The Adventures Of Tintin (w/ Daniel Howat)

Eli (00:01.645)
Hello and welcome to the establishing shot, a podcast where we do deep dives and two directors and their formographies. I am your host Eli price and we are here on episode 98. I think unless another episode that I'm hoping you do before this falls through, then this will probably jump back to like 96, but as of now it's 98.

Speaking into the future if we get there and it's actually 96 just ignore this, you know, it's it's just part of the podcasting fun but I I'm excited to get into This next really stretch of Steven Spielberg's career. We we wrapped up the the 2010s a few weeks ago and Yeah, we're jumping in Well the 2000s now we're jumping into the 2010s with the adventures of tintin so

I'm excited to jump into that and get rolling on this kind of later section of Spielberg's career. And to help me do that, I have a new guest joining me. His name is Daniel Howitt coming to us from Las Vegas, the great city of lights. And yeah, Daniel, I'm excited to have you on.

Daniel Howat (01:23.01)
Yeah man, thanks for having me. Glad to be here, excited to talk about, you know, a director I think more people need to learn about, you know. An up and comer, we'll see what happens with his career, you know.

Eli (01:30.02)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, you know, we'll see where it goes. He's had he's had a few good good ones here and there, you Man Yeah, know you say that but I feel like you know each generation kind of does discover him like I was listening to a podcast another film podcast and they had some younger people on and they had mentioned like his West Side story and loving that and so

Daniel Howat (01:39.336)
People will discover him soon, I think, yeah.

Eli (02:02.232)
Yeah, I feel like each generation kind of has their discoveries of Ul Spielberg.

Daniel Howat (02:10.381)
Especially as Spielberg does have so many films that are ubiquitous that anybody in their 20s or older knows like Jaws and E.T. and stuff like that. But he does have so many films that don't get talked about, don't get revisited that people do have to discover. I think of like Empire of the Sun or I mean that's a good version. People don't necessarily need to discover 1941 but you know.

Eli (02:16.004)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (02:26.841)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (02:31.054)
Yeah.

Eli (02:36.355)
No.

Daniel Howat (02:38.475)
Yeah, think, I mean, you are right. And I do kind of think we'll dive into it later. I do kind of feel like Tintin will fall into that category as well of, you know, films that just people don't talk about much from Spielberg very often.

Eli (02:45.72)
Hmm.

Eli (02:50.594)
Yeah, yeah and It's funny you mentioned that because like empire of the sun was a blind spot for me coming in and that's been one of the that's been one of my favorite discoveries that and munich are probably my two favorite discoveries two really fantastic movies and It's

Daniel Howat (02:57.953)
Hmm.

Daniel Howat (03:07.167)
I haven't watched Munich in forever. I've been meaning to. Did you see September 5 last year? So good. it's been meaning to make me rewatch Munich and I just haven't gotten around to it.

Eli (03:13.834)
I yeah. It was very good, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, it was, it was good. That episode actually released that were, you know, peek behind the curtain that released today. so yeah, go back and listen to that one. Cause that's a, it's actually like still very relevant, extremely relevant. So, yeah. And then 1941, yeah, that was a blind spot that I would have been okay with staying a blind spot. but yeah, it was fun to talk about,

Daniel Howat (03:27.587)
Hey, there you go.

Yeah.

Daniel Howat (03:34.413)
Sure, bet. Yeah.

Daniel Howat (03:42.477)
Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Eli (03:48.555)
Yeah, so Daniel is a part of the Next Best Picture, which from my limited understanding, y'all do kind of like, it's like an online publication basically and movie reviews. Do y'all do, y'all don't do TV or do y'all? Okay. Movies, TV, great.

Daniel Howat (04:02.989)
Mm-hmm.

Daniel Howat (04:08.417)
We do, yeah, we do. Yep, movies, TV. So yeah, Next Best Picture is, yeah, we do reviews, journalism, know, blogs, those sorts of things, largely centered on awards, on film and TV awards. So we really dive into Oscar season and cover the film industry from that angle and highlighting, you know, especially trying to highlight

Eli (04:17.603)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (04:27.726)
Mm-hmm.

Daniel Howat (04:36.083)
know, underseen films and films that need the awards push to get out, which is why we love awards in the first place. So, yeah, right now our Emmy predictions are live. So we're deep in the heart of Emmy season. And then every fall, of course, we're diving into Oscar season as well. So, yeah.

Eli (04:41.731)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (04:52.6)
Yeah, yeah, that's tune in here and there when I see like a Movie that I I want to hear other people talk about, know come up But I do one that I always tune into is y'all's like Oscar predictions episode, which is usually really long But

Daniel Howat (05:10.455)
Yeah, Yes, too long. Yes. Yeah, I think we cracked five hours this year. I can't remember how long it was. It's way too long.

Eli (05:17.72)
Man, yeah. But I listen to it just because, you know, I'm trying to do, cause like I'm not in the industry per se. So like, I don't have access to a lot of movies that like some, some of the things that are harder for me to get to. And so I'm like, well, if I'm going to like, if I'm going to do my own predictions on an episode, need to get some other insights. So

Daniel Howat (05:42.642)
Yeah, we really pride ourselves on our Oscar predictions and Emmy predictions as well, but especially we started on the film side. So Emmy predictions is still growing. yeah, we really do think our coverage is some of the best. We really, that's why our Oscar episodes are so long, because we dig into every nook and cranny of the year and try to analyze what's going to win, what's a contender, all those sorts of things.

Eli (05:52.43)
Right.

Eli (06:05.667)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (06:11.32)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Since I started doing, doing all this, I've really started to really enjoy like Oscar season and the anticipation and, you know, it's really fun. so yeah, yeah, definitely go check out nextbex picture. You can just pop it in your Google machine and it'll come up. so the

Daniel Howat (06:31.917)
We're everywhere, we're everywhere. Yeah, I'm largely, you know, I contribute with Oscar predictions, but largely, and some reviews, but largely interviews is my thing. So that's where you'll see a lot of my contributions is, you know, talking to people, talking about movies and TV, and about the craft that they make.

Eli (06:38.147)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (06:48.962)
Yeah. Yeah, that's great. yeah, so go check it out. Go check out the website, their podcast. you can find that everywhere. And so, yeah, it's, it's, it's always fun to have other, other movie podcast people on here cause get to get to plug, their shows, which usually they're pretty good. You know, there's a lot of good movie podcasts out there. but,

Daniel Howat (07:12.011)
That's right, that's right.

Eli (07:15.592)
One thing I do always love to ask my guests is about their first experience with the director we're covering. So Daniel, do you remember your first experience with Spielberg?

Daniel Howat (07:27.949)
I don't, I was thinking about this a lot today. I couldn't pinpoint my first memory of a Spielberg movie or when I first heard who Steven Spielberg was. I can't remember that, but I do have memories of growing up knowing who, like I feel like I always knew who Steven Spielberg was. I don't know when that happened, but I feel like I did, you know? And I just always knew of him as like one of the greatest directors to ever live, even if I didn't know what that.

Eli (07:30.05)
Yeah.

Eli (07:35.202)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (07:45.08)
Yeah. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Daniel Howat (07:56.264)
mentor if it was true or anything like that. I think it is true. so I was thinking about those memories. I, you know, I definitely grew up watching E.T., Hook, know, Indiana Jones. I grew up watching. So I definitely have a lot of memories of those films. And then later on, like getting in high school and, you know, watching, you know, the movies I wasn't allowed to watch earlier, Saving Private Ryan and Schindler's List and Jaws even. I remember sort of developing a fondness

Eli (08:06.68)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (08:19.854)
Sure.

Daniel Howat (08:26.217)
in high school for the rest of his filmography that I hadn't seen. But I do have a specific memory. Well, I say specific and I can't I don't know when it was some some time in childhood of reading like a kid's biography of Steven Spielberg. And and there was there's that, you know, mostly true story like legend of him.

Eli (08:26.958)
Hmm.

Eli (08:41.476)
Hmm.

Daniel Howat (08:50.977)
you know, breaking into the universal lot and making an office for himself. So I have a memory of learning that story and thinking, man, how cool. Like, wow, this guy just really made it happen. So, yeah, that was kind of like my those were my early memories. And then as an adult, just like as I've gotten deeper into the industry and like learning and witnessing the impact that he's had all of these years in so many different ways, not just the films that he's made.

as a director, but the films he's made as a producer and what he's done with DreamWorks and other studios and just all around his impact is pretty remarkable. seeing the impact he's still having, I know spoilers for the rest of this series, but just seeing all the films even over the past decade.

Eli (09:23.097)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (09:27.416)
Yeah.

Eli (09:32.184)
Yeah.

Eli (09:37.348)
Mm-hmm.

Daniel Howat (09:45.248)
you know, that he's made and the variety of films that he's making still today, you know, in the last 10 years, you still have as wide variety as, you know, Ready Player One, Bridge of Spies, Tin Tin, Lincoln, like it's such a wide variety. Exactly. BFG, you know, such a wide variety of movies. It's it's wild. But but yeah, I was thinking about what is my favorite like Spielberg memory?

Eli (09:45.838)
Yeah.

Eli (09:50.488)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (09:58.211)
Yeah. The post. BFG.

Eli (10:07.416)
Yeah.

Eli (10:14.99)
Mm-hmm.

Daniel Howat (10:15.469)
And I think one of my, one of the greatest memories of my life in terms of on the film side of things was I got to attend, I was at AFI Fest in 2022. 2022? Yeah, 2022. And I attended the the US premiere of the Fableman's at the Chinese theater with Spielberg and the cast, John Williams, all of them in attendance. Just seeing

Eli (10:27.428)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (10:35.843)
yeah.

Eli (10:40.132)
Hmm.

Daniel Howat (10:44.341)
that movie in that place at that time, you know, just felt really, really special. so that's one of that is easily my favorite Spielberg memory. then, you know, like I said, I do a lot of interviews and getting I've never interviewed Spielberg, I wish. But getting to interview, I did interviews for the fabled ones. So I did interview, you know, the legendary Rick Carter, his production designer and Mark Powell, who did the costumes on the fabled man's and

Eli (10:48.728)
Yeah.

Eli (10:52.067)
Hmm.

Eli (11:00.514)
Yeah.

Eli (11:08.408)
Hmm. Yeah.

Eli (11:12.953)
Yeah.

Daniel Howat (11:13.495)
So getting to speak, getting to have some sort of like touch to his legacy in some tiny way has just been really, really incredible. So over all these years, it's really deepened my love of Spielberg. Like even going from a kid who didn't know what it meant for him to be the quote unquote greatest director of all time and all these decades later, and it's just still that magic of who Spielberg is hasn't.

Eli (11:29.774)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (11:35.619)
Mm-hmm.

Daniel Howat (11:42.583)
hasn't left me at all, you know? yeah, so that was a long-winded answer to a very simple question, but those are like, that's my dump on what I think of Spielberg and what impact he's had in my world, you know?

Eli (11:43.822)
Yeah.

Eli (11:50.596)
No, I love it.

Eli (11:55.405)
No, and I love that because it's, it really is a, like a summation of what's been great going through this very long series. and just seeing the impact he's had over his career. And, you know, like we were talking about earlier, just like generation after generation kind of like rediscovers him, maybe from his past films or the new ones he's putting out. and he just keeps.

Daniel Howat (12:06.561)
Yeah, yeah.

Eli (12:25.07)
pumping them out like there's the there's talks of a UFO film coming down the line and I'm like I'm ready for it.

Daniel Howat (12:33.101)
Yeah, you know, I was today we're speaking the day after I wrapped up coverage of CinemaCon, which is where all the studio heads get to showcase things to to exhibitors and theater owners. And so in the Universal presentation, they were teasing. didn't show us anything from his new film, but they were talking about Spielberg is back next summer and they were describing his new film as a return to form for his blockbuster sci fi movie making. So.

Eli (12:41.346)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (12:57.828)
Mm.

Eli (13:01.273)
Yeah.

Daniel Howat (13:01.911)
So yeah, even now today, he's still cranking out films in the classic mold that he created all those years ago.

Eli (13:09.678)
Yeah. Yeah. And you can see his impact everywhere. Like, I remember I went and saw Jordan Peele's, Nope. And people were like, how was it? And I was like, it was like, it was like jaws in the sky. And I mean that in the best way possible, like, you know, it's like, you could see Spielberg's imprint, like all over that thing. Like, you know, even just even to like, like pulling, like pushing into like a low angle closeup of,

Daniel Howat (13:23.693)
100 % Yeah 100 %

Eli (13:39.511)
of whatever character is just like, so Steven Spielberg and you know, that was all in Jordan Pilsenope. And so yeah, just his impact is just, it's just everywhere, whether like in the filmmaking side or just like even just the film industry side of breaking through. mean, just even thinking about like him and Lucas kind of together basically just like saying, no, we were.

We're directors, y'all can give us, we don't need to take a salary, but y'all are gonna give us a portion of the money that we know this movie's gonna make, so. Yeah.

Daniel Howat (14:16.427)
Yeah, yeah, the film brat era is just so... I never get tired of learning about that era of film, really.

Eli (14:22.552)
Yeah. Yeah, but I mean, yeah, Spielberg legendary career. We are, we're going to transition into talking about 10 10 because this is really like, this sort of is a transition film into the next kind of like portion of his career. He's, he likes to, I feel like he likes to wrap up parts of his career with Indiana Jones movies.

And so he, you know, he kind of wrapped up the eighties with, with, glass crusade. He wrapped up the two thousands with crystal school and yeah, he, kicks off the next decade with the adventures of 10 10. and so, I like to start at the beginning, you know, as the song says, it's a very good place to start. and so, George.

Remy was born in 1907 and his pen name that people know him by is Ergé and yeah, he he started writing 1010 comics in a Belgian newspaper in 1929 and So this is this these 1010 stories go way back 1929 so, you know, we're coming up on

I guess a century of 1010. maybe they'll re-release this in theaters for the anniversary, which would be cool. Because even though this isn't my favorite Spielberg, I feel like it would be cool to see in theaters, like in 3D. Because I didn't. I was in college when this came out, and it probably just wasn't even on my radar. When I was in college, was like, what's the next?

Daniel Howat (16:03.223)
Did you not see it when it came out?

Daniel Howat (16:09.911)
Yeah.

Eli (16:14.966)
Marvel Midnight Premiere, you know, and so So that's that's what I was doing in 2011 And either that or like the those last couple harry potter movies, I guess So those were those were like the movies I was going to see but But yeah, so yeah, it goes way back. He one of the funny things that I learned was that ten ten which actually in

Daniel Howat (16:17.633)
Sure, Yeah.

Hahaha

Daniel Howat (16:28.47)
Yeah, absolutely.

Eli (16:44.898)
in the French is like, tantalum, which I'm not gonna attempt to say. Y'all do not want to hear that. Me tried to make that vowel that we don't have the rest of the episode. So we're gonna just stick with Tintin, but it was funny in the special features. was like a, I don't know where he was originally, but he's...

Daniel Howat (16:47.245)
Yeah, that's how we we should pronounce it that way the whole rest of episode the adventures of Tom Tom

Eli (17:13.152)
lives in France, grew up, he was, he plays the Ben Salad character and he was just like, he was so upset because everyone was saying Tintin. He's like, it's not, it's Tintin. And then he was upset that people were calling the dog Snow. He was like, it's Milou. But yeah, so, but yeah, the name Tintin doesn't, it doesn't mean anything. Hergé just was like, I like the way it sounds. So that's his name.

Daniel Howat (17:17.569)
Mm-hmm.

Daniel Howat (17:22.335)
Right

Daniel Howat (17:29.377)
Yeah

Eli (17:42.905)
but yeah, he, so he, he starts doing serialized strips. it leads to a 10 10 magazine. he even starts in 1950 RJ studios, that he uses to kind of release, like a, guess, like a canonical 10 10 books. and so the, think he did 10 of those, the last one, release posthumous.

posthumously after his death and so yeah, he He was known for this like clear line drawing style Which kind of is what it sounds like all the although you can see all the lines, you know around the character drawings and Yeah, he he was like his plots were well researched based in like actual like history or

current events, even a little splash of like political cultural commentary that, you know, was digestible for the kids, I guess, that were reading it. And yeah, this was a cool stat I saw by 2007. It had been published over seven and over 70 language sold over 200 million copies, you know, adapted for radio, TV, theater and film. So just 1010.

was a phenomenon really, just not here in the US. This was all in Europe because know, he's, Ergé was Belgian and kind of stationed in, he's located in Brussels and it was really like, Tintin is really like a European phenomenon. People over there love Tintin. And so, yeah, Spielberg comes in in 1981 where he's reading

Daniel Howat (19:11.07)
Right, right, exactly.

Eli (19:36.545)
reviews in French magazines of Raiders of the Lost Ark and he keeps seeing this word over and over Tintin Tintin and he talks about he thought it was like some word that he just didn't understand he was like I need to figure out what this word means and then he realizes they're saying it's this is just like Tintin and so I think he said the first one he found was prisoners of the Sun and then Melissa Matheson who wrote ET

Daniel Howat (19:56.898)
Yeah.

Eli (20:05.988)
had spent some time as an au pair in France when she was younger, and was a familiar with it and gave him a French copy of, the crab with the golden claws, which will come up again. And, yeah, Spielberg dove into it. He, he just read the French version by, he couldn't read the French really, but he was just able to understand it from the frames. And, he kind of talked about how he had

this very cinematic way of expressing the action and everything within the comic frames that really spoke to him. it is very Indiana Jones coded. that kind of serialized where you have action and then inaction that is used to relaunch the action. And McGuffin's galore.

Daniel Howat (20:58.081)
Yeah.

Eli (21:02.02)
The other thing that was funny was Spielberg one of the inspirations of that he used for Raiders was this French movie Le Homme de Rio by Philippe de Broca from 1964 and which was inspired a little bit by Tintin so So it all comes full circle full circle, but yeah, so were you

Daniel Howat (21:21.805)
Right.

Eli (21:31.106)
Did you know about Tintin before this movie?

Daniel Howat (21:34.254)
I had heard of Tintin, I had seen an image of the character. So I knew what the character looked like. I understood the general concept of Tintin, but I still have never read Tintin. Actually, kids and I, coincidentally, before you asked about me coming on, we actually just watched Tintin with them for the first time about a month ago, a month and a half ago.

Eli (21:36.398)
Mm.

Eli (21:40.942)
Sure.

Eli (22:02.611)
nice.

Daniel Howat (22:04.087)
They're six years old and they loved it, which was awesome. And so I was at a thrift store and happened to see a Tintin book and I was like, let's do it. So I have one now. should have brought it with me. I don't know why I didn't bring a prop. But yeah, so I have a Tintin book and we're gonna start reading it here soon, but have not yet. So I'm like close, but I haven't done it.

Eli (22:05.11)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Eli (22:17.196)
Nice. Yeah.

Eli (22:24.344)
Nice. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, I was thinking I was wondering if my son would do it would would enjoy it too. but yeah, it's It's it's really like i've never read any of them. I did try to check out one for the library but it just wasn't ready in time for me to like Have with me. so yeah, so we You know, I was I was yeah, I was one that's good to hear so I might have to show it to my son sometime soon because he's he's also six and so

Daniel Howat (22:43.506)
Right.

Daniel Howat (22:55.386)
hey, there you go. Has he seen any Spielberg films yet?

Eli (22:59.512)
I was, yeah, has he seen any Spielberg? He has not. We do have the BFG sitting on the shelf to, we like to read out loud to him. And so that's on the to be read soon shelf for read out loud. So I feel like that would be a good one. Yeah.

Daniel Howat (23:17.771)
We did, that was their first, that was my kid's first Spielberg movie. We read all the Dole books, so we read the BFG together and then that was their first Spielberg. So we watched that for the first time with them maybe within the last year sometime. So they've seen that and then we did Hook. Actually we did that, then Tin Tin and then Hook. those are the three. Still haven't gotten to ET, I think ET's next.

Eli (23:29.165)
Nice.

Eli (23:37.24)
Hmm.

Nice.

Yeah Yeah. Yeah, so we've done For like me and him. We've read we read Fantastic, mr. Fox and we watched that so me and my wife watch that every thanksgiving So now he's just like included in that And then we also did james and the giant peach So, so yeah the bfg will definitely probably it it will probably end up being his first one But yeah, tintin would probably be

Daniel Howat (23:55.926)
Nice.

That's awesome, that's awesome. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So good.

Eli (24:12.834)
a good second. yeah, I really like when, when you see like the image of 10 10, it kind of is one of those drawings. That's kind of like, I feel like I've seen this before. and it might even be, I don't know if it's because I actually had seen, you know, 10 10, a 10 10 drawing before, or just because like, RG's like art style was kind of inspirational for a lot of people. And so you kind of have seen

Daniel Howat (24:14.027)
Yeah, yeah.

Daniel Howat (24:24.822)
Yeah, yeah.

Eli (24:42.52)
you know, comic art that looks like that. So I don't know what it was, but definitely looks familiar when you see an image of Tintin.

Daniel Howat (24:50.669)
100 % yeah, I think you're totally right. I do think it's a mixture of maybe I saw him somewhere or maybe it's just the art style being everywhere. think that's so, you know, I did grow up reading, know, reading the comics in the newspaper and stuff like that. I do feel like there's a lot of similarities between the simplistic style that, you know, I'm sure he wasn't the first one, but that he was certainly a pioneer of that was so pervasive in culture even till today.

Eli (25:08.675)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (25:17.252)
Yeah, yeah, I mean for sure. I mean and even just knowing like he was doing these starting back in 20 1929 so there's it's I feel like you would be hard-pressed to find like many people that were as successful as him that were getting their start way back then so But yeah, so even her J really early on wanted to turn this into a film I read that he approached Walt Disney in 1948

Daniel Howat (25:24.246)
Right.

Daniel Howat (25:34.978)
Yeah.

Eli (25:46.979)
without any success, unfortunately. I feel like Walt Disney is like, I know what'll sell and people here don't know what that is. So that's just me speculating, but.

Daniel Howat (25:57.774)
Sure. I do feel like he would have been a great match for Max Fleischer and Out of the Inkwell because he did all the early Superman cartoons and Betty Boop and a lot of these. I feel like Max Fleischer would have been a great match for Tintin. yeah, what could have been?

Eli (26:05.913)
Mmm.

Eli (26:10.659)
Okay, yeah.

Mmm, yeah.

Eli (26:20.216)
Yeah.

Yeah, it did get like some tv adaptations like in europe mostly I don't I don't know that they showed here but like some of the cast members like the british cast members were like, yeah, I grew up watching the 1010 cartoon On tv and stuff. So, it did get some some adaptations. but erje was he was like very big on like respecting and honoring like the world that he's created

And he just didn't trust Hollywood. so I guess he was like, willing to take a, take a chance on Walt Disney, but just wasn't ready to sell it to Hollywood yet. Which is fair, you know? but yeah, so Spielberg, it had never gotten the adaptation here in the U S but Spielberg really wants to do it. He contacts, Casterman, which was the publisher of the comics. at the time, at least I don't know, who still does, but, he.

Daniel Howat (27:02.038)
Yeah, yeah.

Eli (27:21.912)
Was able to get in contact with Elaine Baran, Herjays secretary, and he came and met Spielberg at Universal early in 1983. So the adventures of Tintin was a long time in the making. He was able to talk to Herjays over the phone and they were, they had plans to meet up. But Herjays died unfortunately in March of 1983, right before Spielberg was set to go.

meet with them to talk more about Tintin. But really unfortunate, Spielberg did have like, he did have like some conditions and stuff that he was, he wanted that retained creative control. He wanted a trilogy. He like had plans to pass off like the other two in the trilogy, Roman Polanski and Francois Tufo, which would have been interesting.

And the plans back then were like a stylized live action. so like lots of prosthetics and kind of trying to pull out that caricature look with live action characters. he wanted Henry Thomas from ET to play 10 10 and Jack Nicholson to play Hattick. which I don't know what a Jack Nicholson Hattick would have been like, but yeah, yeah, me too.

Daniel Howat (28:43.213)
I can kind of see that more than I can see Henry Thomas as Tintin. I'm picturing like Dick Tracy, you know, the live-action Dick Tracy from Ori Baby. That's what I'm picturing and I don't like that. I don't like that style. So I am very glad that that didn't happen.

Eli (28:53.525)
Uh-huh.

Eli (29:02.24)
Yeah. but so, you know, he's not able to meet with air J, but Spielberg and Kennedy still go to Brussels. they're invited by Fanny Remy, his, his widow. and Spielberg's able to like explore the state. He goes to, air J's office goes to his studios. and, Fanny is very like on board with Spielberg, doing, going through with this adaptation. So.

Yeah, they signed a contract in February 84. It gets formalized in June, 1985. Melissa Matheson proposes an adaptation of Tintin in the Congo from 1931, but Spielberg doesn't really like it that much. He, um, Polanski drafts a screenplay for the, um, Otakias Scepter from 1939, but Spielberg is caught up in other, other films at that time. I would imagine he's kind of on that.

that those Oscar Oscar grasping movies of the late eighties. and so, yeah. And it just becomes one of those things where there's so many different directions you can go with it that he kind of, it's almost like he had, what do you call it? Like decision, paralysis. Yeah. And, and he ends up just letting the option lapse in 1990. And so. Yeah. It's real. So.

Daniel Howat (30:21.207)
Paralysis? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Eli (30:31.94)
goes on hiatus until 2002. Kathleen Kennedy, that is, suggests getting the rights back. It took a long time to negotiate with the Belgian Foundation in control of the rights. They didn't want to give over full creative control. They were trying to protect Hersey's work. And Spielberg wants absolute creative control because he's Steven Spielberg.

Daniel Howat (30:57.727)
Yeah

Eli (30:59.492)
But Stefan Sperry who was an executive producer on the film was able to like she was like a key for the I say she It might have been that might be a he I don't know anyways, this person was a key to their reconciliation there and really gets it worked out. He had Leo DiCaprio who was 28 at the time. He was wanting him to play 10-10 Tom Hanks for haddock so

Daniel Howat (31:29.751)
which you can really see both of those. Like, that makes a lot more sense to me than Harry Thomas and, know, Nicholson would have been fine, I think, but yeah.

Eli (31:29.86)
I could see it, yeah. Then Henry Thomas.

Yeah Yeah, tom hanks I could definitely see as haddock for sure But but again the discussions drag out spillberg is hesitating And it's really not until 2004 as spillberg is presenting the best picture oscar to peter jackson for return of the king, which is the first time they they meet that he kind of has a revelation, he

had been impressed by Weight of Digital, who is Jackson's like effects company. He had been impressed by like Gollum and this, the work that they had been doing. And so he sends them a request for a CGI snowy, because at the time he's still planning a live action movie. And so he's like, can I, want to do the dog CGI. Can y'all like render up a test for me, send it out to us. And so have you seen,

Have you seen any of the footage from the test they sent? man. So if you can get your hands on like the DVD or Blu-ray with the special features, it's worth like, or you might, you probably find it on YouTube. But so they send back the test and Spielberg's watching it and the dogs, you know, jumping around. It actually like looks pretty good. The little CGI dog. It's kind of hopping around and then.

Daniel Howat (32:38.753)
I don't think I've seen it, no.

Eli (33:03.3)
who should show up but Peter Jackson himself dressed in full like Haddock, Captain Haddock garb talking about how much he loves Tintin and so Spielberg decides in that moment he's like, well, why don't we just go full animated? He's like, Peter, should come on and produce it and if we go through with this trilogy, you can direct one. And so, yeah.

Daniel Howat (33:13.793)
Yeah

Eli (33:33.379)
He finally makes the right choice to go fully animated on this movie. The next step is getting some scripts. He gets a couple of scripts sent to Peter Jackson for The Crab with the Golden Claws and The Secret of the Unicorn. The Crab with the Golden Claws wasn't a robust enough story for a feature film, apparently, but that's where you meet Captain Haddock.

So they kind of like ended up taking that element of that book and mixing it with the secret of the unicorn and then a little bit of Red Rackham's treasure, which makes sense since Red Rackham is in the movie. But yeah, so that's really like how things really got rolling with this. And which is, it's always crazy to me when you.

Daniel Howat (34:13.773)
Hmm.

Daniel Howat (34:17.793)
Yeah, yeah.

Eli (34:31.94)
when you look into the history of how a movie got made and realize, oh, this was nearly 25 to 30 years in the making before they finally got rolling with it.

Daniel Howat (34:45.653)
Yeah. Yeah. And how many different versions could have been, you know? Yeah, I think it's fascinating. It's also incredible. You know, think Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson are such a great pairing together, you know? And I really I still wish we had gotten the rest of the trilogy. I don't know. I know this movie wasn't wasn't really that successful financially, so I understand. But I really wish they could have pulled that off.

Eli (34:50.87)
Yeah.

Eli (35:00.224)
Yeah. Yeah.

Eli (35:06.659)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (35:15.394)
Yeah, yeah, it it's it really is funny like you know, it's one of those things where Yeah, why hadn't why hasn't spillberg and peter jackson already worked together, you know? And why haven't they worked together since you know, because because from from what I could tell in all the Like the behind the scenes footage they seem to like be really like buddy buddy get along really well but But you know, that's just kind of how it goes. I guess

Daniel Howat (35:26.219)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Right.

Eli (35:44.258)
with the movie industry, kind of get caught up in your own things and, but yeah, so.

Daniel Howat (35:50.337)
You know, the Hobbit trilogy comes along and... Right.

Eli (35:52.931)
Yeah, yeah, I mean you gotta make that you've got man Yeah, so obviously as far as like the crew goes Peter Jackson and Kathleen Kennedy are producers along with Spielberg The screenplay so he at some point they were talking to Edgar Wright about the screenplay

He was doing something at the time. So he's like, y'all should, he knew that Peter Jackson likes the new doctor who series. So he's like, you should check out Steven Moffat, who was writing for, he was like the main writer for the new doctors who series. And so Steven Moffat wrote like the first draft or two of the movie and really like built it out. but then there were some sort of like,

there was some sort of writer's strike and then there was something else going on and he kind of like had to choose between Doctor Who and Tintin and he probably rightly chose Doctor Who as like going and producing that. So Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish came on and kind of like polished up the script, add in a lot of like the humor and some of the dialogue and stuff and so.

So yeah, you really kind of get like a good mix of like the decent like structure, I think probably from Moffat and a lot of like the good like gags and what not from from right in Cornish is what I imagine. So.

Daniel Howat (37:26.359)
Yeah.

Daniel Howat (37:31.149)
It is wild looking back on the crew that's responsible for this movie. mean, all of them are stellar directors, like all of them. You know, obviously Edgar Wright already was at that point, but has even risen more since. And Joe Cornish too hadn't yet directed at that point. When was Attack the Block? I can't remember. Maybe it was 2011, I think.

Eli (37:39.02)
Yeah. Yeah.

Uh-huh.

Eli (37:47.844)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (37:55.961)
Yeah, yeah, it was it was sometime around that period. Yeah

Daniel Howat (37:59.596)
Yeah, pretty remarkable to see them all working on this one film.

Eli (38:03.99)
Yeah, yeah, and then even Simon Pegg was originally supposed to work with Wright on the movie too, and then Spielberg was like, well actually would you, you know, act in it? which I can't, it seems like I know that Pegg has written for some movies. I just don't, can't think of what they are. I don't know, does he partner with Wright for their movies and writing?

Daniel Howat (38:30.707)
Yeah, think so. Some of them I am. I'm I think he wrote that that movie Paul, the you know, not very good movie, but but yeah, the alien one. Yeah, I can't remember if he's written much else, but he has done some writing. So, you know, yeah.

Eli (38:40.318)
Okay, yeah, yeah the alien guy yeah

Eli (38:49.88)
Yeah, yeah Yeah, so I mean that that's yeah, that's really cool Janusz Kaminski is credited with like cinematography consultant, which I guess makes sense Spielberg really relies on him for like lighting and And all that so and you can definitely see a little bit of that Kaminski touch and the way some of these scenes are lit some of the like the more like

Daniel Howat (39:13.887)
absolutely, yeah. Yeah.

Eli (39:19.94)
The more like natural scenes is just kind of like feels kind of standard but definitely like anytime there's like in the dark or like in you know Creeping around some estate or something. It's like yeah, that's Yep The backlighting yeah So you can definitely see Kaminsky in there even though like it's not like the the typical cinematographer role That you would have

Daniel Howat (39:28.767)
Yes.

Daniel Howat (39:33.057)
The harsh shadows, the bright lights, yeah, yeah, exactly.

Daniel Howat (39:41.367)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (39:49.973)
There's a few camera up virtual camera operators I should say and Steven Meisler and David Paul and Spielberg was uncredited for that but When you watch the when you watch the like extra features you almost exclusively see Spielberg holding the virtual camera like controller So, you know, I think he probably did most of it himself and the editors Michael Kahn obviously

Daniel Howat (40:06.157)
I

Daniel Howat (40:13.709)
Sure.

Eli (40:19.62)
His tried-and-true guy He does so basically what happens with a movie like this is they do They do like a cut of the movie to basically this is what the movie is and then the way to team has to go in and Basically like add in all the stuff into it to the cut that they send so you you do have Some other editors that are probably like the virtual

Daniel Howat (40:40.247)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Eli (40:48.28)
like editors in Jabez Olsen and Chris Plummer. John Williams does the music, which is one of my favorite parts of this movie, I think. The music is great in this movie. John Williams just does a really good adventure score.

Daniel Howat (40:58.092)
yeah.

Daniel Howat (41:04.373)
Yeah, yeah, it always fit. Anytime I'm complimenting a John Williams score, feels so like obvious, yeah, no kidding. It's a good score, but it's like, no, really, this is a really good score, you know? Yeah, I love the way that it has like, it has like these bright woodwinds that are perfect for like a whodunit sort of thing with some light percussion. And then and then it can also get big and epic and

Eli (41:16.93)
Yeah.

Eli (41:24.718)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Eli (41:33.357)
Yes.

Daniel Howat (41:33.677)
feel a lot like, you know, Indiana Jones or something like that.

Eli (41:37.069)
Yeah, yeah, and it's you know, you say that complimenting the john williams score is like obvious but if if the you know, anyone that's listening that's been like listening through with the series will know that like Me personally like watching all the spillberg films in succession You kind of get like a little bit tired of the john williams scores because like you can start to see like He's really just like reusing stuff over and over again. even like think like

Daniel Howat (41:58.23)
Mmm.

Eli (42:07.488)
themes, like, even like Raiders of the Lost Ark, like Marion's theme basically is Leia and Han's theme. And it's just like a different, like little riff on that same like melody and style. So like, start to like notice those things and you're like, dude, so that's why I like catch me if you can, it's like one of my favorite John Williams scores cause it's so different. but I did really like this one. It's really good. He kind of is pulling, it's kind of like,

Daniel Howat (42:16.426)
Sure.

Daniel Howat (42:28.641)
Yeah, yeah.

Eli (42:37.068)
a best hits, John Williams. yeah, you even have like, he's even pulling back from like jaws, like some of the like, like riding across the ocean in the boat stuff that sounds very like pirate ish and jaws, like pirate adventure you get in this movie. and even like the opening credits is very like catch me if you can. Yeah. Yeah.

Daniel Howat (42:38.733)
Yeah, that's true.

Daniel Howat (42:52.119)
Yeah.

Daniel Howat (43:00.467)
I thought the same thing. really did feel reminiscent of that. Maybe, and I know part of that is probably just because we don't see those sorts of credit sequences very often, but still the music did feel really reminiscent.

Eli (43:08.526)
Sure.

Yeah, it was like it started rolling because I had, this was a blind spot for me. I had never seen it before. so it started rolling. I was like, this is a catch me if you can opening. cause you know, I covered that not too long ago. but yeah, he, he recorded the score just like right after he, Michael Kahn got the cut finished the first cut. So the score was really done like a year and a half before the movie was, was completed.

Daniel Howat (43:21.408)
Yeah, yeah.

Daniel Howat (43:40.396)
Hm, well.

Eli (43:40.901)
And so which probably It probably helps them When they were like building out like all the the digital stuff to kind of like match stuff up with the score So it probably worked out for the best But yeah, I do I do like elements of the score like The John Williams talks about the using the euphonium, which is basically like a small tuba and it kind of

Daniel Howat (43:54.295)
Definitely.

Eli (44:08.97)
It comes through most in the Thompson and Thompson's, like little theme that they have. it kind of, the euphonium is really able to make these like really funny, silly sounding, like whoops and stuff. And so, I thought that was cool. him get it. It's fun to watch John Williams talk about something that he, you could tell he had a lot of fun with. And so that was definitely one. and then the other thing I thought was cool that he talked about was.

Daniel Howat (44:30.613)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Eli (44:39.14)
kind of musically connecting the the haddocks so like the present haddock and the past haddock and how like When there's when it's doing that sequence jumping back and forth There's this like there's this theme that runs through but in the different like the modern style and then the pirate style That was really cool to hear like because I didn't really notice it watching the movie But then like hearing them talk about it and they played it you're like, that's really cool

Daniel Howat (44:59.213)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (45:09.092)
But yeah, John Williams, I guess he's pretty good.

Daniel Howat (45:15.02)
Yeah

Eli (45:16.804)
Some a lot of these guys are our new names Because it's just a totally different format We've been like repeating the same names over and over again here recently in the series But like sound John Neal, I don't know that guy is Gary Rydstrom was like a consultant and that's the Spielberg guy Yeah, but sound effects by Brent Burge and Chris Ward

Daniel Howat (45:39.147)
Mm-hmm. Yeah legend

Eli (45:45.101)
Art Direction by Andriell Jones and Jeff Wisniewski, which props those guys because there's a ton of decorating that they had to do for this movie. You have, which by the way, is just the part where I just read out names just because how often do these people's names get read out loud? And so let's give them props.

Daniel Howat (46:09.389)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it's great.

Eli (46:13.472)
Motion capture supervisors you have Philip Bolt who I guess is the main guy and then Kevin Cushing is the giant studios guy which we'll talk about what giant studios is in a minute and Dejan Mamsilevich I'd probably pronounce that wrong was the main Weta digital guy and then yeah you have the motion caption coordinator and Frederick Kubala hmm Kublickowski

Daniel Howat (46:29.929)
haha

Eli (46:43.544)
So yeah, that one was tough too. Also weighted digital. And then Peter Jackson really like was kind of the he's credited as second unit director. But he was really probably the main like director for the way to side of things. So yeah, that's that's the main part of the crew. Let's talk about the cast because the cast is really fun for this one. Spielberg talked about

Daniel Howat (46:46.977)
Yeah.

Eli (47:13.326)
casting for motion capture is very different because, you really want to get for, for motion capture, especially like the, the place that they were with motion capture by the time this was being made, which was more, even more like advanced than when it got started. you really want actors that can really like go for it and be pull out all of their expressions and, like.

over kind of like not hold back and over express and stuff and so Yeah, he went for like naturally expressive actors So that was cool and and I think that does come through Especially if you do watch like the special features and see them with all the dots on their face Doing the acting it's fun. But yeah, so 1010 1010 Needed to be an actor that wasn't too old

Daniel Howat (48:02.786)
Yeah.

Eli (48:10.946)
and also not too young. So really like fine line, I think, for Tintin.

Daniel Howat (48:17.505)
Yeah, you don't really know, you don't really get a read on how old he's supposed to be. He is just like a young man, you know?

Eli (48:19.991)
Yeah.

From, yeah, from what, from what I could understand from like the research I did, Ergé kind of saw him as like 15, 16. but it's like this, he's kind of like this enigma cause he doesn't have a family. He lives in an apartment by himself. He doesn't seem to go to school. he has like, somehow has money that we, we really, cause you never see him write anything.

Daniel Howat (48:50.317)
Yeah, yeah.

Eli (48:51.392)
even though he's like a reporter or something apparently. And so he's just kind of this enigma. just kind of have to roll with it. Like, okay, yeah, sure, he's a teenager with, you know, amount of money and is a reporter that never reports on anything. Or at least not in the movie. I don't know if he does in the comics. But yeah, so he had originally cast 18 year old

Daniel Howat (49:08.269)
Right.

Yeah, yeah.

Eli (49:20.548)
Thomas Brody Singler, who was in Love Actually and appeared in The Queen's Gambit. So I'm not familiar with him. So.

Daniel Howat (49:23.796)
Mm-hmm.

Daniel Howat (49:28.823)
He's good, he's good. You can totally see him as Tin Tin. They visually look a lot alike. Like in a live action Tin Tin, that's pretty great casting.

Eli (49:35.831)
Okay.

Eli (49:42.595)
Yeah, guess he did also talk about like you are kind of free to not not have to cast people that look like the character when you do motion capture So that was probably a plus but but yeah, yeah, I wasn't familiar with with this actor So it's cool to hear that. He actually like kind of looks 1010 ish But that was in March of wait, and then there was the delay and

Universal kind of backed out which we'll talk about at one point which may be Sengler was tied to Universal so he was unavailable and so yeah they cast Jamie Bell. He had been in Peter Jackson's King Kong and Spielberg had loved him in the movie Billy Elliot which he talked about how he had this like subtlety to his acting but it's also a very physical performance in that movie which I haven't seen.

Daniel Howat (50:41.364)
it's so good. It's so good. He should have been nominated for best actor for that movie as a kid. He's so good. Yeah.

Eli (50:44.968)
Mmm Yeah, that's cool to hear I saw some like clips from it so I was like, yeah I can definitely see you like the yeah, this is a physical performance But yeah, so yeah that Spielberg and Peter Jackson are like, yeah, this is our our next guy And Jamie Bell actually like he was one of the the kids that was like, yeah I remember watching Tintin when I was a kid. So He was happy to come on

as 1010, Andy Serkis as Captain Haddock. was kind of, I think Peter Jackson and Spielberg both kind of like, were like, yeah, it was Serkis and there wasn't really any other choice for Haddock.

Daniel Howat (51:27.883)
Yeah, it is hard to imagine anybody else like yes, and I can totally see why like that that could have been Tom Hanks in an earlier Spielberg movie totally totally get that but yeah, it is like, of course, it's gonna be Andy Serkis

Eli (51:35.641)
Sure.

Eli (51:41.557)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, and yeah, he was really the only choice He was he was also the only motion capture veteran on the on the set so Other than the crew obviously but the only actor that had done motion capture before so He was probably like doing a lot of consulting with the other guys. I'm sure But but yeah, he's

I didn't I guess like I should have known this about circus but hearing him talk he's like very thorough with his like prep for roles He does like a lot of research He was like researching on like the life of a seaman for this role, which I'm like to me I'm like that sounds a little bit ridiculous But like I guess like actors have to go through like their method and whatever they do to get ready But yeah, he he kind of like was

even like thinking as deep as what sort of accent should I do and landed on a Scottish accent because he felt like it had the most like raw emotionality to it. Which I think is a good choice. But yeah, so Serkis is great. He's always, anytime he's like doing any sort of like really just acting or

Daniel Howat (52:48.717)
Mm.

Yeah, definitely.

Eli (53:05.154)
motion capture acting, I'm like, yeah, I'm interested in seeing that. So directing is kind of not so sure if Serkis is the best director, but...

Daniel Howat (53:19.693)
Yeah, I agree with you on that. I haven't really been wowed by his work as a director yet. But, you know. Yeah, yeah. It's still criminal that he... Well, first of all, he should have been nominated for an Oscar for Gollum, honestly. mean, he should have gotten... That was such a groundbreaking... It was a great performance that was also groundbreaking. And I think you don't get that combination too often. And...

Eli (53:25.784)
Yeah. But acting wise, like, I always love them.

Eli (53:37.122)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (53:41.944)
Yeah. Yeah.

Eli (53:46.712)
Yeah.

Daniel Howat (53:47.918)
At the very least, you know, I'm far from the first person to say this, but it is kind of criminal that he hasn't gotten an honorary Oscar of some kind. Like he's so revolutionary not only in taking on performance capture roles, but in what he has done for the industry in that. mean, it's because of Serkis and yes, many others, but that we have, you know,

Eli (53:57.891)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Eli (54:13.572)
Mm-hmm.

Daniel Howat (54:16.415)
All the superheroes doing all the motion capture work that they do and all these roles. I mean, he is just such a pioneer, both in front of the camera and behind.

Eli (54:24.856)
Yeah. And it's funny, you say that cause in the, it reminded me that in the special features, he called himself a motion capture evangelist. so yeah, sure.

Daniel Howat (54:33.905)
Yeah, For good or for bad, mean, you you could also argue that it's harmed some performances or an over-reliance on CGI, things like that. Totally understand those arguments, but it has impacted the industry in like massive, massive ways.

Eli (54:44.536)
Yeah, sure.

Eli (54:50.654)
Mm-hmm Yeah, and his whole thing was like His push for motion capture over just playing, you know CGI or whatever is because he feels like as an act like as an actor you get to actually act with motion capture Even if it is in like this sterile environment, you're still like Reacting and acting within an environment

And so it's kind of like, if this is the direction we're headed, I'm going to push for this version of it. Um, is, is kind of like the sense I got from the way he talked about it. Um, and so I appreciated that because there is a sense in which when you go too heavily CGI, um, you do lose a bit of that. Um, you know, that the rawness of like an actor acting in an, in a, like,

Daniel Howat (55:26.123)
Yeah, yeah.

Eli (55:48.337)
actual environment and you know voice acting is its own thing and you know there's phenomenal voice actors obviously but yeah yeah I do appreciate that aspect of what Serkis has done for sure even if it has had you know every advancement is gonna have some sort of negative spin-off of it but yeah so moving around along Daniel Craig as Sakarin

Daniel Howat (55:50.263)
for sure.

Daniel Howat (56:10.593)
Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Eli (56:18.276)
He saccharin was actually a secondary character in the secret of the unicorn And like not really big at all, but they turned him into like the main villain and I guess kind of like connected him to red raccoon and did all that with the script so Spielberg said about Craig that he felt like he was a good choice because he can play a good what he called quote-unquote champagne villain

which is a guy that can be crude when he needed but has this like mock elegance. And I was like, that's a really good description of, and cause Craig, when he talked, he was like, yeah, just kind of based it off the, the like stereotypical English bad guy. And when you think of like the stereotypical English bad guy, it is like crude, but also like a mock elegance to him. And so.

Daniel Howat (56:48.439)
Hahaha.

Daniel Howat (56:53.282)
Yeah.

Daniel Howat (57:12.747)
Yeah, yep, absolutely.

Eli (57:14.734)
So it's funny, they were basically saying the same thing but in different ways. And so, yeah, I think Craig is great here. He was nervous about the whole motion capture thing, but he got on board pretty quick, I guess. This was a genius bit of casting, I think, in getting Simon Pegg and Nick Frost as Thompson and Thompson.

Daniel Howat (57:22.753)
Yeah, yeah, great villain.

Eli (57:44.421)
You know one has the P one doesn't if you didn't catch on when you watch the movie But yeah, I think it's a really like a genius bit of casting the funny thing is when you watch the special features the way they they edited that part of the like the documentary together is They put back-to-back Spielberg saying that it was Peter Jackson's idea and Peter Jackson saying it was Spielberg's idea

Daniel Howat (57:44.641)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

you

Daniel Howat (58:12.903)
That's good.

Eli (58:14.372)
So they don't even know whose idea it was.

Daniel Howat (58:19.105)
Well, neither of them is crediting Edgar Wright. Is that what we're... It's gotta be. I mean, come on. He wrote the movie.

Eli (58:22.436)
Yeah, that's Right. You go to the movie and he's written written two movies for these guys. So to at least two Yeah But yeah, so they were great You know, they wanted a comedy duo. This was like the perfect choice. I think they do a lot of like They you know, they do a lot of

Daniel Howat (58:31.831)
Yeah.

At that point at least too, yeah.

Eli (58:52.352)
work on trying to like tap into the like the silent era traditions of like Chaplin and Laurel and Hardy which which you definitely see a lot of in those characters.

Daniel Howat (58:57.602)
Yeah.

Daniel Howat (59:05.537)
Yeah, I'm glad that they did cast a comedy duo. I and Frost are a great choice for that. But I think a lesser film would have cast one person for both roles, you know? And maybe that would have been fine, but I do think there is a little bit of magic there that it is two people playing off of each other,

Eli (59:09.593)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (59:17.144)
Hmm. Yeah.

Eli (59:25.378)
Yeah. Yeah. Especially because like the mo you know, when we talk about the motion capture, what they did was they had like some choreographers and I think they even mentioned like some Cirque de Soleil guys that came in and like coach them on how to like synchronize their movements. So when you, when you watch the behind the scenes, they're actually like doing all the like Thompson and Thompson stuff. That's like totally synchronized.

Daniel Howat (59:39.874)
Hmm.

Daniel Howat (59:44.108)
Hmph.

Eli (59:54.037)
and in all the movements and stuff. it's, it's fun and it, it works really well in the movie. Those I think those are like, I think those are my favorite characters in the movie, the Thompsons. The rest are really kind of side characters in the movie. I mentioned Gad Amala who plays Omar bin Salad. He was

Daniel Howat (01:00:07.252)
yeah, they're hilarious. Yeah.

Eli (01:00:23.972)
He said he loves being able to do his Moroccan accent. So I think he might be from Morocco maybe is the sense I got.

Daniel Howat (01:00:33.312)
Okay, okay.

Eli (01:00:35.128)
But, but yeah, you know, he's like barely in the movie just for like the one scene along with, the Bianca Castille for character who is they included because she's like a recurring character. She's not actually in those stories, but she is a recurring character in the 10 10 universe. That's, you know, well liked. And so she's like the opera singer that comes up and

Daniel Howat (01:00:42.797)
Yeah.

Daniel Howat (01:00:58.871)
Gotcha.

Eli (01:01:04.846)
breaks the bulletproof glass with her voice, which is a gag that I wasn't sure if I should roll my eyes or laugh, sort of gag. But the role was played by, quote unquote, role was played by Kim Stengel, but Renee Fleming does the vocals. She's like a world renowned soprano.

Daniel Howat (01:01:07.885)
Right.

Daniel Howat (01:01:17.581)
Yeah.

Eli (01:01:32.725)
And she was on the Lord of the Rings soundtrack. yeah. Then you have other guys in, in Raytel as the Nestor, the butler, and also the vendor at the beginning. Carrie Elwes plays the pilot that's in the plane that they steal. Toby Jones plays Silk, the pick pocket guy. So yeah, you kind of have like some.

Daniel Howat (01:01:35.391)
cool.

Daniel Howat (01:01:46.701)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:02:01.06)
It's really a bunch of like that guy kind of actors playing all the side roles. So that's always fun. And then the other like fun fact, this isn't really like casting, but the caricature artist at the very beginning was designed to look like Ergé. So that was kind of like another little nod to him, which I thought that was a fun way to start with him getting the actual like 10, 10 drawing. But yeah, so.

Daniel Howat (01:02:03.693)
Right

Daniel Howat (01:02:18.957)
Hmm.

Daniel Howat (01:02:24.162)
Yeah.

Yeah, that was very creative, yeah.

Eli (01:02:30.148)
As I mentioned before, they're one month out from shooting and Universal is set to produce this trilogy and they back out as studios like to do. What I read was that they were scared of the production costs, which I think this had like a $130 million budget. And also the 30 % total gross revenues that were demanded.

between Spielberg and Peter Jackson, which I don't know. My whole thing is like you're universal studios and you don't know that Steven Spielberg is gonna ask for that. Like y'all have worked with him so much, you know what he asks for. So I guess they just weren't so sure about it. But they do.

Daniel Howat (01:03:13.997)
Right.

Daniel Howat (01:03:18.189)
Right, right.

Daniel Howat (01:03:24.652)
Yeah.

Eli (01:03:27.65)
just in time, reached an agreement with Paramount and Sony. And they agreed to do two films. So there was originally supposed to be two films. But I guess because of the money it makes, they really don't go through with it. Or maybe they're still on the docket and maybe we will eventually get it, who knows.

Daniel Howat (01:03:49.94)
Yeah, I don't know. I haven't checked in a long time, but it's been on like Spielberg's upcoming projects on IMDB for like, you know, how old's the movie almost, you know, 15 years old. So I don't know if it's still there, but you know, I guess everybody's just holding out hope.

Eli (01:04:00.291)
Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. It's, it is one of those things where like, it's not like that it's like dated. It's still like, it's yeah. It's just like a kid's adventure story. Like there's not really like any, anything that's like, that's too old. Now we can't redo another one. No, you can just jump right in and probably do it and it would be great. Yeah. Yeah.

Daniel Howat (01:04:12.747)
Yeah, they could do it, yeah.

Daniel Howat (01:04:24.511)
Yeah. With the same cast, honestly, you don't have to, I mean, it's motion capture. You don't have to replace anybody.

Eli (01:04:33.496)
But yeah, so they get started in January of 2009. It's kind of like a traditional toast thing that Spielberg does before shooting. It was cool, he read like this very sweet letter from Herjays widow Fanny to all the cast and crew that was there. But yeah, they go to Giant Studios in Los Angeles.

It is was the same one used by James Cameron for avatar to do the motion capture stuff And James Cameron was actually like there that kind of show Spielberg the ropes around the studio And like the this the size of like the place that they shoot in Which is called the volume which we'll talk about is about the size of a basketball court And then you know, there's the rooms a bit bigger than that

Obviously and so yeah, they shot for 32 days there and Spielberg even put like character blown up character references from the comics all around the walls so that the the crew had the cast and crew had kind of like things to draw from Be able to look up and be like, yeah, this is an expression my character makes sort of thing. So That was cool. And really like this is this is the most atypical filming experience is Spielberg's career

Daniel Howat (01:05:43.405)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:05:56.677)
There's no, I guess like, I guess does he do some of this in BFG some motion capture stuff? I'm not sure.

Daniel Howat (01:06:06.763)
Yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah, the BFG is an entirely motion capture character and there are other giants, of course, in the story. So, yeah. So after this, yeah, yeah, he's he's he's done some of that. But of course, it's in a live action setting largely. So. I also think it's interesting how much, you know, this is Spielberg's and yeah, this is Spielberg's only animated film of his career as a director, but he has worked.

Eli (01:06:11.065)
Yeah.

Right. So a little bit, yeah.

Eli (01:06:21.112)
bright so it is a little different.

Eli (01:06:32.268)
Mm-hmm, right. Yeah.

Daniel Howat (01:06:35.655)
in animation or with animation so many times throughout his career. mean, this An American Tale and then building up Dreamworks and producing so many of those films. Land Before Time. Absolutely. Absolutely. A lot of those Don Bluth films. I actually just read Don Bluth's memoir, which is phenomenal. And it's really interesting hearing him talk about his relationship with Spielberg because

Eli (01:06:40.577)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:06:47.308)
Yep, lame before time. That was a big one in my childhood. Yep.

cool.

Eli (01:07:03.492)
Hmm.

Daniel Howat (01:07:04.577)
You know, Don Bluth did The Secret of Nim and then Spielberg loved that and called him up and said, let's do this. Let's make an American tale together. And they pitched Don Bluth that. And then they made Land Before Time together. I think that was their last film together. And then very interestingly, Bluth talks about Spielberg ghosting him. it just kind of, Bluth talks about like, not really knowing.

Eli (01:07:07.597)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:07:16.483)
Yeah.

Eli (01:07:26.274)
Man.

Daniel Howat (01:07:31.468)
what happened with their relationship. then, you know, he goes to found DreamWorks, which is part of it. yeah, Bluth just talks about going like, yeah, we worked together for all these years and then we just didn't. he never really knew why or anything like that. They didn't have a falling out. They just didn't work together anymore. So it's very interesting. But yeah, so to see him come all these years later to finally direct his own animated film, you know, obviously a very different sort of style. But he obviously has.

Eli (01:07:32.653)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Eli (01:07:41.614)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Eli (01:07:54.204)
huh.

Daniel Howat (01:07:58.726)
some sort of love for the medium of animation. I haven't really come across quotes of him talking that much about animation in general. I'm sure they're out there, but yeah, he clearly loves this medium.

Eli (01:08:10.21)
Yeah, it's the stuff that I usually hear him talk about because i'm kind of inundated with spillberg stuff is Yeah, there's not a lot of him talking about animation other than like yeah, I watched this and It inspired like this this sort of thing. And so it's a lot of spillberg kind of watches everything you know, he's that the you know, the movie brats they all just watch everything and so

Daniel Howat (01:08:18.144)
Sure.

Daniel Howat (01:08:33.184)
Yeah, yeah.

Eli (01:08:41.026)
So yeah, it would be like, know, Looney Tunes kind of thing inspired this or, you know, that's kind of like what you typically hear. yeah, I haven't done, you know, even like, you know, DreamWorks, have, you know, the SKG that, you know, the K and the, or can't remember if this is the K or the G. can't, yeah, Katzenberg.

Daniel Howat (01:09:04.013)
Yeah, no, he's the K, or he's the S, yeah. Spielberg, who is it? Spielberg, Katzenberg, and then Geffen. Yeah, David Geffen, yeah.

Eli (01:09:10.98)
And Geffen and Geffen is um Geffen is the animation guy. So even Oh, yeah, it's Katzenberg is the is the animation guy. Yeah, and so so like you have, you know Spielberg has Probably control over the live-action stuff and Katzenberg is doing even even with like dreamworks, you know And they eventually break off into their own thing um, and so so yeah, like he

Daniel Howat (01:09:18.347)
Well, no, he's the music guy. He's David. Yeah, yeah. Katzenberg. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Came from Disney. Yep.

Daniel Howat (01:09:33.825)
Yep. Yeah.

Eli (01:09:40.418)
I think he really likes animation, but he doesn't really do much other than produce them and green light stuff.

Daniel Howat (01:09:47.982)
Which is understandable, I mean it is an entirely different medium, know, it's totally made in a different way. So it makes sense, it's just, it is interesting to see the way he's dabbled in it over the years, you know, yeah.

Eli (01:09:54.126)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:09:59.257)
Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, like story wise, an American tale is very much like a Spielberg story. It's very Spielberg coded. so like you can see his influence in it, but, but yeah, I think, I think the interesting thing with getting to this point with the technology and motion capture is this is sort of, if Spielberg is going to make an animated movie, it's going to be.

Daniel Howat (01:10:07.445)
Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Yeah.

Eli (01:10:27.852)
with this sort of technology.

Daniel Howat (01:10:29.313)
Yeah, yeah, pushing technology forward in some way, yeah, yeah.

Eli (01:10:32.864)
Yes. so, and, really just like this specifically is just such a very Spielberg way of making an animated movie because as we'll get into, like, he basically has like free reign to do what he wants with the camera. and that's like, for a guy like Spielberg, that's like, you know, go into the best playground in the world as a kid, you know? And so,

Daniel Howat (01:10:58.9)
Yeah, right, right.

Eli (01:11:02.018)
Yeah, he really embraces it and Peter Jackson was there on set in person the first week of shooting but he went back to New Zealand and he's, the funny thing is he's just like there on the screen all the time so I'm like why didn't you just stay if you were just gonna be on the screen all day but I guess like his family's probably there and stuff so it makes sense but.

Daniel Howat (01:11:22.029)
All right.

Daniel Howat (01:11:27.405)
Yeah, I assume he was in pre-production on Hobbit at that point, right? mean, because Hobbit came out in 2012, right? Year after this, I think? 2013, I can't remember what year that came out, but yeah.

Eli (01:11:31.81)
Maybe, yeah.

Yeah, I guess so, yeah.

Eli (01:11:41.06)
Yeah, it was around that time, because I think the last one came out in like 2014, 2015, somewhere in there.

Daniel Howat (01:11:48.898)
Yeah, was somewhere around there. I think that's really, honestly, I don't know the whole backstory of why we didn't get a second film other than lack of confidence in the finances. mean, Peter Jackson wasn't going to direct the Hobbit films. Guillermo del Toro was going to do those. And then that fell through. And so he took them on. So that's got to be a major reason for the holdup. That and money, of course.

Eli (01:12:06.231)
Right, yeah, yeah.

Eli (01:12:13.304)
That might be another big one, which I've always wished we would have gotten the del Toro version of those. I think that would have been a lot of fun, but alas, we did not. Yeah, so talking about the cinematography, the camera work, even with all the attempts to honor and capture the world of Ergé,

Daniel Howat (01:12:23.905)
Yeah.

Eli (01:12:41.312)
Spielberg's hand is definitely like seen all over the camera work And we already talked about like the Kaminsky stuff with the lighting and you know, it's It's definitely like interesting. So one of the things that is interesting is Spielberg You know Spielberg shoots on film and so when he shot this movie They were like given him like teaching him the ropes of like, okay, here's how we do it

Daniel Howat (01:12:50.316)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:13:08.92)
You you get your masters and then we'll do all the coverage and all that and posts like don't worry about that and Spielberg's basically like no, I want to do it the normal way and so because and he's able to you know, Spielberg is very much into I want to be on location or on the set and I want to be able to like make my decisions on the spot when I get there and get a feel for everything. And so with this he's able to do that.

Even more freely really because you don't have to you don't have to reset the lights when you change camera angles Or or point the camera in a different direction You don't you don't have to reset all that stuff that just does it in the computer automatically everything's lit how it's supposed to be and so So yeah, it's it's like fast-paced shooting. He's he's doing it. Just like a normal shoot where you You do your your shot

close-up coverage medium shot move on to the next the next thing and yeah he just designing each that I can't it was I think it was like the might have been like the giant studios supervisor or something in the extra features was just talking about like how he was just like amazed he's just like designing all the shots as they go and just not used to working in that way he's used to like trying

Daniel Howat (01:14:34.88)
Right.

Eli (01:14:35.406)
having to figure that all out himself probably in post and he's like, this is making my job easier.

Daniel Howat (01:14:38.793)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I do feel like you get a sense of Spielberg playing in this one, you know, because like you said, he's in he can have so much more control than he than he does with a live action film. And so that's why that's where I think we get, you know, like that big sequence in the the Bagghar scene where the big chase, the three minute take, you know, you can totally feel him just

Eli (01:15:03.416)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Daniel Howat (01:15:08.781)
playing with these action figures of characters and I think it turns out that I that's one of Spielberg's best action sequences. I think it's all the things we love about the action in Indiana Jones and many other things where it is hilarious and thrilling and inventive and creative and you have a freaking building chasing them down. I think it's amazing. I love that sequence so much.

Eli (01:15:09.387)
Yes.

Yes.

Eli (01:15:17.122)
Hahaha.

Eli (01:15:22.446)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:15:30.388)
Yeah.

Eli (01:15:34.617)
Yeah, yeah, and it's It is fun. It's fun to see him play. We'll we'll get into this like After we get done talking about production stuff and just talk about like our thoughts on the movie in general. I think I think it ends up being like a little too much for me It gets a bit distracting to me of like I can tell he's playing and so it's hard to like Just like get that out of my mind

Daniel Howat (01:15:58.062)
Sure.

Eli (01:16:02.466)
And a little bit of that just comes from the way I'm watching it, which is for this series. That's why I was like, it came to movie theaters, I would really love to go see this, where I could just not think about that stuff and just be immersed in the world. I bet I would enjoy it a little bit more. But yeah, we'll get into that. he is definitely playing, even if for...

Daniel Howat (01:16:10.153)
Yeah, yeah.

Eli (01:16:28.854)
Some people's tastes like me. It might be like a little bit too much playing.

Daniel Howat (01:16:33.121)
Sure, I think that's the thing. think for me, you know, the movie is light, right? It's like, it's very light, which is probably the biggest criticism I have of the film is that this really, there's not much deeper, you know, things going on here. This is a surface level adventure meant for fun and not much else than that. which has pros and cons, but...

Eli (01:16:55.063)
Uh-huh.

Daniel Howat (01:17:02.463)
If you can lean in and let yourself enjoy just the play of it, then I'm like, I have a great time with this movie, you know?

Eli (01:17:05.09)
Yeah.

Eli (01:17:08.814)
Yeah. Yeah, it's kind of like, it's kind of like what you kind of have to go in with no expectations and just like enjoy it. It's kind of, it's like a Shyamalan movie. You know, if you go in expecting it to be a certain thing, chances are it's not going to be that thing and you're not going to like it. So just go in and be like, okay, what kind of fun are we going to have? Because you typically Shyamalan is just having a lot of fun.

Daniel Howat (01:17:23.99)
Sure, yeah.

Daniel Howat (01:17:33.931)
Yeah, yeah.

Eli (01:17:38.885)
His movies sometimes feel like they're supposed to be serious, but I don't know that there really are Even his more serious movies. I don't think Shyamalan's all that serious. So Like I had such a fun time with trap like it's And it's it's very like winking too. I feel like you you can

Daniel Howat (01:17:49.654)
Yeah, true.

Daniel Howat (01:18:00.366)
Yeah, you have to be in the right mindset for it. You're totally right. I think Trap's a great example of a movie that throughout the whole movie, I was like, this is so dumb. This is so stupid. I don't like anything that's happening, but my heart was racing a little bit and I was kind of laughing with it. And I was like, okay, this is very dumb, but it's also kind of working on me. So there's something to be said for that.

Eli (01:18:11.436)
Yeah, it is.

Eli (01:18:19.028)
Yeah.

Eli (01:18:26.146)
Yeah. Yeah. And it's like, like I said, it's like, it's very winking and it's like there, there's a, there's a look like a eye contact with the camera sort of last shot that like, just like highlights that and keys you in on like, okay, like Shyamalan knows exactly like how ridiculous all this is. He's just having fun. Like, and yeah, like you can, with this movie, it's like,

Daniel Howat (01:18:49.293)
Right.

Eli (01:18:55.34)
He is having the time of his life. He's like, I can do shots from like under a desk, you know, without having to like rig up some like weird way to place the camera. Like, let's do it. And you know, I can send the camera in and out of buildings, windows and stuff on this chase scene through Bagghar because why not? I can do whatever I want with the camera. so there's a degree to which it's just kind of like fun to see Spielberg.

Daniel Howat (01:19:21.182)
Right, exactly.

Eli (01:19:25.55)
get to have fun in a way that he can't usually.

Daniel Howat (01:19:27.297)
Yeah, I think.

I think you especially see that in the creativity of all of that in the transitions, which are so magnificent. My favorite is when they're in the desert after the plane crash and Haddock is having those flashbacks to the previous pirate life. And when the pirate ship is coming over the dunes, I mean...

Eli (01:19:38.592)
Yes, yeah.

Eli (01:19:47.716)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:19:54.926)
Yeah. Yeah.

Daniel Howat (01:19:55.282)
I love that sequence. think it is so, it's a perfect use of this medium, right? I think lesser directors can make animated films that don't need to be animated and this film needs to be animated. It could only happen in the medium of animation and that's really what I love that he brought to Tintin.

Eli (01:20:00.613)
Yeah.

Eli (01:20:08.578)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah.

Eli (01:20:17.762)
Yeah, and now you know, it's now that you mentioned that the transitions probably were one of my favorite things in the movie I I love a fun transition and there's there's like a ton of them in this when when haddix having like his like You know alcohol like hallucination, of the all the red raccoon and you know captain haddix stuff. It's it's like

Daniel Howat (01:20:24.758)
It's awesome.

Yeah. There's so many. Yeah, there's so many.

Eli (01:20:45.774)
Transition after transition like I think every time it goes back and forth. There's like some like really cool transition Yeah, like I think one time it's even like us Like a close-up on a sword and it's a reflection back to like modern times and then it goes back to them like so fun so cool But yeah, I mean the design of this movie I think is really interesting

Daniel Howat (01:20:52.235)
Yeah, so good.

Daniel Howat (01:21:02.847)
Yeah, yeah. It's brilliant. Yeah, yeah.

Eli (01:21:14.944)
It's so obviously weighted digital does all like the concept art, the concept design for the characters and the environments. They're doing a lot of work of like, obviously like you want to, you want to respect and honor like the original art of urge. It's iconic. You want to do it, but you can't really do in this like photo realistic sort of environment, the clear, the clear line style.

And so they, kind of have to find ways to like, you know, give homage to urge a style. And so a lot of it comes through and with each character they found like, okay, what is the most caricatured part of this character? Let's like overemphasize that. like you have the nose on Hattick. Tintin is probably like the least caricatured of all of them. I mean, he is just the hair. Yeah. which.

Daniel Howat (01:22:02.829)
Mm-hmm.

Daniel Howat (01:22:09.207)
Just the hair. What do you think of the animation, especially on the characters? I know one of the biggest criticisms of this film still is that it can veer into uncanny valley. How do you feel?

Eli (01:22:24.696)
So I didn't feel like, so like I hate the Polar Express cause it creeps me out. Yeah, I can't, I just can't do it with the Polar Express. I didn't get that with this movie. I didn't feel that.

Daniel Howat (01:22:29.997)
The dead eyes.

Daniel Howat (01:22:37.325)
I agree. I agree. don't feel that but I do know that that is what people's, you know, toughest thing is with the film. I think it's just... I wouldn't fault somebody for feeling that way. Like I get where you're coming from if you feel that way. But this one, I do think it veers enough into cartoony that it doesn't feel like too trying to be lifelike, you know.

Eli (01:22:43.042)
Yeah. Yeah.

Eli (01:22:50.34)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:22:57.154)
Yes.

Eli (01:23:02.936)
Yeah, and I think it is that exactly like what I was talking about the them talking about like trying to make sure to overemphasize like the caricatured acts aspects so like There's not a there's not a real person that has a nose that big like and so like, know, you're watching a cartoon so it's kind of like It reminds me of so the the Lion King the quote-unquote live-action Lion King

Daniel Howat (01:23:19.595)
Right.

Daniel Howat (01:23:30.599)
Yeah, right, right.

Eli (01:23:32.493)
like that is sort of uncanny valley because you have like You're you're trying to like give show emotions on animals, but without actually like giving them faces that emote at all Where where they would have done better to kind of like caricaturize the animals in some way in my opinion to to kind of be able to Allow them to emote feelings with their faces And so this is

Daniel Howat (01:23:46.093)
Right.

Daniel Howat (01:23:58.872)
Definitely.

Eli (01:24:02.178)
That's like, so like with the Polar Express, you're just trying to make the kids look photo realistic. And it's just like, it throws you off and it creeps me out. I don't like it. And so, so, but with this one, it's with this movie, it's very much like, you know, yes, it's photo realistic, but it's like, you know, it's a cartoon still because of the way that they designed the characters. So really like, I didn't feel, cause I kept, I was kind of like,

Daniel Howat (01:24:13.357)
I totally agree. I totally agree.

Eli (01:24:31.556)
myself for that when I when I hit play on the movie but it gets rolling and really like the most photorealistic character is probably the the cartoon artist that looks like a reggie at the beginning and I think they were just trying to you know really like give homage to him and honor him but really like Tintin has you know the the ridiculous hair and then yeah all the characters kind of are like

very cartoony looking, even if they are a bit photorealistic in their rendering, their features are cartoonish.

Daniel Howat (01:25:07.659)
Yeah, I think it works well against the environments as well. Like I think the environments find the right balance between being cartoony and feeling like you're really immersed in the environment. And so I think that helps emphasize the cartoony nature of the human characters. Yeah, I really do enjoy the animation style overall. I do wonder though,

Eli (01:25:30.148)
Mm-hmm.

Daniel Howat (01:25:36.514)
You mentioned earlier how difficult it would be to emulate the clean line animation. do wonder though today what a Tin Tin film would look like. Because in a Spider-Verse sort of or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Mutant Mayhem style, I do feel like you could do something really cool making it look like the comic strips come to life.

Eli (01:25:45.465)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:25:54.115)
Yeah.

Daniel Howat (01:26:05.594)
Obviously, that's a very different movie than what Spielberg would be making.

Eli (01:26:08.076)
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Very much so. but yeah, I love those are, those are really great examples of like comic books come to life. but both of those look, they're a little different and how they render it, but, but both very good. Yeah.

Daniel Howat (01:26:18.593)
Mm-hmm.

Daniel Howat (01:26:23.885)
Yeah, obviously those styles are complicated and messy, which Tintin wouldn't or shouldn't be, but yeah, but I am curious what that would look like, yeah.

Eli (01:26:30.486)
Right, right.

Yeah, I think some of it comes through too with the cartoon physics, which is something I... that's one thing I couldn't decide if I liked it or not, because that's the one thing in this environment and with these characters that would throw me off a bit, because most of the time it's trying to go by normal physics, but then every once in a while when there's some like...

Cartoonie like gag action going on like with the Thompson's like running into a like a you know a lamp post and like bouncing backwards all cartoon like I'm like it throws me off for a second. I'm like, yeah, it's like based on comic strips like it's supposed to be cartoon So that's the one that's like the one thing is like the cartoon physics that it kind of because it doesn't employ it like all the time it's just like Every once in a while when it's convenient or like for a gag

Daniel Howat (01:27:05.367)
Yeah.

Daniel Howat (01:27:22.957)
Yeah.

Eli (01:27:31.01)
It'll do like some weird cartoon physics that that kind of like throws me off for a second

Daniel Howat (01:27:36.939)
Yeah, I do think they could have amped that up. think that's, you know, another feature of Spielberg not being an animation director, you know? But, but yeah, no, I can't fault that criticism for sure.

Eli (01:27:46.175)
Mm-hmm, sure.

Eli (01:27:51.501)
Yeah, but you know, it's one of those things where like Again, like a rewatch might do me good because then I could just like kind of accept it from the get-go and be like, Sometimes they're going even though it looks More real they're gonna act like, you know looney tunes. so And I guess the other thing, I can't remember where I had this in my notes, so i'll talk about it now

Daniel Howat (01:28:10.881)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Eli (01:28:21.22)
Is the how did you feel about the way like the camera movement? Would would be in like more still muted scenes Because that was something that like I really I really couldn't figure out why the camera was like Moving like you were on the ocean even when you were like on dry land

Daniel Howat (01:28:50.177)
Yeah, I do think there's a lot of extra camera movement for this for sure. Again, going back to what we've been saying this whole time, like the Spielberg at play, you know, I do think he was just taking advantage of the ease of moving the camera through the scenes, you know.

Eli (01:28:58.253)
Yeah.

Eli (01:29:04.792)
Yeah, because there would be it would be like, you know, so when they were like on the ship, I can kind of understand like the kind of like bounciness, floatiness of the camera. You're trying to like emulate that. But then it would do like similar similar things when you're like, I don't know, in a house or something. And it's the characters are talking and the camera is kind of like I guess he was going for like a handheld feel. But it just it didn't translate.

Daniel Howat (01:29:29.963)
I think that's what it was, yeah.

Eli (01:29:33.541)
all that well for me. It was like, it was a little distracting for me personally sometimes. if I had any like quibbles with like the way it was like all put together, would be, that would be like one of the main ones probably is just like, man, I couldn't, I kept getting distracted a little bit by all the play that he was doing with the camera. But, and that's another way that it kind of showed up for me.

Daniel Howat (01:29:59.064)
Sure, sure.

Eli (01:30:03.64)
but yeah, so motion capture, we've got to talk about that because it's very interesting, how it all, how it all happens. so you have a area called the volume. That's what they call it. which sounds like it could be like a good sci-fi movie. but, it's like, it's basically like a three space. like I said, about the size of a basketball court.

and you have about 160-ish cameras mounted all around from all angles on the ceiling pointing into it. And basically actors that are wearing the motion caption gear, which is basically like a suit that reflects the light a certain way, and they have like this headgear on with a camera pointing at their face. They use a mask.

they like map out their faces individually, put dot, paint dots using a mask on their face. So there's all these dots on their face that the camera on their head mount picks up. And so like they have, they're wearing all this stuff. And when they go into the space, these virtual cameras basically like render them in 3D, like live. And so Spielberg,

or whoever's operating the virtual camera basically has this like huge video game controller with a screen on it. So there wasn't really, there wasn't an equivalent to that back then. So Peter Jackson said it's like he has a PlayStation controller, but really it's more like he has a switch, you know, an Nintendo switch, but a really big one with joysticks and yeah.

Daniel Howat (01:31:44.813)
Yeah, right, yeah.

Daniel Howat (01:31:51.63)
I've gotten to play with one of those before. I was at Pixar last year before Inside Out 2 and they sort of mocked up what it's like when they explore a scene. And yeah, I got to pick up it's a camp, at least the one, of course, this was last year, 12 years later, but yeah, it really was like a camera rig, but just virtual. And so I was...

Eli (01:31:58.981)
Uh-huh.

Eli (01:32:04.215)
Yeah.

Eli (01:32:10.775)
Now, yeah.

Eli (01:32:16.291)
Mmm.

Daniel Howat (01:32:19.177)
Watching what I was doing is I was walking around the inside out characters. It's it's fascinating. It's so fascinating

Eli (01:32:23.524)
That's cool. Yeah. Yeah. The one Spielberg had, cause it shows him using it a lot. It's, really is like a Nintendo switch, but like huge. And so he, he's just looking down. He'll be like in the scene. they, the, technology had advanced enough for like Spielberg could be like on the set and the virtual cameras wouldn't pick him up. cause he was just in like street clothes. And so he would just be walking around.

Daniel Howat (01:32:32.417)
Yeah. Yeah.

Daniel Howat (01:32:47.049)
That's

Eli (01:32:52.674)
like on the set with the act, like right next to the actors, like, and you can see them like moving joysticks around basically, to move the camera. And so, yeah, he's just standing there in the middle of the set, like moving the camera around. It really is like play like he's playing. but yeah, so it's, it's really cool. The, the team, came in, and like, it took like one month of setup.

Daniel Howat (01:33:10.411)
Yeah, yeah.

Eli (01:33:22.338)
before they started shooting to get everything ready. Way to, guess, I would assume is based out of New Zealand, because that's where Peter Jackson is and it's his company. they brought in like all, they had to bring in like all their servers, all their stage stuff, all their like wireframe so that they use, they build, they basically build like instead of normal sets, they build these like small miniature like

Daniel Howat (01:33:29.933)
Yeah, yeah

Eli (01:33:51.533)
wireframe sets. So everything's made in wireframe form so that the cameras don't... the light can pass through them and the cameras don't really recognize them. But it gives the actors actual things to interact with. So you'll see Andy Serkis with this wireframe beer bottle, whiskey bottle, playing with that or drinking from that all the time on set. They have wireframe

you know, overturned rowboat, a wireframe rig that's supposed to emulate a camel or the motorcycle, even wireframe desks when they're sword fighting around the desk. So everything, I touched on this when I was talking about Indie Serkis earlier, but they really are in an environment, it's a very like,

Daniel Howat (01:34:33.655)
Right.

Eli (01:34:47.48)
different sort of environment than a normal set, but they are interacting with each other and they are interacting with real objects that are stand-ins for what will be rendered digitally. So it's really cool to watch. Serkis and Jamie Bell both did pretty much all of their own stunts, and there was a lot of stunts.

Daniel Howat (01:34:59.046)
Mm-hmm.

Daniel Howat (01:35:14.892)
Yeah.

Eli (01:35:15.926)
to be done in the mood like they were actually doing it all these all this jumping around and sword fighting and it was it was fun to watch some of that but it is a little bit weird because they're in these like weird looking suits and with the headgear on but but i'm sure you've seen some of that like behind the scenes stuff with motion capture before yeah if you haven't go watch them because it's it's interesting they had like

Daniel Howat (01:35:29.613)
Yeah.

Daniel Howat (01:35:36.203)
Yeah, definitely. Yeah, yeah.

Eli (01:35:44.215)
over 500 wireframe props that they had on set. yeah, it's really interesting. It's something that all the actors, they kind of had all the actors give a little spiel on how fun it was, how interesting it was, how like, you know,

Daniel Howat (01:35:48.003)
That's so good.

Eli (01:36:12.066)
Like I said, Serkis was the only motion capture veteran, so all of them is just like totally new, totally different. But it turns out really well. then the cool thing is, it doesn't take a whole lot of time. They were on the set for 32 days. I'm sure like Jamie Bell and Serkis were there for most of that. But a lot of the other characters, I mean, you have like I think Carrie Elwes, who was the pilot for the airplane.

He was like, I was there for one day, and he's done. So there's some pros to that as far as that goes. Even Snowy had some different prop Snowys that the property master guy was rolling around on the floor and chasing the characters with. So they have a rolling one, a soft one that they could land on.

Daniel Howat (01:36:43.053)
Right.

Daniel Howat (01:37:04.887)
That's great.

Eli (01:37:10.98)
It was fun. they did Snowy. How did you like Snowy? We haven't really talked at all about Snowy.

Daniel Howat (01:37:20.363)
Yeah, mean, think Snowy is a great cinema dog. I think he has that, he actually contributes to the mission and he finds, right at the beginning, he finds the little vial thing with the note in it. And yeah, I think he's exactly the right sidekick for Tintin to help propel the story along. So I think it was done really well.

Eli (01:37:34.169)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Eli (01:37:44.217)
Mm-hmm.

Daniel Howat (01:37:47.56)
And it's especially, I think the animation of Snowy was great because it's able to be even more cartoony than the human characters. And so I think Snowy looked great as well.

Eli (01:37:56.449)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yeah, he looks really good. They they the animators talked about the fur obviously is the hardest thing to do But they like basically rendered like combable fur so like when they all of the fur was able they were able to basically like You know Manipulate the fur individually make it bounce how it was supposed to bounce

Daniel Howat (01:38:07.682)
Mm-hmm.

Daniel Howat (01:38:14.358)
Mm.

Eli (01:38:27.278)
But yeah, I'm sure that took a ton of time to render that and get it to look right. One of the fun things was the sound mixer was talking about all the different dog sounds he came up with. So he said it's like 25-ish dogs that make up Snowy's voice. And there's like three or four main ones.

Daniel Howat (01:38:29.555)
Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Eli (01:38:54.116)
But it's like a mix of a total of like 25 And the the funniest thing was he was like basically snowy has the last word of the movie It's the like it does the little yeah zoom in and snowy makes a little noise And he said I like I labored over what that noise should be for hours and hours But yeah, so basically they finish up

Daniel Howat (01:39:05.943)
Yeah? Zoom in,

Daniel Howat (01:39:13.837)
Sure.

Eli (01:39:24.516)
Like I said, Michael Kahn, it takes about a month and he gets his, Michael Kahn is like, he's fast, man. I think he's faster with film than most people are with digital footage. But he gets it out, the cut to the wait in about a month. And yeah, it's from there, it's typical like two year animation to get the movie out structure.

Daniel Howat (01:39:36.045)
Yeah.

Daniel Howat (01:39:51.131)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:39:53.413)
And it was, it was about one and a half to two years later before it was completed. They, I mean, they had to build out all the environments. had to build out all the, I mean, when you, so when you think about these movies like this, like this or a Pixar movie, when you, when you're like in Tintin's apartment, for instance,

All of those like furniture and all of those like items that are like rolling around on the in the desk drawer when he pulls it out. All of those they have to like design individually and then place them in the environment to like interact with the movement of everything. And then I mean you have the cat come in and like everything's getting thrown everywhere. All of those little objects from like big things like furniture to like a little

Daniel Howat (01:40:27.976)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

Eli (01:40:46.552)
pin or something is individually like designed and made and placed in the environment so it's a lot of work. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean they have a huge variety of environments to build too. I mean just like the main ones is like Tintin's neighborhood. You have the market. You have the Cariboujean ship. You have the whole like city of Beghar basically.

Daniel Howat (01:40:54.113)
Yeah, hugely labor-intensive time and that's why these movies take forever.

Daniel Howat (01:41:14.317)
Yeah, yeah

Eli (01:41:15.557)
And then you have natural ones too, which might be even harder like the desert in the ocean I mean water is hard in and of itself to render an animation

Daniel Howat (01:41:26.027)
Yeah, they always say the hardest things are water and fur or water and hair are the hardest things to animate. Yeah

Eli (01:41:28.908)
Yeah. Yeah. And so, and then, mean, you have like the actors movements, but you have to build all the textures and clothes and hair and perspiration and all that stuff. and so, the team started with like five to six people to start it off, but it ended with over 900 artists working on it. which makes sense if you're familiar with animation. but yeah.

I think Kathleen Kennedy was talking about how she was learning that each frame basically takes like four to five hours of work and when you think about movies like at this time we're being made at like 24 frames per second so you every second you have Whatever I'm not even gonna do the math in my head whatever 24 times 4 hours of work is for just each second of the movie It's it's a lot of work

Daniel Howat (01:42:06.443)
Mm-hmm.

Daniel Howat (01:42:26.967)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:42:27.8)
I'll let someone with a calculator do the math on that. But yeah, September 15th, 2011, Spielberg does his traditional end of shooting toast, which is at the end of the completion of the film, Faiweta, instead of the end of like their physical shooting. Tons of people on the video conference call. Those are always fun to watch everyone celebrating finishing a movie. So yeah.

Daniel Howat (01:42:30.742)
You

Eli (01:42:57.988)
They put out their first marketing in May 2011. They got, of course, the 10-10 of files or whatever you want to call them. They had some concerns, but the filmmakers kind of knew that that was going to happen because when you, the animation style is so different than the comic animation that, you yeah, it, it, was inevitable. They did present an excerpt of it at Comic-Con.

Daniel Howat (01:43:13.068)
Yeah.

Eli (01:43:26.564)
that year, so that's fun to see. But yeah, it released, so it released in Europe at the end of October in 2011. It got its world premiere in Brussels to honor Hergé October 22nd, and it wasn't until December 21st that it got its US release. So yeah, it's interesting. What's interesting about the release of this movie is it's

released basically the same weekend as Warhorse. So Warhorse released on Christmas Day just four days later. Or really, so I think it was limited on the 21st, wider on the 22nd. So really like three days later, Warhorse is out in theaters too. And you almost wonder if they like cannibalized each other's box office potential.

Daniel Howat (01:44:10.165)
Yeah, yeah.

Daniel Howat (01:44:24.557)
I mean, obviously they're wildly different movies, you know, but but no, totally. It's it, you know, I haven't watched War Horse since 2011. So like I, I don't have a lot of memories other than thinking that it is one of the lesser Spielberg's. But I was definitely there for both movies, you know, and but yeah, I mean, they're they're so different that I

Eli (01:44:26.945)
Yes. Yeah.

Daniel Howat (01:44:51.998)
once clearly in the Oscar market and won, got Oscar nominations, is more of a commercial family sort of environment.

Eli (01:44:54.148)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:44:59.554)
Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting. I have not seen Warhorse yet. That's a blind spot for me. So I'll be watching it very soon for an upcoming episode. you know, it's it's just interesting. I just don't understand the decision there because I don't I mean, Tintin wasn't ready for the summer.

But it feels very much like a summer release not a Christmas release and warhorse feels like a Christmas release, you But but you know, it wasn't ready in the summer and do you want to wait a whole like another six months? I guess not. So I guess it makes sense Yeah

Daniel Howat (01:45:26.302)
It does, yeah.

It does, yeah.

Daniel Howat (01:45:40.619)
They've already been working on the film for two years and then also 25 years.

Eli (01:45:46.18)
Yes. Yeah. it, it opens. So 1010 opens at number five. It made 15 million domestic open weekend. Warhorse opened at number seven. it did 1010 started out stronger. Warhorse started with 14 and a half million, but I do think so 1010 ended up at over 70 million domestic. And I think Warhorse did out gross it domestically.

Daniel Howat (01:46:02.861)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:46:15.524)
by like maybe a couple million dollars.

Daniel Howat (01:46:19.757)
It's grosses when I was looking at that today, I was shocked at how low it's gross, Tintin's grosses were domestically. Yeah, internationally it did. Like it seems to me as I'm looking at these numbers, 12 years, 15 years later, whatever, it did internationally about what I would guess that it would do. That international number looked pretty normal, but to only gross,

Eli (01:46:27.618)
Yeah, domestic is not great. Yeah.

Eli (01:46:43.449)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, it was about 300 million internationally.

Daniel Howat (01:46:50.135)
But to only gross 70 million in the States, that's wild to me. I think if it was released today, it would do much better than that, with the right release strategy. So yeah, think 2011 is a weird movie year in general, but yeah, very strange to see how low it, honestly, that is bad performance. That's not a good performance.

Eli (01:47:09.068)
Yeah. Yeah. I mean like probably, I mean, troll sequels probably make 500 million domestic.

Daniel Howat (01:47:15.868)
absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Rightfully so. Rightfully so.

Eli (01:47:18.02)
I haven't seen any Trolls movies, that was not a It wasn't a educated shot at Trolls. I don't know anything about the movies Okay, yeah, yeah we haven't we haven't unlocked that Pandora's box here yet

Daniel Howat (01:47:28.653)
They're big in our household, I'll tell you that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Daniel Howat (01:47:38.413)
Hey, you can do worse. There are worse animated films.

Eli (01:47:42.789)
But yeah, so we've been we've actually been doing my wife had the idea to do musicals March so we've been watching musicals with the kids all March and so We so we we did singing in the rain Mary Poppins What else did we do we did the the like the animated movie version of you're a good man Charlie Brown

Daniel Howat (01:47:49.549)
Alright.

Daniel Howat (01:47:55.788)
Like what?

Daniel Howat (01:47:59.572)
nice.

Daniel Howat (01:48:10.305)
Yeah, yeah.

Eli (01:48:11.31)
Prince of Egypt they hadn't seen. What else? I watched, my wife isn't into Muppets, but I watched the original Muppet movie with them. Yeah, so we've hit some good ones with them. It seems like there's one or two more, but I can't remember off the top of my head.

Daniel Howat (01:48:22.637)
That's awesome.

Daniel Howat (01:48:31.851)
That's awesome. I haven't done singing in the rain with them yet, but that's one of my favorites of all time. Did they like it?

Eli (01:48:35.672)
They, my daughter, my daughter walks around, she's two years old and she walks around singing, singing in the rain all the time. She knows all the words to the, the, the titular song. so.

Daniel Howat (01:48:44.311)
That's awesome.

That's awesome. My kids are huge into musicals. Like they love Wicked. my gosh, they love Wicked. And yeah, they just love musicals in general. And so yeah, I've been waiting to do singing. The way we do this is totally an aside. So sorry for taking us on tangent here. Got movie dads, you know? What I made for my kids years ago, I think I started when they were like three or maybe four.

Eli (01:48:52.12)
Yeah. yeah.

Eli (01:49:04.77)
No, I love it. Yeah.

Daniel Howat (01:49:16.845)
We call it movie box. Basically, I have a little box and I designed little slips of paper with all these different movies on them. And so it's time for movie night. We draw something out of movie box. I found that to be such a great way to get the kids excited to watch new stuff instead of just watching the same stuff over and over again. They're like, actively can't wait to watch the stuff in movie box.

Eli (01:49:18.916)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:49:41.112)
Mm-hmm.

Daniel Howat (01:49:45.907)
And so that's the way we've done movie night and then we put out an air mattress and make a whole thing. So that's one of my greatest inventions. That's a free idea for anyone listening. It's gotten the kids so excited about anything, any old films, new films, anything that I think they need to see. It's really been an awesome way to sort of like...

Eli (01:49:52.482)
Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:49:58.486)
Yeah, no, that's a great idea.

Eli (01:50:06.286)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Daniel Howat (01:50:13.267)
educate or propagandize my children towards towards movie loving yeah

Eli (01:50:17.548)
Yeah, yeah we've done not exactly that we our thing is we bribe with like popcorn So it's like you get to have popcorn and it's like, okay, I'll watch it Because my son went through a phase where he if you asked him, hey, do you want to watch this movie? He would just say no, I don't want to watch movie a movie And and so like but he's gotten out like when he

Daniel Howat (01:50:23.968)
Nice, yeah, yeah,

Daniel Howat (01:50:27.789)
Yeah, that's awesome.

Daniel Howat (01:50:36.211)
yes, my kids absolutely went through that same phase.

Eli (01:50:44.26)
One of the things I'll do is like if there's a milestone coming up I'll be like, okay when this comes like we're gonna watch this movie and like he's resistant at first But the more you build it up so like it's like when you turn six the way I phrase it is you have to watch Star Wars and so So he was resistant at first. I was like, no, that's the rule when you turn six. You have to watch Star Wars That's the rules. And so so on his birthday literally on his birthday. We watched Star Wars and

Daniel Howat (01:50:52.461)
guys.

Daniel Howat (01:51:00.127)
Nice, yeah, yeah.

Daniel Howat (01:51:07.949)
That's awesome.

Eli (01:51:13.196)
he was immediately like, I want to watch the next one.

Daniel Howat (01:51:16.083)
Nice, nice. Now we did almost the exact same thing. We watched it. I think I was trying to get them to watch it when they were like five. But I think they were a little bit scared because we'll tell them something's an adult movie or whatever. I guess we should use a different phrase. But we'll tell them something's a movie for grownups and they'll think it's... I think they just think that a grownup movie means scary. Obviously it doesn't mean that.

Eli (01:51:24.897)
huh.

Eli (01:51:28.292)
Hmm

Eli (01:51:32.098)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Daniel Howat (01:51:45.174)
So I think they were scared of it. Right? Exactly. It's exactly what it means. And so I think they were they were scared of Star Wars at first because they thought like they had been too young for it. But yeah, they've sort of we've sort of removed that. actually just started two weeks ago. This is probably you can judge me all you want. It's totally fine. I started them on the Marvel movies. I was like, look, I know I know they're six years old, but like they dig superheroes. I was like.

Eli (01:51:45.366)
No, it means boring. That's what I...

Eli (01:51:55.524)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:52:04.344)
Hahaha.

Okay.

Eli (01:52:12.014)
Sure. Yeah.

Daniel Howat (01:52:12.877)
Alright, we're going for it. We're going for it. So, and they've been loving it. We're two in. We watched Iron Man and Incredible Hulk and they love it. yeah, anyway.

Eli (01:52:20.814)
Yeah, that's great. We haven't gotten into that yet. I know we will, because it'll be fun. I definitely was one of the people that got serious Marvel fatigue at one point. But yeah, I'm excited to eventually dig into those with him.

Daniel Howat (01:52:31.645)
yeah, totally.

Daniel Howat (01:52:39.469)
It's cool seeing them like, you know, start to love superheroes and stuff like that. You know, that's that's been fun. Anyway, none of that has anything to do with Tintin. I'm so sorry. Total, total aside. Yeah, there you go.

Eli (01:52:49.252)
Well, it sort of does you know Tintin's a movie you would watch with your kids so But yeah it it does No good transition here, so we'll just jump back The the box office numbers. It wasn't great. It ended up at three hundred seventy four million worldwide Which isn't really bad it's like it's not exactly a flop

Daniel Howat (01:53:03.533)
Yeah, jump back in.

Daniel Howat (01:53:16.748)
Yeah.

Eli (01:53:17.508)
You might could call it a flop domestically because I think it was like I think I remember saying 130 ish million dollar budget And so like you don't make back your money domestically and so for studios, I think that's a problem Even though you make it up internationally sometimes the way like Rights go and like who gets that money this, you know, sometimes that doesn't work out right so

And this was like a paramount Sony thing. So a lot of times it'll be like paramount will be like, okay, we'll take the mesquite Sony, you take international. Um, and so if that was the case, it could be, be like one of the studios was very unhappy with, with what they got. So, um,

Daniel Howat (01:54:05.069)
Yeah, I mean, we've said it already, but we've lamented not getting the Peter Jackson sequel. But when you look at those numbers, it's like, I understand why they weren't, any of them, honestly, why Spielberg or Peter Jackson weren't leaping to make the next one, because it kind of did seem, at least domestically, that people weren't all that into it, really.

Eli (01:54:23.512)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:54:27.576)
Yeah, yeah, which is a shame because The europeans were really excited about this movie and it's a shame that we took took away sequels from them Number one at the box office interestingly enough made out grossed. in its in this weekend what Tintin made domestically which was mission impossible ghost protocol so Yeah

Daniel Howat (01:54:30.463)
It is.

Daniel Howat (01:54:36.863)
Yeah, yeah, totally

Daniel Howat (01:54:52.301)
yeah, of course, of course, yeah, yeah.

Eli (01:54:55.768)
Which we could totally follow another bunny trail and talk about being excited for final reckoning, but we probably shouldn't.

Daniel Howat (01:54:58.4)
Hahaha

Daniel Howat (01:55:02.611)
Yeah, I did. I'll the only aside I'll give is like I said, I was just at CinemaCon yesterday. Tom Cruise was there for the for Universal's presentation or sorry Paramount's presentation and it really felt like they were saying goodbye. It really he did a whole thing honoring

Eli (01:55:07.267)
Yeah.

Eli (01:55:11.671)
yeah.

Eli (01:55:15.384)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:55:20.385)
Man I'm gonna cry watching this movie

Daniel Howat (01:55:23.561)
It was wild. really, he spent, cause he talked for like 30 minutes and he was talking about like, he was honoring everybody who's made the movies, thanking all the directors who've done all Mission Impossible movies. He was really like, it genuinely, I mean, it's called the final reckoning, but it really felt like I was watching an in memoriam sequence for the series. So wild.

Eli (01:55:33.315)
Yeah.

Eli (01:55:37.326)
Right.

Eli (01:55:42.021)
Man man. Yeah Yeah, let's talk about the reception of this movie. So European criticism Was a little mixed so some of the publications Lessoir was a daily newspaper They said it was quote paste colorful full of relief the film alternates the plot

and the game of tracks with a background that is often lively, light, and sometimes even hilarious." So basically just saying, know, so the game of tracks is just like the sound mixing, I think, basically, for people that don't know what that means. But it's basically just saying, yeah, it's fun. know, exactly what we said about it. But then you have like Laleeb,

Daniel Howat (01:56:32.641)
Yeah, right, right.

Yeah.

Eli (01:56:41.452)
Belgique they saluted haddix alcoholism being retained I guess they were like they they were afraid that the the Americans were gonna like Take stuff like that out, which they didn't but But called it Raiders of the Lost Unicorn and the Ford deplored the fact that it played too much like Indy which I guess is maybe unfair because Indy you could argue plays like Tintin so

Daniel Howat (01:56:53.837)
totally.

Daniel Howat (01:57:09.953)
Yeah, it's hard to say without, you knowing the source material myself too much, but I mean, it does share a lot with Indiana Jones. So I, you know, I understand that criticism.

Eli (01:57:11.652)
Yeah, right.

Eli (01:57:18.764)
Right, yeah. Yeah, and yeah, I understand it. And, you know, it is what it is. It was kind of a recurrent European critique that felt the adventure, excessive adventure and noise and frantic pace and yeah, I guess like thinking about it, European films aren't typically like that sort of pacing. You know, they, I think,

European film viewers and critics probably have a little bit more patience with their movies than American audiences often do So that's probably fair that they felt that way about it And and even like the the opinions were mixed on the adaptation of air J style some thought that the challenge was met with success and others felt that it like destroyed fidelity to the original material, so

You kind of have like mixed reviews across the board. it's same thing in America, really. so the injection of the ND was not lost on American viewers, obviously. but no one really seemed offended by that. They were like, yeah, great. know, the, one of the exceptions was the New York times, which said, quote, relax, you think as 10 10 and the story rush off again.

Daniel Howat (01:58:36.071)
Yeah, yeah.

Eli (01:58:46.838)
as if Mr. Spielberg were afraid of losing us, the American public, with European-style lingeures. So yeah, the New York Times, you know, I think I'm like 50-50 there with the New York Times. Sometimes I feel like it's like, man, I wish it would slow down for just a second and let me catch my breath. Which I think indie films,

Daniel Howat (01:58:53.473)
Hahaha.

Daniel Howat (01:59:11.556)
Sure

Eli (01:59:15.83)
do really well. And I don't, I think that was maybe something that was lacking in this movie was like something that Spielberg usually is like phenomenal at. He's, it's, you see it mostly like in the indie movies in Jurassic Park where you have a slow down moment where there's like really deep character development and then you use that character development to launch back into action with like even

Daniel Howat (01:59:34.71)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (01:59:45.538)
greater stakes basically because you're more connected to the character you're more connected to their stakes that they have and there's not really that at all in Tintin.

Daniel Howat (01:59:56.812)
Yeah, that's definitely my biggest complaint for the film is there's none of it. I mean, there's really none, you know, at all. This is this is just an adventure for fun. And there is no you're right. There aren't those moments of character development or of enriching the story or. And I do think that is where it can lose. Like it's another one of those complaints that I don't fault anybody for feeling if they feel like

Eli (02:00:05.572)
Yeah.

Eli (02:00:09.88)
Mm-hmm.

Daniel Howat (02:00:26.569)
you know, they didn't connect to the story. I get it. I mean, I connected to the fun of it. And so that's that works for me when I lean into that side of it. But like, there is no deeper theme to this. There is no, you know, richer story underneath. And it's just tin tin going to find this thing, you know.

Eli (02:00:29.592)
Yeah. Right.

Eli (02:00:40.26)
Yeah.

Eli (02:00:44.696)
Mm-hmm. Yeah in in my notes in my my themes section. I have one one One note under themes and it is go after adventure question mark You know, it's just a fun movie, you know and then 1010 like He doesn't feel like or so Indy Indy is pretty One-dimensional like he doesn't really change a whole lot

Daniel Howat (02:00:55.667)
Yeah, yeah, I mean, yeah, there's really not much else to it

Eli (02:01:14.148)
But he does like He does have like emotional moments with other characters that are like either touching or like help you like Understand who he is, you know Even if he's like not a super dynamic character. He still has like moments where you understand who he is

Daniel Howat (02:01:37.345)
Yeah, or the adventure is tied into something deeper, you know, like... Yeah, absolutely, exactly. The relationship between him and his dad is so rich. Or even things like fighting Nazis. You know, that's, look, that's a theme that we still need to hear today. And so I think that works, whereas Tin Tin doesn't even have anything as...

Eli (02:01:40.066)
Yeah, the last crusade is the best example of that I think. Yeah.

Eli (02:01:54.232)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Daniel Howat (02:02:05.449)
surface level I guess as fighting Nazis. You know it doesn't really even have that. It's just kind of generally fighting bad guys I guess.

Eli (02:02:06.818)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Eli (02:02:13.368)
Yeah, and it's hard to really latch on to him as a character because of that. Like, he feels less of a character and more of like a mover of the plot. And I think, I don't know, I feel like I'm not connected to the source material at all, but I feel like if I was, I would feel like.

Daniel Howat (02:02:24.454)
Yeah, yeah, that's fair.

Eli (02:02:38.798)
They cheaped out 1010 and didn't give him enough like depth. But again, I don't know. Maybe the source material. He doesn't really have that either. He's just

Daniel Howat (02:02:46.485)
I kind of feel like he, again, we're making assumptions here. I kind of don't think that he does because, you know, I mean, when you look at the cartoons and think about the stories that they're telling there, they are very light stories. you know, again, maybe we'd feel differently if we read the comic or the cartoons, but I kind of think this...

Eli (02:02:52.44)
Yeah, maybe not.

Eli (02:03:03.0)
Mm-hmm.

Daniel Howat (02:03:10.613)
seems to me to have been his, at least what Spielberg perceived to be a faithful adaptation of fun and mystery rather than something deeper emotionally.

Eli (02:03:19.928)
Yeah. Yeah. And I think the, the one thing that it's missing that seems to from, again, this is, this is from like reliable sources that like he would, he would try to include some sort of like social or political commentary on like current events even. and so like, it doesn't really have that, but like, I like, don't really blame Spielberg necessarily for not trying to include that, but

Daniel Howat (02:03:40.365)
Sure. Sure.

Eli (02:03:50.021)
Yeah The last note on reception I had Because I thought it was funny was Ebert Roger Ebert the man the myth the legend thought it was great fun and He gave it 875 portholes Which apparently was a joke derived from a haddock ism, which is Nilcebors, which means a thousand portholes so

I guess that's equivalent to an 8.75 out of 10. It did get Oscar nominated for the score. It got a BAFTA nomination for best animated and VFX. And the only thing it won was Golden Globe for best animated feature.

Daniel Howat (02:04:22.689)
There we go.

Daniel Howat (02:04:38.545)
I am still so surprised that it didn't receive a nomination for best animated feature at the Oscars. Very strange, very strange. mean, at that time, believe, I mean, 2011 was a weird year for the Oscars and for awards, but it was eligible. I went and looked it back, you because sometimes the Oscars have interesting eligibility rules about motion capture and things like that.

Eli (02:04:48.598)
It is.

Eli (02:05:05.016)
Mm-hmm.

Daniel Howat (02:05:06.431)
And, but it was eligible. And then I looked to see if it was submitted for animated feature because with something like the Lion King remake for Disney, they did not submit that because they don't want it to be considered animated. So I was like wondering if Spielberg did something similar, didn't submit it for animated feature, but he did. So it was submitted. It was eligible. The Academy just didn't go for it.

Eli (02:05:16.056)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (02:05:26.916)
Weird.

Eli (02:05:31.244)
Yeah, I was looking at the others. The other nominees were Puss in Boots, Chico and Rita, which I don't know what that is. Okay, good to know. Kung Fu Panda 2, know, Jack Black fun, and A Cat in Paris, which I also don't know. But I wasn't plugged in so much back then. So usually I try to see all these, but I wasn't.

Daniel Howat (02:05:39.597)
It's

Daniel Howat (02:05:48.045)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Daniel Howat (02:05:55.501)
Chico and Rita is really cool. It's very stylized, stylistic, a little bit more of an adult animated film sort of, and really great style. those are great nominees. Cat in Paris is good as well. Yeah, Rango, mean, which Rango's great. I love Rango. I think Rango's great. So that would probably be my winner of the year as well. But still, I would absolutely put Tintin in there. I'd put it in above, you know.

Eli (02:06:08.098)
Yeah, Rango 1. I like Rango. Yeah.

Eli (02:06:20.792)
Yeah, probably Kung Fu Panda 2. Or Puss in Boots, really. I haven't seen, you know.

Daniel Howat (02:06:23.359)
I would put it in above Kung Fu Panda 2. Yeah, would say Tintin is my second favorite animated film of that year, below Rango. I think it's really, really, truly great.

Eli (02:06:33.484)
Yeah, yeah, I would put Rango above it still as well. So.

Daniel Howat (02:06:39.479)
But it's it's strange in a year where Pixar had its first ever fumble. That was when Cars 2 came out. So it's almost like there was this opening for another big animated film to come out and for it to still not get the nomination and after winning the Golden Globe too. So very interesting. do, again, sometimes the Academy has strange.

Eli (02:06:47.96)
Yeah.

Eli (02:06:54.094)
Yeah.

Eli (02:06:58.979)
Yeah.

Daniel Howat (02:07:04.277)
strange backlashes, you know, that was one of the more prominent motion capture animated films to come out. So my guess, I wasn't following as closely back then. My guess is there were some rumblings about that. I'd have to do some research, but yeah, I would imagine some rumblings about like motion capture that's not real animation or something like that, you know.

Eli (02:07:05.923)
Yeah.

Eli (02:07:11.086)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (02:07:18.296)
Yeah.

Eli (02:07:25.162)
Yeah Yeah, Academy is usually a little bit behind on that sort of stuff. They're catching up to Yeah to that sort of thing but you know We're finally I think getting to a point where movies like anora can win best picture and Yeah

Daniel Howat (02:07:30.527)
They can be. They can be.

Daniel Howat (02:07:46.081)
Yeah. This year at the Oscars was an entirely just new feel. mean, talk about animation, having flow. Did you ever see flow?

Eli (02:07:52.687)
Yeah. I did. I got to see it in theater. yeah. Which I'm so glad I did cause it would have been so easy to be distracted at home from a movie like that, but in theater it was great. Yeah. yeah. It's, the wild robot also was really fun. I mean, that was another read aloud to my son and then we got to go to the theater and see it. they're great.

Daniel Howat (02:07:56.853)
Nice, so good, so good.

Daniel Howat (02:08:05.375)
Incredible, yeah.

Daniel Howat (02:08:13.759)
yeah. yeah.

Yeah. The Wild Robot books are some of the favorite books we've read together, me and my kids.

Eli (02:08:23.406)
We're we're reading escapes, the second one right now, so.

Daniel Howat (02:08:26.667)
We just finished the third one like last week. They're incredible books. I'm so surprised. Yeah, they're really, really, they're like, we read so many books, so many kids books, and those are some of the best we've read together. Yeah.

Eli (02:08:29.122)
Nice. They make me, they make me tear up. I'm just being honest.

Eli (02:08:37.986)
Yeah, yeah, very good. That's a little wild robot plug for people out there. Yeah, I mean, as far as like just our thoughts on the movie, we've hit a lot of the stuff already that I had in my notes. Is there anything like in your notes that we haven't really touched on that you wanna hit?

Daniel Howat (02:08:44.897)
Yeah, there you go.

Daniel Howat (02:08:55.777)
Yeah, yeah.

Daniel Howat (02:09:03.757)
We have hit most of it. one thing I wrote in my notes about that I was thinking through at the beginning of the film, I think a lesser version of the story would have tried to give us like an origin story for Tintin of like, what makes Tintin want to solve these mysteries or, or, you know, what happened to his family or all those different things. Like you can totally see, I was, I had that thought as we first entered his apartment, you know, after he

Eli (02:09:19.118)
Hmm, yeah.

Eli (02:09:27.212)
Yeah.

Daniel Howat (02:09:32.525)
he bought the ship and all that and we see we see the news clippings on his wall that he's already solved all these mysteries and he's already been hard at work doing all these different stories and I was like I love that we don't see that now like every story is an origin story nowadays and I was like nah this is we're joining Tintin in the middle of his fantastic journey and so I really appreciated that you know

Eli (02:09:41.067)
yeah.

Eli (02:09:47.577)
Yeah.

Eli (02:09:52.195)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yeah, I do like that. I do like, I do kind of get the draw of the enigma of Tintin. Like you don't really know what's going on with him or like who he is. So you're just like, I don't know who this kid is, but he seems pretty cool. Yeah, and even like, you know, it starts off with him buying.

Daniel Howat (02:10:14.155)
Yeah, he's pretty smart. Yeah.

Eli (02:10:21.986)
like this model ship and so like he's taking it home and in my mind I'm thinking like, like I guess he collects stuff like this and then he gets home and it's like the only thing like that there. He just like saw it and was like, this is cool. I'm going to buy it. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, definitely an enigma. We what, so I think you already said what your favorite action set piece in the movie was, but

Daniel Howat (02:10:31.085)
Yeah.

Sure. For a dollar. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I thought that was great.

Daniel Howat (02:10:50.197)
Yeah, yeah, definitely that big long chase.

Eli (02:10:52.29)
Yeah, so that would be the Bogar chase, like with the motorcycle. That's kind of like the iconic image of the movie is Haddock in the sidecar and Tintin on the motorcycle.

Daniel Howat (02:10:54.989)
Mm.

Daniel Howat (02:10:59.628)
Yes.

Daniel Howat (02:11:04.311)
Yeah. But I also love a lot of the comedic sequences as well. I think they utilize animation really well and it takes advantage of the medium. think to the one of my favorite sequences is where Thompson and Thompson run into the pickpocket and then they go into his apartment and I think that is comic gold. It's so good and would have been even

Eli (02:11:08.834)
Yeah.

Eli (02:11:16.663)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (02:11:26.87)
It's funny. Yeah.

Daniel Howat (02:11:32.609)
dumber in live action, like that kind of would have felt stupider. But in animation, it's like, nah, this works. This is great. These are just two bumbling dumb guys, you know? And so I loved sequences like that that really made it feel like this is why it's animated, because they can do stuff like this that would feel totally different in a live action setting.

Eli (02:11:34.51)
Yeah.

Eli (02:11:40.184)
Yeah. Yeah.

Eli (02:11:48.552)
huh.

Eli (02:11:53.337)
Yeah, yeah, and I was I was even gonna say I think out of all like the comedic stuff the stuff with the pickpocket was was one of my favorites, I think I think so I've already talked about like I think the bugar chase sequence is like really incredible and fun to see Spielberg having fun It's one of those things where like I've already talked about it. Like it's a it's a bit it takes me out of the movie a little bit

just because I can see that Spielberg's having fun and that's kind of what I'm seeing instead of like seeing what's happening in the movie. But one that I really thought was fun in hindsight, like looking back, I was like, what was one that was fun that maybe doesn't get talked about as much? And I think the kind of like, intertangling of the two like old ships.

in the flashbacks, like that sequence was really fun. and in that one, and maybe it's because it's a darker, like it's stormy. maybe the way the lighting works with the dark, you know, that Kaminsky touch with the shadows and stuff. I think that the camera is doing similar stuff in that sequence, kind of floating all around, but I guess because like you're on the ocean, you have like this, you know,

Daniel Howat (02:12:50.326)
Yeah.

Daniel Howat (02:13:05.569)
Yeah, yep.

Eli (02:13:19.864)
The lighting is different. Maybe that just worked better for me. I was able to like be in it a little bit more. And I really, really enjoyed that. thought it was like very like obviously like the whole like the mass intertangling is kind of like very cartoonish. Like you're watching you're like that would never happen. But you know, it's fun. It's like a fun way to like get pirates going from ship to ship. That's different than usual. And so yeah.

Daniel Howat (02:13:34.143)
You're great. yeah.

Daniel Howat (02:13:45.131)
Yeah.

I thought it was super creative and then it sort of mirrored, sort of mirrored with the cranes at the end where they get entangled.

Eli (02:13:53.452)
Yeah. Yeah, that one was okay. Yeah, it was kind of anticlimactic, I would say.

Daniel Howat (02:13:58.273)
Wasn't as exciting. Yeah, I agree. But it is, it is. But there are moments that are just really smart touches that didn't need to be there but that elevate it. Like in the crane sequence, when they do smash together, there are the swinging lights above saccharin that is just, again, you didn't need it. You could have just had some standard lighting there and I wouldn't have thought twice about it.

Eli (02:14:11.747)
Yeah.

Eli (02:14:22.574)
Mm-hmm.

Daniel Howat (02:14:24.599)
but because it has these lights that are swinging two different directions, the shadows are just moving in such interesting ways that I was like, man, I love the attention to detail in a scene like this.

Eli (02:14:34.688)
Mm-hmm Yeah, and you also have like after they they're out of the cranes you have like the mirroring of Red raccoon coming down the mask and silhouette with with saccharin coming Down towards haddock with in silhouette, which I thought was cool I wrote down a few quotes that I like I really love it when Tintin has the model ship in his apartment

Daniel Howat (02:14:46.103)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Eli (02:15:02.848)
At the very beginning is one of the things that was like made me excited for what was to come is he like he's looking at it and he says what secrets do you hold and I was like, that was a great line. Like what is he gonna what is he gonna get into, you know? My other favorite line. This is just like a personal thing He's asking like Tintin if he knows how to pilot and Tintin says more or less and this is a joke that I do all the time

Daniel Howat (02:15:12.223)
Yeah, yeah.

Daniel Howat (02:15:27.927)
Yeah.

Eli (02:15:31.022)
Haddock says, well, which is it more or less? And I actually say that all the time. Whenever people say more or less, I'm like, well, which one? And so when he said that, I was like, hey, that's my joke. But yeah, really, like, I guess the only thing we haven't talked about is that Haddock is really the only one that does have an emotional arc.

Daniel Howat (02:15:33.696)
Yeah

Nice, nice. That's great.

Daniel Howat (02:15:43.629)
Nice. That's great.

Eli (02:16:00.717)
some sense in the movie It's like very shallow. It's like he's an alcoholic and now he's trying not to be I guess Yeah, I think I think they do a decent job of like Leaning into the seriousness of his alcoholism in a way that's still like friendly for children Like that's a it's a fine line

Daniel Howat (02:16:00.728)
Mm.

Daniel Howat (02:16:11.214)
Right, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's about it. Yeah.

Daniel Howat (02:16:25.313)
Yeah, yeah.

Eli (02:16:30.336)
to walk and I think they do it pretty well. One thing that you wouldn't know unless you were a comic reader that I heard is that actually Snowy is basically an alcoholic in the comics. Snowy likes alcohol about as much as Haddock does and so they do have that. Where Snowy gets the first bit and then Haddock steals the other bit from him.

Daniel Howat (02:16:32.833)
Yeah, I agree.

Daniel Howat (02:16:48.853)
And they have that moment, yeah, where it's floating. Yeah. Yeah.

Eli (02:17:00.28)
so yeah, it's kind of like it's probably I guess like a a little Easter egg for the the fans of the comics but Yeah, I mean other than that. There's not really like we said this The theme is have fun while you're watching the movie. I think so

Daniel Howat (02:17:00.429)
That's great.

Daniel Howat (02:17:08.397)
for sure.

Daniel Howat (02:17:16.525)
Yeah, yeah. It succeeds for me at least.

Eli (02:17:20.77)
Yeah Yeah as just kind of a final thought I You know, I thought this movie was was good like fine. Okay, I didn't think it was great It's like for me. It's kind of like one of those Solid like three-star movies that I enjoyed watching But like wasn't like I didn't walk away from it like like I've got to watch that again but

But like positive, but like not enthralled, I guess.

Daniel Howat (02:17:55.533)
Sure, think I'm more positive, I think, than you are. think I give this an eight out of 10. I think it is just a really fun adventure. I think this is one thing that I love about Spielberg's films that very few other filmmakers do is he can take you on an adventure that's made purely for the movies.

Eli (02:18:03.971)
Yeah.

Eli (02:18:24.003)
Mm-hmm.

Daniel Howat (02:18:24.629)
can't really accomplish, I mean again, all due respect to the comics that I haven't read, but there's a sense of adventure and a grandness that I think is distinctly Spielbergian that you get in Tintin, you know, or least that I get in Tintin. And so that's really what I love about it. it's not necessarily a Spielberg that I think about often, you know, it definitely is an outlier on his filmography.

Eli (02:18:39.502)
Mm-hmm.

Daniel Howat (02:18:53.963)
But you can still see the history in his filmography that led up to this film. And even afterwards, with something like Ready Player One we didn't discuss earlier, it has a lot of elements of this. So yeah, do think there's a lot of Spielberg's history that's sort of tied into what brings us to Tintin.

Eli (02:18:59.972)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (02:19:04.152)
Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Eli (02:19:15.874)
Yeah, yeah and the thing that I noted too was just it always seems like there's moments where like Spielberg comes in and Really works on redefining like what something in film can can do A lot of times dealing with technology. He likes to utilize technology And I think I think other people are more prominent in the motion capture world as far as like, you

Daniel Howat (02:19:31.884)
Yeah.

Eli (02:19:44.569)
the way Peter Jackson and James Cameron have utilized it. I think you would point to them as like the pioneers. But Spielberg coming in and making something like this is still like a big deal. And you know, he always, he's always trying to like get on board with this stuff. And sometimes he's the pioneer like with Jurassic Park. And sometimes he's just like.

Daniel Howat (02:20:08.269)
Mm-hmm.

Eli (02:20:10.976)
along with the ride with some of the other masters and pioneers and trying to push it forward. And I just appreciate that in film technology and guys like Spielberg being willing to try new things. mean, he could just go make another Spielberg movie and make a bunch of money, but he's out here walking around with a...

giant Nintendo Switch in 2011 in 2009 and You know with wireframes surrounding him and you know just having a good time and I just appreciate that You know, it's I love Yeah, But yeah, that's that's really that's all I have on 1010, you know, it's it was a fun movie. I'm glad I watched it I'll probably watch it with my son sometime in the future

Daniel Howat (02:20:39.149)
Right.

Daniel Howat (02:20:49.867)
Yeah. It's why he's one of the greats. Yeah.

Eli (02:21:07.268)
I don't know that the two-year-old would be into it, but But yeah, so yeah, do you have any any final thoughts before we go or cover it at all? Yeah

Daniel Howat (02:21:10.892)
Sure.

Daniel Howat (02:21:19.637)
No, think we really covered it all. I'm a fan, I like this movie a lot. I am excited to read my first Tintin book with my kids and see what sort of new appreciation or not this gives me for the film.

Eli (02:21:35.597)
Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, keep me keep me posted on that Yeah, and and it's good to know too that you know, you gave it less portholes than roger ebert He gave you gave it eight eight eight hundred portholes. He gave it 8.75. So You know, there are bigger fans of the movie out there than than you yeah, so coming up on the podcast

Daniel Howat (02:21:39.255)
For sure, for sure, yeah.

Daniel Howat (02:21:47.534)
That's true.

Daniel Howat (02:21:52.801)
There you go.

Sure. Yeah.

Eli (02:22:03.84)
We have, I'm not sure exactly what I'll be releasing next week. I might release an old movie draft that's in an old episode and re-release that. But we'll see. You'll just have to tune in and see what happens. But the week after that, we'll be digging into Warhorse. So that's gonna be fun. Actually, I take that back. We're doing that a few weeks out.

weeks from now we will be it'll be episode 100 because this is episode supposed to be episode 98 fingers crossed and so I'll probably do be doing like a at that it's podcast scheduling is crazy because it's April right now and I can't even wrap my mind around this but I'll probably do like a best of the year so far episode and kind of maybe do some reflections on a hundred episodes but so that'll be fun

Daniel Howat (02:22:35.874)
Nice.

Daniel Howat (02:22:39.213)
You

Eli (02:23:00.344)
But, and then War Horse will come after that. So that's what's coming up. So that's what you have look forward to. Just to cap it all off, Daniel, do you want to plug like maybe some good places for people to find you and your work and maybe next best picture as well?

Daniel Howat (02:23:03.177)
Nice, nice.

Daniel Howat (02:23:20.459)
Yeah, you can find Next West Picture at nextwestpicture.com and on all the socials. And you can find me at howitdk on all the social platforms. Mostly on Twitter is where I spend a lot of my time, unfortunately. And then, but a lot of, you know, a lot of my Cinemacon recaps and stuff like that you can find on TikTok and Instagram and all the places.

Eli (02:23:33.72)
Hmm. Heh heh, yeah.

Eli (02:23:43.46)
Cool, yeah, great. And I'll make sure to link all those in the episode description so you can just go and click it instead of trying to remember the handles. I always hate it when someone's plugging something, but then I have to go rewind, find it. So yeah, I'll make sure to link all those and you can find Daniel there. It's been a pleasure, it's been fun.

Daniel Howat (02:24:02.849)
Yeah, yeah.

Eli (02:24:09.637)
Maybe not quite as fun as a 10-10 adventure, but nonetheless, pretty close, yeah. So thank you, Daniel, for coming on. That's all we have for this week. So I've been Eli Price for Daniel Hallett. You've been listening to The Establishing Shot. We'll see you next time.

Daniel Howat (02:24:13.901)
Close. Yeah.