#297. 'The Electric State' (Netflix)
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The main event is Netflix's The Electric State, and the verdict is unanimous demolition: Sonny calls it a $275 million disaster that looks shockingly cheap, with empty sets, no extras, garish "shot on the volume" lighting, and a story so algorithmically assembled from other Netflix hits (Millie Bobby Brown from Stranger Things, Chris Pratt from Marvel, Jason Alexander from Seinfeld, Giancarlo Esposito from Breaking Bad) that it plays like an LLM's guess at what a blockbuster should contain. JVL agrees it's a total failure on every level and argues budget matters to criticism (his Toyota Corolla vs. $80,000-car analogy), singling out the movie's laughably un-robotic, cartoon-designed robots as the dumbest depiction of human-robot war he's seen; Mike piles on too, hating the smiley-faced brother-robot, finding Millie Bobby Brown newly bad now that she talks, and wishing the movie had leaned harder into Chris Pratt (whom all three agree is the film's only watchable element, even if he's clearly phoning it in) as its lead. The episode opens with an extended bit where JVL pitches getting into 3D printing (specifically a sub-$300 Bambu printer) as a summer arts-and-crafts project for the kids, prompting a long derail into franchise-vs-corporate business models (hotels, McDonald's, Burger King, Starbucks, Verizon stores) that segues into Mike recounting a genuinely disastrous rural-Tennessee wedding-weekend hotel stay (no hot water, dirty rooms, a groomsman cracking his head open) that Sonny and JVL keep interrupting to accuse of being in "code" for a bad franchise location. They also run through the box office, roasting Disney's Snow White remake ($42 million opening, a "terrible," "misconceived" movie per Sonny) and debating whether Disney should pull classics from Disney+ for theatrical re-releases, before turning to The Electric State proper and closing with dueling sarcastic "I can't wait for the sequel" jokes about its dangled franchise tease.
From the show notes
Bad movie.
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00We all lost something after the rebellion. Robots lost their freedom. Humans lost connection with each other. And I lost everyone I loved. Or so I thought.
Sonny00:00:38So you want to go get your brother back? I'll go with you.
Mike00:00:51Welcome to the Sub-Beacon Podcast. I'm your co-host, Mike Warren. Joining me as always are my two co-hosts who have a condition where they can only live in reality. Jonathan V. Last and Sonny Bunch. Join us over at Sub-Beacon.com where you can become a patron. Tell your friends, tell your family. The only way they can listen to this show is by becoming a patron at Sub-Beacon.com. Join the conversation in the comments. Get new episodes every Friday morning at Sub-Beacon.com. We're going to be talking about the electric state later on. In the show, but first Sonny Bunch, what is going on with you?
Sonny00:01:37What is going on? You know, I don't I don't have anything great for the I don't have anything great for the group. I've just been I've been surviving. I've been we've got like multiple kids sports going on and none of it's interesting. Really. It's it's all it's all fine. So I really have nothing. I've got nothing for the group. I'm sorry. No, no, no. No, no dudes chatting for me today. I apologize.
JVL00:02:03Well, I have something JVL. Let's skip you pick up the slack. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. JVL thinking about becoming a 3D printer guy.
Sonny00:02:13Oh, I've always been kind of curious about 3D printers.
JVL00:02:18Are either of you intrigued by the 3D printing thing?
Sonny00:02:23It's a hobby now only in the sense that it my understanding is that this is how you make the guns. Now you make the ghost. Guns with the 3D printers and that's that's the future.
JVL00:02:33Okay. Well that isn't what I'm particularly interested in making.
Sonny00:02:36I assume that's not what you're going to be doing.
Mike00:02:38Do you so what is your what has been your exposure so far to 3D printed products? And what is it? Is that what's making you interested?
JVL00:02:50Yes. So my exposure is that one of our readers sent me an entire box full of 3D printed stuff that he made and it is astonishingly cool. And they're like custom bulwark lights and coasters and he made these little fidget spinners. He made me hold this up to you. Nobody else can see it. A giant Lego minifigs picture of Saquon Barkley. And so it is imagine that there was a minifig but it was 10 inches tall.
Sonny00:03:25Yeah, it's exactly looking at right now, right?
JVL00:03:27It's astonishing. And what I what he what he told me is that this is people get sucked into this through baby steps. And the technology on 3D printers have gotten to be incredibly good. There is one company Bamboo B-A-M-B-U not not the real way of course in technology. You always have to take normal words and spell them wrong so that you can honestly search.
Mike00:03:56Honestly, there's there's a problem with that that which is there's too many vowels.
Sonny00:03:58In that and even should be like B-M-B-U Bamboo and their 3D printers.
JVL00:04:09They basically have built a plug-and-play 3D printer and which is the first time this has ever really existed. It does all of the annoying stuff for you now and what this allows you to do is jump straight into printing stuff. And so they have an app.
Sonny00:04:30Sorry, sorry, let me because I need you to explain what you mean by skipping straight to the printing stuff. Like it just has like buttons and you're like I want a giant minifig. I won't push the button and it comes out that way.
JVL00:04:43Basically what you have. So when I say skip right to in traditional 3D printing, supposedly this is not I'm not I'm just saying what people in the hobby have told me. Right. There's a lot of setup a lot. A lot of a lot of regulation in like I don't I don't mean government regulation. I mean making testing to see if it's level testing the X Y and Z axes. Calibrate right right calibrating right? You got to build the print the printers. Don't just like you don't just take him out of the box and turn them on this one. You kind of do but so you yeah, you take that you turn it on and it and you just pull up the app on your phone and they've got this gigantic library of stuff and you're just like, oh I'd like to make that. Boom and what this guy said was that the traditional pathway is people start by doing just stuff right that other because all everybody it's like GitHub right? Even you know, it's like building code you uploaded to GitHub you you design stuff and you put it up and people just download it and make it and then it moves into once you start doing that and you're good at that you get bored by it and you want to start modifying stuff and customizing it. So you have a design for say a a coaster and you want to make it a bulwark coaster or a Sub-Beacon coaster. And so you learn how to do that, right? And then after that people get bored and they're comfortable enough with it that they decide that they can start learning a little bit of AutoCAD and learning how to do design work themselves and that this becomes sort of like the way the three of us have learned how to use Adobe Audition, you know, we don't we know how to use a tiny bit of Adobe Audition because we're just hobbyists but like we know our way around it now and I just thought that this sounded like when you put it all together a great summer project for the children like hey, we have a 3D printer you guys can learn how to do 3D printing stuff and it starts out super duper easy and then like you can just sort of get lost in it and make stuff and learn how to do other is this crazy question question
Mike00:07:12what are you making exactly are we what are we talking about classification wise we're talking about doodads and knickknacks correct primarily well, I mean you are limited only
JVL00:07:27by your imagination Michael for instance one of the things people make it is organizational materials so like you know if you want to like drawer organization stuff like you you can map it out exactly the size like you know I want this many slots for my spoons this many slots for my knives their toys lots and lots of toys like little helicopter propeller spinny thingies stuff like that question follow-up question to that
Mike00:07:57and this is but this is judged to be more economically efficient than just buying something someone has already made like a drawer organizer or a helicopter toy uh I mean it's not that
Sonny00:08:20expensive so this was my question like what what what does what does what does it cost to buy a 3d printer but also like the materials for the 3d printer because it's not just it's not just pulling stuff out of the air like the uh the the replicator in star like the replicator in star
JVL00:08:38wars it's not just star trek star wars didn't concern itself with such things as like how do they get food yeah star wars doesn't you know sorry sorry sorry uh so the the the the big thing which this company did was they have a sub three hundred dollar printer which is a best in class 3d printer and so it is you know it is like 268 i think is the sticker price on this thing and then the filament that you buy is like 24 bucks a roll or something like that it's like a giant roll of plastic yeah they call it filament and so the question is you know uh is it cost effective no i mean it's not not cost effective because again you're talking about very small amounts of money uh but the question is really could you force your children to spend time doing it right could it occupy their
Mike00:09:32time this is arts and crafts this is yes okay yeah i i am liking it if it's arts and crafts i'm liking this plan because my experience with 3d printing is through uh my oldest friends who make little toys and doodads that are then sold in their internal fourth grade class store which is a sort of ongoing project in which they earn money throughout the year and they have to do things like rent or then eventually buy their school desks and they are fine for you know for doing things that they're not supposed to in class but then they have this store where you can come in and you could sell things and quite a few of the kids like more than I expected have 3D printers at home and so they print out little toys fidget spinners these like these sort of like they piece together these kind of dragon looking things that are sort of like they look like fractal little doodads and they can do a whole train of them and then they're cool to look at and play with or move around and then they sell them within this class store and so we have like a bunch of cheap plastic crap in my house because of this and you know so we're at the we're at the the bad end
Sonny00:11:03of it which is we just have the crap so this would be my this would be my concern this would be my concern with getting one of these in our house is the rapid expansion of detritus around the floors of my children's rooms and also the common spaces would be it would increase to the extent that it would not be if the juice would not be worth the squeeze if the juice is if the juices like occupy the children for an hour a day but the squeeze what I what I get is you know the whatever I don't I would pay a lot to occupy my children
JVL00:11:43for an hour a day I mean I don't know about you guys but if the if the price is like there's a bunch of extra plastic crap that I have to throw into the recycling a month later when they've forgotten about it I'll do that. An hour a day every day over the summer when they're home all the time never leaving?
Mike00:12:03Yeah I mean I think if if it's a substitute for glue and popsicle sticks and that sort of thing I mean fine. Beads. I think I think it's I think it works. The looms. Let me throw one more thing at you. Friendship bracelets.
JVL00:12:21Let's see if it let's see if this changes your perspective. Now in the my Star Wars Unlimited card game. Oh. Strictly speaking you do not need miniature statues. Right. It's not like Warhammer in that way. Sure. But another thing you can do with the 3D printers is print out miniature Star Wars statues and
Sonny00:12:41then paint them yourself like they're model wizards. But what do you what do you use them for in the game?
JVL00:12:47Just stand them up put them on your play mat.
Sonny00:12:49I play I play this game with my children every day now. So I don't know what you would do with I don't know what you would do with these.
JVL00:12:56So I don't know what leader you use Sonny but you could print yourself out a little Darth Vader and put him next to the leader card as a little like a little bling a little little like statement of flair. Boom. Look at me.
Sonny00:13:09I got one of my pieces of flair.
Mike00:13:11Yeah. So if you're if you're in a position where you are combining obsessions like this I think hey all the all all the power to you JVL. I think this is this sounds like a good plan.
Sonny00:13:24You know. I'm pro this plan. You should do it because I want to get updates on it. My my big thing on this plan. My big thing on this plan is that for me the the the appeal of it is I would be able to 3D print all of the little random things that get broken in the house. Oh yeah.
JVL00:13:42Like for instance like you can do like for instance the
Sonny00:13:45other day like you know we have we have we have a storage shelf in the kitchen and it's on rollers right and you pull it and it's and it connects to the edge of the shelf with a little bracket that is the weirdest fucking size. It's what there's some there's some sort of you know proprietary bracket spacer that this thing specifically is and it was literally impossible to find a separate like the right sized one up. So I had to buy I had to buy the wrong size one and like a thick washer. To put with it and it's fine it worked but like I would like to be able to 3D print the proper size bracket.
JVL00:14:30A month from now I'll just be able to print that shit up for you for free.
Sonny00:14:32See that'd be great. It costs like three cents. That's the dream right there. The other question how sturdy is this material? So if I wanted to make like a shelf if I wanted to make like a like a shelf like let's say a shelf that was about 18 inches wide to support books could I do that? Is that a thing? Or would it be too flexible?
JVL00:14:55No, so you couldn't make a shelf that was 18 inches wide because you're limited by the the base plate and so the area of the base plate which is typically measured in millimeters. I think like a good-sized base plate is like 260 millimeters on each side or something like that.
Mike00:15:14How many inches is that? What that means nothing to me.
JVL00:15:17Impossible to say. Is that is that a hundred feet? I don't know. Nobody knows that. No, nobody knows. 260 millimeters? Nate Bargatsky and we'll be able to see where they line up. Right? Impossible. No, they never do. So, you know, you're you're limited. You can't print something longer than probably I don't know 10 inches on the side. Yeah. Yeah, but as to your question the base question about the strength that depends on the filament you use and there are different types of filament. There are some that are stronger than others and as you move up to the more professional Grade machines because they are then fully enclosed and can heat the entire printing area. You can wind up using stronger filaments stuff. It's got a little carbon laced in it at the level which I would be using at my super beginner like Easy Bake the Easy Bake oven of 3D printers, which is what I'm looking at, you know, you're limited to like four levels of filament, which I couldn't tell you how strong they are. I would not try to like support, you know, a house. With it or something, but but like little, you know, like about people do like little square shadow box type things that you hang on a wall and use to put stuff in but you know, like little floating shelves that you could put a couple books on. I wouldn't put like a whole whole library.
Sonny00:16:42No, I was just a it's neither neither here nor there. I was I was just thinking of various household projects that
JVL00:16:49I've had it had my eye on other people who do who are listening to this. Have done the 3D printing thing. I would be very interested to hear in your thoughts as to whether this is a great idea or a terrible idea and specifically your thoughts on the bamboo printers and their ecosystem. There.
Mike00:17:09Yeah. All right. Well, that's all I got. How are you, Michael? I'm fine. I've been traveling a lot both for work and for I wouldn't call it pleasure for for personal obligations. And so I figured I'd tell a story about about an experience. I had not to call out this particular, you know, portion of the service industry, but just because like we got to have something good to talk about here. So I spent this past weekend in rural East Tennessee for a family wedding. And it was just me. In terms of my own immediate family, my wife and my kids did not join, but I was there. My parents were there. My brother was there also not with his wife. My mom's all my mom's brothers and sisters on nearly all of my cousins and we were all staying in one hotel. That was still about a 15 minute drive to the wedding venue and all this stuff and let me tell you it was maybe the worst hotel experience that I've ever had or I've that I've had certainly in a long time as far as I can remember. So I won't say the brand but say the brand blow them up blow them up. Well, no because like again, these things are franchised right? Like the brand is is how you get them in the door, but the management is all is all franchised on these are we talking
Sonny00:18:50about a hotel? What are we talking about?
Mike00:18:52Yeah. Yeah. Am I wrong about this right? Right? Like like hotels get franchise depends.
JVL00:18:57They're man. This is this depends. So some hotels do that some hotels have a split where there are corporate run ones versus franchised ones. I believe most of the franchising happens at the lower end. So like Red Roof Inn like a hojo not that low but like, you know, if you're at Holiday Inn Express might be. I'd so I don't know about that's IHG, right? I don't know how IHG works but like this so this exists in the world of cell phones and I'm sure you guys if you have Verizon customers, there's a whole thing about make sure you only go to corporate-owned Verizon stores because the franchise Verizon stores are just hot garbage.
Sonny00:19:40I would never I would never go to a phone store if I need a phone. Do you know where I go? I go to the Apple store because they're not going to fuck me there.
JVL00:19:49I know that I'm just saying that this is a mode of operation. And and from my understanding is this used to happen with Starbucks. I don't know if you guys remember this but there was a period in time which Starbucks had a small number of franchise stores because they had experimented with that and they found the quality control was so bad that they eventually closed out the franchise stores. They bought them back. Oh, that's interesting.
Sonny00:20:12I when I when I worked at McDonald's I worked at a franchise instead of a corporate so like McDonald's was interesting because they have it's a pretty even split I think it's between corporation and franchise but there was a big there was a big fight in the early 90s a bunch of the franchisees sued the corporation because they were like you are sticking us in all the bad neighborhoods. Yeah, you're like sticking us in all the bad locations and it
JVL00:20:36was that was a whole thing and Burger King when they wonder when their big corporate reorganization like 10 years ago went the opposite direction. They became a pure franchisee and they sold off and got rid of the corporate owned stores, right? Like they just wanted to be an arms dealer. They didn't want to be actually running restaurants anymore. Yeah, so who could say so I'm sorry. This is what I don't know what to tell you Michael, but this
Mike00:20:58is this is useful if I had to guess this is a this is a franchise hotel just by the way. It was run.
JVL00:21:05Yeah.
Mike00:21:06Okay, so so you are speaking in code. No, no, not not at all.
JVL00:21:13There's no there's no code here is up in Jersey. There's a code behind what you're saying. No, no, there's obviously that there's.
Mike00:21:21There's no code. This is East Tennessee rural as can be it is and I'll explain so so I get in and I'm the first of my entire family to have arrived at the at the hotel and I check in and it's fine the woman who checks me in when I when I walk into the hotel, she was like outside smoking a cigarette with some other people who look to maybe be. Related to her tobacco cigarette or was she a tobacco tobacco?
Sonny00:21:57Was it an actual cigarette cigarette or was it a vape?
Mike00:21:59It was a cigarette. It was a cigarette. You guys are getting getting sorry getting bogged down.
JVL00:22:04I feel I just think it'd be more interesting if she was out there getting high. She's out there smoking a blunt. That'd be kind of fun.
Sonny00:22:09I know I know you have a pipe like Hans Landa.
Mike00:22:12All right, you know what no more color no more color for this story because you guys are getting we're just trying to make it better. Well. Okay, maybe we should lower the bar on the story. Then no go in my room is five your floors, but it's if there's like I'm getting already getting a feeling like there might be like one person working here at one time kind of place
Sonny00:22:47like working in the whole hotel. Yeah, I got in that sense before.
Mike00:22:51Is this new construction? It was if it wasn't new construction. It was definitely newly renovated. Like I have been I've stayed at some HIEs recently for for various reasons and and this had the look of a new or a newly renovated HIE.
Sonny00:23:10So a Holiday Inn Express is what you're saying because is that right? I don't HIE who calls them HIEs?
Mike00:23:18I don't know. It's IHG's HIE. HIE. What do you want? What do you want from me?
Sonny00:23:22IHG is like the name of the overall brand, but like HIE is like, you know, who says that?
Mike00:23:29Holiday Inn Express. I got to spell it out.
Sonny00:23:32What sort of person says, oh, I travel so much. I stay at the HIE. Sometimes I go to the RRI. I don't know. Sorry. Are you done? Are you done? Are you done? Sorry, Mike. Tell your story. It's not. You're making this story worse.
Mike00:23:46So anyway, my parents get in. I can see them. Walking in. I greet them. Say hello. They'll say come up. We can watch the first some first round NCAA tournament games. Come up to our room when you're ready. They have to move rooms because the first room that they check into the bathroom hasn't been cleaned and the bed has clearly the comforter has been pulled up over unmade sheets sort of thing. So they get put into. Into a second room. It's they're not the last family members of mine to have to move rooms. My aunt and my and my grandmother are sharing a room together. They have to move rooms twice the first room. The sink is full of water.
JVL00:24:36Michael. How is that woman supposed to clean these rooms when she's checking all those people in at the front desk, right? She can't buy locate. So unless she has the new technology, so this is all
Mike00:24:50happening. There is anyway, it's a disaster the next morning, right? Saturday is the day of the wedding. And again, almost our entire side of the family is staying at this hotel. I go down to get coffee and my one of my aunts is standing in front of the coffee machine and it's and it's spitting out like like a quarter of a cup of coffee at a time, you know, you like press the little button is just like and then like that's it there was a long line and then it takes like it takes like 15 minutes before somebody comes to empty. Oh, by the way, there's two coffee machines. The other one's not working not working turns out. She just had to like open it up and take out the grounds because it was full and like do all of what that just you
JVL00:25:44should not drink coffee from a machine like that. That's like drinking water from a puddle without boiling it if the grounds are back there. You have no idea how long the grounds have been sitting there and what sort of molds and bacteria are in like soupiness back.
Mike00:25:57But what are you going to do? What are you going to do leave and go someplace else for coffee?
Sonny00:26:01I think it's going to McDonald's. How far are you from a McDonald's?
JVL00:26:04How far are you from a Starbucks?
Mike00:26:06Michael very far very far from so and then and then somebody has the bright idea to actually go brew a bunch of coffee somewhere else. I don't know where and put it in an urn. So that we can just pour it from the urn itself rather than this highfalutin coffee machine.
JVL00:26:24How far were you from a La Colombe?
Mike00:26:26Pretty pretty far.
Sonny00:26:28Could you get a machine delivered to the hotel from Amazon?
Mike00:26:34Maybe maybe probably there is an Amazon facility, right? Anyway, and then at some point I'm talking while I'm down there trying to figure out the coffee situation. My uncle is down there and says my cousin his daughter has just called she has. Shampoo in her hair and she cannot wash her shampoo out because there is no hot water in her bathroom. Oh, it turns out more than half the people that I know who are staying at this hotel have no hot water including me. So there's like nobody has any hot water. It's right before this wedding. Everybody's like freaking out washing their hair shaving with cold water. It's a disaster and and it's It's like oh and everybody's room is disgusting and dirty and gross and I and like the whole time there was literally like I saw three women at successive times working at the hotel. They all look related to each other and it's like one comes in and like relieves the next one. They just need some more again.
JVL00:27:40Is there code here? Because in New Jersey the code that you're laying out for me would be franchise.
Mike00:27:49I don't know what that means.
Sonny00:27:51Okay.
JVL00:27:52Well, I'm not going to say it here because I don't want to get canceled for this show.
Mike00:27:54Okay. All right. All I know is and then oh and then the cleaning staff on Saturday. There is a cleaning staff, but they're like going back and forth a lot along the thing. And so like then I have family members who are like hiding all not that they have this nice stuff like they're hiding all their jewelry because they think like the cleaning staff is coming in to steal it and like that. Maybe that's not a bad assumption. Anyway, the whole thing was a disaster. Everybody. Was miserable and and that was that I don't know like that's there's no there's no grant. Huh?
Sonny00:28:24How was the wedding?
Mike00:28:26The wedding was fine. Somebody one of the groomsmen fell and cracked his head open on the deck. So so that was that was great. Wow. It was it was it was it was there's a lot going on anyway, but it was all fine. It's all it's all great. We're all great here. How are you? Anyway, some.
JVL00:28:49And then you watched the electric state.
Mike00:28:52It was it was like one high to another in this this weekend here. Okay. Well, let's move on from this. Let's quickly talk about the box office. Number one at the box office this week Snow White. Wow. Topping things at the box office in its first week and in the box office 42 million dollars. Disney must be really happy.
JVL00:29:13Then if it came in number one that yeah.
Mike00:29:17Hey Sonny is 42 million. Dollars for this tentpole remake of the animated classic. That's that's bad, right?
Sonny00:29:27Not if it does a 10x multiple.
JVL00:29:32I mean if Disney thought this was good, they wouldn't have released it in the last weekend of March.
Sonny00:29:36It's a terrible movie. It's a terrible movie. It's bad. It's bad on basically every level. It's ill-conceived. It's it is as I was joking with somebody on Twitter. Another screenwriter. Friend. He was like this feels like a movie that was conceived like four or five years ago and then kind of sat on the shelf for a while and I was like, yeah, no, this feels like a bit. It's feels like a movie that was somebody wrote in 2019 or 2020 in at the height of shall we say a certain period of political insanity and I know I it's not good. It's not good on again. It's it's bad. It's misconceived basically every every which way you can. It's also just horrendously ugly. It looks terrible. It's shot in the same way that like Wicked is shot with all these CGI sets, but they all have this like garish yellow Sun as a backdrop and like it creates this weird backlighting shot on the volume.
JVL00:30:39Is that what they call that thing?
Sonny00:30:41No, I don't think so. Well, some of it probably was but I don't think all of it was it just it just is I know I don't know what they're doing with their money man.
JVL00:30:49This movie cost 200 wrong wasn't doesn't this movie exist to extend the IP rights? Isn't that the point of this is that Snow White was going to come into the public domain.
Sonny00:31:00Oh, I don't I mean I maybe but it doesn't it doesn't matter because like you're still have you still have the original like they made this because they made this movie because the Lion King made 1.6 billion dollars in 2019 like that was so good because it was so good and it was so good. I mean the Lion King made 1.6 billion dollars Aladdin made 1.1 billion dollars something like that, you know, actually good.
JVL00:31:26Well, we can we can find it was so funny.
Sonny00:31:31I I somebody somebody the other day asked me was like how do these things even make money and I just replied to him. Guess what? Will Smith's highest-grossing movie of all time is know what it is fucking Aladdin. So these movies make money Beauty and the Beast 1.8 billion dollars or something like these movies just making. It's some of them. Some of them make an insane amount of money others less. So but this one this one's an enormous failure Beauty and the Beast
JVL00:31:56is why Emma Watson doesn't work anymore.
Sonny00:32:00I find it hard to believe that she had gross profit participation in that though. Like I just don't like that's not the sort of she may not have
JVL00:32:06gross profit but but again, I am sure that her contract was written with some form of escalation box office and that's so outperform and if you because that's the first one of these to really hit. Yeah, that even if you had been like, you know, and if it goes over 1.5 billion worldwide, then I get an extra. Yeah, whatever right? Does anyone like it? Okay, sure.
Mike00:32:32Yeah, two questions. Two questions. Why are why do they continue to do this to my queen Gal Gadot put her in these ugly ass movies like like what was it? Shazam 2 or whatever. Like like what? Why are they doing this to her second question? Well, okay answer the first question. Like what's good? What's going on with Gal Gadot? Why can't she get why can't she? Why is she making these bad movies?
Sonny00:32:59She never got to make Wonder Woman 3 because the DC Universe exploded. So, you know, I mean she's like I like out. I like out. Get out fine. She's not she had it. I like her as a screen presence. I would. Not describe her as an enormously talented actress and and those are two different things and she she definitely she definitely is not playing to her strengths here.
JVL00:33:32I don't think Michael. Yeah, have you seen Death on the Nile? Yes, because in Death on the Nile Gal Gadot beg someone to stick it in her ass. And I'm just saying that. You don't whatever else you might hope to get from Gal Gadot on screen. You're never going to top that you've gotten her Casablanca.
Mike00:33:56That's what you think that that's what you think you don't know what I want. You don't know what I could get you. Okay, second question. What do you think re-releasing the original 1939 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs into theaters like that used to do? Like when I was a kid, I saw it for the first time in a movie theater because of a re-release. Would that on net do better than than this than this what what Disney has done here?
Sonny00:34:33Well, it wouldn't lose you a hundred million dollars, right? No, no, I mean I like again. I see people saying this and you you could do that and it might gross five million dollars. I like it's it's not like you're not going to make any money off it. Because people that's not how cost more releases re-releases of things like this. Do not make money in theaters because people watch them at home on Disney plus families stay home watch them on Disney plus the only re-release in recent times. It has done significant business really is the the interstellar release that came out a couple years back or last that last summer last fall last summer. Yeah, that movie did that movie did pretty well in re-release but even then it wasn't I mean, it was you know, 20 30 million dollars something like that.
Mike00:35:16It just seems like it. It just seems like if Disney sort of treated like went back to so to speak went back to the vault idea and like didn't put the classic stuff on Disney plus got to feed the channel insane.
Sonny00:35:30That's in your you live in this bizarre fantasy world where where you don't understand that the the actual money the corporation makes is from Disney plus Disney plus has I don't Disney plus has I don't even I don't even know what the number is. But let's just say it has 50 million subscribers in the United States. I think that numbers low. Let's say it has 50 million subscribers in the United States each paying, you know, 15 bucks a month on average or whatever that's 750 million dollars a month.
Mike00:35:58I like it's the amount of money does that does that do they lose a significant amount of that revenue by taking off the classic animated movies from the library?
Sonny00:36:09Maybe not but it's not like they would gain it by having people go to the theaters. People just wouldn't go I like I just I do not think I understand your concept here. I do not think it is a successful business model. If it was a successful business model Disney would be doing it. Disney doesn't it's not like they want to not make money.
JVL00:36:27All right. I don't want to spend too much time on this. But do we agree that Snow White the story is the least interesting of all early? Yes, Disney. No, I like Sleeping Beauty is actually kind of interesting in its own weird way. Maleficent turns into a dragon. Dragons are cool. Dumbo.
Sonny00:36:47Like Cinderella is kind of a classic story. Cinderella is kind of great.
JVL00:36:50Like right. Yeah. Sleeping Beauty Cinderella. There's not a lot going on.
Sonny00:36:54No, since Snow White is I remember re-watching it. I don't know four or five years ago with the kids and being like, oh yeah, the witch just kind of falls off the edge and she just dies. Like it doesn't even like it, you know, there's no there's no real succeeds.
JVL00:37:06It's with the cartoonish Dwarves.
Sonny00:37:07That's yeah, the Dwarves are great great songs with so why you work do do do do do do do great.
Mike00:37:17Great hip-hop sample. All right. So we're not talking about Snow White. Actually, we're talking about a movie that that we watched on Netflix. The Electric State Sonny. Do you want to give us a big boy review of this? This Netflix hit or not hit?
Sonny00:37:36I don't know if it's a hit. Not a hit. I start with the money setting the Electric State cost 275 million dollars. It was made by the Russo brothers. I'm sorry, just hearing you say it. The Electric State stars Chris Pratt, but he doesn't show up till a little bit later. Really stars Millie Bobby Brown, Netflix's biggest star as a little girl whose brother comes back to her in the form of a robot. And what you got to understand about the Electric State is that this takes place in an alternate version of the 1990s where there was a robot human war and the robots got exiled to live in the American Southwest. And this little this her brother was thought to be dead after a car accident. And she she sees a robot come up to her and does a little heart thing with the hands. And then she's like, oh wow, you're my brother. That's cool. We should go on an adventure together. And I just want to stop right here. I want to stop right here because what I just described to you is a pitch perfect idea for an an Amblin nostalgia movie, something aping the Spielberg aesthetic, the Spielberg Richard Donner thing of the 1980s. If if you have a 10 year old girl playing this role because Billy Bobby Brown is too old, she's too old, she's 21 or 22 or something like that. To to be playing this sort of like young, innocent child who believes that her brother has been put into the body of of this this robot. And as a result, she's just kind of annoying. So like there's there the again, the the the premise here, she's got to get to that. She's got to get to the robot zone. She hires Chris Pratt, who's doing a very bad Han Solo riff as a trucker. He's the best part of this movie, Hans Hansel, Chris Pratt and Anthony. His Anthony Mackie robot friend. Best part of this movie by far. The only thing that like actually works on any level, it's Anthony Mackie as the little robot friend. And but but even that doesn't really work because he's he's very clearly sleepwalking through it. The whole the whole. What's astonishing about this movie is that, again, it costs 270 million dollars and it looks incredibly cheap. Like all the sets are kind of empty. There are no. Like scenes that should have extras do not have extras. The whole the lighting is all wrong. The lighting on this thing is all wrong. JBL, I think you mentioned the soundtrack all sounds like kind of music piped in from, you know, audio boom or whatever. And I, I, I don't I don't think this movie and here's the even even with the like kind of misconceived instead of having a child, you have like a young adult actress, even with the the the awful changes to the book. And we can talk about that if you guys care at all. But like the book, you know, has this kind of very sad quality to it. This has more of an action adventure quality to it. And and even even if you even if you like don't care that they glommed on this like ridiculous corporations are the problem. Man, it's the corporations that are that are doing all this to us. Even if you don't care about any of that, it could have still worked as a big like rousing action movie. Right. And like the Russo brothers made Captain America Winter Soldier, which is like a good action movie. Right. They made Captain America Civil War, which has its moments. However much you like the two Avengers movies they did like, OK. And even the gray man, I will defend the gray man on this level. It's not a particularly memorable movie, but it did some interesting stuff with drone camera work. There was some interesting shootouts on the streets of the Czech Republic. Like there was some there was there was memorable stuff to it. I watched this movie two weeks ago. I couldn't I could not tell you a single memorable action beat from it. There's there's there's just nothing. There's nothing to it. All of the character design is is kind of bad and lame. Everything about this movie is. Is bad. I want to be very clear about this. Everything about this movie does not work, even on its own. Even in its own conception and the fact, again, that it costs, you know, I think people. I think people get a little too worked up about budgets. We don't. It's not necessarily a thing average fans should care about, blah, blah, blah. At the same time, this movie should look better than it does. It should not have cost this much money. And the fact that this is this is what Netflix is spending its money on. Is it totally baffling to me? You can make you could make you don't even have to make. They don't even have to make 20 indie films for ten million dollars a piece, right? Like that's the dream. Like, why are they spending two hundred seventy million dollars on this? Instead of making 30 independent movies for ten million dollars a piece. That's how we can rebuild film, blah, blah. Like whatever that that's not what Netflix wants to do. But they could make what was that? What's the Taron Egerton movie with Jason? Bateman that just came out carry on. Is that what it was called? Yeah, that's something like that. Yeah, whatever that was, whatever, whatever that awful TSA movie was. That movie wasn't good either, but it was an enormous hit. Did huge, huge numbers. Their biggest their biggest movie of the year, I think. And that movie costs like probably 50 million dollars to make you. I don't understand why they're not making six of those instead of one of these. That that is what I would say. Let if if Netflix is a broadcast television, which I think is basically what it is, then they should be making movie of the week quality movies, not these giant blockbusters. I don't understand. I don't understand the business model there.
JVL00:43:57Anyway, that's a bad movie. And it failed on Netflix. That's it. It failed on Netflix. It was number four in its opening week and then it dropped like 12 percent.
Sonny00:44:05It did. It did something like 25 million views, which like we can discuss the quality of that number. But that's like that is a that's a fraction again of what the Jason Bateman movie did.
Mike00:44:16You know, it's despite all of the promotion, especially Millie Bobby Brown.
Sonny00:44:20Despite all the promotion, despite the fact that, you know, again, Millie Bobby Brown is a legitimate Netflix star in the sense that, like, she is the star of their their second biggest show of all time, Stranger Things. She is the star of the biggest movie of two years ago, Damsel. She is the star of that Enola Holmes movie, which was a big hit for them, did did huge numbers. Like whatever, whatever we want to think of her as an actress or Netflix as a business model, she is like a genuine homegrown Netflix star. She's in a thing and people watch it and people did not watch this.
JVL00:44:55Yeah. Yeah. I you know how we used to be as a dig could say that somebody was, well, they're a they're a TV actor. Yeah. There's a class below that. She's a Netflix star. She's a Netflix. She's a Netflix actor. Let's let somebody she is a terrible actor. She is. A bad in this movie. Sort of annoying. She's bad in everything, even the Godzilla movies. She's bad. She's bad in everything. She's not a good actress and she's not like an interesting or winning screen presence either. This is a terrible movie, but I want to defend the money or defend why we talk about the money. Because I think in every part of life, the cost of something influences how we judge it. If you sit in a Toyota Corolla. In the Toyota Corolla cost you $18,000. Then that's how you have to evaluate what you're surrounded by, right? You look at the interior plastics, you look at the drive train and what sort of performance it gives you. And you cannot hold it to the same standard that you would for an $80,000 car, right? You're like, no, that's not what this is. And so I don't think it's unfair to use that as part of your criteria for evaluating a movie. And at $60 million, this would have been like, okay, well, just a bad movie at $60 million. Like, you know, it's fine. At a hundred million or 150 million, it becomes a curiosity like, boy, it's a real bomb. At 275, we are beginning to enter the realm of John Carter of Mars. Except that this doesn't even look like a movie in the way that John Carter, I mean, John Carter of Mars is terrible. But like, you know, it looks like an actual movie. It just looks like a bad movie.
Sonny00:46:53The thing about, I mean, I don't mind discussing the money. I enjoy discussing the money because I don't think you can understand what gets made and what doesn't get made if you don't understand the money. Like that, that's why we have a whole box office segment on the show. I like, you don't have to, I will just say that like, the 275 number is misleading in the sense that the Russos probably got $80 million to make this movie.
JVL00:47:17Which is astonishing.
Sonny00:47:19Chris Pratt probably got...
JVL00:47:19They do not add $80 million of value to this project. You could have picked any director off the street.
Sonny00:47:24Literally, literally any. Chris Pratt probably got $40 million to make this movie. Millie Bobby Brown probably got $25 or $30 million to make this movie. So like we say $275 million and probably half of that goes to salary for people. Just because you got to buy out back end, blah, blah, blah.
JVL00:47:40But then you put like, you know, why is Jason Alexander in this movie? You know, I'm sorry, Jason Alexander...
Sonny00:47:45I have a theory on this. So I, so this is, and this, I wrote this in my review. But The Electric State feels like an algorithmically generated movie in a couple of very key respects. And one of those respects is the way Netflix's algorithm actually works is it entices you to watch things by showing you images of other, showing you images of a project that relate to other projects, right? So like if you binge Seinfeld, maybe you get a tile on the Netflix screen with Jason Alexander's face, right? If you binge Breaking Bad, maybe you get Giancarlo Esposito's face up there because he would, he has, he has a part in this movie. If you watch the Guardians of the Galaxy movie, you get, you get Chris Pratt, right? Or the Submariner Brothers movie, you get Chris Pratt. You watch Stranger Things, you get Millie Bobby. And like that is, that is how this movie feels put together is like, it's, it's like in a, I would, I would pull up my, I'd pull up my review and look, but I'll try and do this from memory. It's like if you asked, if you asked a large language model, if you asked LLM, "Hey, Siri, or hey, Grok, how do I make a, how do I make a big, how do I make a big-budget franchise movie?" And it would respond, "You need a graphic novel. You want to hire successful screenwriters and successful directors. And you want to have people who have starred in franchises, right?" And so like, those are reasonable answers. But then you get, it's like, it's like you get the large language model response with this movie, which is like slightly wrong in every regard. Like, "The Electric State" is in fact a graphic novel, but it's not a comic book. Right. It's not, it's not a comic book. You know, the Russo brothers and Marcus and McFeely, who are the screenwriters, are tremendously successful, but all that's kind of wrapped up in the Avengers and Captain America movies. Their, their box office appeal outside of that is pretty limited. Um, you know, you have, you have a guy like Chris Pratt who you can plug into a franchise. I don't think there's a ton of proof that he is an enormous franchise starter, right? Like that is, and, and that's, and again, it's, it's like everything is there, but it's not quite right. And that's this movie. That's this whole movie. Everything is there, but it's not quite right.
JVL00:50:05So I, I just want to throw this out for discussion. So over the last year, I have learned a terrifying amount about YouTube, um, and the fundamental fact of YouTube is that viewership comes not from who you subscribe to, but from what gets pushed into your for you feed. Yes. And so, you know, I can subscribe to like, there can be 10 channels that I follow, but for the average YouTube audience member, what drives their, their habits is actually what goes into the for you feed. And so that winds up being like the algorithmic decisions that go into creating the for you feed become what drive YouTube creations. And so, you know, different creators just decide what to make and then decide how to make it based upon the algorithm, because the only way to get viewership is to be into the for you feed. Right. And I wonder if just like the Netflix algorithm. Actually drives what Netflix makes. Does that make sense? Like it isn't I wonder if it isn't the case where Netflix can just buy a movie that has been made, you know, a movie that just went into theaters and says, we want the rights to this because we know we'll put it on the homepage and people watch it. I wonder if most of Netflix's minutes watched are derived from algorithmic tiles. Yes.
Sonny00:51:40Well, most of their most of the viewership comes from the homepage. The home screen, the home screen of Netflix is the most valuable real estate in Hollywood, right? Like that is that is in terms of if you want eyeballs, if you want pure number of people watching your thing, that is the most valuable place that you can be because it gets pushed to.
JVL00:51:59But is it algorithmically derived or does everybody get the same homepage? That's that's what I'm asking because I don't know the answer to that.
Sonny00:52:06It is. I think I think the homepage is pretty similar, at least like the top things that they're pushing are pretty similar. For most people. But there is there is absolutely customization. Like there is absolutely a because you like this, you you get this. Yeah. And again and again and again, the real the real algorithmic key here is not even necessarily pushing different things. It's getting you to click on the thing that they have made by highlighting something else that you like from another thing. Right. Like the real secret sauce for Netflix has always been the the the fascinating thing that they do where they create, you know, individual videos. Essentially individualized preview tiles for thumbnails.
JVL00:52:48Yeah. Yeah. Like just like the thumbnails is the most important thing. I before I throw it to you, Michael, I just want to say that the thing which I hated most about this movie and I hated literally everything. I don't think there's a single thing that's redeeming in it. It is the single dumbest depiction of human robot warfare ever. Like all of the robots are basically unique. It's the robots look like cartoon characters. This is not how robots would be made. Like the all idea of robots is that they all look the same, right? It's just fucking. It's just it is a it is a stupid, stupid way of imagining conflict between humanity and robots. But Michael, maybe you loved it.
Mike00:53:39I smell a new franchise.
JVL00:53:41I loved it.
Mike00:53:44I'm just kidding. No, it was awful. It was terrible. In fact, I was like angry when they did the little sequel tease at the very end. Yeah. Drinking in the stupid smiley face robot looking into the reflection. Oh, it's alive or whatever. Like I hated that. The only thing that did not make me just like throw my laptop across the train as I was traveling home was that it did end. Actually, with a good music cue with the flaming lips, which I really liked. And I was like, oh, the flaming lips. Yoshimi battles of pink robots. Like, this is a great song and a great album and great. I know it was like, oh, this is what like actual good popular art can be. And the electric state was not that at all. And in fact, I resented it even more for trying to glom on to something like the flaming lips and gets. Some of the goodwill from that. Millie Bobby Brown is awful. Like, she should just go back to not talking in stuff because, like, she was she was fine in the first few seasons of Stranger Things, which didn't talk. And now she's like, like, just bad. She's just bad. And also, like, I this whole movie start like I was, like, caught off guard. Like, the movie just starts in this way. Right, where she's, like, walking around this college campus with her younger brother. And I'm like, what is happening? Like, like, it threw me into this story that and I had no idea what was going on. And I was like, wait, are the parents alive still? Because later they said the parents are dead. But wait, though, actually, the kid is dead. Like, totally confused. Had no idea what was going on. I agree, JVL. The robots are, like, stupid. Like, there's something. About. I'm sure the graphic novel, like, there's something appealing about having these kind of big-eyed Disney-fied robots visually in this graphic novel, right? It's like a different way of presenting robots when you're trying to stand out as a graphic novel. But it was just dumb. I mean, it was just dumb. The tonal shifts in this movie, I didn't quite get. Like, are we supposed to be laughing at this because it's all funny and satirical? Or is it supposed to be, like, just, like, serious action? Or is it, like, Star Wars or Guardians of the Galaxy? What am I watching? What movie is this? What kind of movie is this? Is Chris Pratt nails on the chalkboard for you at this point?
JVL00:56:31Or is that just me? That's just you.
Mike00:56:33I thought he was just super charming.
JVL00:56:35No, I really loved the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie. And it was once I realized that that's the only speed he has that I've just come to. To detest it? Yeah, that's just you. That's just you.
Sonny00:56:46He's the only watchable thing in this movie.
Mike00:56:48I actually agree with you. And my thought was there was not enough of him, actually. It should have been his movie, frankly.
Sonny00:56:57Totally.
Mike00:56:58But you could also tell, like, he was half-assing it. Oh, yeah. And that was obvious, which was sad and pathetic. You know, it also was weird to me. I think you said this, Sonny. There were no extras where there should have been extras. The sparseness of the movie was very obvious and bad.
JVL00:57:22For that, they would have needed $350 million. Yeah, right, exactly. Because you've got to buy out the extras on the back end. Yeah, you've got to pay for the lunch, you know?
Sonny00:57:32You know what you have to feed as an extra? You know what you don't have to feed as a CGI monstrosity?
Mike00:57:37I guess. You know, I didn't get... I didn't get the whole society that was going on in the X, right? Okay, so there's scavenger robots, and then there's this little oasis in this old mall where the robot president, Mr. Peanut, is like... What else is going on in there? It seems like it's just scavengers and survivors. I don't know. It was all so dumb, and I hated it. I hated everything about it. It sucks, and it really sucks. That's my review.
JVL00:58:20My bad. I'm the one who emailed you guys about this like a month ago when I saw the price tag and that it had been bypassed by theaters entirely and dumped on a Netflix. I was like, "Oh, this sounds like it was the most expensive, lowest-rated Rotten Tomatoes movie or something like that." It's great fodder for talking about.
Mike00:58:39It's great fodder. It's so bad. It's not so bad it's good, but it's so bad that it's fun to trash it. And this was totally—it's just such total garbage. Also, I hate that stupid smiley robot on the cartoon character robot that is her brother the whole time. I resented it after like five minutes of seeing that thing. I was like, "Oh, we got to be with this thing the whole movie?" Also, just a waste of Giancarlo Esposito and even like Stanley Tucci, it's just like, it's all crap. Like, Holly Hunter's in this movie. What the hell is Holly Hunter doing? Steve Jobs as Stanley Tucci. Yeah, it's great. Yeah, yeah, all right. Any final thoughts on The Electric State?
JVL00:59:25Kill it with fire.
Sonny00:59:27I can't wait for the sequel.
Mike00:59:29Yeah, woo, I guess that franchise. All right, well, that is all the time we're going to give to this episode. Join us over at subbeacon.com. Tell your friends, tell your family. Maybe we'll watch something that everybody enjoys next time. By the way, we'll talk to you next time. The only thing that my wife knew about this movie was that Millie Bobby Brown was in it because she's like, I can't escape her promotion of this movie. Everywhere. She's like, everywhere. But she was like, I watched the trailer and I have no idea what it's about. And I explained it to her and she was like, that's enough. I don't need to hear anything more.
Sonny01:00:12People should read – the book is actually pretty interesting and haunting and creepy and deals with the idea of robot intelligence in a fascinating and terrifying way. Whereas this movie deals with the idea of robot intelligence in the dumbest way possible.
Mike01:00:29I'm sure it's fine.
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