movies

Pryde of the X-Men

To be honest, however, socks with crocs are even higher on the style scale.

This month Kiyan and Dylan try to find something in the X-Men universe that they can get done in a week, because procrastination is the way of the future! So they turned to Pryde of the X-Men, a pilot for an ultimately unmade animated series. It was written by Larry Parr and was aired on September 16, 1989.


Show-notes:


1:13 Robocop: The Animated Series ran between October and December 1988. It was animated by South Korean studio AKOM, the same company that did the 1992 X-Men series.
1:46 I can’t explain it. Just watch the ad yourself.
6:30 Toei animated the first two seasons of the original Transformers show. Later episodes were animated by AKOM.
15:45 Here’s the link. Again. I will definitely might actually remember the difference this time around.
24:09 Kath Soucie.

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X-Men, X2, X-Men: The Last Stand

We’ve gone too deep into music genres!

This month Kiyan and Dylan experience more superhero movies. Just like how there’s a superhero bubble in the real movie world, we’ve created one in Triple Play. How long do you think it will be until it bursts? Soon. Very soon. Does that count as a spoiler? Anyway, it’s X-Men, X2, and X3: The Last Stand. Check out some show-notes below where we’ve listed our sources and made any corrections that we needed to.


Show-notes:

 
4:10 The original and still-running X-Men comic series saw a boost in popularity in the mid 70s. This fansite seems to be a nice resource for those looking to get into the comics (good luck, you’ll need it), and even features this 7-page introductory article.
5:45 Earlier this year, Bryan Singer discussed the state of superhero movies pre-X-Men and how he helped revitalize the genre.
6:06 Chris Claremont’s original vision for the X-Men movie never panned out, but you can read a bit about it here.
8:20 This article from 2000 touches on some challenges Singer faced on the set.
9:57 Joss Whedon had a few choice words about how his edits to the first film’s script were scrapped.
11:30 Writer Tom DeSanto discusses the decision to give the characters darker and “more realistic” costumes.
14:34 Russel Crowe was first pick for Wolverine, but he recommended Jackman instead.
14:40 Articles from before the first movie’s release, like this one, even attested that Scott was definitely a part of the project. Whoops!
17:06 We’re sure you know what Enchanted is.
21:45 You can read more about how special effect artist “Jimmy Claws” created Wolverine’s claws here.
25:25 It was actually John Powell who composed for Ice Age 2 and X3.
27:29 X2’s writers discuss how the writing process was more intimately linked to the rest of the creation of the film than it normally is.
31:27 Here’s that article from American Cinematographer if anyone’s interested.
32:41 And if anyone’s really interested, here’s a 14 page document from Kodak detailing various film types.
37:43 Here’s some of what Kinberg has to say about working with Penn on X3’s script and which characters were going to be a part of the movie.
41:50 The scene in all of its ridiculous glory. And here’s a little article that details some of the secrecy behind the filming of the scene.
51:06 The brief scene with Cyclops teaching.


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Italian Spiderman

It’s like a 5 year old drew the spiderman logo.

This month Kiyan and Dylan cover something that could barely even be considered “expanded universe” for Spiderman. It’s Italian Spiderman! Originally released on YouTube, the first episode was aired on the 22nd of May in 2008. Also, do you want to know what color that serum was? Open up the show-notes and take a look.


Show-notes


00:10 Italian is the language we were attempting to speak here. Translations from Google Translate for improved authenticity of sketchiness.
01:20 Here’s the original trailer. Too bad the Green Goblin never made it into the final product.
02:15 3 Dev Adam is an unofficial 1970s Turkish Spider-Man movie. It follows Captain America, real-life Mexican luchador El Santo, and Captain America’s girlfriend Julia in their attempts to put an end the evil Spider-Man’s counterfeiting operation. Yes, really. Clip (Warning: guy’s face gets eaten by guinea pigs. Watch at your own risk)
05:13 Baccarat is a card game. Here’s how to play it in 7 steps.
09:14 Here’s a helpful table from NASA that explains asteroids, comets, meteoroids, meteors, and meteorites.
10:12 The face.
21:53 Erik Estrada.
22:07 CHiPs helmet on Erik Estrada.
25:30 Monty Python and the Holy Grail’s killer bunny. I bet this thing would make a good guard bunny if you could get close to it (and tame it).
26:41 Red or blue? You decide!
31:07 Indian Superman might be a reference to this clip from the 1988 film Dariya Dil, in which two of the characters dress as Superman and Spider-Man.


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Spider-Man

Of course, that doesn’t mean we aren’t experts.

Buckle your seat belts, because Kiyan and Dylan are about to swing their way through New York as they explore Spider-Man! Specifically, the 2000’s era Sam Raimi trilogy. The consensus was that it was rather enjoyable. If you thought that this episode was enjoyable, check below for some show notes and links to where they got their information, and please tell your friends about the show!

Stan Lee talks about his conception of Spider-Man in the on disc featurette about the making of Spider-Man. The feature covers a few other aspects of the film that we talked about, but it’s predominantly an excuse for the actors, directors, and producers to sit down and be interviewed. It’s been lovingly posted on YouTube. The behind the scenes for the second film can also be found on YouTube in multiple parts: GeneralStunts, Costume Design, Story and Character, and Practical Effects. There used to be an additional part of Visual Design, but it has since sadly been blocked on copyright grounds.

In early 2002, when the first Spider-Man was but a month away from release, Bloomberg Business put together a comprehensive run down of the long legal disputes that surround Spider-Man’s film rights. You can read that on their website.

Besides the obvious mispronunciation of McClory, it should be noted that the Thunderball legal dispute has a long and varied history, with every side throwing something new into the mix. The supposed “Thunderball for Spider-Man” deal is only a rumor, but wikipedia provides a good summary of that entire legal dispute.

The anecdote about Tobey’s back and that scene in Spider-Man 2 comes from Sam Raimi himself, in an interview that he gave for the BBC. There’s some other interesting notes about the behind the scenes, so be sure to check that out.

Speaking of Spider-Man 2, Doctor Octopus was one of the most complicated visual effects put to film at the time. A feature on the Spider-Man 2 DVD goes into far more detail than we did, and that too has been lovingly hosted on YouTube.

We didn’t touch on this in the episode, but a major special effects scene in the third film was the crane scene. Shortly after the third film released, a website called Animation World Network contacted CafeFX and wrote an article about the work that went into creating that very scene. It’s quite an interesting read for anyone who is interested in computer effects.

An additional part of the Spider Man 2 Behind the Scenes talks predominantly about Spyder-Cam, so be sure to check that out if it sounded like your jam.

A brief note on costuming and some interesting to read pre-release speculation can be found on IGN.

We clearly thought that the original vision for Spider-Man 2 and Doc Ock was an awful, terrible idea. But not everyone agrees, of course. io9 originally reported on the vision when the original script was posted online, but that script is no longer available at the link they provide. But you can read their long synopsis of that script here.

Thomas Haden Church talked about his role as Sandman and signing on for the movie without a script in an interview with Comic Book Resources. It still exists on their website.

Christopher Young went into excessive detail about his scoring for Spider-Man 3. It should actually be noted that he’s quite an accomplished composer on his own merits, and he talks about this in the interview. Read it here.

After the first two films were released, but before the third was, IGN posted a collection of articles detailing some observations and theories on the films. The first article in these collection detailed Spider-Man 1 & 2, and includes large sections dedicated to detailing the differences between the film and comic versions of the characters. Be sure to check that out if that interests you.

So that’s our 5th trilogy down. Spider-Man. Did you know that film cost extra? Neither did J. Jonah Jameson.

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The Animatrix

Woah man you’re jacked in the Matrix. Sorry bro, just a prank!

This month Kiyan and Dylan explore what is probably the only expanded universe Matrix content that still exists (now that Matrix Online has shut down) and watch The Animatrix. It was written and directed by a variety of people, and released on DVD on June 3, 2003. You can watch it on Netflix or on DVD (which you can order off of Amazon).

Dylan searched his history and couldn’t find the fan website he talked about. Rest assured he’ll dump it here if he ever finds it.

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The Matrix

Put down the drugs and listen to Triple Play instead. Please.

This month Kiyan and Dylan digitized and uploaded themselves into the virtual world. No it’s not Tron, it’s The Matrix. Tron doesn’t even have 3 movies, the third one got canceled last we heard. Anyway, read on below for some links and show notes, and listen in to find out how The Matrix got made and what we thought of it.

A good starting place for any self respecting Matrix fan would be The Wachowskis themselves. The New Yorker published a comprehensive overview of their film career that you can read on their website.

If you’re curious about how the Matrix came about, check out this Time article which details not only the conception of the Matrix, but also a lawsuit surrounding its underlying idea.

A great source for background information on the making of the first film, from it’s conception to casting to special effects, would be The Making of The Matrix documentary, included on the DVD releases. It has been graciously posted to YouTube.

The casting of the Matrix was some of the more complex and involved casting than in the previous trilogies we’ve covered. For an overview of this casting, check out this short piece. For a more in-depth look, a lot of our specific examples and notes about Keanu’s casting came from this CinemaBlend article. For just weird casting news and rumors, as well as a glimpse into an early Matrix idea, be sure to read Empire’s summary of that time when Will Smith turned down the Matrix.

The curious conception of the Matrix extended well beyond the first film, and the second and third have many stories behind them as well. For an interesting look at the second film in particular, you can watch a short 20 minute documentary, called PRELOAD, on YouTube.

We mention quite a few fun little facts throughout the episode, most of which center around the extensive Martial Arts training that the cast went through to make the film. You can find more of these over here.

For an in-depth look into some of the visual and special effects of Revolutions, be sure to read this article detailing the final Zion battle scene.

If you couldn’t tell from the episode, both of us loved the practical effects that went into making the freeway scene in Matrix Reloaded. You can see pictures and a nice overview of the 1 mile freeway that was constructed here. For those who prefer the video medium, you can view two different behind the scenes videos detailing the freeway chase scene here and here.

For any other visual and behind the scenes information, IGN provides a good article that can serve as a nice bookend following this podcast episode.

So now that the behind the scenes is out of the way, let’s ask the big question: What the heck happened in these films? If Kiyan and Dylan’s attempt at an explanation left you wanting a more in-depth film analysis, then be sure to read some of their subject material, David Edwards’ The Matrix: An Ideological Analysis.

For those who don’t want a heavy paper to start of 2016, there is also a slightly less in depth plot analysis and summary at TheMatrix101.com.

These show notes started with the Wachowskis, and it seems only fair that it should end with them too. So, here’s a fairly lengthy interview with the Wachowskis, where they discuss all of their films and what happens behind the scenes.

So that’s all for The Matrix. Be sure to tune in next month where we explore some expanded universe Matrix topics, before returning the month after (that would be March, if you lost track) with our next trilogy.

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The Star Wars Holiday Special

“In the arms…. of… a wooookieee… FLY AWAAAAY.”

You may notice something a bit different. Or maybe not, maybe you totally missed it. The podcast has been decked out in full holiday attire with a temporary intro and outro from the Nutcracker ballet. Consider it the Triple Play Holiday Special, an hour long jokes fest about the Star Wars Holiday Special. Which was aired on November 17, 1978. No seriously, this is our Holiday Special. We made it up on the spot; it’s literally just a string of dumb jokes. And as a bonus, it’s way better than the Star Wars one. Enjoy.

Torture yourself with the Holiday Special itself here.

As an aside, sorry, the audio clips a lot as a result of us laughing so much. There’s also a lot of sniffing. Winter just set in, and we weren’t prepared.

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Star Wars (the original trilogy)

But is it too sappy for Napoleon Solo?

Better get yourself ready, because this episode covers what is probably the biggest trilogy of them all: the Star Wars original trilogy. Join Kiyan and Dylan as they set themselves right into the action and explore just how Star Wars was made. Then be thrilled as they discuss it’s two sequels, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Back to the Future may be Dylan’s favorite movie, but Star Wars is at least second for Kiyan. And remember to keep reading this description, because below you will find links to the original source of most of the information that Kiyan and Dylan talk about in this episode!

The genesis of the Star Wars series can be read about at this archive link here. The four versions of the script and the original plot summary mentioned can be read on this website too.

Information on Lucas’ intention with droids and more information on the beginning of Star Wars and the creation of Episodes V and VI can be seen in an interview conducted in Rolling Stone a few months after the release of Episode IV, which you can read at this archive link.

In May of 2015 io9 compiled together links to all of the audition tapes that they could find on youtube, which is what Dylan eventually stumbled upon while researching this trilogy.  You can view this collection over here on io9’s website.

While investigating J.W. Rinzler’s books on amazon (see below), Dylan discovered that you can actually still buy the radio play versions of Star Wars. If you’d like a taste of them first (and don’t want to engage in anything illicit…) you can listen to part 6 of the 13 part Episode IV adaptation on npr’s website. For a comprehensive history of the radio dramas, you can read this article on a fan site, the logbook. If this has captured your interest, here are links to the radio plays on amazon: Episode IV, Episode V, and Episode VI.

The wikipedia page on ILM has a list of all of their movies. It would be terribly impressive if you’ve not seen at least one of the films on that list.

Quite a bit more additional behind the scenes information for both the original and the prequel trilogy can be found on Empire’s website, where each tidbit of information is also linked with some fascinating behind the scenes images. The information on the Yoda radio incident came from here.

Empire also featured an article in its magazine in 2002 on the making of Empire Strikes Back, which is where we gathered most of the information on that film, including information on how Darth Vader became Luke’s father, the improvised “I love you” ,”I know” and on the massive time crunch on filming. You can read this article on their website.

Who came up with the idea of killing Obi-Wan is a bit up in the air still. In the Rolling Stone interview above, George Lucas claims that it was his wife’s idea, but in this interview from 1999, Alec Guiness claims that it was his, because he couldn’t stand reading “mumbo-jumob” anymore.

J.W. Rinzler’s books would have been a fantastic resource for this podcast, but on the other hand, a key point of this podcast is that we only bring forward anything we can find in one evening. Luckily for us, multiple websites featured short tidbits of information and fun facts that can be found in the books. Here are links to io9’s compilation of tidbits from the Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi books. In addition, here is a link to a page on the official Star Wars website featuring tidbits from the Return of the Jedi book.

The famous 2001: A Space Odyssey song is Also Sprach Zarathustra, by Richard Strauss. It is in the public domain, or at least it should be, since Strauss has been dead for well over 70 years.

A list of changes made in the Star Wars rereleases can be seen on wikipedia here. Also Weta was founded in the late 80’s. For once, Dylan was right before correcting himself.

Star Wars Holiday Special. That’s all I’m saying.

This is the Clone Wars series Kiyan was talking about, if anyone is curious.

Comic Book Resources actually has a pretty useful article on the levels of Star Wars canon and their relation to each other, and their current standing given the upcoming Episode 7. You can find that here.

Weird Al’s song, while spoiling episode 1, actually didn’t release until after the film came out. Read about it on wikipedia.

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Jurassic Park (book)

Look I have this planned out: watch a video of the book pages flipping, and read the screenplay.

This month, while our loyal fanbase waits for our next trilogy episode, we read Jurassic Park. The Novel. Not the movie. We didn’t find the screenplay and just read that, because that makes no sense and wouldn’t give us any topics for an episode. So while you wait for our next trilogy (coming in November; it’s out of this world.), enjoy this little .5 episode discussing Jurassic Park, by Michael Crichton.

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Jurassic Park

Dun dun, dun dun, dun dun dun, dun dun dun dun.

On this episode of Triple Play, Kiyan and Dylan explore another movie juggernaut. Last time it was Back to the Future,  this time it’s Jurassic Park. These movies, however, seem to dip in quality far quicker than Back to the Future did. Listen in and take  journey behind the scenes and explore the Jurassic Park trilogy (excluding Jurassic World, of course). Remember, we spared no expense!

A large portion of our information can be found in the DVD extra documentary The Making of Jurassic Park, which can be found on youtube if you have 48 minutes to spare in addition to this hour long podcast.

For information on the special effects and the creation of the dinosaurs, you can read this fascinating article from Empire Magazine’s August 1993 issue.

io9 put together a compilation of behind the scenes videos about the dinosaur puppets in about 2012, which you can find over here.

We briefly touched upon how the film approached the topic of scientifically accurate vs. fictionally exciting dinosaurs. A comprehensive list of scientific inaccuracies can be found at this dinosaur related website here. 

The Lost World: Jurassic Park, besides having a ridiculous name to type out every time, also had an interesting production history which we touched on a bit. A more in-depth look at the creation of the second film can be found here.

Michael Crichton’s website features tidbits of information on the second film, including comments from Michael Crichton himself before he passed in 2008.

Most  of our information on the third film can be seen in this review from Variety that appeared on their website in July of 2001.

The banner for this episode does not use the theatrical release poster for Jurassic Park, as the Back to the Future banner did. This is largely because it features a black background, which is really rather annoying when you need the poster to form a distinctive triangle. This alternate unused poster, created by famed movie poster artist John Alvin (who did the Indiana Jones and E.T. movie posters), was used instead.

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