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Blade: Trinity (2005)
310 Plays2 years ago
This week, we witness yet another example of the Superhero Trilogy Curse. Blade: Trinity was supposed to give us the long-anticipated Blade vs. Dracula fight and launch a Nightstalkers spin-off, but it failed in both those respects. Bryant Alexander of the Operation: Silver Screen podcast joins Perry to discuss the dreaded final Blade film.
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Transcript
Dracula's Origin and Cultural Impact
00:00:15
Speaker
He's come back. Take a look at this. You gotta be kidding me. He's real, Blade. This is a piece of his armor. Worth it we were able to extrapolate a basic idea of what this fucker looked like. Check this out.
00:00:41
Speaker
Dracula is only one of the names he's gone by. The Babylonians worshipped him as Dagon, and now they call him Drake.
Discovery of Dracula in Iraq
00:00:48
Speaker
If you believe in the legends, he was born in ancient Sumerian. Nobody really knows the specifics of his origin, but we do know this. He was the first of his kind.
00:01:10
Speaker
The patriarch of hominis nocturna. He was born perfect. And just like the great white shark, this guy has never had to evolve. Forget the movies, forget the books, there's no happy ending with this guy.
00:01:36
Speaker
He's been there, moving behind the scenes, cutting a bloody fucking path through the ages until suddenly... Just like that. He happened disappeared. And then we heard a rumor. The vampires were searching for him. Some say he'd been sleeping through the ages, but he retreated from a world he'd become disgusted with.
00:02:03
Speaker
And according to our information, they found him in Iraq about six months ago, and he was pissed.
Introducing Bryant Alexander and Operation Silver Screen
00:02:10
Speaker
Welcome to the Superhero Cinephiles podcast. I'm your host, Perry Constantine, and welcoming a new guest today, and that is Bryant Alexander. Bryant, how you doing today? I'm doing well yourself. I'm doing pretty good. So I like to give new guests a chance to talk about themselves a little bit and tell the listeners a little bit about who you are, what you do.
00:02:29
Speaker
Yeah, so like you said, my name's Bryant Alexander. I'm one of two hosts for a podcast called Operation Silver Screen.
00:02:37
Speaker
We have now been around for just a little bit over a year and we discuss must-see movies. So my friend and I, we have what we call a first shameless. We've been friends for a while. We have movies that we're ashamed to say we've never seen before. Like before she had never seen The Godfather but yet we consider ourselves to be cinephiles. I still haven't seen The Titanic.
00:03:02
Speaker
And so we created a podcast to knock out those films. We do reviews and discussions. I like to emphasize the discussions more.
Co-hosting Classic Film Discussions
00:03:11
Speaker
The reviews are just a portion of it, but we really discuss like why that movie was significant for its time, why it was significant for filmmaking, what place it holds within just different aspects of global culture as well. Very cool. Very cool.
00:03:28
Speaker
Yeah, and I was looking for some guests to the podcast on, saw the word cinephiles. I was like, all right, you got me. And then I saw superheroes. I was like, all right, you got me again. Good to hear. So what do you think is probably the, so you'd mentioned Titanic you hadn't seen, but what was kind of like the biggest movie you haven't seen that now you've seen through the show? The biggest one for me, some don't millionaire.
00:03:55
Speaker
Oh, okay. Yeah, I'm a big Danny Boyle fan. I've seen pretty much all of his movies except that one, and that's the biggest one. Same goes for—I haven't watched it yet, but probably the biggest one of mine for Shameless now is 2001, A Space Odyssey. Mm-hmm. Okay. Yeah, that was a good one. And Stanley Kubrick I'm a fan of. Yeah, Kubrick's great.
00:04:18
Speaker
I remember when I was in university, I got really into I went through a huge Kubrick phase and I bought like the box set of all the the movies they had out. Didn't actually collect his entire movies, but it was like most of the ones from his like peak period. Yes, yeah, when I first got into film, he was like the first classic director that I got into Lolita was the first black and white movie I put on intentionally.
Exploring Blade Trinity and Superhero Narratives
00:04:44
Speaker
And then I just kept going down a rabbit hole with this film. So I've seen Shining, Clockwork Orange, a lot of the big ones, but not 2001 Space Odyssey for some reason. Okay. All right. All right. But today we're going to be talking about Blade Trinity. So a very different kind of movie from the ones you're used to covering. But you mentioned that you got interested because superhero in the name. So what is your history with superhero movies or comics or anything like that?
00:05:14
Speaker
So I grew up in the 90s. Saturday morning cartoons were a big portion of my life, something I actually woke up early for. And Spider-Man was always my favorite. I always, always watched the superhero cartoons and as I got older, kind of fell out of it.
00:05:31
Speaker
I think it was like when I was 19, I got into comic books. Actually, I started with The Amazing Spider-Man. I just started from number one and I think I'm around like 300 or something. I just, I sometimes pick it up, sometimes put it down and that just kind of started snowballing and then during that time as well when I was 19, MCU,
00:05:55
Speaker
was I think the Avengers was released when I was 19. So everybody was talking about superheroes. I've seen a lot of them but I wouldn't say too many. A lot of the bad ones I definitely skipped over. This one being one and recently with the MCU I've fallen out.
00:06:18
Speaker
I'm still totally in the MCU myself, although I haven't gotten to see Ant-Man yet. I'm hoping to get to see that probably tomorrow or the day after. Now we're talking about Blade Trinity. Did you ever watch any of the previous Blade films before this one?
00:06:37
Speaker
Yes, so I seen the first Blade. Never seen Blade II or Blade Trinity. And that's actually because when I watched Blade, I shouldn't have even watched Blade. I was the
00:06:51
Speaker
I was the oldest child, the first one, so you know how parents are with their first child. They got to make sure they're well protected, make sure, you know, they're sheltered from all the corruption in the world, which includes anything that is considered outside of my age group appropriate. So a lot of the – like a lot of rated R movies, I couldn't see The Matrix was the first one that I was actually allowed to watch.
00:07:15
Speaker
And then there were some others here and there and they just kind of like told me to close my eyes or something and
Blade Trinity in the Superhero Timeline
00:07:20
Speaker
fast forward through a scene. So Blade, I actually, my aunt, I was over her house and she put it on for us. And if I remember correctly, my aunt actually got in trouble when my mom found out that we watched the first Blade.
00:07:36
Speaker
So yeah, looking at I think the second one was 2002 and then 2004, Trinity. I think by that time, like 2004, I would have probably been allowed to watch it but 2002, definitely no. I probably wasn't so allowed to watch that. Yeah, I remember that. Blade II, that was – that's one you should watch. That is easily the best of the series.
00:08:04
Speaker
You'd mentioned before we started recording that you would actually listen to the episode that my late co-host, Eric, and I did on that one.
00:08:10
Speaker
That one, we had both agreed, was easily the best one of the series. This one was such a drop off. So I got really into the Blade movies when they came out. I was a little bit too young to see it at the time, but I was just starting high school when the first one came out. And fortunately, there was a theater in my area that did not check your IDs. So even though it was an R-rated movie, they let me buy a ticket anyway. So I got to see that one in the theater. Blade II.
00:08:38
Speaker
Uh, by the time that one came out, I was already 18, so it didn't matter, but they still, so I was able to see that one in the theater too. And I think I did see this one in the theater when it came out and just remember being so completely disappointed leaving that theater at that day. Um, cause this was right in the middle of that weird period of time when it was, it was after X two and I think it was after,
00:09:07
Speaker
I think Spider-Man 2 came out the same year as well. But this was kind of like the start of that bad period of 2000s comic book movies, as I remember. Yes, they were doing well.
Marvel's Licensing and Adaptation Challenges
00:09:22
Speaker
X2, Spider-Man 2, even the first X-Men was decent enough, the first Spider-Man. And then we got this, we got Daredevil, Electra, I think Ghost Rider came out not too long afterwards.
00:09:37
Speaker
Yeah, Ghost Rider was probably 2005, I think, or 2006, one of those two. But yeah, it was, and yeah, a big part of that was because Marvel was just kind of giving their properties out to everybody because they were in the midst of bankruptcy troubles at the time. And they weren't, Avi Arad, who was in charge of Marvel's film division at the time, wasn't putting a lot of care into who he was giving these properties to.
00:10:04
Speaker
And this one was, because originally they'd wanted to have Guillermo del Toro to direct this one, Blade Trinity, because he had directed Blade II. Blade II had gotten tons of critical acclaim. But by that point, del Toro was full into production on, I think it was the first Hellboy movie. And so he couldn't do Blade, he couldn't do Trinity. And so then David Goyer, they kept trying to find a different director.
00:10:34
Speaker
I think they had, they'd went to Stephen Norrington who directed the first one, but eventually, you know, Goyer just decided, you know, no, I'll just do it myself. And he made this his directorial debut and he really shouldn't have. I think he, I think that's a big weakness of it is just, you've got a very inexperienced director behind this movie who, who's kind of just brought in at, it's kind of like a last minute thing to get the movie out on schedule.
00:11:02
Speaker
Yes, that's, it's definitely noticeable. But even the writing, even if he wasn't to direct it, he still wrote it and I think a writing was kind of at fault here.
Night Stalkers and Creative Liberties
00:11:11
Speaker
But actually I went back and I watched the whole trilogy this week. So I did finally get to see the second one. Okay. And got to see Del Toro's trademark on it, which it reminded me a lot of what Tim Burton did with Batman and Batman Forever.
00:11:25
Speaker
This is Tim Burton's Batman. This is del Toro's blade, but as watching I was like, yeah He's not coming back for this then the studio should have known He's definitely he went from this to Hellboy and it shows in this movie Yeah, I was kind of wondering too about the writing because yeah, Goyer is one of those writers who is It's baffling to me because he is very very hit or miss, you know He does something like the first two blade movies Batman Begins and
00:11:56
Speaker
But then he does stuff like this, does stuff like Man of Steel, and it is completely baffling to me how he has such these wild swings and misses. I'm guessing this is a case of maybe by this point he didn't have enough people looking over his shoulder, and he probably is a writer that definitely needs someone to be checking his worst impulses.
00:12:23
Speaker
I think so too because he also did the screenplay for Dark City which is a movie I still need to watch that has gotten a lot of acclaim. But to me like looking at his filmography, he strikes me as one of those writers. My theory is that they're studio writers like the studios give them the outline and then say hey just make this work and that's good enough for them.
00:12:49
Speaker
That's right, I forgot he wrote Dark City. Dark City is amazing. When you see it, track down the director's cut, because that is infinitely superior to the... The theatrical cut is not bad, it's still good, but the director's cut is much better.
00:13:03
Speaker
Okay, yeah, definitely. I usually go for a director's cut. I think there's only one movie where they recommend not to go with the director's cut. I know Alien is actually like that. Ridley Scott, when they had done the Alien quadrilogy, they had asked Ridley Scott if he wanted to do a director's cut, and he did. And he just basically added like, I think he just changed some scenes and it's only like one minute longer. But he said, he's like, I actually still prefer the theatrical cut to the director's cut. Oh, wow. That's surprising to hear from him. Oh, I remember the movie now too. It was...
00:13:31
Speaker
It was the Halloween. It was one of the Halloween, the one with Paul Rudd. Oh, okay. It was awful, but somehow the director's cut made it even worse. Oh, really? That's interesting. So then in this one, so this was the third movie in the franchise, and this was when they decided to bring in the Night Stalkers. Are you familiar with the Blade in the comics at all?
00:14:01
Speaker
A little bit, not too much. I know he came from the Tomb of Dracula, correct? Yeah. And I've seen... He's been... I haven't seen him like solo, but I've just seen him in other properties. Actually, I just recently beat Marvel Midnight Suns and he's a big part in that game. So I learned some a bit about his history in that game. But other than this film and that, not too much.
00:14:28
Speaker
Yeah, the movies made a lot of changes to Blade from what he was in the comics. So like you said, he was introduced in Tomb of Dracula. And he was kind of like a supporting character in that series. He was part of a team and everything. And the whole Daywalker thing, that actually did not come from the comics. That was actually a creation of Goyers. And at the time that the script was making the rounds, they were doing the Spider-Man animated series.
00:14:57
Speaker
Even though Goyer created the Daywalker concept, it ended up first appearing in the Spider-Man animated series when Blade appears there because they are like, oh, well, this movie's coming out. Let's make it as close to the movie as possible. But originally it was just that him.
00:15:14
Speaker
Deacon Frost fighting his mother when she was pregnant. All it did was it made him immune to vampirism. That was the only thing he had. Other than that, he was just a regular guy. And he had fought mostly with swords. Wooden daggers was a big thing. That's where he got his name from. And in the 90s, they had brought him back for what was called the Night Stalker's comic book with him and Frank Drake and Hannibal King, two other characters who were also part of Tomb of Dracula.
00:15:44
Speaker
And in the comics, Hannibal King is a vampire, but he's a vampire who's fighting off his urges. Frank Drake is the descendant of Dracula, but he's not a vampire himself. And the story was just about the three of them. The series ended with Frank and Hannibal dying, and then Blade went on to have his own solo series for a time, and that's kind of where he got the trademark look of the black leather and all that.
00:16:14
Speaker
And then after that, he went on hiatus, and that was when the movie came out. And the movie made all these changes to him, like the Daywalker stuff, Whistler, all of that came straight out of the movies. Yeah, I looked up a little bit of the difference between this and the comic. And yeah, I saw that Whistler was completely new. But I guess they, I mean, they had those options back in the day when Marvel was just giving it out to anybody. They could make changes to it, such as Spider-Man with his web fluid actually coming out of his wrist.
Blade Trinity's Writing and Production Issues
00:16:44
Speaker
Yeah, they've done a lot of that. In fact, before the 2000s, I think Spider-Man was the one that even with the web fluid thing, it still tried to stick pretty close to the source material. But that was really kind of an outlier at the time. Most movies
00:16:59
Speaker
They used the source material as kind of a very, very loose starting point. You can look at the X-Men movies. For all the good things those original movies did, they did change a lot of stuff. And that was pretty common at the time. And then it's weird now you have some of the issues of them sticking too close to the comics.
00:17:21
Speaker
Ridiculousness starts to to come in you're like this doesn't look right on the big screen Yeah, there's some aspects of that too I think there's there's a nice little middle ground that you have to find and I think some fans
00:17:34
Speaker
don't understand that. Like I remember when they had shown in WandaVision when Wanda had worn the classic Scarlet Witch costume and fans were like, this is what she should wear all the time. Like, no, no, that's not. You're always gonna have people like that on Twitter. So, but anyway, this movie and so they decided we're gonna bring in the Nightstalkers here. So they brought in
00:18:01
Speaker
Hannibal King, played by Ryan Reynolds, made some changes to his character. So in this case, he's not a vampire anymore, but he's a former vampire. He got in The Cure. And they had brought in Frank Drake. They just kind of combined Frank and Dracula. So that's why he's called Drake in the movie.
00:18:22
Speaker
Jessica Beale's character, Abigail Whistler, she was kind of based on Rachel Van Helsing from the Tomb of Dracula comic books, but then they made her Whistler's daughter for kind of like added connection to the series. Although they don't really do a whole lot with that even though she is Whistler's daughter.
00:18:42
Speaker
Yeah, I found that weirdly because Whistler mentions he has friends and if he has a daughter who is out there fighting vampire, why not bring her in on this? Yeah, I mean I think this is something that
00:18:56
Speaker
Goyer had wanted to do because he mentions, Whistler mentions in the first movie, he's like myself, Blade, a few others, you know, and there's kind of hinted at at like this network of, you know, like when blade goes to get his serum, he goes to some different person to get it. So there is kind of this hint of this vampire hunting world out there. But
00:19:17
Speaker
It doesn't seem like as advanced as it does in this movie. And it seems weird that Whistler would keep Blade in the Dark completely about all of this. That part felt also really strange to me. I think that's something that is a hindrance from the second movie. I think the second movie didn't build the world as much as the first movie. So getting to the last movie, the end of the trilogy, there's still a section of this that's missing.
00:19:44
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, definitely. Um, one other thing that the second movie did really well that I think the first movie and the third movie kind of falter with is kind of is kind of also on the world building aspect because
00:19:56
Speaker
I remember when the first movie was coming out, they'd said, like, we're trying to approach vampirism not as like a magic thing, but as a science-based thing. I'm like, okay, that's cool, but you kind of muddle the waters with that when you have like ancient blood gods and prophecies and all that that doesn't quite fit together with that. And then this one too, it has kind of a similar thing with
00:20:17
Speaker
with Drake and like, you know, the vampire lore and all that kind of stuff. Whereas the second one, what I like about it is that it completely sticks with that idea of vampirism as a purely a scientific thing. Yeah, that makes sense because they have the experiments which go wrong and that's what creates the new enemy.
00:20:39
Speaker
And it kind of reminds me of Thor. Thor, at least in the first one, I remember them saying that their magic, which seems like magic to us on Earth, is actually their science. I don't think they ever actually went into that, or at least they just dropped it off. But it's one of those things that they say, but never actually show. I think they tried to lean into that a little bit in the dark world, when Jane is being examined, and they've got that kind of device thing, and Jane says, oh, is that a, you know,
00:21:09
Speaker
weird techno-babble science term. And one of the women who's looking at her, she's like, no, it's a soul forge or something like that. And then Jane just looks over at Thor. And she's like, no, it's this techno-babble thing. Oh, yeah, I do remember that. It's probably because it was in Dark World, everybody just forgot and dropped it. I actually like Dark World. I'm one of the few defenders, although I understand it's got problems. But we talked about that on a previous episode.
00:21:36
Speaker
But yeah, and also another issue here is Goyer had so many problems dealing with Snipes. And a big problem is that because they knew this was Snipes' last outing as Blade, pretty much. And Goyer and the studio had wanted to go forward. And so they were kind of trying to set this up as like a Night Stalker's franchise, a Night Stalker spin-off anchored by Ryan Reynolds and Jessica Beale.
00:22:04
Speaker
It doesn't really work. Because this movie is, they focus so much on the Night Stalkers to the detriment of Blade himself. And Snipes felt the same way, which is why he had so many problems with Goyer on set.
00:22:17
Speaker
Yes, I've read a lot about that, which I found surprising because I was expecting to find something about the studio interfering as well. But it seems like it was just Snipes and Goyer. And I understand Snipes' side, though I think he retaliated unprofessionally. A lot of the things that he was doing. But I could see why he was angry with Goyer and his approach to this film, especially the end of a trilogy.
Focusing Shift and Film Imbalances
00:22:44
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I mean, Snipes definitely didn't handle it well. I remember Patton Oswalt was talking, Patton Oswalt's stories about working on this film are pretty much legendary now, where he had said that Snipes would stay in character as Blade the whole time. He would only respond if addressed as Blade. He would like not talk to anybody and he'd spend like, anytime he wasn't filming, he was apparently just in his trailer smoking pot. Yeah, and a lot of his stand-in was there, taking the scene.
00:23:14
Speaker
Yeah. And in fact, at one point, Ryan Reynolds said he was asked what it was like working with Wesley Snipes. And Reynolds said he's like, I never met Wesley Snipes. I only met Blade. Yeah, he also didn't have a good relationship with him. And that was probably the most upsetting thing because I wanted to be on Wesley Snipes out or understand him. But he was calling Ryan Reynolds like he would only refer to him in derogatory terms as well. I was like, man, you can't be doing all of that. Like I understand you're upset about the film.
00:23:43
Speaker
But you still you know, you still an employee you're still gotta remain professional, you know artist Yeah, yeah, and some of the choices they made with the night stalkers. I mean, you know what? I love Ryan Reynolds and Even though he's probably the only his antics in this movie are probably the only thing that make it worth watching They still went way too far with him. I thought I Had trouble Remembering if this was Hannibal King or Deadpool
00:24:12
Speaker
That's exactly what I said after I walked out of this movie. I walked out of this movie and I'm like, okay, so that was a nice Deadpool audition tape for Ryan Reynolds, but that's about all it was. I haven't seen Green Lantern, so I don't know if he was doing the same thing. I don't know if he's been campaigning for Deadpool since 2004. Oh, he was campaigning. In fact, he was originally cast back when the first X-Men movie came out.
00:24:35
Speaker
Because after X-Men hit it big, Fox had all the other X-Men characters. And they talked about doing Deadpool with Ryan Reynolds at the time. And at the time, he was only really known for Van Wilder. So I was really kind of surprised. I'm like, you're going to get the Van Wilder guy to play Deadpool? And then this came out, and everyone was like, OK, yeah, we see it now.
00:24:57
Speaker
He even starts this movie off with narration. Yeah, that was another weird choice. They're telling you right from the start that they're trying to make Reynolds the new center of this franchise because it opens and ends with his narration.
00:25:12
Speaker
that narration that was my first like this movie just started out with me groaning because i in all three of these films i hate the narration because they're for some reason they're beating you over the head with this isn't like the movies yeah yeah i mean and it makes it egregious in this one when he when he just comes out and says the movies are full of shit and i'm like okay i i know you it feels like you're trying to there's a lot of that in this movie when it's like it feels like you're trying way too hard to be edgy
00:25:39
Speaker
Yeah, especially with Ryan Reynolds' character, which, and again, it comes down to the writing with Goyer. The jokes just are not paced well. No. He'll sometimes have like a joke right after a joke, and no reaction in the scene will just cut. It's just the oddest editing. No one's even laughing at it. I mean, some were good, but that's because you throw enough stuff at the wall, something's gonna stick. Yeah, I think what it was, and I'm not sure if this is true or not, but my,
00:26:09
Speaker
impression of this is that, you know, Ryan Reynolds is an improv guy, he likes to improv a lot of his dialogue. My impression is that Goyer just kind of told Reynolds, you know, like, just go ahead, improv, improv, improv, just say some funny shit. And then so, and so I think Reynolds just riffing a lot of the time, and he's not even sure what he's, he's just saying whatever comes to mind. And
00:26:32
Speaker
And that's fine when you're filming, right? But you gotta make some decisions then in the editing room to decide what you're gonna keep and what you're not. I feel like Goyer just decided we wanna keep as much of the funny stuff as possible, even if it doesn't make sense. Yes, because everybody on sets laughing, having a good time, because this has been a problem in other films where they just say, all right, you're a great comedian, just improv. And yeah, everybody behind the camera is laughing, having a good time. And then when they released the movie three months later, not everybody's in on the joke.
00:27:02
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And Abigail Whistler, like she's an odd character in this movie because she doesn't really, she's supposedly like the main co-star. In fact, the original script had a sex scene between her and Wesley Snipes that they ended up cutting. Good, because that does not feel like it would have made any sense at all.
00:27:27
Speaker
Ah, she's just, she's so flat as a character. And this is this weird time in Hollywood when Hollywood was trying to make us convinced that we love Jessica Biel as an actress. And we really didn't. What were your thoughts about Abigail in this? Yeah, she seemed like she was just thrown in. I feel like she was supposed to be the femme fatale that I think Hollywood was also trying to push as well. I think, you know, they
00:27:55
Speaker
had it their way, she would have been the next Electra movie with Jennifer Garner. Yeah, yeah, there was definitely kind of that. And there are also some weird decisions for product placement. Like, I think the bow she uses is really cool with the laser and all that. But what always makes me roll my eyes every time I watch this movie is the idea that she likes to listen to her iPod when she's hunting, when she's in battle. And I'm just like,
00:28:25
Speaker
That's such a stupid thing to do. I mean like you kind of need to hear what's going on around you. Oh yeah, it makes no sense tactically. And it's not even used well enough to like even be cool with. It reminded me of Baby Driver. And I thought that would have been, if they did it like Baby Driver, that would have been super cool.
00:28:49
Speaker
But it's not like the song she's listening to goes in and out with the soundtrack of the film. I mean, it's more like an Easter egg like, hey, here's a cool playlist. And that's it. It doesn't play into anything else. Yeah, it feels like they're trying to do some sort of synergy with Apple. And they're just like, hey, let's, you know, let's do this. And we'll sell it
Critiquing Blade Trinity's Villains
00:29:09
Speaker
as like Abby's playlist or something. And I'm and I don't think anybody cared about this film enough for that promotion to even work out.
00:29:16
Speaker
No. I wonder if it was because Deacon Frost in the first movie, there's a odd moment where he's just sitting in a corner listening to music. So I don't know if that was some kind of callback or David Goyer just really wants to make something work with characters and headphones. I feel like that was, again, another example of Goyer really trying hard to make these movies kind of like hit.
00:29:39
Speaker
All right, because I remember he was talking a lot about how Deacon Frost is like this Generation X rebel vampire type thing. So I think him listening to techno music was supposed to be kind of like a hint at that. And I feel like you kind of have a similar thing with with Abby in this movie.
00:29:57
Speaker
Yeah, I can see that. And I'm glad they, you mentioned the sex scene. I'm really glad they didn't do that because that just seems very odd. I know Wesley Snipes had a lot of great ideas, but that one doesn't make sense. So you are going to sleep with your recently passed mentor's daughter. And it's just like they don't have, I wonder how far that scene made it into production. Like if it was cut, I don't think they ever filmed it, but I wonder if it was cut before or after.
00:30:25
Speaker
They had started doing like readings and all that because just watching them in the movie. I mean, they've got no chemistry. I can't even figure out where in the movie you would even put that scene. No, no one has chemistry in this movie. I actually forgot the term chemistry because it was it was just never in this film. You mentioned that and I was like, oh, yeah, wait, that's the thing I should be looking for. They had zero. Mm hmm. I mean, it's just like
00:30:53
Speaker
It's not even like they're coworkers. I mean, I feel like despite all their issues, he actually has more chemistry with Ryan Reynolds than he does with Jessica Biel. Yeah. And that's cause he reacts to his jokes to her. He doesn't react. He doesn't, I mean, he doesn't have any real conversations, which I kind of like about the second one more than the others is that he does have more personality. He has more conversations with individuals.
00:31:19
Speaker
A problem with the first one and it's writing again is that it is just exposition. Like if you watch the movie and then think about it later, all the dialogue is just exposition. Nobody has a regular conversation. Yeah. Nabushi writes entire role in that movie as, you know, decent job that she does with what she's given. She is just there to be the character that people explain things to so that we can understand more of the world. And then they got their patent Oswald Q.
00:31:48
Speaker
It was just there to show new gear, which the bow, I mean, was only used twice as kind of like a trump card. I feel like they had a cool idea, but then when they were thinking about its practicality and how to actually use it in choreograph, they couldn't figure it out. Also, it doesn't make sense that it burns as half as hot as the sun, but you can sit there and hold it. You can be within a foot of it. Yeah. I think that was just one of those things where they thought, this sounds cool. Let's use it.
00:32:18
Speaker
Yeah. What did you think of the villains in this? Drake and Danica and Jacko? This honestly was the worst part for me. The vampires were
00:32:36
Speaker
So for me, like a lot of this movie was just lame. Like right when it finished. That was my main thought with it. Because all the vampires are lame. You have Parker Posey who's just chewing up scenery. No pun intended. They just all like cartoons. They're babbling. They're smacking around each other doing slapstick. And then you have Dracula. So we have the third movie.
00:32:59
Speaker
the trilogy ending and we got Dracula, the vampire. Now this dude like started it all. He's raised from the dead. He has this, you know, he comes out of the tomb. Anywhere that comes out of tomb should just be like they should just set the stage. They should take command of the scene. You know, you think about the mummy and like how cool that villain was and just how like how much of a threat he was to the entire world.
00:33:26
Speaker
And in this one, I didn't... I wasn't feeling his look. Like the actor I got for him, I was surprised they couldn't get someone that was more prolific. And then like, okay, I get it. You don't want to go with the Dracula that's... that's like the old-fashioned suave, almost like a noble... you wanted to go something with a little bit grounded to this universe, even though it doesn't make any sense. He comes out and it looks like a Playboy bro lifter.
00:33:56
Speaker
yeah anything who can't button up his shirt worth anything again that's another example of trying to trying too hard to make things like hip and edgy and i mean i i love dominic purcell he's great in you know legends of tomorrow he he was great in john doe and prison break and but he is much better as like a supporting type of character he's not he's not really a main
00:34:21
Speaker
threat type of character. He doesn't fit in this role at all. Parker Posey, again, I love Parker Posey, but she is just, I don't know what she's doing in this. It's, it's baffling to me. So that is the guy from jailbreak and prison break. The cold character. Captain Cold is the other guy who was also his brother on prison break. But he plays, Purcell plays Heatwave.
00:34:51
Speaker
Okay, that's why I was getting confused. I was like, there's no way. I was like, that dude looks shorter and like twice the size. But when you have a big character like that, they never have any moments where they show how great he is, like how powerful he actually is. They have one scene where he walks – he comes across a vampire shop and they sell all this vampire Dracula memorabilia for some reason.
00:35:15
Speaker
and it's open really late at night and there's a condescending guy that works there because of course because we're about to see him die we have to hate him before we see him die and he goes in there and we spend this whole scene of him just going around just
00:35:29
Speaker
looking at the stuff and then he throws one out the window and he bites, he bites one of the girls. We've seen that in the other two movies. That's just vampires doing regular vampire stuff. That's not, that's not a big villain moment. You think about the other superhero films, you think about Thanos and
00:35:49
Speaker
when he was taking over Gamora's planet and kind of just showing her the whole thing with the balance.
Blade's Unique Abilities and Series Inconsistencies
00:35:54
Speaker
Or actually when we first meet Thanos, he beats the crap out of the Hulk. Like that's a way to set up your villain like, hey, this villain is not to be messed with. And one of the tropes, but it works. They use the trope in superhero movies and anime is that the new big bag beats the crap out of the hero. And now they got to go retrain and come back. That, you know, it's a trope, but it would work better than this.
00:36:18
Speaker
The first time you have Dracula here, come across Blade and the Nightstalkers, he runs away. He just darts off. Yeah, he's not imposing at all. He looks ridiculous, like you'd mentioned, the way they choose to portray him.
00:36:38
Speaker
There's this all this build up about kind of like the myth of Dracula and none of it ever seems to live up to What we get in this movie and the whole I also don't understand how this idea works of like he was born perfect He never had to evolve like that doesn't
00:36:53
Speaker
tell me anything. I don't understand how we get from Dracula to the regular vampires that or how we have things like pure bloods and you know, people who are turned and that whole class thing that was in the first movie and the second movie to a lesser extent, but that seems to be completely abandoned in this movie. One of the things about filmmaking just writing general is showing not telling and for a movie to just continually break that rule
00:37:19
Speaker
It still does not tell that much about anything. When they say Dracula and they're explaining his history, I actually rewinded the movie because I thought I missed something. I was like, wait, so what is Dracula? Where do you come from? What makes him so bad? They said, Dracula has been throughout the ages killing people. And that was it. His name is Drake. It kind of reminded me of
00:37:42
Speaker
Uh, Marvel messed up recently with Gore the God Butcher. They say he's been going out killing gods, and then they just move on. That's it. Yeah, and that's another ask. And I also couldn't understand where they get from Dracula to Drake, because they say, like, oh, he's had many different names, and now he's Drake. I'm like, okay, well...
00:38:00
Speaker
Where did that name come from? It feels like you guys just pulled it out of nowhere I know it's connected to the comics because that was the character in the comics But I mean like if you're gonna take something from the comics It should really have a reason to be in the movie and there is no reason at all I mean if you were gonna do this then I think you know have this have Frank Drake in the movie and have him be the descendant of Dracula who has this power inside him but doesn't know about it and Has to have it awake and that would have been a much more interesting story than what we got here
00:38:30
Speaker
Yes, I can see that being a lot better. And when you told me about Drake being in the comics, that scene made more sense to me because I remember when I was watching it, I rewanted it twice. They said that his name is Drake and that felt so out of place for me. But I couldn't tell why. It just feels like a misstep. And you say in the comics, okay, they forced that one in there. That's why it feels odd, not a place.
00:38:57
Speaker
Another thing I took from the comics is the Daystar virus. In the comics, it was actually, I think this ended the Tomb of Dracula series, if I'm not mistaken, but it was called the Montessi formula. And it was like this spell that they had worked on with Dr. Strange to kind of eliminate vampires all over the world. It only lasted a brief amount of time and eventually it started weakening and vampires started coming back. And they kind of did a similar thing with the Daystar in this because this movie ends
00:39:25
Speaker
And supposedly, they've gotten rid of vampires. But then the Blade TV show came out a few years after this on Spike TV. And that was supposed to be a continuation of the of the movies.
Impact of Whistler's Death
00:39:39
Speaker
So and so that so apparently the day star virus was really weak in this. It also didn't make sense because they brought in that that not the cure, even though they have a cure, which they kind of just yada yada pass it like we cure Ryan Reynolds and then just go in
00:39:56
Speaker
Start doing other things like… that's a big… having a cure for vampirism in this trilogy is a very important thing, but I guess not anymore. But they said the cure like… or for the Daystar, they say, hey, what we need is Dracula's blood to finish it. So they set it up as in like, we need to find Dracula, extract his blood.
00:40:18
Speaker
Put it with this and conduct test and make—we need that ingredient to actually make the formula. But then at the end of the movie, they say, hey, just shoot this in them.
00:40:30
Speaker
Yeah, and the whole cure thing, I think that's supposed to be picking up from the first movie when Karen was able to cure herself of vampirism, but that was a unique case. They even made a point of saying that in the movie. This will work on me, but it probably wouldn't work on Blade, and it may not work on people who are more advanced in how far the disease has progressed. And here, it's just kind of like, yeah, we got the cure. Everything's fine now. Yeah, Ryan Reynolds was a full-on vampire. Mm-hmm.
00:40:59
Speaker
So instead of killing all these vampires, why don't you go out and just start hitting them all with the cure? Yeah, yeah. That's another thing too. And because in the second movie too, they had Whistler, but Whistler was also a special case. They were keeping him in this kind of like weird state between vampire and human as a way of like torturing him.
00:41:21
Speaker
And yeah, it's just, Whistler's something else I want to talk about. I was so disappointed that they killed him off right at the beginning of this movie, because Chris Christopherson has been probably the MVP of the first two movies. But even in this movie, he feels really tired in those beginning scenes when he's talking to Blade.
00:41:43
Speaker
I was surprised to find out that he actually wanted to be more in this film and Wesley Snipes as well because his outing feels like a character who just didn't want to be in the movie anymore, so they killed him off, such as Mystique and Dark Phoenix. Actually, I didn't see Dark Phoenix, but I'm pretty sure from when I saw it. It's exactly how she was like. Yeah, she was exactly like that.
00:42:07
Speaker
Yes, there was also G.I. Joe. It was either Chaining Tatum or The Rock that said they didn't want to be in the film anymore, so they were killed off right in the beginning. So I thought, oh, okay, Kristoff… Kristofferson just didn't want to be in the movie anymore, but…
00:42:23
Speaker
No, no, he wanted to be and he comes back in the in a way that just does not make any sense other than they owed him screen time in his contract. Yeah, I think probably what happened was he was probably supposed to be just very briefly in the beginning was maybe was supposed to die. Maybe he wasn't even supposed to be in it at all. And then he had said he's like, Oh, I want to be in it. I want to be in it. And so then they kind of
00:42:46
Speaker
wrote this forced expanded role for him. And I think that's probably why the dialogue feels so bad coming out of his mouth here. Triple H too. That was another case of the studios really liked him. And so then they kept saying, we got to give him more lines, more lines. They give him all these extra lines and their garbage lines. They were
00:43:05
Speaker
Awful, and when I found out he was triple A, he just said, oh, okay, that makes sense why he has so much screen time. But yeah, he's just another, he's the big henchman, the big Babylon henchman. You always have that one henchman that's super strong, but a little bit slow and kind of the butt of the jokes.
00:43:23
Speaker
I mean, and we had some version of this character in the other two movies, right? We had Donald Logue in the first one. We had, to a certain extent, Ron Perlman in the second one. But those guys are much better actors, and they made that material much more interesting. Triple H cannot make this material interesting. I don't even know if, even if you've got Ron Perlman to do this, I don't think he could have made that material interesting either.
00:43:47
Speaker
no because he was also it wasn't just him it was that that whole small vampire crew as well yeah that was another i mean the the night's you the night comparing the night stalkers to the blood pack in blade two is a really good exercise because you can see
00:44:04
Speaker
what a difference just some better writing and some better performances makes because the characters in this, and it's not even the actor's fault. I mean, like Ryan Reynolds, Patton Oswalt, Natasha Lyonne, these are good actors. They knew how to do this stuff, but it's just their stuff is just so garbage. Whereas in the second movie, all the blood pack characters are really interesting. Even the ones who don't say anything like Donnie Yen's character, I'm still far more invested in him than I am in Patton Oswalt, who I usually love.
00:44:34
Speaker
Yeah, for them trying to continue this series with this new crew, the Blood Pack would have been more interesting. I'm not always down for a sequel, but that could have worked more than Ryan Reynolds and Jessica Biel because actually the Night Stalkers, most of them are killed off by the end of this. Yeah. And when you look at it in an infiltration scene, that just doesn't make so much sense.
00:44:59
Speaker
Yeah, and they also try to force this weird connection between with the doctor's daughter too, which also felt like a way to say like, let's use this.
Missed Narrative Opportunities in Blade Trinity
00:45:10
Speaker
I hate when they do this in movies. I'm like, we have a child character. Let's use it to soften the main character. Every time they do it, it's a mistake.
00:45:18
Speaker
That line had me cracking up though when she was talking to him because he's using a serum and she asked him why he's taking it and he said, well, there's something bad inside of me. And she asked, well, can't you just be nice? And then the camera swings, zooms in, get a nice suspenseful pause and he goes, the world isn't nice. And then that's the scene. Yeah. What does that have to do with anything thematically in the presence? Nothing. Nothing. No.
00:45:47
Speaker
That's another thing, too. Blade as a character doesn't really have any sort of arc in this movie. I think the arc was supposed to be. He learns to trust people, but that doesn't come through at all. He's only working with the Nightstalkers because he's got no choice. Whereas in the first movie, it was
00:46:09
Speaker
There was kind of this arc about him accepting what he is. In the second movie, it was this arc about, okay, well, he's accepted what he is. Now he has to try to find which side he falls on. Does he fall on? Because he's got this whole temptation thing with the female vampire in that one.
00:46:27
Speaker
And there's that there's that chemistry as with her and then the struggling with Whistler that this whole idea of like, who do you trust? And that really came through in that movie. This one, there's I don't know what the you put a gun to my head. I don't know what the characters are kids as this movie is. Now, this was originally supposed to be a much darker script, which you hear a lot about the superhero films supposed to be darker scripts, but then they end up getting toned down. And that was one of the things that they were going to look into is Blade
00:46:56
Speaker
once again, fighting against the hunger and choosing a side. And, you know, kind of going, finally going, either going tours or going away from that temptation. Which, again, it's very similar to what we saw in the first two movies, but it's, there's no compelling reason for him to choose the other side in this. I mean, you could understand it in the second movie because there is that whole tension he has with, God, I'm gonna have to look up her name at some point because I keep forgetting it, but that,
00:47:26
Speaker
you know, the female member of the blood pack, he's got this connection with her. He's got this kind of like, he develops kind of like a respectful relationship with like Assad from the blood pack. And he's got this whole tension with Whistler, right? Where Whistler has, you know, just come out of being missing with the enemy for two years. Then you've got Spud, who's also very suspicious of Whistler.
00:47:52
Speaker
That tension felt much more real. Here, I'm just like, what is Drake even offering Blade for? Nothing. There's nothing he's got. Even the first movie had his mother on the other sides. That gave more compelling reason. In this movie, there's no compelling reason whatsoever. Yeah, her name is Nisa. Nisa, thank you, yes.
00:48:13
Speaker
With Blade, actually now I can see some of the old script in this movie because Blade, in the beginning of the movie, they talk about how he kills a human. And they ask him, how many humans have he killed? And he says like 1,182. And that's a lot. He's a mass murderer. Yeah.
00:48:36
Speaker
Even though, even if he's doing it for the right reasons, he's still a mass murderer. And Whistler's character tells him, like, he just owned him about killing these humans. So I can see that was probably in the old script, and he was going to have to come to terms at, like, who is he really working for? Because he's killing a lot of humans. He's probably killing more humans than he is vampire, and that could be conflicting to him. And even thinking about that more, that would have been very interesting.
00:49:04
Speaker
Well, yeah, I remember in the trailers, they had really highlighted that thing about the FBI hunting him and all of that, which you get in the beginning. But then that whole, as soon as the Nightstalkers get introduced and they break him out, that whole thing has just dropped and it's gone. And that would have been so much more interesting to see.
00:49:21
Speaker
Because all this stuff is made in the first two movies about how the vampires have infiltrated every aspect of human society. They control the police. They have all these agreements and arrangements with human governments. So what would have been interesting is if the vampires actually use that power against Blade. What happens in the first
00:49:44
Speaker
Was it 20, 15, 20 minutes of this movie? That's the most interesting part of the movie. And then all that is just dropped so we can focus on the Nightstalkers. Yeah. Another thing that was in the original script that made it in here that was pretty dark was the blood farm where they had all those homeless people and those vacuum sealed containers and just, and just taking their blood like cattle. That was, but that felt so oddly placed.
00:50:10
Speaker
Like that did nothing for the story. It just got Jessica Beale and Wesley Snipes away from, again, Drake going to the, to infiltrate the Night Stalker base when, which when you think about it, there's so many things that don't make sense about that. So you went to his place to grab a hostage so that he can come back to your place where everybody's going to jump him. Why don't just take everybody there and go jump him? Yeah. Yeah.
00:50:37
Speaker
And that's also when they bring Whistler back, and that doesn't make any sense why he's shapeshifting as Whistler. It's not, everybody knows Whistler's dead, so it's not confusing to anybody. Yeah, and they do make that point. I believe they said that Drake can shapeshift already, so I don't understand what your, that trick doesn't work. It works better if they don't know Drake has that ability in his toolbox.
00:51:07
Speaker
But yeah, I don't know what's going on in this. And yeah, that whole thing too, the whole plan, the vampire final solution though, that was actually originally an idea they had in the first Blade movie. And there was a deleted scene where Karen asked Deacon Frost, you know, what are you gonna do? If vampires take over the world, you get rid of humans, then you guys lose your food source.
00:51:29
Speaker
And then that's when he shows her the idea, the human final solution. And it's very similar to this scene, although much lower budget version of it. And you could probably find the deleted scene on YouTube. That scene was scrapped in that movie. And so Goyer really liked that idea, so he wanted to bring it back here.
00:51:49
Speaker
So going back to the shapeshifting real quick because it also kind of goes back in the older script I can see. I think I could see them having Dracula shapeshift as the blade and then commit a public crime. Now everyone's really coming after blade because they really do hype up the shapeshifting even though again like a lot of things it makes no sense because they say well he has a bunch of tiny bones. Like what about skin, hair, voice, inflection.
00:52:18
Speaker
Like, no, yeah, Tiny Bones works on all that. But yeah, that could have been something that they work with because they don't do. Honestly, that's the only thing that separates them from the other ones, that and his demonic form. Mm hmm. Yeah. Also, the the whole idea that Blade is so dismissive of the Nightstalkers felt really forced to me. Right. Like when he sees
00:52:44
Speaker
When they take him back, he's like, you're all kids, you're not professional enough. And he chides Hannibal for wearing the hi, my name is fuck you sticker on it. I'm like, bitch, you've said those kinds of things all the time for the past two movies. I don't understand why it's suddenly so unprofessional.
00:53:02
Speaker
Yes, I think it was the second one where he shot somebody, he got a good shot and he pumps his fists. He also has his bike and he almost hits his car and he doesn't and he makes a kiss at it. When he said, you guys are dressed crazy or you dress like children, you run around in an overcoat. I don't see anything tactical about the overcoat other than it makes the whoosh sound. Or the sunglasses at night.
00:53:29
Speaker
Yeah, that, yeah, no, it doesn't make any sense. Oh yeah, especially with the whole, so vampires can see a knight in this movie, right? I'm not sure, I believe so though, it would make sense. Because they use flares to go into the tomb and then Jessica Beale's plan, it doesn't do anything, but she takes out all the lights inside of the vampire's hideout, like she shoots the fuse box and all the lights go down, which, why would you do that? You're a human and you're an archer, you need to see.
00:53:59
Speaker
Yeah, you're right. I never even consider that. But you're absolutely right. That doesn't make any sense. If you're gonna have if you're gonna try to do the scientific approach to vampires, then okay, we'll stick with it logically. If they're nocturnal, that means they have to have some sort of ability to see at night.
Vampire Lore Inconsistencies and Plot Holes
00:54:17
Speaker
That's 2004. They could have done the whole like first person point of view, cat eyes, night vision, whatever.
00:54:28
Speaker
Yeah, I'd never even consider that, but you're absolutely right. Now, the Blade is... I think there is some good in this movie. I don't think this movie is completely terrible. But I think Wesley Slamps is still good as Blade. He still has that cool factor that he's had throughout the whole trilogy. And he still has some lines that crack me up when he's talking to the police chief and telling him how he's going to mess him up.
00:54:56
Speaker
And then you have the choreography, which I think is good with Wesley Snipes. I think some of the archery is, I don't know, I think it's a lot of the archery that you see in all the superheroes. But Ryan Reynolds, he has come away. He's not a top choreographer right now, but this film, you can tell all his punches are not hitting, especially when he's fighting Triple H. You can see so many of his hands go past people's face.
00:55:23
Speaker
Yeah, well, I mean, I give him a big pass because this was probably the first time he's ever done an action movie. But he did a he did a lot of work for this movie. I, you know, I got to admire him. I mean, he put on like 25 pounds of muscle for this. He had really he'd really taken this seriously, because this is like supposed to be his big transition from like comedy into action.
00:55:45
Speaker
Yeah and kind of blending the two as well and I'll give him, I mean I give him a lot of credit. He's definitely paid his dues but also he didn't have a director that could actually help him out with this. So prior to the choreography, I don't know if they had as many choreographers as they did with the second blade. I mean they also had Donnie Yen in there. Wesley Snipes was fully invested during that time so and it sounds like Wesley Snipes wasn't helping out anybody so…
00:56:12
Speaker
Reynolds probably only had one choreographer and the director helping him out right. I mean i'm looking at the The uh trivia here and it says that in you know because um snipes had actually refused to shoot a lot of scenes too so like there was some stuff that was written for him that he just refused to see and And so then they had to that was another reason so part of it was they wanted to beef up the night stalkers for um a possible spin-off but part of it also was that he um
00:56:42
Speaker
he just wouldn't do a lot of scenes himself. And so then they had to start, they had to rely on the night stalkers a little bit more and stand ins like you'd mentioned too. Which they did a pretty good job with stand ins. I couldn't tell for a lot of it. Mm hmm. Yeah. I was too busy asking other questions.
00:57:02
Speaker
Apparently there were also at one point in 2008 Stephen I'd never known about this. I just seen this but Stephen Norrington who directed the again directed the first film He was actually working on a prequel that would have had that would have focused on Deacon Frost and Stephen Dorff coming back Okay, that would have been cool because I think Deacon Frost is
00:57:25
Speaker
I think he was all right, especially for the time. But there could have been a lot more with his character. They didn't explain too much about the whole pure blood half blood thing with the vampires. They could have gone a lot more into that. I mean, yeah, I mean, that that whole thing always struck me as kind of weird because how do you raise a vampire child? Like, because, you know, I mean, I've got a I've got a two year old like she she doesn't.
00:57:49
Speaker
She doesn't do what she's supposed to do, right? I tell her stuff she doesn't understand. So if she was a vampire and she runs out into the sun, you know, that's it. She's gone.
00:58:01
Speaker
Oh yeah, I didn't think about that, but I was thinking about how do you keep them from biting people and needing blood, but yeah, the moment they're out in the sun, they're done. Yeah, I mean, do they have vampire preschools? Now that I have kids, I start thinking about these things a lot more, but that whole idea of pure bloods and people who are turned and that class difference doesn't make a lot of sense at all.
00:58:30
Speaker
Unless Dracula taught them about that because he can stand out in the sun, but they can't. So I'm pretty sure they lost a couple of trial babies, but Dracula probably started telling everybody, like, hey, make sure he passed this knowledge down. No, I don't understand how, well, I guess two regular vampires get together and pass the blood down. Yeah, I mean, that's another thing, like, because I can't imagine this would be the first instance of what happens if a vampire sleeps with a human then, like,
00:58:59
Speaker
Are they just not incompatible or what? I mean, that was one thing I liked about in the Angel TV series when, I'm not sure if you ever watched it, but, you know, when Angel is a vampire and Darla was another vampire, they end up, she gets pregnant. And the whole thing is like vampires can't have children. So that makes sense. Like the only way they reproduce is by turning people. When you start having the whole pure blood thing, it has all these other questions in it about like, how does that even work?
Balancing Humor and Serious Themes in Execution
00:59:32
Speaker
I've always wondered, I've gone down the rabbit hole before, but not with vampires, with werewolves. Like, if somebody gets printed with a werewolf, what happens if it's a full moon door in labor? What if it's not? Does that change anything? Yeah. Yeah, that's a good question. Well, speaking of werewolves, that actually leads into one other thing I want to talk about. Did you know there was an alternate ending to this movie?
00:59:55
Speaker
No, I didn't. See, the alternate ending, and this was definitely intended to go for the Night Stalker spinoff. And you can watch it. It's on YouTube. I just rewatched it last night. But it ends with Hannibal, and there's another guy he's with. So I guess they're showing the Night Stalkers are rebuilding. And they're in this casino, and
01:00:18
Speaker
like the casino owner, he's talking to Hannibal. And he's like, he's like, vampires are all gone. Why are you even bothering with this? What is that? What is there even to hunt anymore? And then Abby, Abby gets thrown through a window. And she's like, Yeah, it's here. And then they've got a werewolf come out. And so that's the new thing is they're all hunting werewolves now. Oh, that would have been
01:00:38
Speaker
Cool. I wonder how that would have worked with Underworld following this movie. Yeah, there was actually apparently supposed to be a crossover. I had actually just seen this about it. Kate Beckinsale said that at one point there was a crossover sequel to Blade Trinity with the Underworld film series in development. That was back in
01:01:03
Speaker
In 2016, she had said that this was in the works, but that it had gotten canceled. She had revealed this in 2016. She said that the idea got canceled when the rights reverted back to Marvel in 2012. So I guess like sometime between probably Blade the series and the rights reverting back. So that would have been probably within like from 2007 to 2012. That's when they were talking about doing a crossover sequel.
01:01:31
Speaker
Yeah, that lines up. They were trying to do at least crossovers before they started doing cinematic universes. That's about all I really have to say about Blade Trinity. I mean, this movie, it's just...
01:01:46
Speaker
It's a mess. The beginning part has so much promise in it with that, the idea of the human world turning on Blade. That also would have played up in the idea of, well, who are you really fighting for? These people don't want you or anything like that. And that would have all worked a lot better. But what they do here with the Nightstalkers and all that, it just
01:02:09
Speaker
It doesn't work at all. Patton Oswalt said if you just sit and watch it, it's a D-, it just doesn't work. But if you know what they went through to get that movie made, it's an A+. The fact that it exists is an achievement in itself.
01:02:28
Speaker
Yeah, this was a bad film just mainly because of the writing and it's just honestly just laying throughout which is probably the biggest insult because the other movies and Blade himself had just been at least that's one thing you can depend on is just a cool factor to it. It's great to talk about. It's great to think about and start asking yourself all the
Blade Trinity's Alternate Ending and Spin-off Potential
01:02:50
Speaker
questions. Like I said, I talk about must-see films. So you're usually most of them are pretty good. It's nice to talk about a
01:02:58
Speaker
movie that's not so good or not so acclaimed. And I went into this with an open mind. I was ready. I was like, there's sometimes there's movies that everybody hates. And I'm like, no, I actually see something good in it. But no, not this one.
01:03:14
Speaker
No, I lost my hope within like five minutes. Yeah. Yeah, I mean there's yeah and you know on this show We've covered a lot of movies that people hate on and movies that you know people hate on and we came away We're like actually this movie's got some it's not perfect, but it's got some it's got some decent things in it to watch This is one of the few movies. I could say it doesn't really have very many of those redeeming qualities I means like everybody
01:03:38
Speaker
My biggest thing is, I think, as an audition tape for Ryan Reynolds' Deadpool, it's entertaining. But that's about it. And some of the fight scenes are pretty cool. Like you said, Wesley Snipes is still doing a really good job with the fight scenes. And a lot of the action, especially in the beginning part, is pretty cool. The dagger thing he's got, that was really cool, the way they used that.
01:04:04
Speaker
But yeah, they were just so hyper focused on this idea of doing a Nightstalker spinoff. You know, it goes back to that Jeff Goldblum line in Jurassic Park. You were so obsessed with whether or not you could, you didn't think about whether or not you should. Exactly, which is why I thought there was going to be studio interference. I thought it was the studio that was pushing the whole Nightstalker thing, but it seems not.
01:04:27
Speaker
Well, yeah, it was the studio and Goyer. Goyer was also really invested in that idea too. So I think it's definitely, and when you've got the director who is totally in on that too, that's making it more difficult. Where it feels like Wesley Snipes was the only one who was like, no, this is supposed to be a Blade movie. And again, like we said, even though he didn't handle it the way he should have, I can kind of understand why he was acting that way.
01:04:51
Speaker
They could have probably actually split this into two movies. Though you're, I mean, you could probably be depending on the Nightstalkers to sell without people knowing of it. Yeah, I think that was the thing is they felt like a Nightstalker's spin off wouldn't work unless you had introduced them in Blade. Which yeah, I can I can totally see that because Ryan Reynolds wasn't a big star at this time. Jessica Beale, again, Hollywood was trying to convince us she was a big star, but nobody really thought so.
Blade's Costume and Action Scene Impact
01:05:23
Speaker
But yeah, she's just totally because apparently the other the casting decisions for Whistler for Abigail came down between Jessica Beale and Jessica Alba. And I think if you had Jessica Alba in this, it would have been a much more interesting performance because she's I think she's a much better actress than Jessica Beale.
01:05:43
Speaker
That's how not feel like they're so interchangeable doesn't didn't Jessica Alba. Yeah, she was fantastic woman Invisible woman. Yeah, invisible woman woman in Fantastic Four But that most of the problems with that movie we talked about this when we talked about those two movies, but she had
01:06:04
Speaker
A lot of that came down to the direction she was given. They were constantly telling her, look pretty, look pretty, look pretty. And they're trying to focus on her sex appeal. And whenever she had a scene where she had to be emotional or anything, the director would tell her, cry pretty and stuff like that. Or he's like, we can CGI the tears in later. Don't make an ugly face when you cry and that kind of stuff.
01:06:26
Speaker
So, but if you look at her, like in, you know, the Dark Angel TV show, like she could handle action very well. And her, like when she was in Sin City or, or Machete or anything like that, like, I think she would have been much more entertaining. I think she's someone who could actually have played off of Wesley Snipes and Ryan Reynolds a lot better than Jessica Biel is. Because Jessica Biel just feels like she's sleepwalking in this movie. Yeah, she really is. I'm trying to think of her lines and
01:06:55
Speaker
I can't remember any of them. I remember she has like one emotional scene where she comes up the stairs and she's flashed back to her father and she's doing like the sitting in a shower and curled up, but that's about it. Or like the scene when she's crying over the fact that, you know, everybody's gone and Blade just keeps screaming at her, use it, use it, use it. And yeah.
01:07:22
Speaker
I kind of see like, again, it's just where the writing and direction don't mix. I kind of see what you're trying to say, but this isn't paced well. I feel like you should be saying this afterwards. Not not at this moment. Yeah, just
01:07:38
Speaker
such a disappointing end, especially because the first movie had some flaws. It hasn't aged very well, especially the CG in it, but it's still a solid movie.
Anticipating the Blade Reboot
01:07:49
Speaker
Second one is, you know, perfect. Like it still holds together very well. This one is just like, and this is the classic, it falls in the classic trilogy tap. You got a good first movie, you have an exceptional second movie, and then the third one, it just all falls to pieces.
01:08:07
Speaker
I wouldn't, I personally wouldn't say the second one is exceptional. I see why you would. I see why anybody would. I think it's definitely the best one out of them. It definitely holds above them. And yeah, I mean, it still kind of goes with that, with that curve. Probably just doesn't peak as high for me. But yeah, it falters at the, at the trilogy because they just don't,
01:08:30
Speaker
One problem is they don't want it to end and the other thing is they don't know what tone to continue it in. So I feel like you shouldn't end on a campy fun tone. Yeah. You're trying to really end your story. You either get darker or you say where you're where you're at.
01:08:48
Speaker
And then after this movie, you know, they had done Blade the series with sticky fingers taking over the role of Blade. I'm not sure. Did you ever see the Blade TV show?
01:09:02
Speaker
No, I hadn't. And I actually I didn't know it was a thing until I was listening to your podcast earlier. Yeah, it's it had its problems. And, you know, as you mentioned, one of the things that Derek had mentioned in it was that it it's called Blade, but he doesn't really seem like the main character in it. But I thought it was a solid effort. I thought it had a really good first season. Then it was just it was too expensive to keep on. So that's why they canceled it. But even that, like, even with all the problems of it, even though
01:09:31
Speaker
you know, the guy they got to replace Blade is not as good as Wesley Snipes. I think I would take that first season over this movie. It's it's much better than this movie was. I mean, that's a very low bar. It is true. It's very fair. But yeah, there's a low bar. All right.
Podcast Wrap-up and Listener Engagement
01:09:50
Speaker
Um, that's about all I've got to say about Blade Trinity. Very well, one actually one thing I wanted to mention, I thought the changes to blades costume were interesting in this because in the
01:10:00
Speaker
The second movie, I think they had done just some subtle changes to the body armor, but otherwise it was pretty much the same thing. This one, they added in more color, they gave him like the red undershirt, they had like the red lining in the cape. What do you think of those changes to his costume? Do you like them or do you feel like you preferred the armored look from the first two movies? I think I prefer the armor look. But I don't know, I do like the red. I kind of, they're kind of both sides for me. The same coin.
01:10:30
Speaker
I wish they, at some point, meshed the two. Now, as far as del Toro didn't add in the red as much as he likes the color red. Yeah, that's a good point. I was surprised why they didn't do it.
01:10:41
Speaker
Um, but yeah, I thought the, the, I liked the red in there too. I especially like it in the, in the lining of the coat. I think that's where it works the best. I didn't really like the change of the body armor, but when he took off the coat and he had like the red shirt underneath, I thought. Surprisingly worked well and made it actually a little easier to track his movements in that fight scene with Drake at the end.
01:11:03
Speaker
Yeah, with that fight scene, especially with just kind of going against the silver, I think that's probably why they went with it. They didn't do it in the second one. It's just because of all the red that del Toro used. He would have just blended in with the scene. So, I mean, they kind of just flipped the color schemes and everything. I like the costumes. Another thing I thought was weird was when they had
01:11:29
Speaker
They come in and they're like, oh yeah, we've tried to see about what we can introduce the vampirism virus into other species. And they make a vampire dog. But I'm just like, why would you even think of doing that? What benefit does that serve? I told you these henchmen were just some cartoon villains. And while that joke, like it was funny the first time, but then they kept just beating it over the head. Yeah.
01:11:53
Speaker
I'm done. They kind of did the same thing in chapter two, where it was funny the first time, and then they did it like right after. It's not, you lost it. I can feel like, yeah, someone thought, wouldn't it be funny if we had a vampire Pomeranian, Ryan Reynolds reacts to it. I'm like, yeah, that's funny. But it's not something, it doesn't make any logical sense. That's something you would do in like a parody movie. It's not something you would do in the regular movie.
01:12:18
Speaker
Yeah, and if, again, if you do it, it's funny once, five times no. I also realized this too, you know, at the end when he's being chased by the dogs and he lets them fall off the roof and you've got that lady screaming at the bottom like, wait, don't you just realize what you've done? These are vampire dogs. They can survive the false. You know, you've got three vampire dogs running around the city. Yeah, I didn't, I didn't notice that.
01:12:44
Speaker
But that is a great point. And he just smiles and walks off. He's like, oh, she's screaming. Oh, well, not my problem. Hopefully the virus works on vampire dogs. Yeah. All right. Do you have anything else you want to mention about this movie?
01:13:02
Speaker
just with talking about blade are you was wondering are you excited you said you're still with the the MCU are you excited for the play movie oh yeah definitely I'm really excited to see how they deal with it because
01:13:16
Speaker
I do like that they're starting to explore these other aspects of the Marvel universe because they went really heavy into the sci-fi stuff in the phases one through three. But now, with Shang-Chi to some extent, multiverse of madness to some extent, they're starting to hint more at the more mystical, magical side of things. So I'm really excited to see what happens. And I love Mahershala Ali, so I'm really keen to see what they do with it.
01:13:44
Speaker
Yeah, I love him too. I'm excited to see him in a lead role. I'll probably come back to the MCU for that one, that and Loki season two. I'm also interested because I want to know how they're going to do the choreograph with it. I would love to see them get the director that they have for John Wick. Oh, that would be awesome. Yeah. Because there is a lot of gun food and now with the popularity of gun food from John Wick,
01:14:11
Speaker
I hope that they incorporate it into Blade and seeing how they did the fight scenes in Shang-Chi. I mean, if they can get the right people, it's... they can get some great fight scenes in MCU other than... because in the other movies, it's just... it's kind of just like the other ones you see before.
01:14:28
Speaker
Yeah, I think that would be cool because they haven't really had a chance to do much stuff like that in the MCU so far because most of the characters don't have that kind of style. But now that they've got that coming into here, it would be interesting to see what they do with that.
01:14:44
Speaker
Also interesting to see how they expand, cause I forgot to mention this too, but also, you know, the, the werewolf by night special. That was another big hint of the magical side of the MCU. You know, you had Jack Russell and you got man thing and Elsa bloodstone. So seeing where they go from this, it'd be really cool to see blade interact in that world and play with those characters. Cause that's those, those Marvel horror comics from like the seventies and the early nineties. There's, there's some, uh, uncut there's some gems in there that people forget about.
01:15:18
Speaker
Yeah, I'm looking forward to them using that as well. OK, so I think that's all we got to say about Blade Trinity, a disappointing end to the series. But Bryant, why don't you tell people where they can find your stuff? Yes, so Operation Silver Screen, we're pretty much everywhere that you can find a podcast. So just search us up. If you also search us on Google, most of our links will come up to the primary podcast.
01:15:45
Speaker
You can also find us on Twitter and Instagram at opsilverscreen. You can also find us on Facebook at Operation Silver Screen. Go ahead, send us a message. Let us know. We just want to hear you guys' feedback. What do you think of this episode? What do you think of our episodes?
01:16:03
Speaker
And also, Caitlin and I, we have letterboxes as well. If you want to follow us, see the movies we're watching. We are constantly watching movies. And you can find myself at Swank Seal, capital S, capital S. And you can find Caitlin at Coffee Spoon, sorry, Coffee Spoon Kate, C-A-I-T.
01:16:26
Speaker
OK, cool. And we'll have links to all those things in the show notes. So just go ahead and check those out. Bryant, thanks so much for coming on and subjecting yourself to Blade Trinity for us. It was a fun time. Thank you for having me. All right. Well, that does it for this episode.
Promotion of Superhero Cinephiles and Patreon
01:16:52
Speaker
That does it for this episode of Superhero Cinephiles. Superhero Cinephiles is the website, and you can check us out on Twitter or Instagram at SuperCinemapod. And don't forget, you subscribe to our Patreon. You get to listen to these episodes a week in advance, and you get access to the Superhero Cinephiles Book Club podcast, where we talk about comic books and graphic novels. Thanks so much for listening, and we'll talk to you next time.
01:17:14
Speaker
If you enjoy the Superhero Cinephiles, then you'll also love my companion podcast, the Superhero Cinephiles Book Club. All my Patreon subscribers get access to this exclusive podcast where I review superhero comics and graphic novels. Not sure what comics you want to read next or what you should dive into? I've got you covered on that. I'll be doing reviews, recommendations, and also talking to you about useful entry points.
01:17:34
Speaker
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01:18:18
Speaker
Thank you for listening and as always good night. Good evening. God bless.