The BFG (w/ my son, Ezekiel Price)

Eli (00:01.474)
Hello and welcome to the establishing shot a podcast where we do deep dives and two directors in their filmographies I am your host Eli price and we are here on episode 107 of the podcast we are Continuing our Steven Spielberg series on the last stretch of his career and today we are covering 2016's the BFG And yeah, I'm excited

Going a sort of solo today. I have a special guest coming later My son Ezekiel who is six years old will be hopping on in a bit to talk about what he liked about the movie and the book and other things and Yeah, I'm excited to have him on he was excited To do this episode with me we read the book together. I read it out loud to him and

He loved it and then we watched the movie as a family and he loved that and so yeah, he's been excited to do the podcast with me. I asked him back when we started reading the book if he would want to be on this episode and he was very excited about that. yeah, I'm excited for him to come on later. So before we do that, I'm just gonna jump right into things today and

and kick it off with the very beginning, which is Roald Dahl. Roald Dahl wrote the BFG, course. And yeah, it's a successful book. It was written...

Eli (01:47.726)
in 1982 is when the BFG came out, it was published and yeah, great book. had a really good time reading it with my son and yeah, it's, Roald Dahl just makes really, really good kind of bedtime story type thing, type stories. There's not like a ton of depth or substance to them necessarily, but they're just really good fun stories for kids.

and for me too.

Eli (02:29.224)
Ahem.

Eli (02:34.775)
So yeah, and this of course is a Disney movie. Roald Dahl was actually invited by Walt Disney to their studio way back in the day to talk about potentially doing something for his book, Gremlins. They never ended up working together, Dahl and Disney, but I think they remained in contact and they had very similar methods of storytelling, even if

you know, their voices were different. But, you know, they kind of made stories with clear morals that weren't afraid to kind of brush against the rough parts of life. yeah, it's something to appreciate about them. The movie originates with Kathleen Kennedy, of course, and she kind of gets the idea.

of adapting the book while she's on set of a movie and there's some boys that are in the movie that are reading a book and she asks them what they're reading and they're like, we're reading the BFG and they tell her about it and so she goes back to Frank Marshall and in 1994, her and Marshall have paramounts by the rights to the BFG. They do, it goes through multiple iterations of screenplays.

The first ones to write it were Robin Swickard and Nicolas Kazan. They had done Roald Dahl's Matilda by Danny DeVito in 96. They began translating the story to screen, kind of embellishing the BFG language with puns to amuse kids. early on Robin Williams was approached for the role of the BFG after the idea for kind of an animated film was rejected. There was...

cough cough

Eli (04:34.497)
I think a 1989, I think, British TV movie that I have not seen, haven't watched that. But yeah, they didn't end up doing the animated, we're gonna go for live action. And they did do some tests with Robin Williams that did not go well. He kind of fell to, know, Robin Williams has a very like improv-based way of acting, especially for something like this.

And that just doesn't work with this very particular funky language. You kind of have to stick with the script in a way. So Robin Williams didn't work out. There were some other attempts at the script by Gwen Lurie was one Ed Solomon took a stab at it. He did Bill and Ted, Men in Black, Charlie's Angels. Now you see me.

some of his movies he's written on. That didn't work out. Terry Jones of Monty Python fame took a stab at it and didn't work out. Kathleen Kennedy eventually convinces Melissa Matheson to kind of come out of retirement to take a stab at this. Paramount had actually lost the rights to it, to the movie by this time. But know, Melissa Matheson who had

done a great job with scripts like Black Stallion and Cundin, the Scorsese movie, and of course ET. She kind of admired Doll, so she came out of retirement, agreed to work with no advance and no assurance it would be made, but DreamWorks did eventually acquire the rights in 2011, and three years later here comes Spielberg. This is what Spielberg said. He said, quote, I have a special relationship with Roald Doll's story.

I read it to all my children. He is one of the most solitary characters in literature. And this loneliness reminds me of the loneliness I experienced until I was a teenager. Although my parents loved me, I felt isolated from the outside world. We moved often and each time I lost the few friends I had. I felt that I was invisible to others and that there was nothing I could do to make it different." So here again we have Spielberg, you know, reminiscing on his childhood.

Eli (07:01.527)
connecting with a story because it reminds him of some loneliness or some way he felt growing up. And that's kind of a thread throughout Spielberg's career. We see it again here. But yeah, so Spielberg comes on. He has different ideas about what he wants to do for the Giants. This is another quote I pulled from him. said, quote, I could have done it with actors just as Giants live and on location.

in gigantic sets and using various tricks of photography and perspective, but I wanted my giants to be different. Creatures from another world, characters from another medium. I didn't want the BFG to just look like Mark Rylance with big ears." End quote. And so in the summer of 2014, he convenes his technical team and Melissa Matheson also at his residence in the Hamptons and they...

cozy up in the garage and they start refining the medium for the giants. They kind of decide they're gonna try to do motion capture. Spielberg has loved to do in that on 1010, wants to explore it again. But they do a lot of rudimentary 3D animations to kind of simulate the movements of these characters. And each sequence was actually like analyzed and planned out and this enabled them to adapt the story.

for the technology and also vice versa, adapt the technology for the story. And so they really planned out the whole movie this way before production ever even started. And yeah, they did that, I think they were like six months working on it in this way. So yeah, by the time production comes around, they really kind of have the movie all planned out and they can kind of hit the ground running.

Eli (08:58.049)
But before we get into the production, let's go through the cast and crew. For the crew, the producers of course are Steven Spielberg, Frank Marshall, surprisingly not Kathleen Kennedy, even though she had a lot to say about it, and Sam Mercer. Based on the book by Roald Dahl, of course, published in 1982. The screenplay is by Melissa Matheson, who we've already mentioned.

Janusz Kaminski is the cinematographer. You have some camera operators in Mitch Dubin and Daniel Alexander Curtis who is a VFX camera operator and Oliver Lundkrain. Assistant directors in Adam Somner of course and Phil Booth. Some common names here. Editor Michael Kahn, music by John Williams, the sound by Andy Nelson and Gary Rydstrom.

production design by Rick Carter and Robert Stromberg. Set decoration by Melissa Spicer and Elizabeth Wilcox. Juliana Johnston does the costumes. The VFX are done by Joe LaTerry and Kevin Andrew Smith. And Terry Notary is the motion capture supervisor. So other than like the VFX people and the mocap people, it's pretty typical names for Spielberg crew.

So yeah, let's move on to the cast. You have Mike Rylance playing the BFG, of course. Spielberg really had picked him from the first day they were shooting Bridge of Spies. He had passed the script on to Rylance and he read it and came back and told Spielberg, you know, I really like this. I don't know, you know, what I would do. And Spielberg was like, you're the BFG. And Rylance was like, okay. And he's on board. All about it. So.

He's kind of on board already while they're still filming Bridge of Spies. And yeah, Ruby Barnhill, who plays Sophie, that was another story. They did six months of research and casting calls throughout England looking for their Sophie. They finally find this girl, nine years old, in Cheshire. And yeah, they bring her in. She meets Spielberg on set of Bridge of Spies in Germany.

Eli (11:24.717)
She meets Tom Hanks. She talks about Spielberg let me sit in his chair and see what he was doing and and then yeah, he kind of gets her together with Mark Rylance and they do some improv for a while and really build some chemistry and yeah, they bring in this girl Ruby Barnhill. She's really cute, really cute girl. I think she does a really good job in this movie as a child actor. I don't know that she really went on and did anything else, but

But yeah, you can tell she's having a lot of fun. If you watch the special feature, she does some like video diaries where she's talking about her experience. And that's really fun and cute to see. But yeah, there's nine other giants, of course. You have the main two being Jemaine Clement playing Flesh Lump Eater, the kind of boss giant, if you will. I don't know what you would call him, the leader of the giants if a giant can lead other giants.

It's like the blind leading the blind, I think. And the other main actor is Bill Hader playing Blood Baudler. Now you may be asking, which one was Bill Hader? Which one is Blood Baudler? And that's a fine question because it's not very clear. I'm pretty sure he's like the skinny redheaded one based off of watching the special features and seeing Bill Hader in the mocap suit and which giant he's kind of controlling.

That would not really be clear from just watching the movie. Which one Bill Hader was. Jemaine Clement, you can pretty much tell which one he is as Flesh Lump Eater. The other giants are a crew, little fun little crew of Adam Godley as Man Hugger, Daniel Bacon as Bone Crusher, Paul Moniz de Sa as Meat Dripper, Olafur Dari Olufsen as Maid Masher, Michael Adam Thwait as Butcher Boy,

Jonathan Holmes as Child Chewer and Chris Gibbs as Gizzard Gulper. So some fun giant names. I really just wanted to read all those so I could read all the giant names to be honest. But who can blame me, right? Some of those guys play other characters as well. I know four of them are like the drunk guys on the street at the beginning when Sophie's yelling out the window at them. Kind of some.

Eli (13:47.842)
foreshadowing I guess there. some of the other ones play another role too in the movie. I'm not sure what. don't really remember. They're like throwaway roles, you know. And then a few more characters of note. You have Penelope Wilton playing the queen. Spielberg had seen her in Downton Abbey and loved her. She was really, she was good. She talked about.

being so surprised that she got the call from Spielberg and she was excited to kind of play this heightened kind of whimsical queen character and I think she does a good job. Then you have Rebecca Hall playing Mary. Who is Mary? I don't really know. She's not exactly a maid for the queen. I don't think she's her daughter. I don't really know what or who Mary is exactly but

Rebecca Hall plays her. Spielberg had first seen her as Scarlett Johansson's girlfriend in Woody Allen's Vicky Christina Barcelona in 2008. I've never seen that movie. I think I really mostly know Rebecca Hall from The Prestige. I think she's the wife in The Prestige, if I'm not mistaken. But I don't really have much to say about her in this movie. She hardly does anything.

A few more people I noted, Rafe Spall as Mr. Tibbs, he's like the main palace guy that's with the Queen. Marilyn Norrie as the matron, she's like the main woman working for the Queen. And then the three generals that show up as Chris Shields, Matt Fruer, and Jeffrey Wade. There are a few, there's some other extra people that just, I don't know, they didn't.

have any lines or do a whole lot maybe except maybe like get hot coffee spat on them from the BFG or something you know but yeah we can we can move on to the production the production of this movie starts on March 23rd and goes through June 16th of 2015 they are mostly in doing work in Vancouver Canada

Eli (16:11.053)
in this huge warehouse in the suburbs of Vancouver. Spielberg really wanted to shoot real actors and virtual performances at the same time. It was kind of this new way of doing it. He wanted to do it as close to like a quote unquote classic shoot as you can with this sort of medium. It was different than the adventures of 1010 in that way, because 1010 was totally shot like on the mocap.

stage with green-scaring or with, you know, the motion capture and then of course like translated into the digital world totally in post. It was different than that because, you know, him trying to get instances where you have mocap performances, virtual performances, and real performances, real actors at the same time.

I don't know, it's hard to exactly say that without seeing the behind the scenes stuff. But nonetheless, it's still mostly like you have to kind of keep it separate. But they did their best. Rylance worked really well with Ruby Hill, was one of the things they talked about too. They had really good chemistry.

And Spielberg said they were both so imaginative and playful. yeah, this was Ruby's first movie. So Rylance did a lot of work to help her. He would deliver his lines from a high platform to give her like a focal point. And yeah, Ruby said her favorite scene was the whiz popping palace scene, which who can blame her, right? But yeah, it's a bit of a chaotic shoot. Rylance said,

that the first day Steven showed up on site he was completely clueless it was as if he had lost the manual whereas on bridge of spies he blew me away with his total control so Spielberg is just he's juggling between sets you got green and blue screens and models and you have real sets and fake sets and it's just a lot and he's all he's kind of trying to control this on a dozen centralized monitors

Eli (18:33.855)
He's using the simulcam kind of controller, which was used by, for instance, Cameron on the movie, James Cameron on Avatar. And this kind of enables your camera operator to film actors with virtual effects already integrated on their screen. So on the screen of the simulcam controller, they can kind of operate the camera with the mocap actors and see them in the virtual environment in real time.

Basically, so there's a lot of that just kind of trying to control chaos going on with Spielberg on this set And and yeah, it's it's really interesting The you know, they're of course doing motion capture there's You know, they've got the motion capture suits on with the dots on their face and the camera in front of their face on their

you know, the headband camera on their face. And, you know, the giants are, the guys that are playing the giants are adding weights to them to make them feel heavy. They, one of the things they do is they, they'll like make, they'll, they're out, they will actually like dress the, the giant sets for when they're doing mocap so that it feels like a real set and they actually light it.

So that it feels like just so that it feels real for the actors and in that way it kind of feels like a theater set in a way and yeah, and you know the John Spielberg said that the the actors were like a Shakespearean company of clowns playing the Giants and they're doing like rehearsals for their movements and they even do this thing they call giant confessions, which is like a

a round table they do to get into their characters, which is fun to see some clips from. And yeah, it's interesting and fun on the set all the time. People talking like the BFG and having a good time. But they're also building all these different sets. There's of course some green screen stuff, but even most of the green screen stuff is kind of integrated.

Eli (20:58.125)
with like real sets. So they have real sets and they're building them at different scales to facilitate, you know, scale. The giants are like twice as big as a BFG and the BFG is like four times as big as Sophie and sometimes they're all interacting at the same time. yeah, so mean, so Sophie's real world scale is like one to one.

And then the BFG scale is like four times bigger than that. for instance, he has an eight meter wide table instead of a two meter wide table like a normal table would be. And then the other giants, their scale is eight times bigger than the real world and twice as big as the BFG's world. And, you know, they're kind of having to do the math of, okay, in this scene, the real, the big giants are coming into the BFG's cave. So we have to make it a little smaller.

so that they kind of have to hunch over. They're having to do a lot of this kind of thinking and mapping out. And that's probably where all the pre-vis and pre-animation stuff they did in pre-production probably helped, so that they kind of had their head on their shoulders knowing what was coming. That's where the film as collaboration art really comes into play with stuff like this.

Yeah, and you know, they're really making detailed sets. Like some of the real sets look really good. Rick Carter designs this like Dickensian London street set built from scratch, you know, with the orphanage at the end of it. And it looks really great. Lucy Dow, Lucy doll whose role dolls daughter said it felt like she felt like Charlie and the chocolate factory, like going into the factory for the first time on the set.

It just brought her dad's story to life. That was cool to hear her talk about that. so, yeah, and anything with just Ruby, Barnhill, as Sophie, is a completely real set. And then they have real sets that are portions of the virtual sets. So for instance, the tree.

Eli (23:23.745)
little cove where the little boy used to live that she finds at one point in the movie is, you know, it's a real set. They put a lot of detail into that set, I guess, to kind of like give it a lived in feel to try to add character to that boy that we never meet. And yeah, so, you know, there's plenty of like really, really detailed, great sets.

They're making BFG props, of course. And they try to do it like he makes all of his stuff from real world objects. So his bag is like a doctor's bag, but it's like different leather things stitched together, kind of, if you look at the details of it. His horn is like a, they talked about it, it's like a French horn mouthpiece, but then the rest of it is kind of made from scratch.

sort of to fit their design. The costumes, Joanna Johnson is like, she actually designed real costumes for giants. had like, they built molds for the shapes of the giants and she built like, she made like real costumes out of fabric for those molds of the giants. And this allowed her to like figure out the right colors and blends and use like real lighting to

to really figure out the real lighting like they would be using in the virtual, I guess, sets on the movie to really figure out what was gonna work right. She comes up with this idea of manhole cover necklaces and other stuff, all the little details like that that the Giants might have. So it's a lot of fun, a lot of really fun stuff going into the design of this movie. Even the sound, know, it's...

Gary Rydstrom having a lot of fun coming up with fun ways to do sound. The main one he talked about in the special features was the sound for the whiz popping farts. one of the things they did was they turned, basically turned weather balloons into whoopee cushions, which is funny. And he's like, you know, when you're getting some whiz popping explosion that sends you up in the air, you got to have some rocket sounds so they'd...

Eli (25:46.753)
They add, mix that in there and overall they're just having a lot of fun.

Eli (26:04.013)
One of the things that I think really kind of was heavy on the set. I don't know if this was felt in the moment, but was definitely felt later after the movie was made. So on Melissa Matheson, you don't know,

She ended up having cancer and passed away. And they got to celebrate her 65th birthday. It was on the set of the banquet hall in Buckingham Palace, which is a real set they built. Another one of those detailed, cool sets they built. And so yeah, June 3rd, 2015, they celebrate her 65th birthday.

She was there on set almost every day helping to you know fix up the script when needed She was barely a lot of most of the people did maybe none of them really knew that she was dealing with with with cancer at the point that point and she was bare she really barely gave herself medical absences and Yeah, but then the next November November 4th 2016 she passed away of cancer and

Everyone was shocked and she really wasn't able to be there for like, you know, the premiere and all the, you know, to do's about releasing the movie. And this was a quote that Spielberg said. He said, quote, have not had the chance to mourn Melissa because she's been so vibrant and real to me in the cutting room on the scoring stage. She's just always been there.

with me, so because of that it's going to be hard when I have to let the BFG go, because then I have to let Melissa go too. And I just thought that was very touching and, you know, they worked on ET together and then they worked on this movie together later in his career and just that kind of bookend of children's fantasy classics, I guess. I don't know that this movie is a classic, but the book kind of is a

Eli (28:27.679)
a children's role doll classic. Yeah, it's just very meaningful and touching. Even to the point that when they premiered the movie and on May 14th of 2016, Spielberg had an empty seat beside him in the theater dedicated to Matheson and talked about how at the end of the screening, he just couldn't hold back his tears and just all very touching.

But yeah, a fun movie to make. It released in the US on July 1st of 2016. Opens number four with $22 million. It's opening weekend. Number one that weekend was Finding Dory. And yeah, really only it makes $55 million domestic. Only ends up making somewhere between $160- $180 million worldwide, I think. And yeah, really.

By the end of the summer, the bill for this movie was really painful for Spielberg's finances, as well as Disney's, which is their first collaboration ever. Not great. The budget was estimated at $140 million, which didn't even include costs like promo and marketing. Yeah, this really became one of Spielberg's biggest financial failures. It didn't do very well. Didn't hurt Disney much because they had like,

some really big movies, including Fighting Dory that year. Made a ton of money. But not a great turnout for this Spielberg movie. I don't really know necessarily why. It had been a while since he had made a movie that was supposed to be a Spielberg movie for kids to come to, and so maybe that has something to do with it.

but people maybe just didn't associate Spielberg with movies for kids anymore. I don't know, it's hard to say. But one of the things with the reception of this movie, a lot of people compared it to ET, which is not a comparison you want. That doesn't play favorably for your film when it's being compared to ET. The Hollywood Reporter said, quote, a conspicuously less captivating, magical, and transporting experience.

Eli (30:53.333)
than its classic forebear," talking about ET, of course. There were similarly divided reception in France. Premier Magazine said, the film resembles the giant it portrays, a little clumsy, badly calmed, but irresistible and ultra endearing, small perhaps, but still strong. you know, it just really didn't do that well critically. I didn't look up what it...

what the Rotten Tomatoes, I think the meta score was in the mid 60s, so it wasn't like a bad reception necessarily. It just kind of was there, know? Kind of trying to look up the, yeah, I mean 74 % tomato meter. The audience score is actually less, 57%. People just didn't go for it for some reason.

You know, I don't really know why. It didn't get any Oscar nominations, not even for the score or for the special effects or anything. So yeah, I don't know. It did not do well. But yeah, we'll move into talking more deeply about the movie. But before we do that, I want to bring on my son Ezekiel.

he's going to, come talk about the movie. I'm gonna, I've already recorded that with him, so I'm going to switch over to that. Now you'll, you'll hear me off screen, asking him some questions for him to answer. And, yeah, he, he had a fun time. I don't show my, my kids on, it's just what we, something we decided we're not showing our kids publicly online. just something we do. So.

When we switch over, you will hear his voice and you'll see the same room and the same mic, but you'll probably see a little image of the BFG where his face would normally be. So yeah, he got a kick out of that. showed him that I put the BFG's face over his and he thought that was hilarious. But yeah, this I'm going to, yeah, introduce you to

Eli (33:20.021)
My son Ezekiel, he's gonna come on now.

Hello, my name is Ezekiel Price and I am six years old and we are recording a podcast for the BFG today. That's right. All right, Ezekiel. I would like for you to tell me first about the book, because first we read the book of the BFG. Do you remember who-

that book is written by? Roald Dahl. what did you like about the book?

Eli (00:52.366)
It was my favorite Ro-Doll book. yeah? Why do you think it was your favorite out of all the ones we've read?

Eli (01:06.467)
Eli (01:10.082)
because it has a happy ending. That's true. They all kind of do, huh? Uh-huh. Is that what you like about his books? Yeah. Yeah. What was the happy ending in the BFG book? Do you remember?

Eli (01:28.44)
They put all the giants in a pit. That's true. And what do the BFG and Sophie get? A house. Okay. So tell me about the movie. What did you like more, the book or the movie? The movie. Okay. Why did you like the movie more than the book?

Because it was very different than the book. how was it different? Well, all nine of the giants went into his cave at... in the movie. But they didn't do that in the book. That's true. Yep, that's true. And, what else? Can you think of anything else that was different from the movie in the book?

No, not really. You just mentioned one about the ending.

Eli (02:32.216)
Were the endings a little bit different?

Yeah, they went to a house in the book but they didn't do that in the movie. Yeah, that's true. Okay, well tell me this, what was your favorite part of the movie?

Mm.

Eli (02:58.86)
when they went dream catching. what did you like about that?

It was where Sophie was running after all of them. All of the dreams? Did you like the way the dreams looked? huh. What did you like about that? How did they look?

Fiery! Yeah, they're kind of fiery, huh?

Eli (03:57.102)
Did you like any of the dreams that they showed in the book or that they talked about? I mean in the movie not the book. Yeah. Like what? Like what?

Eli (04:14.126)
I don't know. Okay. What was your second favorite part of the movie? When she went into a Snozzcumber That was funny, huh? Mm-hmm. We watched a little bit of the how they made the movie. What were some things you remember from that?

Eli (04:35.714)
We watched how she went into the snozz cumper when they made the movie, didn't we? Was that cool? Yeah, we watched how they made the giants. Yeah, okay, tell me about that. Do you remember how they made the giants?

Eli (04:57.218)
They had special suits that went to the TV. Yeah, went to the computer. And what about in front of their faces? was there? A camera. And what did the camera do?

Eli (05:16.84)
It showed their eyes and their nose and their mouth. Picked up how they look. We're making their facial expressions, huh? I didn't tell you what that's called.

into the microphone. I didn't tell you what that is called did I? No. It's called motion capture. Yeah, motion capture.

Eli (05:44.878)
Well, do you remember anything else? Did you like the little girl that played Sophie? Yeah. Do you remember her name? The actress?

It starts with an R. Ruby? Yep, Ruby. Did you think she played Sophie very well? Yeah. Yeah. What did you like about her acting? That she went into the snoz cumber. You just like that she went into the snoz cumber. Would you eat a snoz cumber? Uh-uh. No. Sometimes when you ask what's for dinner, I tell you snoz cumbars, don't I?

Uh huh. Would you eat a snot scumber if it was on a pizza? No. I don't think that would taste good. Probably not. Okay, tell me this. Do you remember or maybe what is your favorite silly giant word?

Scrumdillyumptious. Scrumdillyumptious. And what does scrumdillyumptious mean? Delicious. Delicious. That's right. Yeah. Very good. That's a fun one. Okay, and then tell me this. Do you remember any of the other Giants' names?

Grown Crunch. Grown Cruncher, okay. What about who else? Who's the biggest one do you remember?

Eli (07:22.222)
Flesh Lump Eater. Do you like the other giants in the movie? huh. What do you like about them? They're funny. They are pretty silly huh? huh. Alright, well, Do they all talk like the same like the BFG? Yeah, they all use the funny words huh? 

All right, I'm gonna ask you just a couple more questions, okay? Okay.

Eli (08:07.374)
Okay well just a couple more questions Ezekiel. The first one is about the BFG. What do you think the BFG is all about? What do think you maybe learned from the BFG or what's something that you really liked after watching it that you thought about? I don't know.

Alright, the first question is about the BFG. What do you think the BFG is about or maybe what's something you learned from watching and reading the BFG?

Eli (08:59.406)
That if Sophie ran away she would get eaten by giants. The BFG gave her that dream.

Eli (09:28.238)
to show her what would happen if she ran away. Yeah. Sometimes you have to learn what might happen, what consequences there might be if you do something, Mm-hmm. Yeah. What consequence would there be? What? I don't know. If she ran out into giant country, what would be the consequence?

She will be eaten by giants.

can't remember, there might have been another one or two. What is your favorite movie that we've seen in theaters?

Super Mario Brothers even more than the wild robot? No, the wild robot. That's what I thought you were going to say. and then the very last question. We've talked about the BFG as your favorite. Well, maybe not the last question. The BFG is your favorite book. Roald Dahl wrote, but what's your favorite book that we've ever read just at all?

Eli (11:31.662)
The Wild Robot. The Wild Robot. Yeah. Okay, and then last question. What is your favorite movie that we've ever watched? The Wild Robot. Are you sure? I'm sure. Not that we've seen at theaters, but even maybe stuff we've watched at home.

Eli (11:56.354)
What did you play with earlier today after dinner?

Eli (12:02.284)
Lightsabers. that have any, would that have anything to do with your favorite movie you've ever seen? Star Wars. Star Wars. Are those movies your favorite or do you like the Wild Robot more? Those movies are my favorite. Yeah. Which Star Wars movie is your favorite one? We've seen Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi and episode one, The Phantom Menace. Which one is your favorite?

Episode 4. 4? So Star Wars, the very first one? huh. Cool. And why is that one your favorite, do you think?

Eli (12:44.598)
Because it has the Millennium Falcon. Yeah, that's where you see the Millennium Falcon for the first time. All right. Well, thank you for coming on my podcast, Ezekiel. Did you have fun? Yeah. Me too. Would you do podcasting again with me? Yeah. Okay. If you could make a podcast, what would it be about?

The Wild Robot. Talking about the Wild Robot books? We should do that sometime. Maybe. That would be a good idea. Alright, we'll tell everyone goodbye. Goodbye everyone. See you later.

Eli (33:51.63)
Thank you Ezekiel, that was a lot of fun to record that with him. Like I said, he was so excited to come on the show and record on my podcast. He really gets a kick out of it. He's done it a little bit, maybe a couple times before. Not quite, I think this was like the biggest one he's done. But he does a good job. He can be thoughtful about some things and some things he's just like, I don't know, I just liked it.

He's six years old, you know. But yeah, I had a lot of time, a lot of fun watching it with him and my wife and we really enjoyed reading the book together. yeah, I guess I'll get into some of my thoughts on the movie before we wrap up. This is going to be, this might end up being my shortest director movie episode ever.

Certainly, yeah, I mean, yeah, I just don't have a lot to say about this. It's a solo episode, so I don't have anyone to bounce off of. I don't know, I'll start with a few Spielberg distinctives. I'd to talk about those. You've got some low angle closeups, of course, some real and some virtual. Some fun reflections, like seeing Sophie in the reflection of the

the big knife, the snoz cumber knife. I haven't even mentioned the snoz cumbars yet. Well, Ezekiel did. It was one of his favorite things. And yeah, I don't even think I mentioned another like BFG prop. They made that out of like a bulldozer blade or something like that. yeah. But yeah, fun reflections, interesting framing.

Good work with a child actor, know, it's it's pretty Even the subject matters kind of Spielberg in and dreams and fantasy and and you know a child protagonist In an adult in an adult world per se but yeah some fun Spielberg distinctives I have some I have some quibbles with this movie

Eli (36:16.557)
I don't think it's the best adaptation of the material. before I get into that, the problem with this movie visually is largely due to when you have a mix of the CGI computer-generated characters and the real characters on screen interacting at the same time. The technology was mostly there, but maybe not quite.

it's still kind of like when you see the BFG like holding Sophie in his hand, it's still just kind of like you can tell she's not really in his hand squirming around. there's still like a little bit of distance with the technology to get it to look real in that way with when you have those interactions. Now when Sophie's by herself on a set, it looks really good when

the BFG or the Giants are on a virtual set by themselves, it looks pretty good. There's not really an uncanny valley thing going on here. The Giants are not designed to look like realistic people, so you don't really get that, which is a good decision. Similar to 1010 being made to look like the comic characters, more cartoonish, you avoid having that polar express uncanny valley feeling.

It has that going for it, but just the CGI to real person interaction still just isn't quite there. then, know, some of the, some of the virtual, all of the real sets look so good in this movie. The virtual sets are hit or miss. Like the dream land tree to me is, I don't know, something that just feels off about it when I watch it.

My son really liked that part. He liked the dream catching and that part of it where she's chasing the dreams around. So, you know, it works for kids and that's who it's for ultimately, so that's good. But just some of the virtual stuff, you know, and then, you know, there are some times like in the cave where I'm like, wait, how much of this set is real? How much is it? And it kind of like would take me out of the movie sometimes, like, because you can kind of see it switching back and forth and.

Eli (38:40.229)
there's a little bit of that going on. That's another quibble. have a couple of like Sophie quibbles for one, when the BFG leave Sophie because he doesn't want her to get eaten by the giants. Cause she left her quilt. she's gone like, like the BFG has gone for like 30 seconds and then she's jumping off the balcony. And I don't know you, you kind of need some space there to really feel the distance to feel the.

longing to be back together. They didn't give any room there to have that emotion and have that feeling. It's like, no, don't leave me. then literally like 30 seconds or less later in the movie, she's already like, I think you're there and I'm going to jump off the balcony and he catches her. And it's to be this big moment, but it's just, wasn't felt to me. It wasn't earned.

Similarly, like Sophie being adopted by this lady Mary, who we barely know for one thing. We've seen, she said like five things maybe in the whole movie and winked at Sophie once. and then she's like kissing her on the forehead and adopting her. And, it's a bit weird. you don't really see, you know, there's definitely like this element of like Sophie longing for a family maybe, but you don't really see a whole lot of that in the movie. there's a.

like a visual representation of that early on as she like peers into the dollhouse. And I think that's great. That's great Spielberg stuff. That using the visual language of film to express that. there's not really any building or leaning into that through the rest of the movie. And so when these things pop up like my favorite scene of him and her on the hillside and talking about

Growing a family or her being adopted by this lady that we barely know, you know, there's there just hasn't been enough Leaning into that theme to really make it hit to me And that leads me to like my overall big problem with the movie I think is that really like the the story from the book just isn't fleshed out enough for For a good film for a good movie

Eli (41:07.893)
You know, they do some things like they try to add the element of this other boy that the BFG was friends with once. But it's like, it's kind of ambiguous. You don't really know this boy, so you don't really feel anything about him. There's no like scenes, flashback scenes or anything with this boy. There's just kind of like mentions of him and you like very slight mentions of them and...

You know, it made me wonder, I didn't ask my son Ezekiel about this, but I I wonder like, did he even like kind of get that the BFG had this other friend back in the day that had gotten eaten? I'm not sure if he picked up on that or not. Like it's not in the book, that whole thing. So, you know, he wouldn't have known it from that. So I don't know, it's.

It's just not, so they tried to add some sort of like extra fleshing out stuff, but even that just wasn't well done. It's a bit too episodic. There's not really a good through line kind of carrying the story through the whole movie. There's times where you just kind of jump from one thing to another. They're just like, all of a sudden at the Queen's Palace. And I don't know, there's...

There's just not something carrying you through the story of the movie. And I really felt that. so I don't know. To me, really Roald Dahl stories are great, great, great bedtime stories. They're simple, but they're maybe not quite robust enough for a film for a good, enthralling, captivating cinematic experience.

And I was like when I was thinking about why did this movie kind of feel flat? I was thinking about that that element and that they didn't like flesh the story out enough. They didn't give it something Some they didn't like really put some meat on this story to make it a good movie And I started contrasting it with Wes Anderson's fantastic. Mr. Fox which

Eli (43:26.985)
is an even more bare-bones story from the book if you've ever read the book is just kind of like meh. It's like so skeleton bedtime story sort of thing. the man, Wes Anderson and did Noah Baumbach write, I think Noah Baumbach might have written that with him. I can't remember. They really fleshed that story out and they give it a strong through line that pushes you through the movie.

They flesh out the characters and give them... wait, those foxes don't have any depth of character hardly in the book at all. And they really flesh out those characters. They flesh out the farmer villains. They, you know, they add this rat character in and give him a backstory that they give like so much personality to all the like side animals. And I just don't... they didn't do that with this movie.

the writing just isn't there. There's just something flat and missing. These characters feel very flat and really any sort of depth that's felt is really not so much in the writing but more in the performances of like Mark Rylance or even Ruby Barnhill's, you know, she's a fine child actor but

Really, Mark Rylance is the one that's adding any depth to this character with his vocal intonations. He has this way of adding this loneliness into the voice of the BFG. Even when he's saying these silly words or mumbling, Rylance is so, so good.

I know, I just wish they would have fleshed this story out a little bit more, added a little bit more depth of character or more like a through line to the story to push it through. I don't know, this could have been like really, really a whole lot better in my opinion. But yeah, there were other elements that I really liked. You have the BFG hiding in the London streets is so good.

Eli (45:52.492)
It's great, it's cinematic, it's fun to see what he's gonna do next when the next car drives by. That's really fun. I think the dream mixing scenes are fun and inventive and really bring to life in a cinematic way, something that's in the book. And along those same lines with the dreams, I really loved the scene where the BFG takes Sophie into London and blows the dreams into

the boy's room and kind of narrates this boy's dream to this kind of like shadow puppet style animation of the dream over in a cloud over the boy's head. And Rylance is so freaking good in that little narration of that story is so well executed in the vocal performance. And I guess I guess in the facial performance to the physical performance because that's

That's his face in mocap saying it. So I loved that scene. The whiz popping in the palace scene. You're back on a real set. You've got farting corgis. That's a whole lot of fun. Ezekiel, me and Ezekiel forgot to talk about that when he was on earlier. But later on I was like, we didn't talk about the whiz popping. And he wanted a.

He wanted me to tell everyone, let everyone know that he does think the whiz popping is really funny. And his favorite whiz popping scene wasn't actually the palace one, it was the one that, the first one BFG does at his table, his favorite whiz popping. I don't know, I like the Corgis whiz popping, that's my favorite. And then the best scene in the movie, I think, is that scene on the hillside where the BFG is...

of telling Sophie what Sophie's dream is, the one the golden fizz wizard that they catch you know in Dreamland and how it's about her having a family on her own and having such good happy times and he even says you know there will be a bit of despair and it's just so so good and that part is so well written and so well

Eli (48:12.973)
acted and executed by Rylance and it's so it's like this moment where it's felt but it's it's it's a bit unearned, you know, like I've kind of said You don't really have that theme going throughout the movie necessarily And I don't know I just wish there's there's so much about this that I wish was

was more there. Kathleen Kennedy said the theme is the same of a lot of her work with Spielberg, which is people searching for family, community, and love. you know, I don't know, at the end of the day, I almost wonder if this movie is just too, too faithful to the source material. I think they could have done with fleshing it out a little bit more, adding something. But nonetheless,

I did it, I do enjoy the movie, my son really liked it. When you watch a movie with a kid, you have to kind of take into account, this movie is made for kids, how much does a kid like it? He really enjoyed it. And so, I don't know, I do like this movie. Okay, it's an okay movie. But yeah, before I get to where it is with me on Spielberg's Filmography,

I did want to give some final thoughts. And here again, you have Spielberg returning to the elements of his childhood. And you could almost say this is a self-portrait of how he made his name in Hollywood. You have this giant blowing dreams into the minds of young audiences. It's a slightly awkward character finding himself at the table of, you know, the greats and the good and

wondering if he really belongs there. Spielberg even at the end of the special features said that he said, my life has been a dream. And he's 70 years old around this time and he's still able to tap into that brain of his younger self. And there's really something to be said about that. Even if this movie doesn't totally work, there's something to be said about Spielberg still being able to do that.

Eli (50:32.205)
Something to be said I guess about the attempts to influence the dreams of children It's it's this like higher calling almost And and when I was thinking about that I was also thinking about in the special features Lucy doll the daughter of Roald doll talks about how her memories of her father and he said that her she said that her and her sister used to share the small room and They would get into bed after

their dad told them a story and he would leave a little crack in the door and he would tell them that you know that's so that the BFG can blow your dreams into the room and he would go downstairs and they would lay there quietly waiting and sure enough a few minutes later this bamboo stick or crane or some cane or something would kind of slide through the window and they would hear and you know it was their dad blowing it was

their dad acting as the BFG blowing dreams into their window. And such a, such a sweet, sweet, sweet story of this man who likes Spielberg is, is just teaching us something about the worthy cause of championing, championing our children. We really could all learn something from Roald Dahl and from Steven Spielberg.

And that it's always a worthy cause to champion, encourage, and enable our little ones to follow their dreams. And I don't know, I think there's a bit of that, not necessarily explicitly in the movie, but just underneath the surface of why Spielberg made it in the first place. yeah, I don't know. I've always loved that about Spielberg. It's what most people love about Spielberg. So yeah, it's cool to see that even in

this late in his career in his older age, still trying to tap into that. But yeah, I think this movie is fine. It's not the best. would probably get a six out of 10, three stars on Letterboxd sort of thing. It's not in like the lowest tier of Spielberg, but it's in the next one up, you know, it's kind of that lower mid tier Spielberg.

Eli (52:56.525)
sort of kind of at the bottom of that lower mid-tier to me. I think I liked, as far as like kids movies go, 1010 a little bit more, 1010 has a little less substance to it, but kind of it's more intentional in that. I think the BFG is trying to have a little bit more depth, but missing the mark, and I don't think 1010 is trying to have any depth at all. But yeah, it...

You know, they're kind of right there, right next to each other in my ratings and rankings. Yeah, I don't know, it is still cool to see Spielberg in 2016 releasing a movie for kids. But that's really the last one he's done like that. So it'll be interesting to see if he ever has time to do, I hope he's able to make several more films.

But yeah, it'll be interesting to see if he ever like taps back into that kids movie thing. But yeah, I don't know. It'll be interesting to see. Yeah, that's really all I have for this week. Next week I'm gonna be doing a fall movie preview for 2025 fall movies. I had fun recording that. A lot of really interesting, cool stuff to come out. So tune into that to.

to fill out your calendar and mark the movies that you want to see for this fall. But yeah, after that, we will be jumping into the post, I believe, will be the next Spielberg movie we cover. So look forward to that. But that's all I have for this week. For Ezekiel Price, I've been Eli Price and you've been listening to The Establishing Shot. We will see you next time.