Man. Yep. Ant-Man trilogy.

Speaker 2:
[09:28] Okay. So I liked the first one.

Speaker 1:
[09:32] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[09:33] But I didn't love it.

Speaker 1:
[09:34] Okay.

Speaker 2:
[09:35] I thought the second one was boring.

Speaker 1:
[09:37] Really?

Speaker 2:
[09:38] I thought the third one was a disaster.

Speaker 1:
[09:40] Third one is a fun disaster. It's funny bad. So true disaster, like below a one out of 10.

Speaker 2:
[09:47] Yeah. Like absolute true, magnificent disaster. It is definitely a movie that I think I would enjoy watching it with you while we make fun of it.

Speaker 1:
[09:56] Bad movie night, bad.

Speaker 2:
[09:57] When I watched it just normally, I was-

Speaker 1:
[10:00] And that's your problem.

Speaker 2:
[10:01] Wasted my time. I was angry at the directors.

Speaker 1:
[10:05] If you make bad movie bad by yourself, Yeah. You know, it's just an awful experience. And so I like movie too, quite a bit.

Speaker 2:
[10:14] Really?

Speaker 1:
[10:15] Yeah, I think Ghost is an interesting villain. Really works for Ant-Man to have a sympathetic villain, where one doesn't have as good as sympathetic villain. I think one part of what makes one work is like, there's a normal guy who's got some kind of superpower stuff, but he's trying to do normal guy stuff. And that makes one and two both work pretty well. I think the acting is solid in all of them, both the first two. I'll say it's passable.

Speaker 2:
[10:41] I don't know if I'll say it's solid. Here's the thing about one, and I suppose you can apply this to two as well. It was heralded as the comedy MCU movie. We've done all these different genres, now we're gonna do a comedy. And it kind of fits into that role.

Speaker 1:
[10:58] Yeah, it's more a funny heist.

Speaker 2:
[10:59] But there is-

Speaker 1:
[11:00] It's not a comedy.

Speaker 2:
[11:01] You stack it up against other non-MCU comedies, and it is not anywhere in that.

Speaker 1:
[11:07] Well, Michael Pena, is that how you say his name?

Speaker 2:
[11:10] Michael Pena.

Speaker 1:
[11:11] Michael Pena is hilarious-

Speaker 2:
[11:12] He's great.

Speaker 1:
[11:13] In both of those movies. And Paul Rudd's fine, I like him. And then Randall Park is great.

Speaker 2:
[11:21] Randall Park I love. Even the little girl's stepdad, he was great.

Speaker 1:
[11:26] He's great. The little girl is good in them. She's cute and she acts well. Like, I think that I have to put these in B. I think a lot of people would put them in C. If the third one were as good as the others, I would actually put it in A. But it's not...

Speaker 2:
[11:43] That's crazy to me.

Speaker 1:
[11:45] But it is at the bottom of B. It is definitely below the Tobey Maguire Spider-Man trilogy.

Speaker 2:
[11:51] I really didn't like to, and I'm surprised to hear that you did. I felt like the characters were so underdeveloped that I never really had sympathy for Ghost. Wasp never felt like a real person to me. And so I'm actually gonna put this in D. Okay.

Speaker 1:
[12:11] That's where most people put it.

Speaker 2:
[12:13] I'm gonna put it just below Jurassic Park.

Speaker 1:
[12:15] I, every time I watch one of those.

Speaker 2:
[12:18] I am feeling very bad that I put the Jurassic Park trilogy in D.

Speaker 3:
[12:22] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[12:23] You can move it. Two and three are so bad. One is so good and two or three are so bad.

Speaker 1:
[12:27] Two is not bad.

Speaker 3:
[12:28] Two really isn't that bad. You can move it.

Speaker 1:
[12:31] Three is just a generic monster film.

Speaker 2:
[12:35] Put Jurassic Park up into C. It's at the end of C, but I am going to bump it up because I feel guilty every time I see it.

Speaker 1:
[12:43] You should feel guilty about Ant-Man. They're fun films. They're what the MCU needed to do more of. The problem with three is that they're like, well, all of our films have to be giant world ending epics. No, some of them would just be goofy Ant-Man and his friends are trying to not get tested and turn their lives and make them live straight. And life messes with them and Pym is a jerk and he messes up their lives. And yeah, they're just what the MCU needed more of. Maybe.

Speaker 2:
[13:15] I agree the MCU needed smaller stories. I feel like all three of the Ant-Man stories are fairly weak. Anyway, what's next?

Speaker 3:
[13:24] This is the Evil Dead trilogy.

Speaker 2:
[13:26] Okay. I am going to recuse myself from this. I have only seen Army of the Dead, and that's because Brandon showed it to me in college. Army of Darkness.

Speaker 1:
[13:35] So Evil Dead is a fantastic trilogy. So there are trilogies that hang together because they're fulfilling a character arc. Then there are trilogies where each trilogy tries to do something new and interesting, right? And we've seen multiple on here that the first one did something and the second did something new and interesting and the third was unable to, right? Evil Dead wants a straight up horror film. Evil Dead 2 is a comedy. It's like a Looney Tunes film where people die and it's mostly just Ash in a room with almost nobody else going crazy and it's really cool how they do it, come to the budget. Three is like, hey, we actually have a budget now, let's make an epic fantasy film with Ash as the main character. Three is the weakest, even though the parts of Three I like the most, I like the best. It's just the middle of Three has a bunch of, we ran out of our budget, we spent it on full action scenes with things and so we're going to make Evil Dead 2 again for a little while, and then we're going to come back and make Evil Dead 3. There's some Ash in the forest by himself being goofy, and it's an excellent trilogy.

Speaker 3:
[14:42] I don't know where I'd put it either, honestly.

Speaker 1:
[14:44] It definitely was influential, it holds together, it's S.

Speaker 3:
[14:48] You okay?

Speaker 1:
[14:49] Evil Dead is S. Even with the third one being weak, here's my arguments. I have to bump it up by being cohesive in a really interesting way. I have to bump it up by influence over the industry. It is hugely influential to a lot of people. The third one isn't the strongest, it doesn't get that bump up, but if the third one were strongest, it would go toe to toe with any of these others. The Evil Ed trilogy is the strongest trilogy is the Captain America trilogy. Captain America trilogy has two great films and one medium great film that half of it's great. Same for Evil Dead, I can't put it anywhere but S.

Speaker 3:
[15:22] Okay, sounds good to me.

Speaker 1:
[15:24] This is my make up to Sam Raimi for putting his Spider-Man trilogy all the way down in B.

Speaker 2:
[15:28] Yeah. Yeah. Donald, make sure that you eventually create a category where we just don't have an opinion.

Speaker 3:
[15:34] It is, they will be in the non-opinion section.

Speaker 2:
[15:36] Because if you leave Evil Dead in F for me, people are going to string me up. All right. What do we got?

Speaker 3:
[15:44] Austin Powers trilogy.

Speaker 2:
[15:46] Austin Powers.

Speaker 1:
[15:47] Austin Powers. Three solid films. Little repetitive.

Speaker 2:
[15:51] The third one is the weakest.

Speaker 1:
[15:53] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[15:53] Yeah. But it's still funny.

Speaker 1:
[15:55] It's still really good. Definitely not everyone's cup of tea. I've never shown them to Emily. I do not think Emily would appreciate the brand of humor unless it were really late at night and she were really tired, maybe. But doing nothing revolutionary, but doing it well, B.

Speaker 2:
[16:15] Okay. I will almost say that the first Austin Powers was revolutionary.

Speaker 1:
[16:21] Is it? It's not even our first spy comedy though, right? Top Secret is the same film.

Speaker 2:
[16:26] We've had spy comedies before.

Speaker 1:
[16:27] The same style. Top Secret is the same film.

Speaker 2:
[16:32] No, I would not say that.

Speaker 1:
[16:33] That's not because Top Secret plays it straight and he doesn't.

Speaker 2:
[16:36] What they're doing with Austin Powers is a very specific James Bond parody, but changing him to this swinging hippie guy, which is such a weird choice, and I have to love it for that reason. I am gonna put it in B, and I'm gonna put it, no, I'm gonna put it in A, at the end of A.

Speaker 1:
[17:02] Interesting. I think they're all good films. It's just, I don't feel like each subsequent film adds anything. I don't think, if we look at impact on the market, it didn't have an impact. There weren't further films like it.

Speaker 2:
[17:15] No, you're right about that.

Speaker 1:
[17:16] It was the end of an era, rather than the beginning of era. It did take the Zucker, Zucker, Abrams, or is it Abrams, Abrams, Zucker, the airplane police squad formula, and it didn't do that. It did a new type of parody. I'll agree with you that it did that. But each film just has the same jokes, but they just do something different with them, and they're still funny. It's not like it's bad because, but they just kind of do the same jokes over and over again. They just maybe escalate them a little bit.

Speaker 2:
[17:42] I think you've talked me into a B. Let's put this in B, but let's put it in between Matrix and Iron Man.

Speaker 1:
[17:48] Okay. Yeah, if you would put Austin Powers above the Nolan Batman trilogy, then that would be bold. That's insane.

Speaker 3:
[17:57] Two second question. I'm curious, since we're talking spy comedies, does Skyfall Spectre No Time to Die count as a trilogy? No. Or does Quantum and Casino pull it down to a five?

Speaker 1:
[18:05] Yeah, you can't make a cohesive trilogy out of those films.

Speaker 3:
[18:08] Okay.

Speaker 2:
[18:08] Yeah, especially because Quantum is such a direct sequel to Casino Royale.

Speaker 3:
[18:15] Yeah, it just doesn't work.

Speaker 2:
[18:15] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[18:16] There's just no way to make a trilogy out of those.

Speaker 2:
[18:18] Right.

Speaker 1:
[18:18] We didn't put on the Mission Impossible movies.

Speaker 3:
[18:20] Yes, for a purpose.

Speaker 1:
[18:21] For a purpose, right? Like some of these that have another one, you can make a cohesive trilogy out of them, either through, there was a lot of time before the fourth one, or there's something the first three are doing, that the later ones don't. Like, Born really does feel like a trilogy, even though there's lots more to go.

Speaker 2:
[18:36] Well, it's a very solid trilogy with a good conclusion.

Speaker 1:
[18:40] Yes. And then they add.

Speaker 2:
[18:40] And then they made two more movies.

Speaker 3:
[18:42] Same with Toy Story.

Speaker 2:
[18:43] Whereas, like, Mission Impossible, they're just a bunch of movies in a series.

Speaker 3:
[18:49] All right. The Blade trilogy.

Speaker 1:
[18:51] Blade.

Speaker 2:
[18:51] Blade.

Speaker 1:
[18:52] I know you don't like these as much as I do.

Speaker 2:
[18:54] Well, I don't know if that's true.

Speaker 1:
[18:56] Okay.

Speaker 2:
[18:57] Because I really love Blade. And I really love Blade 2.

Speaker 1:
[19:03] Okay.

Speaker 2:
[19:04] And Blade 3 is really funny. It's, I don't think it's a good Blade movie, but it's so funny.

Speaker 1:
[19:09] It is. That's the one where he won't wake up, right?

Speaker 2:
[19:11] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[19:12] Where he won't open his eyes. Oh, yes.

Speaker 2:
[19:13] Where they see a lot in Jessica Beale and Ryan Reynolds. And we're like, here, we'll make a movie about you. And Blade is in it.

Speaker 1:
[19:20] Yeah. It's hilarious. Three is bad movie, fun. Camp, like, and things. I mean, but also we do owe a lot to the Blade trilogy. Like I don't think we'd have gotten X-Men or Spider-Man if Blade hadn't been a successful.

Speaker 2:
[19:35] I do think Blade is the first of the modern superhero movies. And it took a while and it took some other entries before superheroes took over everything.

Speaker 1:
[19:45] You wouldn't put the Batman ones? That's where I'd put the modern superheroes.

Speaker 2:
[19:48] I don't know if we can call those modern because they started coming out in the 80s.

Speaker 1:
[19:52] Yeah, that's modern to me.

Speaker 2:
[19:54] That was 40 years ago.

Speaker 1:
[19:56] Yeah, but these started coming out in the 90s. They're five years later.

Speaker 2:
[20:01] Well, okay, that's a good...

Speaker 1:
[20:02] You could even make an argument for Christopher V Superman being the first modern one.

Speaker 2:
[20:06] Really?

Speaker 1:
[20:07] Because you've got the old black and white serial. But yeah, that's the advent of the modern blockbuster. Star Wars is a modern film. I think the dividing line is the 70s.

Speaker 2:
[20:17] I see them as there were some superhero movies and then Blade made people take superheroes seriously in a way they hadn't before.

Speaker 1:
[20:29] I think they did that on Batman, Tim Burton's Batman, huge blockbuster, made more than Blade did, launched multiple careers. So maybe that's a different discussion. Where do we actually put Blade? Quality-wise, quality-wise of the films, without rose-colored glasses?

Speaker 2:
[20:51] I mean, two is Guillermo del Toro going ham with horror.

Speaker 1:
[20:56] Yes.

Speaker 2:
[20:56] And it is a high-quality movie.

Speaker 1:
[20:58] Okay, it is.

Speaker 2:
[20:59] But one is campy and three is more campy.

Speaker 1:
[21:02] Yeah. I have to put it in a fond C.

Speaker 3:
[21:07] Okay.

Speaker 1:
[21:08] I have to put it in a fond. I mean, I have Terminator in C, come on.

Speaker 2:
[21:11] Yeah, okay, okay.

Speaker 3:
[21:12] That's a good point.

Speaker 1:
[21:13] I have Terminator as a trilogy in C, Blade. Like the third movie is not, yeah. I have to put Blade in C. But it's a really fond C, Internet. I'm very fond of it.

Speaker 2:
[21:22] Yeah, here's the thing. I'm gonna put it in C as well. And I want you to know that How to Train Your Dragon and Jurassic Park are better movies than anything in the Blade trilogy. But as a trilogy, Blade beats them and goes just below Ocean's Eleven.

Speaker 3:
[21:41] Wow, okay.

Speaker 1:
[21:42] I'll move Blade above JJ Abrams' Star Trek. Again, not in quality of the JJ... Even the weak JJ's film is probably... Well, the good Blade film is...

Speaker 2:
[21:52] Yeah, Blade 2 is... Even Blade 3, I think is more enjoyable than Star Trek 2.

Speaker 1:
[22:02] Yeah, agreed.

Speaker 3:
[22:03] Okay.

Speaker 1:
[22:04] But it's that camp that's doing it. All right.

Speaker 3:
[22:07] The animated Cars trilogy.

Speaker 2:
[22:11] One good movie, one boring movie, and then Cars 2, which is my favorite of the three.

Speaker 1:
[22:19] Three is boring to you?

Speaker 2:
[22:20] Three is so boring.

Speaker 1:
[22:21] Wow. I thought three was a good movie.

Speaker 2:
[22:23] I really didn't like three.

Speaker 1:
[22:25] Weird, because three is strong. Three is the, I think, objectively strongest one of the trilogy.

Speaker 3:
[22:29] Over one?

Speaker 2:
[22:30] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[22:31] One is... So here's... Let's talk about this.

Speaker 3:
[22:34] Okay.

Speaker 1:
[22:34] One is a fantastic movie for a six-year-old, right?

Speaker 3:
[22:40] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[22:40] Because the six-year-old thinks that they want to just watch a car racing all the time, but really, they would get bored of that. And so going to the small town and having fun hijinks with Nader and learning the heartwarming lesson that having friends is more important than winning races, it's a great message for a six-year-old. The ending of Cars is legit spectacular for anyone. Watching Lightning McQueen slow down and go save and push, great, but most of the movie is boring for an adult, just straight up boring. The action scenes are not that interesting for an adult and watching him go cow tipping is not interesting for an adult. So Cars is this movie that as an adult, I can appreciate for my kids, but it's not like the previous, every other movie that Pixar had made. The first one that was only for kids for me, but it is like a 10 out of 10 for kids. It's just like a six out of 10 for me.

Speaker 3:
[23:35] Okay.

Speaker 2:
[23:36] I think that's fair.

Speaker 3:
[23:37] That's a fair, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[23:38] Two is better for adults, but way worse for kids. The reason I turned against two, as we've talked about is it made my kids cry.

Speaker 2:
[23:46] Right.

Speaker 1:
[23:46] So if you're going to make one as the, this is the Pixar series for your six-year-old, making one that I can't take my six-year-old to, is a terrible idea.

Speaker 3:
[23:54] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[23:55] Three is objectively, I think, the strongest movie.

Speaker 2:
[23:58] But is Three good for kids?

Speaker 1:
[24:00] But it's not.

Speaker 2:
[24:00] Because my kids didn't get into it because the entire emotional arc is an old man at the end of his life passing the torch to a younger racer.

Speaker 1:
[24:09] But they gave that up in Two. And so now it's like, we're just making a Pixar film. And by then, my kids are old enough that maybe watching Lightning McQueen have a different sort of arc, I have to go to a different stage of life. I think Three is a good movie. It is, if you're going to do, the hero retires and gets replaced by a younger person, Three is an example of how to do it well.

Speaker 2:
[24:29] Where is- I will accept that argument. I want to be clear that I think Two is my favorite one. It is not a good movie. It is a ridiculous and stupid movie.

Speaker 1:
[24:40] Right.

Speaker 2:
[24:40] But it is the one of the three that showed me cool things I hadn't seen before, and that felt like it was respecting my time, in that there was never a cow tipping scene, there was never a sad old car scene.

Speaker 3:
[24:55] I don't think Mater is funny either.

Speaker 1:
[24:56] I don't think Mater is funny. Also, target audience.

Speaker 2:
[24:57] I don't think he's funny.

Speaker 1:
[24:59] I'll just go watch The Man Who Knew Too Little. They just made a worse version of a great film.

Speaker 2:
[25:04] Well, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[25:05] Right? And so Cars, for me, has to go in D, highest of the D.

Speaker 3:
[25:11] Okay.

Speaker 1:
[25:12] Ooh, the third movie is good, but the series does not know what it wants to be.

Speaker 3:
[25:16] No, it is not a good trilogy.

Speaker 1:
[25:17] Three is a better movie than anything in D, but the trilogy is a D. It has no idea what it wants to do. It has one of the worst, like, it was the first Pixar film, the first one, that people went to and said, Oh, it's all right. That's the end of an era, right? Pixar was hit, hit, hit, hit, hit. Cars?

Speaker 2:
[25:38] Well, and a lot of it is just John Lasseter is a car guy.

Speaker 1:
[25:41] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[25:41] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[25:41] And so most of Cars 1 was, look how pretty these cars are.

Speaker 3:
[25:46] Yep.

Speaker 2:
[25:47] And that does nothing for me. I'm going to put it in D as well, but I'm not sure where. Does it go above or below Ant-Man?

Speaker 3:
[25:54] Oh, I think it's below personally, but this is your list.

Speaker 1:
[25:59] Come on, Dan.

Speaker 2:
[26:00] I'm going to put it above Ant-Man.

Speaker 3:
[26:02] Above Ant-Man.

Speaker 1:
[26:02] Above Ant-Man.

Speaker 3:
[26:04] All right. Next one, the Dollar's Trilogy. Will you guys say what the Dollar's Trilogy is?

Speaker 2:
[26:09] Dollar's Trilogy is Spaghetti Westerns.

Speaker 3:
[26:11] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[26:12] With Clint Eastwood. It is a fistful of dollars, a few dollars more, and the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Speaker 3:
[26:18] Yep.

Speaker 2:
[26:19] They are. What?

Speaker 1:
[26:22] The third one's the best.

Speaker 2:
[26:23] The third one is the best.

Speaker 3:
[26:24] Oh, there you go.

Speaker 2:
[26:25] Does that mean you put it in S?

Speaker 1:
[26:27] I don't know if I'll put it in S, but the third one's the best. It's the first time.

Speaker 2:
[26:31] The first time you've had one.

Speaker 1:
[26:32] That I've had one.

Speaker 2:
[26:33] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[26:34] That the third one's the best.

Speaker 2:
[26:35] The third one is definitely the best.

Speaker 3:
[26:36] Wow, yeah. Wow.

Speaker 2:
[26:38] I'm gonna put it in A. Okay.

Speaker 1:
[26:39] I'll put it in A also.

Speaker 2:
[26:41] And I think that I'm gonna put it at the top of A.

Speaker 1:
[26:44] I'm not putting it at the top of A. I will put it above Pirates, but not above Iron Man.

Speaker 3:
[26:52] Okay. So.

Speaker 2:
[26:53] Yeah. So to be clear to those who don't have the graphic, I have just placed the Dollars trilogy above the Godfather trilogy.

Speaker 3:
[27:01] Yep. Which I was gonna say, you called it out before I could, which is kind of crazy.

Speaker 2:
[27:05] But you know what? I am a Westerns guy. I love Westerns. The Dollars trilogy aren't even my favorite Westerns. But they are empirically wonderful movies. And Sergio León is a fantastic director, and watching what he does with the Dollars trilogy is just so good. What's my favorite Western?

Speaker 1:
[27:27] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[27:28] It is a real close tie. I love Searchers with John Wayne. I love Unforgiven with Clint Eastwood. And I would also put the modern 310 to Yuma with Russell Crowe and Christian Bale.

Speaker 1:
[27:43] I haven't seen that one, so I'll put that on my list.

Speaker 3:
[27:46] Brandon, you've got to watch 310 to Yuma just so we can talk about it on the podcast. It's amazing.

Speaker 1:
[27:50] I haven't seen them after the classic ones, right? I've seen the Unforgiven, which I think is great. I've seen, what's it called, Tombstone? I've seen some of these ones that came out in the-

Speaker 2:
[27:58] I need to rewatch Tombstone because I worry I'm undervaluing it.

Speaker 1:
[28:02] All right, we don't have time there. Okay, Knives Out trilogy.

Speaker 2:
[28:06] As a trilogy, I mean, there is not a cohesive story from one to the other.

Speaker 1:
[28:10] No, there is not.

Speaker 2:
[28:10] No, there are just three movies about the same character.

Speaker 1:
[28:13] Third one is the best.

Speaker 2:
[28:15] Third one is the best. Wake Up Deadman is the best. I wish that it had had more humor in it. I missed all of the humor that was in the first two.

Speaker 1:
[28:25] But we got all the humor in the second one. It just got sucked into the second one because the second one is a comedy. I think they're each doing something different. Because the first one has that cool structure, right? Structurally very interesting. It's a cat and mouse smashed in the middle of a traditional mystery. Second one is a straight up comedy. It's not supposed to be taken as seriously. It's funny. The characters are funny. Third one is just, hey, we're going to make an Agatha Christie style murder mystery. We're just going to do the best job we possibly can.

Speaker 2:
[28:52] And one of the best mystery movies I have ever seen.

Speaker 1:
[28:55] S tier.

Speaker 2:
[28:56] S tier. I'll put it, oh.

Speaker 1:
[29:00] S tier. Ryan Johnson, you did it.

Speaker 2:
[29:02] I'm going to put it in S as well. I don't think that Glass Onion deserves to be an S tier, but I do think the other two are good enough to carry Glass Onion.

Speaker 1:
[29:11] All three, all of the ones in S tier have a weaker movie. Right? Except Lord of the Rings.

Speaker 2:
[29:17] I don't think Lord of the Rings does, and I don't think Indiana Jones.

Speaker 1:
[29:20] And Star Wars. Okay, so we've got three S pluses.

Speaker 2:
[29:22] I've got the Bourne movies up there. I don't think they've got a weaker movie.

Speaker 1:
[29:25] So, but, all right, Knives Out goes in there. I'm gonna put it above Toy Story. I'm gonna put it right below Godfather.

Speaker 2:
[29:32] Same thing, I'm gonna put it above Toy Story and below Bourne.

Speaker 3:
[29:34] Okay.

Speaker 1:
[29:35] Yep.

Speaker 2:
[29:36] No, I'm gonna put it above Bourne, sorry.

Speaker 3:
[29:38] All right.

Speaker 1:
[29:39] Can we celebrate Ryan Johnson having a film in our S tier?

Speaker 2:
[29:44] And having a film in F?

Speaker 1:
[29:46] And having the only film for me in F that he has managed to simultaneously be with Spielberg? And with Godfather?

Speaker 3:
[29:59] Oh, shoot.

Speaker 1:
[30:01] I was gonna say Scorsese, but it's Coppola. With Coppola and Spielberg and Lucas for making trilogies, and he gets to be in F as well. That's an accomplishment. That's actually, I want to say that in a way that's not silly. The reason his film in Star Wars was in F because he's swaying for the fences. And when you swing for the fences, you're more likely to get an F than you are a C. And so I have come to very much appreciate the film of his that I hate for him swinging for the fences.

Speaker 2:
[30:30] Exactly. All right, now our next one, this is the Mad Max trilogy, which does not include Fury Road, which is the best one of the three. But all three of the originals are fantastic.

Speaker 1:
[30:44] It does include Road Warrior, which is a completely different film from Thunderdome.

Speaker 2:
[30:49] All three. Mad Max is different from Road Warrior, is different from Thunderdome.

Speaker 1:
[30:54] Oh, I thought Mad Max, no, you're right. Mad Max is just the name of the first one. Road Warrior is the set. In my head, I was thinking Mad Max is the Road Warrior, but no. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[31:03] I'm gonna put these in S. I love Mad Max so much.

Speaker 1:
[31:08] I can't in good conscience. They are goofy. They are so cute.

Speaker 2:
[31:11] Three is incredibly comic. The first one is incredibly sad. It is post-apocalyptic, but the apocalypse was basically we ran out of resources. And so society is still there. It's just slowly dying. Yeah. And everyone's depressed all the time. I love it.

Speaker 1:
[31:30] Yeah, it's very you.

Speaker 2:
[31:31] I love all three of these. Maybe I'm spiritually including Fury Road in this trilogy.

Speaker 1:
[31:36] I'm going B.

Speaker 3:
[31:37] B? Yeah. Okay.

Speaker 2:
[31:39] You don't love Thunderdome as much as I do?

Speaker 1:
[31:40] Thunderdome is so campy. So I've got a weird relationship with these early epic science fiction fantasy films like Beyond Thunderdome, where as a kid, I watched them and I wanted Lord of the Rings trilogy. And instead I got something that didn't have the budget. And so had to lean in to Lord Humongous instead. And there's a part of my heart that broke when I watched these movies making fun of themselves because they couldn't be cool. They had to be camp. And there's a part of me that I recognize, but then I watched, and I think maybe if I hadn't watched Fury Road, it would be higher, but then I watched Fury Road and I say, if he had been able to do that, he would have in all three, particularly the second and third one, he would have done that. And the camp transcends and becomes just incredible because the special effects can live up to it and they don't have to undercut themselves and act silly.

Speaker 2:
[32:38] See, and I look at all of them as Fury Road. He was making the movie he wanted to make with the budget he had at the time. And for me, they all work really well. I don't even think Thunderdome is making fun of itself.

Speaker 1:
[32:52] Okay.

Speaker 2:
[32:52] I think it is self-indulgent in its silliness.

Speaker 1:
[32:56] But so is Fury Road.

Speaker 2:
[32:57] But the world building that Miller does is just so cool to me.

Speaker 1:
[33:04] It didn't work for me the way I wanted to till Fury Road. And so I have to put it in B.

Speaker 2:
[33:08] Okay. That is fair.

Speaker 1:
[33:09] But it can go above Austin Powers and Ant-Man.

Speaker 3:
[33:12] All righty.

Speaker 1:
[33:12] Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[33:14] Is bottom of your list Mad Max for us?

Speaker 2:
[33:16] Mad Max. Yeah, I'm happy with it being bottom of S.

Speaker 3:
[33:21] All right.

Speaker 1:
[33:22] X-Men. You got two left. X-Men trilogy.

Speaker 3:
[33:24] This is the Fox X-Men trilogy.

Speaker 2:
[33:25] This is the original Bryan Singer's.

Speaker 1:
[33:27] Yep. How much of a knock does it take by being made by Bryan Singer? By knowing it was behind the scenes, creepiness.

Speaker 2:
[33:37] Yeah. It gave us Hugh Jackman Wolverine.

Speaker 1:
[33:40] Did.

Speaker 2:
[33:41] As a last-minute replacement. It gave us Patrick Stewart. I mean, the casting I think across the board is phenomenal. Three is bad. Two is incredible and one is still very good.

Speaker 1:
[33:54] It is. Except for one really bad line.

Speaker 2:
[33:58] That's such a good line. I don't know what you're talking about. Everyone knows which line we're talking about, so we're not going to say it. I think that is one of the most badass lines. I love it. I think that even later, like Days of Future Past is a phenomenal one that's not part of this trilogy. I still think X2 is better.

Speaker 1:
[34:17] Yeah, it is.

Speaker 2:
[34:18] I'm going to, I feel like they should be in B.

Speaker 1:
[34:23] Three is so bad that I have to put it in B.

Speaker 2:
[34:26] I'm going to put it in B and I'm going to put it just below Tobey Maguire's Spider-Man.

Speaker 1:
[34:32] Okay, I'm going to put it above Tobey Maguire's Spider-Man.

Speaker 2:
[34:35] That seems very fair.

Speaker 1:
[34:37] Three for both of them is pretty bad. X-Men's three is worse, but I honestly think X2 is better than Spider-Man 2. I mean, it just comes down to that casting. Like Spider-Man 2 is an excellent film with a lead that just doesn't work as Spider-Man and a Mary Jane that doesn't work as a Mary Jane. In X2, you have every character cast so wonderfully.

Speaker 2:
[34:57] Yeah, they squandered Marsden as Cyclops.

Speaker 1:
[35:01] They did.

Speaker 2:
[35:02] He was well cast, but poorly written.

Speaker 3:
[35:04] Yeah. All right, last but not least, the Die Hard trilogy.

Speaker 2:
[35:08] Die Hard. Man, all three of these are bangers.

Speaker 1:
[35:12] They are bangers. One is on a level completely different from the others.

Speaker 2:
[35:17] Because of its impact on the industry?

Speaker 1:
[35:22] Also because I think the script is so tight. I've often said I think Die Hard is the best written script. Yeah, I've ever read.

Speaker 2:
[35:28] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[35:28] I don't think this is a better script.

Speaker 2:
[35:30] I want to put Die Hard in S, should I? Let me look at S. Yes.

Speaker 1:
[35:36] Okay.

Speaker 2:
[35:36] I'm going to put it in S. I'm going to put it just above Mad Max.

Speaker 1:
[35:41] I am not. I'm going to put it at the top of A.

Speaker 3:
[35:44] Top of A.

Speaker 1:
[35:45] Top of A. Die Hard itself is one of the best scripts ever. Everyone in A has at least an excellent film and no really bad films. That feels right to me. S is the one where it's either got three great films or two great films and a half of a great film. Die Hard, I think that you get diminishing returns. They get weaker and weaker.

Speaker 2:
[36:04] I think three is better than two.

Speaker 1:
[36:06] That's defensible, yeah. But two and three are on the same level, but neither of them are great.

Speaker 2:
[36:11] I think they're both great.

Speaker 1:
[36:13] Do you? Okay, well, that explains why it's an S for you, but I think it's fine to have an A. Aliens, if three weren't terrible, not terrible, nothing in S has a terrible movie, and I think that's gotta be the metric. That's your criteria, huh? And nothing in S has a bad movie, or even a, they can have weaker than the others, but it's not significantly weak. Like I think Godfather III by itself is better than most of the things on the board. So I'm pleased with my S and I'm pleased with my A. The Bs are the ones that I'm uncertain on, right? My Bs I could totally see Born being higher. I would have to watch them again. If I watched them again, I bet Born would go up to A for me. I feel bad about Tobey Maguire's trilogy. Yeah, I feel good about all of this. This is good for me.

Speaker 3:
[36:59] Okay.

Speaker 2:
[37:01] Looking at them, I'm pretty happy with everything. I think it's very telling that most of the superheroes are in B for me, with the one exception of Captain America trilogy. I worry that I've placed Planet of the Apes too high, but I don't know if I have, because I love those movies. But I don't love any of them more than I love Batman Begins, Dark Knight, Spider-Man 2.

Speaker 1:
[37:25] One series that was just a solid trilogy that didn't have a weak thing, because The Future 2 is weak, Captain America, first one is a bit weak, Godfather, the third one, is just a little bit weaker. Planet of the Apes, they're just all good.

Speaker 2:
[37:39] Yeah, they are. And more people should watch them. Okay, I'm going to be happy with my list.

Speaker 1:
[37:46] All right, Internet, now it's time to lay into us.

Speaker 3:
[37:48] Yep, we will leave it there.

Speaker 1:
[37:50] What trilogies we skipped? Let us know what we missed also. There's several notable ones that we haven't seen.

Speaker 2:
[37:56] Also, we obviously have focused very heavily on Specfic script. So like, there's three, meet the Fokkers, there's three, we don't care about those.

Speaker 1:
[38:06] Yeah. How's that been?