#310. Titan: The Oceangate Disaster
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The main event is Titan: The Oceangate Disaster, Netflix's documentary about Stockton Rush and the implosion of his homemade carbon-fiber submersible. Sonny calls it a straightforward, somewhat visually dull talking-head doc in the Fyre Festival/Theranos mold, but says its real value is showing just how deranged the whole scheme was — he can't fathom the mindset of rich "explorers" who pay to gawk at a rusting wreck, dismissing the whole enterprise as "masturbatory" rather than genuine adventure. JVL pushes further into why wealthy people court death this way, comparing sub tourism and extreme mountaineering to playing Russian roulette with better odds, and reserves his real anger for Rush endangering a 19-year-old passenger who never consented to the risk. Mike focuses on how Oceangate's "mission specialist" gimmick let paying customers cosplay as crew to dodge regulation, and on how wealth and internet-style distance from consequences bred Rush's delusion that danger simply didn't apply to him; the trio also debate how much blame belongs to the CBS reporter and media outlets who hyped Rush before the disaster. Before getting to Titan, the episode opens with a long stretch of banter: Sonny riffs on Daniel Drezner's Theories of International Politics and Zombies into a theory of what makes parody work (it requires love, not contempt, for the thing being mocked), pulling in Blazing Saddles, Hot Fuzz, Documentary Now!, American Vandal, and Only Murders in the Building along the way. Mike then delivers an epic, deadpan saga about replacing a broken dryer baffle that requires disassembling half the machine, prompting JVL to argue he should have just paid someone (or bought a new dryer) rather than burn a night on it, while Sonny recounts a similar washing-machine repair-vs-replace saga of his own. They also run through the box office (How to Train Your Dragon holds number one again over 28 Years Later and a disastrous Pixar opening for Elio) and debate why original animated films keep flopping theatrically. The episode closes with Mike recalling a nostalgic 1990s Titanic-themed adventure video game with an absurd time-travel plot involving young Adolf Hitler.
From the show notes
Going to the Titanic seems dumb.
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00There was no way of knowing where title was going to fail, but it was a mathematical certainty that it would fail. Stockton saw an opportunity to restart tourist visits to Titanic. Stockton fully believed in what he was doing and that it would work. He wanted fame. To fuel his ego, fame. I have no desire to die.
Mike00:00:40Welcome to the Sub-Beacon Podcast. I'm your co-host Mike Warren and joining me as always are my two co-hosts, who I suspect may have carbon fiber bodies themselves, Jonathan V. Last and Sonny Bunch. Join us over at subbeacon.com. Tell your friends and family if they want to listen to the show. They've got to do it at subbeacon.com. Become a member. Join the conversation in the comments. Lots of comments from last week's show about Civ VI and the people who commented only were able to do so because they are patrons at subbeacon.com. What did they say, Michael? Oh, they said all kinds of stuff. Different things about which Civilization games are better than others. Why Civ VI? Apparently, Civ VII is really flopping, is really kind of not going anywhere and sort of in line with what we discussed. So lots of conversation, lots of communication between our listeners over there at subbeacon.com. Later on in the show, we are going to be talking about Titan. I think it's got a subtitle of some kind, but Titan is the name of the documentary on Netflix.
Sonny00:01:52The Ocean Gate Disaster.
Mike00:01:54Titan, the Ocean Gate Disaster. There we go. On Netflix. On Netflix. We'll be talking about that later in the show. But first, let's see how everyone is doing.
JVL00:02:00Fire Festival, if people died horrifically. Yes, exactly. But far fewer people directly affected than in Fire Festival.
Mike00:02:13Yeah, but let's first talk about what's going on in our lives. JVL, you want to kick us off?
JVL00:02:18No, I yield the balance of my time. I did too much time with lightsaber talk last week and I feel guilty about that. And so I give it back to you, the people.
Mike00:02:30Oh, very generous. Sonny, what's going on with you, Sonny Bunch?
Sonny00:02:33Lightsaber talk was fun. I think people like lightsaber talk. I thought it was fun too. I like lightsaber talk. I don't have a ton to discuss. I wanted to just mention briefly, I dipped back into a book that came out in, I think it was 2011 or 2012, called Theories of Politics and Zombies, which was written by Daniel Dresner, which was like, it was kind of a book that piggybacked on the, remember the moment where everything was like plus zombies, so it was like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.
JVL00:03:12Yes. Harriet Tubman and Zombies.
Sonny00:03:15Right. And then that kind of transformed into Abraham Lincoln versus vampires and whatever. I've always loved Dan's book. And I'm talking to him on the, on Bulwark goes to Hollywood this week. But I've always loved Dan's book because it is, it's a pitch perfect parody, which is to say it is a parody that can only be written by somebody who is familiar with and loves the form that he's parodying. So, you know, the idea of this book is basically like, okay, how would theories of international relations, various realists versus neocons versus structuralists versus constructivists versus feminists versus, you know, like how do all of these theories predict what would happen in a zombie apocalypse? And now again, the hook here is like, it's funny because it's zombies, right? But the real, the real joy of the book is that it is written as a straightforward IR textbook. It's like, it is like, it is re it's, it's 150 pages. It's very short. Um, and it's, it's very readable, but it is written. It is written in a, uh, a totally straight faced way that essentially says, well, what does the literature say? And he goes through all of the, he goes through both the zombie movies and, you know, in 28 days later, it predicts a breakdown on this length versus 28 weeks later, which is a breakdown here. Um, you know, uh, and, and again, it's just written, it's written in this very funny, uh, parody format, but that got me thinking about like what parodies work and what don't. And like, I, I find that a lot of the times when I'm watching a parody movie, they don't work. The reason they don't work is because the person who was making them obviously hates the thing that they are parodying. Right? Like, so like the reason, uh, the reason blazing saddles works as a parody of Cowboys films or like a general comedy is because I think Mel, Mel, Mel Brooks really likes. The, the, the genre of the, the Western, right? Like he, like he is, he's parodying like real things from it, but also, you know, with his own kind of sardonic point of view or a hot fuzz, right? Like hot fuzz is a, is a, is a great kind of parody of. The American action movie from the perspective of a very British filmmaker. It's a, it's a, it's a movie that, um, only really works if you really enjoy the kind of like big over the top bombastic Michael Bay, 1980s Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone style, uh, action movie. Right. Right. Um, and I just think there's, there's something, there's something kind of neat to that. There's something, uh, there's something, um, I think very, I think very crucial. I like it's, it's, I, I, I didn't plan on, on going down this path, but I think that like, this is like a key theory of art that people need to keep in mind. The, the, the best and most effective way to make fun of something is to first love that thing. Yes. And I am a, I like comedy has to come from a place of love, not a place of hate.
Mike00:06:38So this is, this is true. If you look at things like, um, like music parodies, right? Like weird owl is a, is a talented musician who loves the music that he's parodying. And, um, and that, you know, he doesn't hate my Michael Jackson when he writes eat it. Like he, he loves Michael Jackson and understands like he understands it. And I think loving it is, is a definitely a prerequisite. But if you look at like some of the worst sort of parody movies, um, like those, those awful, I feel like in the two thousands, there was that string of just sort of playing off of the success of scary movie and it's that like epic movie or these other, which were, which were just awful cash grabs that were like, it's not even that the people who were making them didn't love the movies they were making fun of. They didn't even really understand the movies. It was just throw bad jokes and references at the wall and hope that they stick. Um, but, but again, whether it's, whether it's the movies you mentioned Sonny, or, you know, I think of the Zazz movies, right? Airplane and, um, and the Leslie Nielsen movie, you know, naked gun, like they, if you, especially airplane, right? Airplane is literally the, the script of airplane is 60% from a B movie that the Zazz guys just loved about it, about an airplane, uh, in, in trouble. And, and like, like they literally just lifted the lines from it and, and loved it so much that they, but also realized it was so, so silly and ridiculous or the, um, uh, uh, mystery science theater 3000. Like those guys love those bad cheesy movies. And so they can sort of make fun of them or parody of them. Um, only because they, they understand them in a deep way and not just like, look at them with disdain.
Sonny00:08:45So I think you're right. JBL. You seem skeptical when I said that comedy has to
JVL00:08:50come from a place of love, not hate. No, I was just thinking, do you mean comedy or parody?
Sonny00:08:56Well, I, I specifically mean parody though. I do think comedy, I think it is, I think it is more helpful to like, I think it's, I don't know. I, I, I am a believer in the idea that you need to actually enjoy the thing to really make or like the person to make fun of the person, you know, does that, does that make sense? Like, does it, but maybe not, maybe, I think
JVL00:09:19it's certainly true of comedy that works too. Yeah. I think it's certainly true of parody that it has to come from a place of love because it has to come from a place of understanding and as, as the Buddha would tell us to, to understand something is to love it and to love it is to understand it. Yeah. So that's right. Yeah.
Sonny00:09:36The other place where you really see this work is, uh, in the, the like kind of true crime podcast, uh, true crime and podcast, true crime podcast, uh, uh, parody productions. One of which is only murders in the building, which the first season of which is like kind of a pitch perfect, like it's like, it's clearly made by people who, who listen to and enjoy these things and, you know, can, can kind of break down the beat by beat what happens in them. But there was also the, um, what was the, what was the Netflix comedy series? Oh, American Vandal. Did you guys, I could have sworn we did an episode on American Vandal JBL, the one with the it's in the high school and they're drawing dicks on the lockers. Yeah. Uh, but it that's another one where it's like, it's, it's clearly made by people who really enjoy the whole true crime movie format and they are true crime streaming show format. And they, they kind of made it, but with kids drawing dicks on things.
JVL00:10:37I mean, if I could cross over with today's episode, uh, and topic, do you think we have enough genre of business failure democracy, uh, documentaries, Netflix, business failure, documentaries, like, uh, like the fire festival and the, we work and the Theranos and all that, that we could have had a version of the, uh, Titans sub disaster that was done as a parody mockumentary.
Sonny00:11:08Absolutely. I think, well, there's, are you familiar with, this must've been done by somebody
Mike00:11:13must've made one of these by now documentary now did any of those, I mean, cause, cause documentary now, which is a great, a great show, at least the ones that I think I've seen the first two or three seasons, um, does this for all All kinds of documentaries. Um, I'm trying to remember if they have one. I mean, I, I don't know. I've heard of the show, but never seen it. Okay. So documentary now is, uh, Fred Armisen, Bill Hader, Seth Meyers. Right. And, um, the, the first season takes like, and I, so I can't speak to the other ones, but the first season takes like actual real kind of, uh, uh, legendary or premiered documentaries and parodies them kind of specifically. So gray garden, is I think the first one that they parody, which is the one about the Bouvier, um, yeah, the Kennedy offshoot, uh, family. And, um, uh, there's like a great vice news documentary, uh, uh, parody and all that. So they must've done one of these. Um, but I've, I've always had the first two seasons, but it's good. And they, and they clearly love these documentaries too.
Sonny00:12:18Yeah. Yeah. I should, I should check that out. That sounds funny. Have you not seen it? Have you not seen it? I've not seen, I, I am not even aware. What do, what is it on? Is it on?
Mike00:12:26So it was originally aired on IFC and I think it's on AMC plus is what it says, but I remember watching it, I think on, on Netflix at one point. Um, but they do, I mean, the, the, the last episode of the first season is a two-parter and it's a, um, it's a parody of the history, history of the Eagles. Um, the, you know, the rock band and, uh, it's, it's, it's fantastic. And they even have. Uh, Michael McDonald, like has a cameo in it as, you know, a Daryl, you know, Kenny Loggins, like in a weird way, it's like the precursor to that actual yacht rock documentary. Um, and it's, uh, it's true, but they've got like a whole song that's done in that California kind of style. Um, Catalina breeze, anyway, it's good stuff. And they clearly love those documentaries. So all right, Mike. All right. Well, so, so I wanna, I wanna do a little, little Tim, the tool man, Taylor, uh, corner here. Um, so I just wanna, I wanna present, I'm sure there are listeners of ours out there who have had this problem and I wanna walk you through how to fix this problem. If it, if it ever occurs in your home. Um, so you, do you guys know how front loader front loading dryers work? They've got the rotating drum. Mm-hmm and when you put your wet clothes in there and turn on the dryer, there are like in mind, for instance, there are three plastic baffles that are mm-hmm screwed into the drum. And the point of the baffle is to lift the clothes as the drum turns. So they're not just sitting in a pile at the bottom mm-hmm of a turning that, you know, they've got to sort of be lifted up and, and air and get agitated. It it's, it's sort of the, yeah, it's the dryer's version of agitation. Um, so you may know that those, uh, despite companies like GE have having the highest level of, you know, quality in their manufacturing, sometimes those baffles can get loose and can even, uh, fall off. For instance, if, uh, your kid's wet shoes are thrown into the dryer to dry and they get knocked around enough that it can knock one of the baffles off. Mm-hmm so if this happens to you, uh, which it may, uh, you can, you could follow these instructions and learn exactly what, uh, what you're getting into if you try to fix it yourself. So the first thing is the baffles baffles can be easily purchased online. Uh, you can buy them through GE's website or on Amazon. Just find it, find the baffle. There are these little plastic things. It costs you like 12 bucks, 15 bucks to get it shipped to you.
JVL00:15:15Um, are these OEM baffles that you're purchasing or third party generic knockoffs?
Mike00:15:21So I bought, I bought an OEM, an original, uh, but, and actually, so that actually, now that I'm thinking about it may have cost a little more, I think it was a little more like $37, but you can't dry. Your clothes thoroughly and efficiently without all three baffles.
Sonny00:15:37Can't keep track of the clothes without a baffle.
Mike00:15:39Exactly. So, uh, you're going to buy it, you're going to get it. And what, what comes with the baffle? Nothing. It's, it's just the baffle. Um, luckily, uh, there are, so there are three screws that screw from the outside of the drum, screw the baffle in attach it to screw into the baffle and attach it to the inside of the drum. Um, and this is what becomes loose. So like, as you're running loads and particularly if anything's heavy, it can loosen those baffles. Um, so to access the outside of the drum, which is covered.
JVL00:16:16You can't just stick your head into the dryer and put the screw in that way. You've got to get access to the exterior. The drum, which is concealed by the housing of the dryer unit. Is that what you're saying? Uh, Mr.
Mike00:16:33Last, uh, you get a bonus point for this lesson. That is exactly what you've got to do. So should murder whoever designed that. Oh, it gets worse. It gets worse. So the next thing you're going to want to do is once you've secured your baffle from Amazon for $37 and two, two days of shipping, um, you're gonna, uh, you're going to unscrew. The little screws that, that are on the top of the housing. Um, so you open your door, you don't have to take the door off, but open the door of your dryer. And there are two screws that keep the top part of the dryer housing attached to, uh, where the door closes. Um, you're going to take that off. And in some models of dryers made by some manufacturers taking those, uh, screws out. Allows you to essentially lift up the front of that housing, pivot it back. Almost like on a hinge and access the drum. How easy would that, how easy is that sound? Like we're, we're, we're cooking with gas, right? Uh, not the case with this particular brand and model of dryer. Um, you've then got to, oh, by the way, at this point you should have unplugged the dryer. You should always unplug the dryer when you're working on the dryer. Uh, the next step is to, uh, is to detach the back of the control panel where all the wiring is so that you can reach the screws that are holding the back part of the upper housing so that you can lift that up. Uh, but there's a problem here because all of that wiring is, which is located in the control panel, goes down into the machine itself from the control panel. So you've got to detach that. You've got to detach all of the wiring in order to fully lift off the top of the housing to reach the drum so that you can screw the baffle in with three little screws. Um, at this point, you're going to want to use your, your, your phone likely as a camera in 2025, you don't want to take a few pictures of the wiring, which is helpfully color-coded. So you know exactly where each wire should go. Um, and, uh, but if you're looking for something simple in terms of. Unplugging wiring, uh, you're not going to find it. There's going to be spade connectors. Does anybody know what a speed connector is? No, I'm seeing, I'm seeing no, no, no recognition from the class here. Uh, spade connectors a little.
Sonny00:19:10Oh yeah, no, I know what these are. They're the little like forks.
Mike00:19:13Essentially. Yes. They, they slide onto, uh, uh, they slide onto the metal connector. Uh, that's, that's it. And, and, and in order to loosen it, you have to sort of take something like a flathead screwdriver and like push in this tiny little tab in order to loosen it. And sometimes the tiny little tab doesn't loosen it. So you gotta use a little elbow grease and muscle to get it off. Um, and, uh, and there's probably about 15 wires that you've got to disconnect in order to take this, uh, apart. So all you're doing so, so, but, but, but you've done it. Okay. Congratulations. You've done it. You've, you've been able to disconnect the wires. And loosen all of the screws that are holding the top of the dryer on. So once you lift the top of the dryer, you should be able to access the drum. Turn the drum the right way and be, oh, oh, I'm sorry. You've just taken the top off. There's one little extra thing you've got to do. You've got to detach an additional metal, uh, plate protective plate of some kind. Because it, the half of the drum is exposed when you lift off the top, but not the entire drum. And particularly not the part of the drum where you need to access the farthest back screw. Anyway, point is you've got to do all of this stuff. Oh, you're just going to like put it in this tiny tight little laundry room that you have. Um, and then when you finally get there, you'll be able to access the drum having taken like having unscrewed, like maybe like 20 screws and unhooked 15 wires. Um, and, uh, and then you can access it and then, oh, it's, it's a simple, simple process of taking the three screws from your old baffle, unscrewing them from the broken baffle and then screwing them into the new baffle. Uh, and then spinning your drum around and tightening the screws on the other baffles, just to make sure this doesn't happen again. Then you got to put it all back together in backward order. Um, it it's, uh, if, if you have questions that was, that was, you know what that was, that was like Monday night. After a day of work and the thing came in and I was like, oh, I can do this in like 20 minutes. Cause all you gotta do is take things off unscrew and screw. And, um, it was that, it was that moment where like, I just texted my wife and was like, tell the kids, I said, goodnight.
Sonny00:21:41I'll see, I'll see them tomorrow. Did you, I mean, I assume you like Googled how to do this before you started. Yes, I did. And you, you didn't see all the steps.
Mike00:21:53Uh, just say this. If you Google in a general sense, like a dryer, how to do this for a dryer. Oh no, you got it. You got it. Yeah. Well I did that. I did that before I got the new baffle and it's, oh, you just hinge it up and you can, uh, uh, you know, have access and then you hinge it back down and screw it back in. And once I, once I got to the point where I had the baffle and I was ready to go, I said to myself, I should kind of look up to see for this particular model, what to do. And that's, that's where I learned what kind of journey I was about to go on over the next 90 minutes.
Sonny00:22:32I mean, that's, you know, that's a, uh, I, I, I assume the reason you can't just screw it in from the top is because the, the worry is that the screws would catch on your clothes and tear them. Like you don't want to have exposed screw heads on the top, right?
Mike00:22:47Absolutely. No, no, no. It, it, it makes perfect sense why you can't act like, why you have to access the drum. Like, right. It should be attached. It should be attached, uh, from the outside so that it, that it's more secure. And as you know, if those screws are recessed,
JVL00:23:03if the baffles are created in such a way that the screw head is recessed, then there would be no reason to have to go through the inside. The only possible explanation for why the engineers chose to design this way is because it saved one third of a cent in their in internal assembly costs. That is a possibility. I also, I also believe if general electric thought that they could save one third of a cent by executing your mother at gunpoint, they would do that too, because they're monsters. That's a chapter in Jack Welch's book, I think. Um,
Sonny00:23:43no, I would assume, I mean, I also assume it's just a planned obsolescence sort of thing. Like if it breaks and it's such a pain in the ass to put back together, you're just like, fuck it.
Mike00:23:51Yes. And also some collusion with the, um. Big baffle. Repair with the repair. Repairman.
Sonny00:23:58Repairman. Man, those repairmen.
JVL00:23:59Uh, you know. What, uh, at what point in the process, Michael, did you first consider simply getting a new dryer? I never considered that. It's a relatively new dryer.
Sonny00:24:09We are so different. You are in, you are in all the way.
Mike00:24:11We are so different. Yeah. No, never. No, I would've, I would've considered, I didn't consider it, but I would've considered calling someone to come fix it for me before I would consider getting a new dryer. See, that's a not how I roll. Um.
JVL00:24:24The first thing I think is, let's just fucking replace it.
Mike00:24:28It's a, no, okay, JVL. It is such a, it is such a straightforward, uh, repair in that sense, right? Like it is literally just. Doesn't sound that straightforward. A piece of plastic. Well, if you, if you know what you're doing, it's a straightforward repair. If you don't know what you're doing, like, like me, then it becomes a nightmare. Um, but like it is a piece of plastic and three screws. Like it could not be more simple. And I look at that and I say, why am I going to buy a new dryer? Which I just
JVL00:24:59bought a dryer like five years ago. Like no, no. Five. Yeah. Michael, Michael, uh, are you familiar with the economic theory of specialization where your labor is most productive in the things that you are specialized to do? For instance, writing sitting in tip, tip, tip, tip, tip, tip, tip, tip, tip, tip, typing on a keyboard. You are very good at that. That is where your time should be spent because that is where you add the most value and can recapture the, the fruits of your labor for things like this. That's somebody else. And if you can solve that by just calling someone and either having them fix it or have them deliver a new machine and set it up and walk away, that's what you should do.
Mike00:25:53It's not the, the cost. The cost is not like my time is not so valuable that I need to buy a new dryer. No, it's not. Yes, it is. I guarantee you it's not.
Sonny00:26:05I mean, it, it would be one thing if it, it, it, I I'm torn on this because it's one thing if you have to like take a day off work, right? If you, if he was like, if he was gonna have to take like a paid vacation day or something, but if it's a thing you can do at night or on a weekend, I, I
JVL00:26:23mean, I would, a man can only do so much, Sonny. Let me tell you the only reason we, he's got children. He's got a job. You want him to then give up his night to wrestle with a fucking dryer?
Mike00:26:34Hold on JVL JVL. Can I, can I deserve better? Can I say this though? About halfway through because of the, because like once I saw that it was gonna be a real thing, I like, I got out my phone and I like put on a Pearl jam playlist and like blasted it. And again, I texted my wife and said, kiss the kids. Good night for me. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm down here. I reached a certain point of bliss, you know, like it's been hot. It's cool in my basement, you know, where the, uh, where the, where the, where the washer and dryer are. I have my music with me. I had kind of a, uh, uh, I had a task and some challenges, you know, there, there's some utility that, that comes out of that. Um, and honestly, what else am I gonna be doing with my time? I got, I got nothing else going on. I didn't, I got nothing else. This is my life. I want more for you, son. I want more for you, Michael. All right. Anyway, Sonny, did you have any other thoughts or should we move on?
Sonny00:27:34No, I, I, I mean, I, I did recently go through this with our washing machine and that was one of those things where like replacing the lid was so expensive that it just was like, it makes, we've, we've already done it once. We're doing it again would be, you know, just ridiculously cost prohibitive. We got to just get a new one, just bite the bullet and get a new one. And the new washer is great. It's a, it's a front loader instead of a top loader. It doesn't get unbalanced all the time.
Mike00:27:59Like that last one we had. All right. Well, look, let's, uh, let's move on way into the comments, uh, uh, what you would have done in this situation, but let's move on to box office because we've got to talk about, uh, yeah, the number one movie, once again, how to train your dragon. Uh, it's now two weeks in a row. It's been number one at the box office, but number two and three, 28 years later, the sequel to 28 days later, uh, is, uh, is number two with $30 million and it's a opening weekend. And then Elio, a Pixar, a Disney produced or Pixar produced Disney movie coming in at third at just under $21 million. I didn't, I have to say this. I thought Elio was a movie that came out like years ago. I don't know why this is like, just coming out now, or I'm confusing it with like some of these other, like Pixar movies that
Sonny00:28:56have no imprint on me. It was, it was scheduled to come out in March of last year, I believe. And then they pushed it back. It was, it was scheduled to come out last year at some point. I forget, I forget exactly when, but, but they, they pushed it back. Disastrous opening for Elio the 20, $21 million, the worst Pixar movie debut ever. Like, you know, not, I guess not, I don't I can't remember if they released turning red and I was going to say red and soul worse than those. Yeah. Well, I can't remember if they released those in theaters or if those went, I'm pretty sure those went straight to Disney, just Disney, uh, Raya and the last dragon got a, got a hybrid
JVL00:29:37release, but the Pixar can no longer open original properties. Yeah. Well, all, all animated, all
Sonny00:29:45original animated movies have had real trouble with this recently. Richard Rushfield had a piece on this, uh, a couple of, um, a couple of days ago. I just, let me pull it up here, uh, because he had a, he had a chart, uh, but yeah, like elemental open to $29 million and actually ended up legging out cause it was pretty good. Migration opened to $12 million and Canto opened to $27 million. That was a hybrid wish open to $19 million, uh, onward open to $39 million Raya and the last dragon, 9 million. But again, that was hybrid, um, strange world, $12 million, Ruby Gilman, teenage crack and $16 million. Like it's, it's, it's everywhere all across the board. Uh, getting, getting families to go to original animation is enormously difficult right now and has been for six or seven years. I mean, it's been, it's been a long time since Coco, which I think was the last big original animated, box office hit. Um, and I, I, if I am, uh, if I run a studio that caters to children, I, I am starting to get a little bit worried about this. Now, some of them are better positioned than others, right? Like, uh, you know, DreamWorks has no problem, um, kind of dipping into, uh, dipping into licensing and that sort of thing. Right. Super Mario brothers made a ton of money. The Super Mario brothers movie made a ton of money that that did very well. Um, I bet this, uh, upcoming Smurfs movie is going to do pretty well. Although I don't know, I, maybe not. Um, it might Smurf at the box office though, but the, uh, but the original stuff is all,
JVL00:31:34uh, it's just a disaster. So I, Sonny, I had a question watching or reading, cause I read that piece by Richard as well. And I wonder if animation should not view their original properties, the first installment as a loss leader, because animation, plays differently than other movies because children will watch it on their iPads a million times. And so if you can do a product, which is set up to have a bunch of sequels, like a minion or a, an inside out, right? Something like that. So long or cars, so long as the first one is minimally viable, once you can get it out of theaters and then onto streaming, you can come theaters in two years with installments of it and wind up with gigantic sequel openings. Cause we've had some huge openings for animated sequels. Right. So inside out two was one of the biggest
Sonny00:32:37movies of last year. Uh, you know, in, and again, there is, there is a, no, I look, I think that that's probably, I think that's the way Disney in particular has to look at it. Um, more so than universal illumination, dreamworks, the rest of those.
JVL00:32:52It also means you can't look at these as one and done stories. Like you can't do a movie.
Sonny00:32:57Right. So it has to be, it has to be inherently franchisable like is the, is the thing. And that, you know, I, I, that's always, that's always a risky thing, you know, but I know, I think that's basically right. I mean, I think you, I think you basically have to make these things. You have to do the, the theatrical release with everything that entails, because that is what signals to audiences that these are real movies to watch at home and not just, you know, streaming slop. So, you know, all of these movies are, are going to end up losing money. But then you make it up, you make it up at the parks, you make it up on the sequels, you make it up on streaming. And that's the other thing, right? Like the other thing to consider here is that, you know, Richard, Richard ran through a bunch of possible culprits for this. I mean, I think part of it is that the themselves are just have not been very good. Frankly, I like they, they, there's been a lot of pretty dire original animated stuff. I think families have grown wary of Disney and, and in particular because of, you know, political stuff. Though I think that is, that's, that's, I always think that's a little overblown, but I do think that that is kind of, there's a cumulative effect there, but then there's also just streaming like streaming is you, you, when you create an incentive to go to theater because if we, if you pay us $20 a month, you can watch everything all the time, right from your couch. Don't have to buy popcorn. Don't have to buy soda. Don't have to buy juice. You know, you're gonna, you incentivize people to stay home. Like it, it, it, then it has the world of animation basically has run into a franchise tent pole problem, which is that for a large segment of the audience in their brains, the only reason to go to theater is got to see the big new Jurassic world on the big screen. Got to see new Superman on the big screen. Cause that's, you got to see it big, got to see big. You don't want to see it small. You gotta, I got to see F1 on the big screen because of the big cars going fast. And I think, I think that has happened in a slightly different way. Um, but, but you know, in the same, the, the idea is the same, like families now think like, we're only going to see the big things because we have everything else here at home. Right.
Mike00:35:21Yeah. That makes sense. Um, any other box office thoughts?
JVL00:35:27No. Let's talk about death and delamination.
Mike00:35:30Oh yeah, baby. Uh, Titan, the ocean gate disaster. Uh, we all watched the, this is a Netflix documentary. Sonny, do you want to give us a review of this, uh, two hour documentary?
Sonny00:35:43Yeah. Titan, the ocean gate disaster on Netflix. Um, I, I, it's pretty straightforward. It's a walking head style documentary where they are interviewing people who were, who worked at the company. Uh, they interview, uh, the daughter of this famous French explorer who, um, had been to the Titanic a bunch of times and whose, whose father died on this trip. Um, they talked to some government people and some, some competitors, uh, about like what this guy had done wrong. But the long and the short of it is this, this is a documentary about a bullheaded fail, unrich person who was like, I want to go to the Titanic and I want people to pay me for the privilege of taking them there. And I'm going to build the cheapest piece of shit sub that you can make and get down there. And I'm not going to listen to anybody when they tell me that this thing is going to implode and kill everybody. Um, because you just, you watch this documentary and the thing that jumps out is how in, how, how, how insane the whole scheme is. How insane it, and look, I don't, and I don't know anything about engineering. I don't know anything about carbon fiber versus, uh, titanium versus plexiglass versus, you know, I don't, I, I couldn't tell you what withstands what pressures at what PSI, but I can tell you, I can tell you if I'm in a submarine and I have microphones set up all around the submarine to kind of monitor. What the internal pressures, uh, look like, or the internal structure looks like with regard to the materials, keeping out the trillions of gallons of water from crushing me to death. And I'm hearing pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. Every time I go below like 500 meters, I'm getting the fuck away from that thing. I like, I would, you, you could not have paid me to get on that ship. You couldn't have paid me to get on that ship anyway. And here's the secondary thing that I want to, I want to discuss with you guys. Cause like the ship itself, it's, it is, it is like fire festival. It is like Theranos. It is like any of these other things where it's like you have, you have a deluded person who is, who is either intentionally or unintentionally running a scam and, and, and ends up hurting people badly as a result. Right. Um, uh, but like, I want to, I want to step beyond that and, and just say, I don't. I don't understand the mindset of the person who wants to go to the Titanic in the first place. Okay. It's one thing if you were, it's one, it's one thing to do a shipwreck of like a, a frigate off the coast of Florida and there's gold doubloons and you're doing some treasure hunting and you're finding priceless artifacts, whatever. I don't understand. I don't understand the people who just want to go down in the water and look at the wrecked ship. I don't understand it. It, it makes no sense to me.
JVL00:38:51It's rubbernecking for rich people. What's that? It's rubbernecking for rich people.
Sonny00:38:56That, that's certainly part of it. And there's, and there's like this whole like, well, I'm one of the only people who has ever done this. Exclusivity. You went to Everest, big, making a jerk off motion here. A thousand people every year go to the top of Everest. Five people have seen the wreck of the Titanic and like, whatever. Okay, fine. It would be one thing to go with like James Cameron, right? You go with James Cameron and like, he's doing, he's doing real things down there. He's working. He's like actually, you know, putting together documentaries and, and practicing how to use a sub, et cetera. Going with the rest of these, these fucking schlubs, what's the point of it? What, what is the point of it? Um, and again, like you say, it's, it's to say I'm one of the only people who have done this. I find that to be, I, I, I, I tweeted something about this and someone tweeted back, well, I guess you don't have much of a sense of adventure and I'm sorry, but fuck you, man. Like I, this isn't an adventure. Like I, if I'm not, if I'm not fighting cannibal pygmies at the end of this thing that I'm doing, it's not an adventure. You're not, you're not, you're having a Sherpa haul your ass up to the top of Everest is not an adventure. It's dangerous. People die doing it. It's dumb. It's pointless, but it's not an adventure. It's, it's masturbatory. Um, and that is, I, and that's, that's the, that was my big takeaway from all this. And it's tragic, man. Like this, you know, you know, fuck this guy who with his, with his, you know, dumb business and his shitty sub, but like, you know, one of the, one of the customers brought his 19 year old kid on this thing and like, uh, he should have known better. He shouldn't have, but also like he had no reason to believe that this thing was a floating death trap. He didn't know. He wasn't on the design team.
Mike00:40:52He wasn't on the, the previous missions had the most, the, the premier expert on diving for the Titanic was also on it.
Sonny00:40:59Yeah. Like this French guy. And like, I, I feel like there has to be more to this story of him being there because the, the, the daughter who was like, I want to be very clear. He, uh, he was not part of the company. He was not, but like he went a bunch of, he went several times with them. Like he had to have known something was wrong. Ah, I don't know, man. I like, so anyway, that, that's my main takeaway from all this. I think the, the, the structural engineering stuff and the whistleblowing stuff and, and the personalities of the people who were like, who realized one after the other, that this was a bad situation and they had to get away or got fired because they said to the guy, this is a bad situation and we have to stop is all, is all interesting, you know, um, kind of tick tock human drama stuff. But like the, the, my, my big takeaway from this is that I simply do not understand people like this. I don't understand. Um, and that is what it was actually weirdly most interesting about the documentary to me. And frankly, one of the biggest weak spots, like I, I could have used more interviews with people who would have gone on a thing like, like explain to me your rationale for going on this adventure. And if it doesn't make me hate you because you sound like an idiot, you win. But like, I, I, uh, anyway, the one last thing I'll say is I hated the style of the interviews in this documentary. Where they had like, there was like kind of the split diopter effect where you had the person in focus in the foreground, but then the background was also in focus and the, the like background behind the person was all blurry and out of focus. But then there was nobody in the background. There was nothing in the background to look at. It was just like flat. I didn't, I didn't like that. I thought it was dumb. Anyway, that's it. That's all. That's all I got.
JVL00:42:45JVL. Yeah. So Stockton Rush. Ascended from two people who were signers of the Declaration of Independence. Yale. Princeton. Princeton.
Sonny00:42:58Oh, Princeton. I'm sorry. Princeton.
JVL00:42:59Princeton guy. Guys like him, I understand. So he is just entitled and believes that because the entire world has come to him, then the entire world will always come to him and physics will come to him. What does, you know, what do I need to know about alloys and how, you know, don't you know who I am? I'll tell those carbon bonds and the delaminations that my great, great, great, great grandfather was Richard Stockton, signer of the dick. Fuck you.
Sonny00:43:35Lesser signers, not even good signers, really.
Mike00:43:37Well, Benjamin Rush was an impressive person.
Sonny00:43:39Okay, well, whatever. Fine. Medium signers.
JVL00:43:42But what I don't understand is exactly what you put your finger on, Sonny, which is the rich people who want to defy death and why that is. And there are there are two main classes of this, which are the people who are into submergence and then people who are alpinists and, you know, the people who go climbing mountains. And I think that there are there are tropes that these people often use to explain themselves and a lot of time it is about adventure or clarity or or facing death. And I don't think any of those things really hold up to scrutiny, because if you just put it to another way, which is, would you play Russian roulette? Because that's what it is when you put yourself in extreme physical situations like this, you are climbing. Climbing the the Leningrad range or the Stalin range, whatever it is, I just read a piece about this last week and the worst the worst Alpen disaster ever killed like forty three people in an avalanche in Russia. And it's a lot of rich people who climb mountains who who basically like, well, yeah, you know, when you're up there, that's when you really, really feel alive. That's when you really like, OK, we'll just stay at home and like take six bullets out of a gun and spin the chamber and stick it in your mouth and pull the trigger. Right. So what's the difference? And the only difference is the percentages, right, like, you know, the one in six chance of dying or like a one in 60000 chance of dying. But that's really the only difference. And when you start to think of it that way, like I think it kind of explodes a lot of this stuff and it becomes, I think, either people who have a death wish. Or people who have an addiction. To the adrenaline that comes with avoiding death, or it becomes people who are so deluded about their place in the world that they can't imagine that the bad thing will actually happen to them because they are too special, too rich, too smart, too skilled to whatever. And I. My general view is that if people want to do that to themselves, it's a free country, as Jon Voight would say. But when you mean for me, the real villain of this is the guy who brought his 19 year old son with him because that 19 year old kid should not it was not his responsibility to understand that this thing was absolutely not fucking safe. It was absolutely his father's responsibility. And to the extent that he was hoodwinked again, like he shouldn't have been hoodwinked, but he. The one who was like, yeah, no, I'll do it like somebody, some snake oil salesman, you know, who is this? This guy, Stockton Rush, participated in that. And I, man, I, I, I, I have very unchristian thoughts about that sort of thing. Michael, are you you were shaking your head? Are you are you with me on these sorts of people? Like, I'm like, you want an adventure? You know, you want an adventure? Have a fucking family. There is plenty of adventure in having children. And here's your adventure.
Mike00:47:21Fix your own dryer.
JVL00:47:22Fix your own fucking baffles on your dryer. When you could be watching a baseball game, you could be watching Ronald Acuna making his triumphant comeback. And instead, you're trying to save some money to put it towards your kid's college fund. What a rush. So you crawl into like that's adventure because you know what? We're all working without a fucking net on this end, just trying to get through every day.
Mike00:47:44So so my view of this and then I want to talk about like what I liked and didn't like about the documentary. My view on this is the last thing that you mentioned, JVL. I think there's delusion slash ignorance from these motivated ignorance from these rich people that they that the danger is not real because there is no real danger in their lives. And like any problem can be solved by by throwing some money at it. It for them. Right. And so like and you can see this in the way that Stockton Rush created the the submersible the Titan and how we operated the tour aspect of it. Right. So there's the there's you know, and there was this got a lot of attention when it happened. But right. The PlayStation controller, which controls it. There's a there's something there's something kind of. Light hearted and playful about that that makes it seem not real. Right. I mean, there's there is a there is a definite effect of of placing distance between the reality of the danger and the risk and and your actual, you know, what you're doing. I mean, this is like to me is a bigger problem with with kind of the way that the Internet has infected a lot of things in a negative way. Which is we are like far removed from the things that we do and say from that from the from the results of the things that we do or say. So people can say disgusting, racist, sexist, awful things to other people online that that the majority of them, the vast majority of them would never actually say to somebody to their face because they're removed from the actual risk of it. So I feel like there's that's an aspect of it. But you notice in the documentary how they've they've focused particularly the beginning on the scam of getting people who are in order to kind of get around regulations, the people who who are paying customers are given jobs in order to be mission specialists, to be mission specialists. And so that not only helps Ocean Gate get around the regulations because every everybody is an employee for any given mission. But it gives there's more cosplaying going on on the part of the customers like it. They might as well be at Medieval Times and like on on one of the teams or like on a Disney on a Disney World ride, right? Where they're like, hey, we need your help. You're going to help us do this. And we got to stop Jafar. Exactly. Exactly. And, you know, and what do they expect at the end? They expect Stockton Rush to say, all right, guys, that was that was great. You really. Really helped us out. We'll see you next time. And then crack open the champagne. It's so there's there's a and this is not to let them off the hook at all, but there's that there's a delusion and ignorance that that I think the money creates for these rich people. And I, I am going to try to have more Christian thoughts than maybe I really do. And JVL, you mentioned to say, like, it's still it's still it's still a tragedy. Um, because Stockton Rush was hiding things from people. He was, uh, telling people that, uh, he was telling people that everything was fine and normal, right? Like every, every subversible has loud noises happen. Um, right. And, and he was instilling fear in his employees in very direct ways for these people who were vulnerable. I think, I mean, you know, he, uh, they talked to the, the guy. The, um, the head of, uh, it's not head of operations. It's like the head submersible guy, uh, date. What was his name? Uh, David Lockridge, the most Scottish man, the most Scottish name of anybody. I've ever had David Lockridge. Who's like, who got, who, who sued and counter got countersued at, and like spent a bunch of his money or the, or the girl who graduates from college and gets this job and immediately feels uncomfortable. And then COVID hits and she's like, well, I got to keep a job and like, you know, I mean, everybody likes to think they would stand up and say in them, oh, this is wrong. You can't do this. And, uh, but it's really difficult when you're, when, when it's your first job or when it's a job that you depend on, uh, where your family's depending on it. And that was, that was what may, I mean, this documentary does a good job of making Stockton such an evil villain. And it's very convenient because he's dead that they can do that. Um, but, uh, I think it's basically true. So, uh, what did we think? Any other thoughts on the documentary itself? I mean, it was a little kind of bland and cookie cutter in terms of like, it just kind of told the story, but what I thought was amazing was the, the, the video footage that the guy who did, who was there like videographer for the company had, that was something I was not expecting the, all of this footage from previous dives. And I thought, I thought that was, and the testing, the testing, right?
Sonny00:53:22Yeah.
Mike00:53:23Well, Netflix must've paid for that, right?
Sonny00:53:25Correct. Correct. Yeah. Yeah.
Mike00:53:26Of course. But, but like, it's, you know, not every company in this situation would have had all of that stuff. They, they did it because Stockton Rush was a, um, uh, was a narcissist and wanted everybody to, to see it. What do we think of the CBS news, uh, guy who goes down and, and, um, and does the story for CBS? Does he have any, I wonder how he feels about it.
Sonny00:53:53I, I, well, look, here's, I've seen people say, well, this is just, you know, the media got people killed. The media got people killed by hyping this guy up. And I think that's, I don't, I don't think that's fair. I don't think it's entirely wrong either. I mean, I like it is, it's, it's kind of like, uh, you know, I've been watching Nathan for you, which is the, which is the show. The show that Nathan Fielder did before the rehearsal and, and the other things.
Mike00:54:22Did you finish the rehearsal by the way?
Sonny00:54:24Yeah, I've watched, I've watched it. Yeah. So, um, but the, but one of the, one of the things that like continually happens in Nathan for you is that he will do one of his things and it will go viral, uh, in the real media. Not like it, not just, you know, on YouTube and get lots of views or whatever, but like real media companies will do stories about, about, about him and his things. And like one of the, one of the, one of the. The episodes is about a guy who, uh, so he, he goes to a moving company and he says to the moving company, I'm going to get you free employees by creating a workout program that's built around lifting boxes. And so like, he finds a guy at a gym who's like jacked and, you know, has spent all this time lifting weights. And he says to the guy, I want you to be the head of this, this company. You'll be the figurehead. You're really big and strong. You'll tell people that you got all your weights just by lifting boxes. That you, you know, they have a fake before and after with like this very obviously a different person, like 400 pound guy. And he's like, look at me now. Um, and that guy was on morning shows all across the country. Uh, that guy was on and they were just like, so you lost all this weight by lifting boxes. And like the realities, the realities of morning TV are what they are. They do not have the resources to do an investigation of all of these people that they are having on their show. You have to have some faith and trust that people aren't just lying to you about what they're talking about, whether or not that's a good way to do things is a, is, is a, is a secondary question, but it, it's just like the reality of that business. So I, I have a hard time getting too worked up about it. Ironically, the person who was like, uh, who was kind of most, well, I don't wanna say skeptical, but most like kind of. What's going on here is the influencer guy, the like YouTube influencer, who they get to at the end of the documentary, who was like, I could have died if I went on a, you know, I don't, you know, um, and did not seem to have a good time on the trip that he did go on. Seemed like kind of underwhelmed and non plus by it.
Mike00:56:35Uh, well, cuz they didn't dive, they ultimately didn't dive on it. So he was sort of, so I don't know.
Sonny00:56:41I don't know. I like, I don't think I, I would feel, I would feel bad if I was the CBS guy.
Mike00:56:48You know, he doesn't, he doesn't talk because they interview him, but he doesn't really talk about it. I, I, and like, I, I don't feel like he, I mean, he did what he did, the story that he was told and he expressed skepticism, um, and every reporter who does a good faith job, but misses something and ends up, you know, or like, you know, missed a bigger story. Like I've been, I've been in that situation much, much, much, much lower stakes, you know, you feel. Like, ah, if I had only made one more call or asked one more question that, you know, and so I'm sure he feels bad enough and I don't, I don't want to, I don't want to blame him or anything. Um, but it just, it, it just, I wonder how he, I just wonder how he internally feels. Does he feel any responsibility, uh, for giving them more press, more attention, which is how they were able to finance and get the, the, the last, the last season. Um, uh, for, for ocean gate, uh, any other thoughts on this documentary JVO bad people, bad privilege people. Can we talk about the Titanic as well? Like the other thought, my wife and I were watching this together and I thought, I don't, I've seen the movie, I've seen James Cameron's stuff on the Titanic. Like what else do I need to see of the Titanic? It's just a rotting corpse of a. Ship at the bottom of the ocean. What is, what is fascinating about the Titanic is like what we see in the movie, which is like what it looked like before it sank the, the, the, the, the, the kind of majesty in the old society that kind of died with the Titanic or was, was in the process of dying during that period. Like that's, what's fascinating.
JVL00:58:38I think you had your finger on it, Michael. It's just, it's tourism. And it's the kind of exclusive tourism that you are part of a club that nobody else could go to. I know. Well, I've been to the Titanic.
Guest00:58:50Okay. You've been to the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Well, that's very nice.
JVL00:58:53But uh, have you been down to the Titanic?
?00:58:55Yeah.
JVL00:58:56That sucks. These people.
?00:58:58Exactly.
Mike00:58:59All right. Well, I guess that's all the time we're going to give to this episode. Uh, tell your friends and family to listen to this episode over@subbeacon.com, leave a comment, join the conversation and we'll talk to you next time.
Sonny00:59:17My question is, if you want to see the Titanic, why don't you just put air bladders under the Titanic and lift it up to the surface?
Mike00:59:25That's a great idea. Just the part of the ship that has the secret, uh, the, the, the, the, the stuff to get the
Sonny00:59:35whole thing. Right.
Mike00:59:37Exactly. Uh, have I ever talked about, I probably have not. There is a, uh, there was a computer game about the Titanic, uh, that came out when I was. A kid that I played so much and it was called, uh, Titanic and adventure out of time, I think. And I wonder if any of our listeners are, uh, familiar with it, but it was the premise of it was the game opens up and you are a disgraced former British like secret service agent, uh, in, in, during the battle of London and world war II. And you live in a shitty apartment and, uh, you have all these trinkets around you. Your apartment that suggests you were on the Titanic and, and, but you like failed and whatever mission you had. And then a bomb blows up your apartment and you go back in time and you get to relive your mission on the Titanic and you have to get it right. And what's, uh, and you, it's like pretty accurate in terms of the geography of the ship and all this stuff. And it's basically like, if you win the game completely, uh, you like go around, talk to people, figure stuff out. It's like you stop the Russian revolution. You prevent world war one, um, because you was, and you, and you escape from the Titanic with all of these, like all of these artifacts. So it's like, there's like a, there's like a painting that has these like German war plans secretly on the back that you have to get. And without the war plans, the Germans can't do world war one. And the, the other, the other side of the painting, uh, the actual painting was created by, uh, a young Austrian art student named Adolf Hitler, you know? So like the painting becomes like famous and he becomes this famous artist and all this other stuff. And it's like, and then you come back to, to the, to world war two and like, everything's fine. There's no war.
JVL01:01:26I love that game. Is this a text based game?
Mike01:01:29It is a, um, it was like one of those games.
JVL01:01:33For Gort, whatever that game. No, no.
Mike01:01:34It's like, it's like, it's like, um, you, you, your character walks around the Titanic and then you meet people and you, when you talk to them, there's like, it was like 19 98 or so is when the game came out. So it's got like, it's got like kind of half video. Like there's some video aspects of it. Like they're real actors playing people and, but they don't like move their mouths, but, but they talk and you respond with like text prompts and all that stuff. But, but you have to like solve puzzles too. It's it's anyway, I don't know. I'm sure it's fine.
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