Transcript
Speaker: You know what?
Speaker: I don't know if we talked about it, but I'm willing to bring it back up in something else.
Speaker: I got stuff to say about LeBron, punk-ass James.
Speaker: So LeBron James has jumped on the train for not liking, well, not supporting women.
Speaker: And I want to say he's got a hint of transphobia.
Speaker: There was a comment about, I'm not sure how familiar you guys are with Megan Thee Stallion.
Speaker: She is a black rapper.
Speaker: She's been in She-Hulk.
Speaker: So she's an actress as well.
Speaker: So there was an incident that happened to her where she was shot in the foot by someone.
Speaker: His name escapes me.
Speaker: I'm super tired.
Speaker: I don't have all the details.
Speaker: She was shot in the foot.
Speaker: This was a while ago.
Speaker: This was like almost a year ago.
Speaker: So she was at a party at a gathering somewhere.
Speaker: Her and this gentleman who it was purported that they might have had some type of romantic relationship.
Speaker: But here's the thing.
Speaker: They were in a car together.
Speaker: I'm not sure if it was a limo, but they were in a vehicle together.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I assume they were dating.
Speaker: So something happened.
Speaker: They get into a disagreement or something's going on.
Speaker: He shoots her in the foot.
Speaker: So later on, the police are called.
Speaker: He gets like, I guess I'm assuming arrested.
Speaker: I'm not a legal person.
Speaker: I don't know if I can go to jail or get arrested for saying this, but allegedly he was taken in is what I can say.
Speaker: He got mad at her for snitching on her.
Speaker: The entire culture of like these music, what is it?
Speaker: Musician people, rappers, singers, whatever, were upset as well.
Speaker: There was a faction.
Speaker: There was a divide.
Speaker: There were people who were upset that she would snitch on him and get him hemmed up by the police.
Speaker: Then there was another side that were like, no, she was willing within her rights to call the police.
Speaker: She was shot in the foot by this man.
Speaker: So that was a thing at first.
Speaker: Then it came out that the police questioned her like, well, what was the nature of your relationship?
Speaker: First, she said, and this is after all this is like panned out in court.
Speaker: First, she said they were just friends.
Speaker: Then when she was on the stand, she said, well, we might have had some type of dealings with each other.
Speaker: So then people started putting like, oh, she's lying.
Speaker: She's a liar.
Speaker: So I wonder if he even shot her in the foot.
Speaker: So then now it turns into this thing of here we are again, where people don't want to believe a woman
Speaker: And within our culture as black people, you don't want to believe a black woman that has no reason to lie.
Speaker: She had no reason to hate this guy except for he shot her in the foot.
Speaker: Because I think, I don't know how it panned out, but like whether she waited till the next day, whatever you want to say, whatever happened, it wasn't like she went to the police and was like, go to his house and murder him with your guns.
Speaker: She didn't do that.
Speaker: So fast forward to how we're looping LeBron James into this.
Speaker: I don't know how I would catch all this stuff because I am always like tired from work.
Speaker: I listen to podcasts and people who I've listened to and trust and understand to bring me in the truth from all the places they get it have said they've caught LeBron James or they didn't catch him.
Speaker: I'm sorry.
Speaker: He posted on social media, the music and then captions things saying about
Speaker: know whatever he has to say about uh what was it it was i think the topic was like it was almost similar to lock her up is what i'm getting at so the music he was playing was the music of the guy that shot her in the foot and so he's captioning like yeah bees can't be trusted or you know they never tell the truth while playing the music of the guy that shot her in the foot then there was another incident
Speaker: where you know that Gabrielle Union and I forget the basketball player's name, they have a child who is trans.
Speaker: There have been many, many, many statements made about this.
Speaker: I'm sorry, it's either they have a trans child or they have a gay child.
Speaker: There's two basketball players that have a child that, well, I'm sorry, I think it's either, I think Magic Johnson has a son that's like openly gay.
Speaker: And then Gabrielle Union and the other guy has a trans child.
Speaker: I want to say LeBron James has made comments about
Speaker: well, if you'd have raised your son right, they'd still be a son and not a daughter.
Speaker: And I'm like, you know what?
Speaker: It was well beyond enough with you and the Megan and the stallion thing.
Speaker: Like,
Speaker: The video that I'm referencing that the podcast people had mentioned, I had to go find it.
Speaker: I'm like, let me make sure my sources are still stout, that they're still good.
Speaker: And sure enough, he's posting on social media.
Speaker: And this was after the hearings and the trial and everything.
Speaker: The guy's going to jail.
Speaker: So this is why things are resurfacing and people are doing things nefariously.
Speaker: And like, what is the word for it?
Speaker: Where they're
Speaker: On the surface, it appears as though he's just captioning things and jamming out.
Speaker: But underneath the surface, he's making a comment and showing where his allegiance lies because he did it and other people did it where it's a slew of like, just like any other TikTok or Instagram video where
Speaker: You play the music and you do the thing and like it's a phenomenon everybody's doing.
Speaker: The phenomenon was play the guy's music in caption and it shows that you're standing in solidarity with him and not Megan Thee Stallion.
Speaker: And I could not believe of all people, LeBron, people like LeBron James.
Speaker: I'm not a sports person, but people just...
Speaker: take it deep in the throat for LeBron James because they just, oh, he's a magical man.
Speaker: He's built for sports, and he's built like this, and he's the best.
Speaker: I don't care.
Speaker: He's liked, and that's good.
Speaker: But when he stood in solidarity with that guy that shot Megan in the foot, I'm like, you have sealed your deal with me, dude.
Speaker: Like, done.
Speaker: Welcome everybody to Jonathan and Carl Watch Everything.
Speaker: I'm Carl and I'm joined as always by my co-host Jonathan.
Speaker: How are you doing today, Jonathan?
Speaker: I'm pretty good, Carl.
Speaker: How about yourself?
Speaker: I'm doing all right.
Speaker: And today we are talking about Space Jam and Space Jam A New Legacy, which I will almost assuredly only refer to as Space Jam 2.
Speaker: I will probably do the same thing because in thought, I'm not going to do the whole moniker here.
Speaker: Sorry.
Speaker: So...
Speaker: So before we get into talking about these two, we're going to kind of, and I think we're primarily going to compare and contrast these two things against each other.
Speaker: And then sort of at the end, we'll talk about comparing them against other movies.
Speaker: But I think a lot of our discussion is going to be comparing these two things head to head.
Speaker: But before that, you know, going into this, what was your like relationship to, I guess, the franchise?
Speaker: So like you had seen the movie.
Speaker: So like, what were your, what was your general vibe with it?
Speaker: So my general vibe for the franchise in general was basically it was just a movie about it's giving me like who framed Roger Rabbit, a movie about sports where we have cartoon characters helping the main character, which is a lead athlete that is being the star, the protagonist in this.
Speaker: So that was it.
Speaker: Nothing like too monumental to me and very influential.
Speaker: It's just a cartoon people movie.
Speaker: Are you a basketball fan?
Speaker: Do you watch basketball?
Speaker: Not by far.
Speaker: I would say if you asked me that question and we weren't doing the podcast, I would tell you how much I hate basketball.
Speaker: So no, not at all.
Speaker: Nope.
Speaker: I also don't watch basketball.
Speaker: So we probably aren't going to know jack about shit in terms of any of that or any of the other guest stars.
Speaker: I know Michael.
Speaker: I know LeBron.
Speaker: I didn't know fucking anybody else.
Speaker: I mean, I know people because it's almost a part of pop culture sometimes to know celebrities.
Speaker: Like people probably don't know extensively who Nicki Minaj is as a person, but in passing, you know her.
Speaker: So there's certain like Larry Bird.
Speaker: I know who that is, but basketball, the sport, I could care less, but it was interesting seeing faces in the movie.
Speaker: Just to clarify, I had to Google Larry Bird.
Speaker: So this is the level of knowledge that we're working on.
Speaker: But I have seen Space Jam several times because I really loved that movie as a kid.
Speaker: And then a couple times when I have done Drunk Movie Nights, Space Jam has been one of the movies in rotation.
Speaker: Same.
Speaker: I don't know if I was ever present for one of the Drunken Movie Nights with you, but same thing.
Speaker: I've seen it numerous times within my lifetime and was never bothered by watching it over and over again.
Speaker: Whereas once we get into it, this new one was, I believe, for children, which I did not like.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, all right.
Speaker: So let's just get into it.
Speaker: Oh, also, we kind of had this talk a little off mic, but let's just be explicit about this.
Speaker: We're really not going to do any kind of like summary of the things that we have watched.
Speaker: You know, you all listening, you all have Wikipedia.
Speaker: You can go read a summary.
Speaker: You don't need to hear us.
Speaker: read it off we're gonna talk about you know what we thought about it so you know what we're talking about we're talking about space jam and space jam 2 i assume you are familiar with the premise at this point so let's talk about uh let's start with space jam 2 because we both watched that first okay so to start talking about space jam i would like to talk about a different movie have you ever seen or even heard of a movie called train wreck um i don't think i have go ahead and explain to me what that's about
Speaker: It's a romantic comedy starring Amy Schumer and I think Bill Hader.
Speaker: One of the SNL guys.
Speaker: Does that sound at all familiar, ringing a bell?
Speaker: I feel like I should have seen, yes.
Speaker: I think, yes, I think I have seen that.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Because the reason I bring it up is because LeBron is in that movie too.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And he was pretty good in that movie.
Speaker: He was pretty funny.
Speaker: Was he?
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know, it's clear that he's got some kind of like comedic timing and he worked pretty well as a straight man.
Speaker: Yep, I pulled it up, and I've seen this before.
Speaker: I guess it was funny.
Speaker: I think during that time, I wasn't the biggest Amy Schumer fan, but I thought the movie was at least funny.
Speaker: There you go.
Speaker: Rather than going through our notes beat by beat, let's just talk broad.
Speaker: I liked LeBron in this movie.
Speaker: I liked him quite a bit.
Speaker: I did not like this movie as a whole, but I did like him.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I was interested in watching him.
Speaker: I don't know if oversaturation as that might be a recurring motif in these podcasts with certain celebrities.
Speaker: Obviously, my petty list, my hatred of certain or dislike.
Speaker: I'm sorry.
Speaker: I'll say dislike.
Speaker: My dislike or disdain for certain celebrities is quite petty, but LeBron is nowhere near the list, but I'm not a big enough fan of his to, I guess, enjoy him because I've noticed that with certain people that come from different avenues like sports or entertainment, like The Rock or something, I can always kind of like feel their stilted acting.
Speaker: And I can tell LeBron wasn't the best actor, but I enjoyed the fact that he wasn't trying super hard and he was being, I'm assuming, himself.
Speaker: So for the same reason I enjoyed his performance, that you liked seeing him probably.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Obviously, we're going to be talking quite a bit about, we're going to talk about performances and story structure and stuff.
Speaker: And we're just going to talk about it in normal terms.
Speaker: Everybody listening needs to realize every single sort of artistic thing that we are talking about with these movies is graded on a curve.
Speaker: Just know that beforehand.
Speaker: So if I say in these movies, oh yeah, someone had a great performance, remember that's great on a bell curve.
Speaker: So I really enjoyed LeBron's performance, asterisk, keeping in mind that he is a sports star and not an actual actor, judging him by the yardstick by which he personally should be measured.
Speaker: He was pretty good.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: You know, he was like, because normally when you get like a non-actor in an acting role, you know, one of the things that happens a lot and kind of happened with Michael Jordan in the first one is that they're pretty stiff.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You know, they tend, you tend to play like kind of quiet and reserved.
Speaker: That's usually the way it goes for that sort of things.
Speaker: It was nice to see LeBron like,
Speaker: being kind of animated and like showing emotion because like those are the things that are harder to do and make people feel silly when you're a non-actor like doing acting kind of stuff you have taken at least one acting class in your life jonathan i i know yeah they they had to put us through it so we took an acting class and we also worked with an acting class while i was in film school and it's not the easiest thing in the world but yeah well specifically i bring it up because you remember like that's that's the thing that they make you like
Speaker: do all that shit for at the beginning of an acting class.
Speaker: All the... All the weird... The warm-ups.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker: It's to, like, get you more prepared to, like, show emotion and, like, not be... not be reserved.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, you know, it was nice to see LeBron... LeBron, the character, just, like, be excited to meet Bugs Bunny and, like, be scared of scary things happening and, like, love his kid and, like, just kind of be a dork, you know?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's fun to see him as, like, a dork dad.
Speaker: It was.
Speaker: And I think that's kind of where he shined in his iteration of Space Jam, whereas I enjoyed Michael Jordan's more, but I think Michael Jordan seemed more authentic into playing.
Speaker: They're playing themselves, playing himself.
Speaker: I don't know about that for Michael Jordan.
Speaker: you don't see i i got i don't know michael jordan so i wouldn't know what's oh he's like he is notoriously like so in in the first space jam you know he's kind of like humble quiet guy you know but like real michael jordan is notoriously like not humble super duper ultra like competitive like he's kind of an asshole
Speaker: I never got that, but maybe, like I said, I don't care much about basketball.
Speaker: I just know the people as they appear in media, so didn't know that.
Speaker: I only know about it because they've made documentaries and stuff about it.
Speaker: Which is interesting because LeBron is touted as being very, I wouldn't say very humble, but he comes off or people speak of him as though he's a nice guy, so I guess that'd be the stark contrast.
Speaker: That is my assumption as well.
Speaker: I don't actually have any knowledge to back that up of like, oh yeah, LeBron is definitely nice because of XYZ reasons.
Speaker: We know a lot of this stuff about Michael now because it's like, you know, 20 years past his, you know, tenure with the Bulls.
Speaker: So maybe, you know, 20 years from now, there will be some kind of documentary talking about how LeBron James was a fucking tyrant.
Speaker: Or, as you will have just heard at the beginning of this episode...
Speaker: Jonathan's comments, which were recorded a month after this episode while we were recording a different episode entirely.
Speaker: You know, who knows?
Speaker: Anyway, yeah, I do get that sort of playing themselves feeling more from LeBron, definitely.
Speaker: I also really like Don Cheadle in this movie.
Speaker: Like, he's really fun.
Speaker: When we got to Don Cheadle, because I'll have to share this, like, I see that you really enjoyed the second one.
Speaker: I really liked the first one.
Speaker: No, I like the first one way better.
Speaker: And I don't know.
Speaker: Yeah, no, no.
Speaker: The way we'll get to it.
Speaker: But the first one is no, no question better.
Speaker: But there are specific things that I like in the second one.
Speaker: But the first one is so much better.
Speaker: And I will get to why.
Speaker: So the Don Cheadle character, which was Al G. Rhythm.
Speaker: Yeah, Algorhythm.
Speaker: Al G. Rhythm.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I guess because it just was a little cheesy.
Speaker: I like Don Cheadle as well.
Speaker: But I think his character for me, the thing that he was playing...
Speaker: It just didn't work.
Speaker: I'm not even going to do a whole bunch of word salad.
Speaker: It was kind of like by the numbers, not even like trying to be a mustache trolling villain, but you could smell it coming.
Speaker: But I enjoyed seeing him having the fun he was having playing the character.
Speaker: It was interesting.
Speaker: That is specifically what I'm talking about.
Speaker: Name me a movie he was in that he was funny.
Speaker: I don't remember him having this much glee playing a character before, and I think I've seen him in something where he was funny.
Speaker: Wasn't he in the Oceans movies?
Speaker: I believe he was.
Speaker: I mean, that might be what you're thinking of.
Speaker: Yeah, I think he was specifically the funny guy in the thing.
Speaker: So I'm like, hmm.
Speaker: I've seen him having fun or Quotty Fingers being funny in another movie, but this one is almost like he must have been told to improv or something or something close to that.
Speaker: I think he just knows that this is a schlocky kids movie and it's just like, hey, go nuts, do whatever.
Speaker: Something like that.
Speaker: I think that's what I was kind of probably getting at.
Speaker: You know, when you're...
Speaker: When you're told, like, yeah, you're the evil computer program, you know, if you're a certain kind of actor, that's an opportunity to really cut loose and kind of, like, overact.
Speaker: Because, like, no one's gonna tell you no or that it's inappropriate.
Speaker: And, like, that's fun.
Speaker: That's cool.
Speaker: Before we get into all the reasons this movie is terrible, I do want to highlight a couple other things that I also liked about this movie.
Speaker: I did like this movie more than I was expecting.
Speaker: I was going into this movie expecting to completely hate it because I had heard nothing but awful things.
Speaker: And then I saw these individual things like, oh, I like this and this and this.
Speaker: And at the end of the movie, I was like, yeah, but I probably wouldn't watch it again.
Speaker: Overall, didn't like it.
Speaker: Yeah, I won't watch it again either.
Speaker: I think I'm, I guess I'm giving it less grace just to be the contrarian for some reason.
Speaker: I'm like, like, I want to say I would have enjoyed certain moments of it, but I think I was forcing myself to get to the end.
Speaker: And oddly enough, I thought, and I watched this one first.
Speaker: And then I rewatched the first space jam and I found myself, I was typing notes and I was more into typing the notes than watching because I could just listen and just know what's happening.
Speaker: Whereas the first one,
Speaker: We'll talk more about that when we get to it, but overall, it was such an easy breezy watch.
Speaker: And I don't know if I had to force myself to turn something off in my head to keep watching this one, or like I put in my notes, I feel like this one was geared more towards a younger audience, meaning like maybe under 10 years old.
Speaker: And I had a tough time having it keep my attention.
Speaker: I appreciate seeing both Sarah Silverman and Steven Yin.
Speaker: I'm happy to see either of them anytime they show up on screen, even though both of them were only on screen for very short periods of time.
Speaker: I was happy to see them on screen doing stuff, getting work.
Speaker: It was short-lived.
Speaker: I like seeing people I like.
Speaker: That's true.
Speaker: And when we actually get to the big basketball thing at the end, the designs for the Goon Squad are pretty cool.
Speaker: Like, it's that whole sequence.
Speaker: It doesn't do much.
Speaker: I mean, aside from the fact that it's sort of
Speaker: you know, the big game, those individual bits in the basketball game aren't like individually driving the plot forward.
Speaker: It's just points here, points there, whatever.
Speaker: But like, they're engaging visually.
Speaker: And I like the monster designs for like the Goon Squad, like they're cool.
Speaker: Speaking of short-lived appearances, I was taking note of the specific players that took on the characterization and became the Goon Squad.
Speaker: I was not familiar with a single one of them.
Speaker: I was familiar with a couple of them.
Speaker: I think one of them, and only by name, just because I looked them up, one of them's last name is Thomas or Thompson.
Speaker: I thought he was interesting, but he didn't talk.
Speaker: He was the one that was the water fire guy.
Speaker: And then I've seen, like I said, through media, the guy with the eyebrows who was the bird guy.
Speaker: But the funny thing is that none of them got to talk as much and have as much like witty banter as in the first one.
Speaker: And I thought, well, that's interesting.
Speaker: But the character design was there.
Speaker: So I thought, oh, and I don't know if it played to nicknames, like maybe the one with the brows.
Speaker: Maybe they said something about him being like some type of bird during his gameplay.
Speaker: But it was interesting.
Speaker: I don't know if I'm assuming some of these must have related because I
Speaker: Basketball nicknames, those are a thing, right?
Speaker: Like, I'm pretty sure.
Speaker: So, I did catch the names.
Speaker: I have no idea if any of these are at all related to their actual nicknames.
Speaker: But the snake lady is White Mamba.
Speaker: Waterfire guy is Wetfire.
Speaker: Bird guy is The Brow.
Speaker: So, presumably that has to do with his fucking eyebrows.
Speaker: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker: Spider Lady is Arachnica.
Speaker: And the golden robot is Dame Time.
Speaker: And so I assume that is a nickname or related to a nickname.
Speaker: I didn't even notice him until like maybe almost the game was over.
Speaker: I was like, where did he come from?
Speaker: Because they created all the other ones right before the game.
Speaker: But him, he came out of nowhere.
Speaker: I don't even know where he came from.
Speaker: He was not in.
Speaker: I was watching.
Speaker: I was watching pretty carefully.
Speaker: He was not in the sequence with everyone else.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: The dude who is like his human counterpart was introduced earlier.
Speaker: Mm hmm.
Speaker: but they didn't show him getting, you know, like, monstered up with everyone else.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: That tells me that maybe he is a well-known basketball guy, so that's, maybe they're assuming that's one of those things of, like, oh, you know, like, if it's, like, a famous celebrity cameo, the audience will notice and remember or something.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: But, yeah, he, the human was introduced, but other than that, it's just like, oh, yeah, now there is Time Guy.
Speaker: Okay, well...
Speaker: Okay, well, let's see.
Speaker: Do I have anything else?
Speaker: Well, one that's not a complaint for me is that LeBron James is a Hufflepuff as he went through his Toonimation transformation.
Speaker: That was one of the things that he had turned into kind of was like different characters from Warner Brothers IP.
Speaker: I was like, wow, Warner Brothers is really like, and they did this in the first one, which I remembered, but it wasn't so prominent, but they went through the gamut of like all the things they own.
Speaker: And Hufflepuff was one of them.
Speaker: I thought that was interesting.
Speaker: Yeah, I guess that is actually my last positive thing to say about this movie is I really love all of the 2D animated sequences.
Speaker: You know, LeBron in the actual Looney Tunes style looks fun.
Speaker: And, like, I enjoy seeing the Looney Tunes in their 2D selves doing Looney Tunes stuff.
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: I think this is one of the points that this movie shares with the first one, is that the best parts of the movie are the Looney Tunes parts, and then the big important basketball game against the monsters.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Okay, now let's go ahead and strap ourselves in for, I don't know, I'm sure probably at least half an hour of solid complaints, however fucking long we're gonna bitch about this movie.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Okay, so as soon as I heard the word serververse, I just wrote out, What are your thoughts, Jonathan?
Speaker: What are your thoughts on the serververse?
Speaker: So this was kind of what my contention was with the Don Cheadle character.
Speaker: So not him as the actor, because he was pretty, you know, he did his job, but... Yeah, we've...
Speaker: his performance is fun, but the character of Algyrhythm is stupid and poorly written.
Speaker: Yeah, and then even the kids.
Speaker: So the whole premise of this is almost like when LeBron was a kid, he was wanting to play games and kind of like have free reign on his delights and the things that brought him joy, which is video games.
Speaker: His son now is wanting to do much of the same.
Speaker: So all the little things that the son would get into, like,
Speaker: hey dad I just built the flux capacitor blah blah I'm like they're just giving him like dumb words that mean like technology and I'm like eh that's the complaint it's like I understand the structure of this whole movie but the way they went about it was just kind of it was not very entertaining to me in the sense that I wasn't engaged and the whole like server verse was just dumb but I'm not sure what else they could have made it you know into other than just sticking to what they did in the first one but I don't know
Speaker: Yeah, I was so disappointed that this movie was not like a direct sequel, that it wasn't like, you know, about the same characters in some way, or the same stuff, or even that like, they happened at all.
Speaker: It sure seems like the events of Space Jam didn't happen in the same, or were like a movie.
Speaker: Like they happened in the first movie, Toon World is like a real place.
Speaker: And in this movie, because it's all just like, it's the digital uploaded,
Speaker: you know, stuff of all the movies, I guess the Space Jam movie happened in the timeline of Space Jam 2, but it wasn't like real things that happened to the real people.
Speaker: I wouldn't even know.
Speaker: I don't even think they were going that direction with it as far as trying to connect them.
Speaker: I just know that Warner Brothers got super horny to show people all of their properties.
Speaker: And I kept thinking to myself, once I watched the first one again, I was like, oh, so let me figure out is the Toon World within the world?
Speaker: Or is it so the second Space Jam, it is a...
Speaker: a place within, what was it called again?
Speaker: Like, whatever this technology world is, that's where the Toon world was.
Speaker: So it was kind of- The Warner Brothers Serververse.
Speaker: Serververse.
Speaker: I'm like, I don't get it.
Speaker: So they're trying to make the second one more techie?
Speaker: But obviously one of the main protagonists in the movie, LeBron's son, I think his name is Dominique, they call him Dom, was like this computer whiz person.
Speaker: So you kind of have to bring in this thing that he's good at, that he excels in, because in the real world...
Speaker: LeBron excels at basketball.
Speaker: So I'm like, okay, well, I get it, but I'm assuming all this toon and cartoon stuff is existing only within this server.
Speaker: Whereas in the first one, they existed in the real world, i.e.
Speaker: underneath like a golf course or something.
Speaker: So I don't know.
Speaker: At least my initial thoughts with like this toon world and the regular world was just kind of like, eh, another thing where I was just more into my notes than watching it.
Speaker: Yeah, I was definitely... The fact that none of it was real in the same way made me way less invested.
Speaker: And then, I mean, let me say, a big part of my uh, my ug, is the fact that all this other Warner Brothers shit is in here.
Speaker: It's... God, I hate... I know that there is a certain amount of, I guess, hypocrisy in complaining that, of all things, Space Jam is a cash grab.
Speaker: I realize that that is...
Speaker: you know, perhaps not the most founded of criticisms, but I fucking hated it in this movie.
Speaker: I hated all of the Warner Brothers shit.
Speaker: I hated the cameos.
Speaker: I hated seeing all of it and all the references.
Speaker: I hated every last fucking second of it, and I wanted it gone.
Speaker: I wanted it completely scrubbed from this fucking movie.
Speaker: just let it be the two things looney tunes plus basketball it doesn't need to be some kind of fucking thing with the matrix and harry potter and game of thrones and the dcu i don't know i didn't hate it that much i thought it was because it was such a brief moment of his introduction into toon world i'm like i get it but it's but it's not just that there's the whole introduction in toon world when he's falling through all the things he lands on looney tunes world
Speaker: And then there is the montage where they go to all the other worlds to pick up the fucking Looney Tunes again.
Speaker: That whole sequence could have been cut.
Speaker: That could have been something more useful to this movie.
Speaker: And then when we actually get to the basketball game, the whole crowd is just motherfucking cameos.
Speaker: And then Granny pulls out fucking Matrix moves in the middle of the basketball game at a plot pivotal moment.
Speaker: Just like, I fucking hate this shit.
Speaker: I don't want it.
Speaker: I don't know, like it's probably not really where you're going with this, but I noticed how Granny was a cheerleader in the first one.
Speaker: And I thought they're really being very forward thinking and inclusive in the second one.
Speaker: And Granny went from being a cheerleader and literally
Speaker: sidelined as a character to in this movie, she is a pivotal character to move the plot forward.
Speaker: And I thought, well, like you were saying, this reach to get all these different characters from the different places that they're in, they could have found another way to fill the time because I was engaged with Lola because Lola was in a place that is my favorite place, which is Themyscira, and she was going to become a Amazon character.
Speaker: But even that, honestly, on its head, didn't have to be there.
Speaker: Like, that was kind of just like, take this out.
Speaker: You can do, you can hit all those same beats of Lola is, you know, she's doing some kind of athletic thing, trying to achieve some kind of goal as like an athlete or a warrior without it being, hey, kids, remember this other movie that we want to keep making a bunch of money off of?
Speaker: Wonder Woman?
Speaker: You like Wonder Woman shit.
Speaker: Go buy a Wonder Woman lunchbox.
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: God, I just hated it.
Speaker: It's all about that product placement and trying to get... I hated it so much, Jonathan.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And that is not to say that Space Jam 1 is without its own sins, but I just hated it so much here.
Speaker: Yeah, it was just so poignantly emphasized in the second one, whereas in the first one, I don't know if it's because of nostalgia, but it didn't bother me in the first one like it did in this one.
Speaker: I was just turned off in this second one.
Speaker: Just for reasons.
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: Similarly, in terms of things that I hated, possibly for nostalgic reasons and or to an irrational degree, absolutely fucking hate the 3D Looney Tunes.
Speaker: They look terrible.
Speaker: I was indifferent about it.
Speaker: I mean, it's a cartoon movie.
Speaker: I don't really like...
Speaker: get gleeful like oh man they look even better because they have more textured appeal to them and i i don't care they if they would have walked on i thought it was a pretty distinct downgrade from their their classic animation look when they were you know when it was classic animation style 2d animated they looked pretty good they like the their style their looks was were clearly updated but like they just looked better and then in the 3d animated version it was just like man they just look
Speaker: so much shittier.
Speaker: They're just trying to flex that.
Speaker: We have this, you know, the technology to make it look that much better type because all the new animation looks more vibrant and I guess saturated.
Speaker: And I don't know if that's what they were going for is trying to make it look even better than just 2D.
Speaker: But like I said, I'm indifferent to it.
Speaker: If they would have started them off like that, it would have made no difference to me.
Speaker: It's just another thing that's just extra.
Speaker: They were that is like the tagline of this for me.
Speaker: this movie was so damn extra absolutely and definitely at multiple points just like really trying too hard speaking of trying too hard i know that it was done in the first one so i'll preface with that i could care less but the overdoing of this idolization and this glorification of lebron james's career
Speaker: I have in my notes, I roll.
Speaker: I'm like, get out of here.
Speaker: Yes, they definitely did that.
Speaker: The first movie is definitely sucking Michael Jordan's dick.
Speaker: This movie is definitely, I have in my notes, I wrote down, man, they're really pushing that King James nickname, aren't they?
Speaker: I that's probably one of the reasons why I could not get into algae rhythm.
Speaker: I'm like him in this King.
Speaker: Honestly, I didn't even know that was his nickname.
Speaker: That's why I was like, oh, OK.
Speaker: It's almost like when people watch or even talk about even if you've never seen the movie Mean Girls.
Speaker: And there's a scene where one of the characters tries to make a catchphrase happen by saying,
Speaker: first herself seeing it over and over again.
Speaker: Don't make fetch happen.
Speaker: So for me, I'm like, I'm not going to, King James isn't a thing for me.
Speaker: Like, I didn't even know that was a thing.
Speaker: I don't care.
Speaker: But Don Cheadle,
Speaker: Bless his heart.
Speaker: He kept on with this damn king.
Speaker: I'm like, give it up.
Speaker: I don't care what he's called in real life.
Speaker: It was just so stupid.
Speaker: I'm like, get out of here.
Speaker: Yeah, I totally agree.
Speaker: That was very dumb.
Speaker: I think there was less personal dick sucking of LeBron than there was of Michael, but it's still super present.
Speaker: And the King James nickname in particular is just like...
Speaker: Maybe I was super sensitive to it.
Speaker: And maybe because when I was growing up,
Speaker: Michael Jordan was like, he wasn't a standalone.
Speaker: There were other, you know, sports idols, but he was like the penultimate at a certain point.
Speaker: So for me, I give it that grace of like, it didn't bother me.
Speaker: Whereas with LeBron James, he's touted as like, oh, he's an anomaly.
Speaker: He's six feet tall and this.
Speaker: And they said that in the movie.
Speaker: And I'm like, the things I hear in the media where they're sucking him off, I hear in the movie.
Speaker: And I'm like, I'm kind of over it.
Speaker: And I feel like, especially because, and this isn't something that you just get from watching the movie unless you watch the credits.
Speaker: He was one of the executive producers.
Speaker: I'm like, oh, oh, I see why it was such a glorification.
Speaker: So I'm like, I was just over it.
Speaker: I'm one of those people, if you haven't noticed already for those who are listening, that is how you get on my petty list.
Speaker: So I'm not saying that LeBron James is on the petty list, but he is on the road.
Speaker: And it's just a movie.
Speaker: It's not his fault.
Speaker: It's not like he's trying to be the jerk that you say Michael Jordan is.
Speaker: But I'm like, these are the makings of a jerk.
Speaker: And I was over it.
Speaker: I don't want to also push the angle that LeBron is, for sure, some kind of super humble guy.
Speaker: Because I don't think you get to...
Speaker: like, where he is in life by, like, being nice and humble, you know?
Speaker: Yeah, I don't think so.
Speaker: I don't think so either.
Speaker: Other things that just individually sucked, like, there's a bunch of, there's a bunch of, like, individual lines that are just really fucking shitty and I hate.
Speaker: Let's see.
Speaker: Granny saying haters gonna hate.
Speaker: Hated that.
Speaker: Stupid.
Speaker: Daffy saying, well, that just happened.
Speaker: Hate that.
Speaker: Stupid.
Speaker: Not funny.
Speaker: Tweety saying to LeBron, we got to stop meeting this way.
Speaker: LeBron saying, tell me about it.
Speaker: Stupid.
Speaker: Dumb.
Speaker: Not funny.
Speaker: Just shit like that.
Speaker: There's lots of individual joke lines that do not land.
Speaker: Speaking of lines that were stupid, the Kevin, I'm sorry, it was a Kevin Hart reference in Kevin Hart's on my head list.
Speaker: Oh, yes.
Speaker: He's like, he's shorter than Kevin Hart or something like that.
Speaker: I was like, oh, I was like, if Carl was here, he'd look at me like, yep, he's on your pay.
Speaker: All you'd have to do is say his name and go grab old Mark Wahlberg.
Speaker: Cause man, they're almost.
Speaker: I did.
Speaker: As soon as I heard the name Kevin Hart, I did think of you.
Speaker: I did think of you.
Speaker: God, man.
Speaker: But those were just lines.
Speaker: And I think it's almost, I can't say it's like a product placement, but it's almost like a recognition for the audience to go.
Speaker: oh yeah, I know that thing, I know that person, and I was kind of over that, and this movie was extra and full of that.
Speaker: A couple of these lines that I'm talking about are also basically that.
Speaker: It's nothing that is a funny line in and of itself, but just someone saying, haters gonna hate, that's like the audience going, oh yes, that is a phrase that I know.
Speaker: But it's a phrase that they know that's super old, though.
Speaker: That's the weird part.
Speaker: Like, it'd be different if it was relevant.
Speaker: Like, I'm trying to think of, like, a see something, say something.
Speaker: That phrase right now is old.
Speaker: So it feels like this, I don't know when they had filmed this or when it was written, but all these phrases, it's kind of, like, dated even for right now.
Speaker: It's not like it's 10 years ago dated, but it's not in our immediate zeitgeist of phrases.
Speaker: And I thought, this is where I feel like it's just trying hard
Speaker: to be extra and be so recognizable, and it's just kind of, it's falling, it's falling.
Speaker: I think that's something that, like, a lot of kids' movies fall into, is, like, let's try and do something to be relevant, and then they do something that's from, like, four years ago, and so it's far enough, it's old, whatever they're referencing is, like, old enough that it is no longer relevant, but it's not so long ago that it has wrapped back around to being, like, ironically cool.
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: In the way that, like, having LeBron dab and then have his kid be, like, rolling his eyes at his dad dabbing, that's actually funny.
Speaker: Because then it's like, oh, they know that, like, dabbing is fucking old and nobody's no longer relevant.
Speaker: And that's like, you know, that's some actual self-awareness.
Speaker: um but yeah like very meta exactly it's very meta but then just like haters gonna hate is like no that's you don't know what it's coming from one of the cartoon characters and you're assuming the cartoon characters trying to use some type of vernacular that is something that's said in the real world and especially coming from granny because i mean it's it couldn't be more literal than an old person trying to be young
Speaker: than the character Granny from Looney Tunes saying something like that.
Speaker: So I thought, eh.
Speaker: But speaking of LeBron and his son, I know one of the points I have on mine is the father-son tension presented as technology is pretty much juxtaposed to sports.
Speaker: And I guess I put success in technology for black people.
Speaker: It was just something weird to me that I kind of, let me break this down before I even like have this really ridiculous like spattering of thought.
Speaker: the connection that we had to his family was so not there.
Speaker: I know the wife from other things, but she was so seldom there and not that she had to be, but just again, comparing it, the wife in the first one was so cool.
Speaker: And just, she was a bounce and gave me a reason to, you know, be grounded in Michael Jordan and all the little things he's supposed to care about.
Speaker: Whereas LeBron's wife,
Speaker: Not there.
Speaker: The oldest son who was into basketball, not there.
Speaker: But I know that this is built upon technology and like learning and all this stuff versus sports.
Speaker: But just the overall connection he had to his sons.
Speaker: was just a little bit off for me.
Speaker: I mean, he was playing the game just to save his son, the youngest son, Dom, Dominique.
Speaker: But even in their moments, that's where it felt almost the cheapest.
Speaker: Just them.
Speaker: Like, obviously it's a movie about cartoons, but it's not only about the cartoons, it's about the person too.
Speaker: Yeah, I definitely did not give one shit about any of the non-LeBron human people in this movie.
Speaker: I don't know why.
Speaker: And the funny thing is, is that the first one had Bill Murray,
Speaker: It had the guy from Seinfeld, Newman.
Speaker: All those people kind of made the environment funny to watch.
Speaker: So even in the scenes where there were no cartoon characters, it was good.
Speaker: Whereas this one, I only watched it when we were in the Toon world.
Speaker: And I was just kind of like surfing and looking up, taking notes the rest of the way.
Speaker: Cause anytime we were not immersed in the tune world, I wasn't into it.
Speaker: I can name you three specific moments of one there in real life.
Speaker: And I cared at all or had any interest in what was happening on screen.
Speaker: One was LeBron dabbing.
Speaker: Like that was kind of fun.
Speaker: And just like that whole, those couple minutes of him on screen talking with his son that like,
Speaker: that felt pretty like naturalistic i feel like some of that maybe was improv to uh the bit with the security guard that was actually pretty funny i enjoyed i enjoyed that bit and um i already forgot the third one so i guess just two i had a third one i already forgot there was something else that like i kind of liked and i already forgot it so it wasn't yeah just extremely unmemorable
Speaker: I really couldn't even tell you like I'm thinking about it now and I watched all this on Tuesday.
Speaker: I watched them back to back, actually.
Speaker: So, like I said, all I can remember is the last bit of the movie because it was just like a boring blur.
Speaker: But I think the weird nugget I would pull from this is watching LeBron on a movie or on TV, not playing basketball in the sport.
Speaker: I don't know how I want to phrase it, but I was interested to see more, but not basketball.
Speaker: Because it was really interesting to see him be a thing and act like a thing, but it's kind of like an odd way to put it because this is a basketball movie and that's kind of what he does all the time, so...
Speaker: I get what you mean, because this movie is only sort of begrudgingly a Space Jam movie about basketball.
Speaker: This movie is not itself super interested in basketball.
Speaker: This is mostly a movie about video games and Warner Brothers IP, and is only sort of begrudgingly like, yeah, I guess this is a Space Jam movie, so I guess the Looney Tunes are here, and I guess it's about basketball too, whatever.
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: Do you have any other, like, specific complaints in terms of, like, this individual bit is bad?
Speaker: Let's see here.
Speaker: Like, let's just, I've got, I've got, like, one or two left, so, like, let's just rattle off whatever other individual complaints we have before we start talking about Space Jam 1 and then compare these bitches.
Speaker: The rap battle.
Speaker: Oh my God.
Speaker: That's the one on my list too.
Speaker: It's so bad.
Speaker: The rap battle.
Speaker: So here's my little, here's my grudge with these things.
Speaker: I'm pretty sure most people are aware that a lot of pop culture does have ties to black culture.
Speaker: And I feel as though it's almost like they're stepping on your toe and daring you to say something.
Speaker: I know that it's a thing like eight mile and all this other stuff, but like the rap battle just felt like such a strange little,
Speaker: caveat from the main plot and it just felt kind of out of place because they well let's go ahead and like at least reveal what happened here you have elmer knows it's a what is it porky pig so who's known for stuttering in looney tunes something happened i forget what character from the goon squad said something but someone said something to him and then all of a sudden i guess he grabs a mic dons on some quotey fingers hip-hop gear and has a rap battle
Speaker: And I'm like, what in the hell is going on with this?
Speaker: And I guess the punchline is that when he needs to, he doesn't have to stutter.
Speaker: But I thought that was just one of the most out of stepped,
Speaker: things with the plot they could have done and it was just really not funny or interesting to me at all another reach to be hip i think the worst sin of that particular sequence is the fact that the rap itself is shitty it is such the level of rhymes it is such like 90s after school anti-drug special level of like my name's g and i'm here to say that i don't like drugs in a major way like it's it's fucking that level of
Speaker: rhyme scheme and flow like it's just so fucking awful if the if the rap had actually been good it could be at least like forgiven it's like well that was still kind of weird and out of place but like at least it was entertaining to the ear
Speaker: I think they tried to play it safe and it was unfortunately too safe.
Speaker: I'm not sure what not being safe would have been other than speaking on things that might've been a little bit unsavory for younger audiences or having a word or two that was not the best, but they went super PC.
Speaker: And with that, they went super PC with like what the message was supposed to be.
Speaker: Cause I forgot what the inciting event was for him to even do that.
Speaker: But yeah,
Speaker: It was just unnecessary and stupid.
Speaker: It happened, like, literally in the middle of the basketball game.
Speaker: Like, they paused the game to do this fucking rap battle, and then Porky got, like, basketball points for it afterward.
Speaker: Like, it was literally just, like, in the middle of nothing to fucking do with anything that was happening.
Speaker: I guess it was Looney, so they got a point.
Speaker: What's another one from your list?
Speaker: More complaining about the Matrix.
Speaker: Oh, if you're going to do Matrix shit in the middle of a fucking basketball game, it should have been Speedy Gonzalez or Roadrunner doing it, not Granny.
Speaker: I mean, that's fucking obvious.
Speaker: Speedy was even in the Matrix, so if you wanted to make it be the Matrix reference, it could have been him specifically.
Speaker: Like...
Speaker: Just come the fuck on.
Speaker: That's so easy.
Speaker: Like, why am I doing punch-up for this movie?
Speaker: Just fucking, God, I don't know.
Speaker: I don't know what was with this.
Speaker: I bet you, I'm willing to bet you dollars to donuts.
Speaker: There was something going on with Granny, because I remember hearing a little bit of buzz about when this movie was coming out, and there was some issue about them not wanting to show Lola Bunny.
Speaker: because either she was going to be, I guess, not drawn, but created, depicted with too much realism to her curves or something about her having nipples or something dumb.
Speaker: So I think this whole- Nipples?
Speaker: Yeah, I don't know why that was even in conversation that Lola Bunny, when they went to 2D to 3D, she might've had some nipples showing and I'm like, get out of here.
Speaker: So I think they just pulled this granny thing
Speaker: out of nowhere to give her like another female because of course on the Looney Tunes you don't have a lot of females you just have Lola and Granny so of course with this type of movie being done or at least hitting theaters in 2022 you have to be inclusive and of course with that being said post Me Too movement there needs to be more like women and so Granny I guess was the thing because Lola's already got her I'm the sports person type thing going on so I think it was just something going on with that it was weird
Speaker: The bit with Michael B. Jordan was also dumb and I hated it and served no purpose.
Speaker: I don't know why he came because I was thinking, whoa, they said Michael Jordan's coming and I don't know like where he is and what he's doing, but I thought that would be so cool to have them both here.
Speaker: It's almost like a handoff thing.
Speaker: But then when he pops onto the scene, I'm like, okay, is he going to start playing basketball?
Speaker: And I'm like, I actually, I don't, I don't want to see that.
Speaker: Like I have nothing against Michael B. Jordan.
Speaker: he's not on my petty list but i don't want to see him playing basketball then then he just leaves and i'm like it's just for a dumb joke it's michael jordan versus michael b jordan like oh they have the same name isn't that funny haha okay i i think that's all the specific individual i hate this part in particular complaints let's pick our nits with space jam and then we can compare the two does that sound good okay that sounds good
Speaker: So going back and watching the original Space Jam, first off, you already said this earlier, but like, yeah, this movie is eminently watchable.
Speaker: This goes down... Space Jam goes down smooth.
Speaker: I don't know why, because the structure, the premise is the exact... Like, beat for beat, this is basically the same thing, except for one was shot... Well, I wouldn't say shot.
Speaker: One was done in 96, one's done in 2022.
Speaker: I don't know how...
Speaker: they were able to do a better job back then for me.
Speaker: That is for me.
Speaker: Whether someone else agrees, I don't care.
Speaker: But for me, Space Jam, it's a good movie.
Speaker: On its own, it's just a good movie.
Speaker: I don't know why it's so much better than the second one.
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker: I have always enjoyed this movie, legit enjoyed this movie, and watching it directly after Space Jam A New Legacy, I had...
Speaker: I had an increased fondness of like, oh yeah, this one's like a real movie.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: And I think that's something to do with like how they did scene work or something, which I'll talk about in a little bit, but it just had this feel.
Speaker: And even I put it in my notes, the way they lit Michael Jordan to me is,
Speaker: was better than how they did a lot of stuff in the second one and this was like years ago i enjoy having all of the other people that are in this movie you you mentioned you like we have make it bill murray wayne knight uh danny devito doing the voice of the space boss like i just these are also people i enjoy and i like seeing them get to do a bunch of stuff
Speaker: it's just so fun.
Speaker: Like, I don't know how they missed the mark with the second one, but all of these different ingredients in the first one, like Danny DeVito was not physically in the movie.
Speaker: To my knowledge, he voiced the bad guy and just knowing who Danny DeVito is and like his voice really helps me enjoy it because he brings a certain quality to whatever he does as you know, his, whether he's a good guy or bad guy.
Speaker: And I really liked it.
Speaker: Like it,
Speaker: All these people working together made this movie fun.
Speaker: So when there were no cartoons or no tunes on the set or on the scene or whatever, it was just a joy to watch.
Speaker: It was still enjoyable.
Speaker: They were on a golf course.
Speaker: Basketball players that have retired were on a golf course.
Speaker: And I was enjoying watching them talk about nothing.
Speaker: Bill Murray.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Bill Murray fucking.
Speaker: It was so fun.
Speaker: I mean, he really.
Speaker: But it's also not just him because it's like it's not just that Bill Murray is carrying that scene.
Speaker: But like the other two, like Michael Jordan and the other guy are really like they're having they have a good back and forth.
Speaker: They do.
Speaker: And I think that was the point I was making earlier.
Speaker: Like, I don't know Michael Jordan in real life.
Speaker: And that tall white guy was Larry Bird.
Speaker: Them playing themselves in the movie, you could think of them as being stilted and kind of dry.
Speaker: But I bet you because Bill Murray was there and I guess the other guy that played – I keep saying the guy that was Newman from Seinfeld.
Speaker: I forget his name.
Speaker: Wayne Knight.
Speaker: Wayne Knight.
Speaker: They're just so good at having – because this is the thing.
Speaker: When it comes to different scenes and, you know, your ability to stay within the scene and be engaged, there needs to be a tennis match.
Speaker: And they, you hit, the other person hits back.
Speaker: It's so good, this movie of hit and hit back, saying something and someone responds.
Speaker: It's just so good.
Speaker: And I guarantee you if they ad-libbed or not ad-libbed, but if they improvised.
Speaker: So in the movie, if they improvised in the first Space Jam,
Speaker: and they did it in the second one, they did it so much better in the first one that it just felt like I want to keep, I could have kept watching the golf scene for like 30 minutes.
Speaker: I'd be fine with that.
Speaker: I like that in Space Jam, we actually know who our antagonists are and sort of care about them.
Speaker: Like they have the Monstars, they have distinct personalities.
Speaker: The Goon Squad are like visually interesting, but they're not distinct from each other.
Speaker: They're not.
Speaker: They're visually distinct, but they're all trash-talking basketball players, as opposed to the Monstars, even in their giant forms.
Speaker: Like, they have...
Speaker: personalities distinct from each other they're not like well-defined personalities but they are clearly like oh these are different people like this is the stupid guy and this is the aggressive guy you can they have like some kind of meaningful character differentiation well and they're sympathetic in the sense that like oh they're being forced to do this by their shitty boss and then like we're happy in the end when they tell their boss to fuck off and crumble them up and throw them on that rocket ship
Speaker: In Isolation, I liked LeBron's performance more than Michael's, but MJ's performance fits better into the movie that he is in.
Speaker: Also, I think, give him some props here.
Speaker: I do think Michael Jordan's performance is kind of a little stiff and one-note.
Speaker: But one, he's not an actor.
Speaker: And two, for the most part, he's responding to like nothing.
Speaker: You know, he's on like a green screen when he's dealing with the tunes.
Speaker: So for a guy who's not an actor, like on a green screen without someone there to be responding to, he does a pretty, pretty good job, actually.
Speaker: Mm hmm.
Speaker: And in the context of his movie, he is the human in Toon World.
Speaker: He's the visitor.
Speaker: It kind of makes sense for him to be the low-key straight man and everything around him to be bigger and more expressive.
Speaker: Like, he fits better into his movie than LeBron does into his movie, even though I enjoy LeBron's performance a little more.
Speaker: I can say more of the same.
Speaker: I guess I, for those reasons, that's why I like MJ's fitting in with the toon world and how his acting was or whatever, but...
Speaker: Yeah, I guess it makes sense when you look at it, because as stilted as he could have been or as stale as he was, it just made sense.
Speaker: It was almost more of coming from a serious side of things to being presented with this wagginess.
Speaker: Do you have any sort of list of complaints for the first Space Jam?
Speaker: Do you have nits to pick?
Speaker: Should we get into complaining about this movie as well?
Speaker: I'm trying to find some.
Speaker: Hold on.
Speaker: Okay, well, let me rattle a few off here.
Speaker: The Pulp Fiction reference is dumb, and I wish it wasn't in this movie.
Speaker: I hate the product placement that's in this movie, when Michael is in the hotel room and he's drinking the McDonald's drink.
Speaker: And then Wayne Knight comes in and he just rattles off a quick, long list of all these fucking things that Michael Jordan has endorsed.
Speaker: I get that it's supposed to be a joke, but I hate it.
Speaker: And I wish it wasn't there.
Speaker: When Daffy pulls up his own ass and Warner Brothers is on there and he kisses it, he's like, he's happy to be a fucking slave to Warner Brothers.
Speaker: That's so fucked up.
Speaker: He's not a person.
Speaker: He's a cartoon character.
Speaker: So he's happy to be created by them.
Speaker: But I get what you're saying.
Speaker: And let's just back up to the hotel part.
Speaker: Like I wasn't going to even harp on this because it's old and people feel how they feel about certain people.
Speaker: People probably really like LeBron James.
Speaker: And I've heard several many people talk about, man, he's got
Speaker: the perfect athletic body because he's built to do this and that when I see Michael Jordan in the first space jam in the hotel with his shirt off I was like I've never even noticed him like that I'm like damn Michael Jordan looks amazing I was just surprised maybe because I hadn't seen him in so long and I'm sure he looks different now this was in 96 but just that scene I was like oh wow
Speaker: Like they were kind of strumming it up.
Speaker: Like I know he was probably doing his like little Hanes commercials.
Speaker: I'm like, is he going to be in his underwear?
Speaker: He was not.
Speaker: I was just shocked.
Speaker: I'm like, well, Michael Jordan, he was a good looking man back in his day.
Speaker: I didn't even realize that.
Speaker: I completely, I guess because I was younger, didn't care.
Speaker: Didn't realize that.
Speaker: Just as sexy Lola Bunny was an awakening for a lot of young men watching Space Jam.
Speaker: Michael Jordan in his underwear could have been a potential awakening for young Jonathan.
Speaker: He probably could have been.
Speaker: I just wasn't looking at him like that back then.
Speaker: I was like, what in the heck?
Speaker: This little scene is wild.
Speaker: Yeah, because this is Michael Jordan back when he's actually doing shit.
Speaker: Now, he's like a team owner or whatever.
Speaker: He's not.
Speaker: Yeah, he's older, heavier, whatever.
Speaker: I don't know if he's heavier, but he's different looking.
Speaker: But this is like post-baseball.
Speaker: So the funny thing about this, this first one was they were very meta in the sense that he commented on, you know, his his failed baseball career.
Speaker: And even when he was on the baseball team, we get different little snippets and scenes of other teammates trying to help him out, which I'm sure happened in real life.
Speaker: But even, you know, to that extent, he didn't succeed as well as he did in basketball and baseball.
Speaker: And that was very meta commentary.
Speaker: And then they made another commentary about how essentially people transitioning to acting, I think I want to see he was doing a commercial bit or something.
Speaker: And I think they made a small comment about.
Speaker: you know, sports players doing acting and not doing well.
Speaker: So I thought, well, so they're very, very cognizant of how tropey this whole adventure he's going on can be from this to that and trying to still hold his, his stardom like he did in basketball.
Speaker: Oh, also Michael Jordan descending from a spaceship in the mid 1990s.
Speaker: That would have been a religion.
Speaker: People would have said Michael Jordan is the new Jesus Christ.
Speaker: Yeah, he almost was a religion minus the spaceship anyway, so that would have been the icing on the cake.
Speaker: If people actually saw an alien spacecraft land in the middle of a sports field and then a ramp opened and Michael Jordan descended, that would have been a new world religion.
Speaker: no fucking insane even if he was wearing that baseball because i think was he wearing the baseball thing or no this was at the end i'm sorry i don't know why i'm mixing it up with another segment of the movie no because yeah that was a baseball that was him going to his baseball game you're you're you are right my god the baseball and michael jordan
Speaker: This movie is a real movie.
Speaker: It certainly still has... The flaws in this movie are all things that become magnified in the second movie of just weird little bits or references or product placement.
Speaker: All of the flaws that exist in this movie just get magnified to even bigger extremes in the second one.
Speaker: But the reason that this movie still really holds up is that it's written better.
Speaker: It has more...
Speaker: solid and understandable characters, like things just generally make more sense, and there's more focus being put on the characters and the plot.
Speaker: Like, a lot of times in the second movie, they'll do a bit or an aside or a joke that doesn't have anything to do with what is going on.
Speaker: But in this movie, those bits...
Speaker: Either they are plot relevant and they move the movie forward.
Speaker: For example, the old film reel about the black and white film reel about basketball.
Speaker: You know, that's funny.
Speaker: It's like, oh, look at this old, you know, weird thing.
Speaker: But also it serves a plot point of like informing the monsters about these basketball players to go steal their shit.
Speaker: Or conversely, the bits tell us something about the characters.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: like sylvester being extremely hungry for tweety or daffy's narcissism the bits either inform us about who the characters are or serve plot function which is rarely true on either count in the second movie it is much more just like here's a joke here's a joke here's a joke it doesn't form together into a cohesive whole in the same way you have any other final thoughts jonathan
Speaker: No, I think that is it for me because it's just all little notes about how I liked it.
Speaker: That's it.
Speaker: So, okay.
Speaker: Let's rank these things, shall we?
Speaker: We can now actually put some stuff onto this list.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Why don't you go first?
Speaker: Where do you rank Space Jam and Space Jam A New Legacy individually on your list?
Speaker: So Space Jam, the original, the first would be number one.
Speaker: And then, of course, with no other options, Space Jam, A New Legacy.
Speaker: No, no.
Speaker: On our big list.
Speaker: So if we're doing the big list, it's going to be ranking against the Jeffrey Dahmer movie as well, right?
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: So that's the idea.
Speaker: Jeffrey Dahmer's first.
Speaker: Then you got Space Jam.
Speaker: And then you have A New Legacy.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I think I am putting Space Jam as my new number one.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And then Dahmer and then Space Jam New Legacy.
Speaker: The only reason why Space Jam, the original, is not my number one is because I am all about the visuals most of the time.
Speaker: And Dahmer, although it was very murderous and cannibalistic, it gave me all the visual feels.
Speaker: You know, I don't think I can say that Space Jam is a better thing than Dahmer.
Speaker: I think Dahmer was, like, clearly better on, like, technical grounds and, like, obviously better written and has better performances.
Speaker: But this is my list.
Speaker: And I just, I really enjoy Space Jam.
Speaker: It went down low-screen.
Speaker: It goes down so smooth, Jonathan.
Speaker: It goes down so fucking smooth.
Speaker: I just opened the B.O.
Speaker: spreadsheet, so...
Speaker: You have Dahmer as number two, and I'm going in order of how we watch them.
Speaker: And then you have Space Jam as your number one, the original first.
Speaker: And then you have Space Jam A New Legacy as your number three.
Speaker: And so mine is pretty much in the order that I watch them.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: Dahmer.
Speaker: Well, no, I'm sorry.
Speaker: I lied.
Speaker: Dahmer, Space Jam, Space Jam New Legacy.
Speaker: Well, thank you, everybody, for joining us.
Speaker: Thank you very much for talking with me about Space Jam for an hour and a half, Jonathan.
Speaker: No problem.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: And we will see all of you next time.
Speaker: Later.
