After Dark: Laser Projection, Russo Comments about Cinema, Would We Nuke Everything after Return of the Jedi, Jeff's Running Routine
Added 2025-03-21 17:00:20 +0000 UTCThe Filmcast: After Dark is the bonus show where we talk about a variety of random topics that didn't make it into the main podcast - including your questions and what's going on in our lives.
In this episode, David, Devindra, and Jeff discuss their recent experiences with laser projection, which Russo brother is saying something dumb about movies again, and whether we would snap our fingers and make it so that nothing after Return of the Jedi existed.
PATRONS: You can get this audio in your podcast app by going to patreon.com/filmpodcast, going to the "My Membership" section, and copying and pasting the RSS link to your podcast app.
Comments
Make Up Your Mind Mind- outstanding
Simon Columb
2025-03-29 14:34:08 +0000 UTCI insist that llsts of twists exist.
J Hay
2025-03-27 06:19:48 +0000 UTCI don't understand your reply to Cronenberg's comments ... not at all. He was saying that the attack on "The Brutalist" was started by an Oscar rival, and it's a silly attack since audio is altered all the time when making films. The additional comments about us, as a culture, fighting about things as opposed to enjoying them is NOT connected to that claim. You just made that connection up. He said nothing like the claim you attribute to him ... he did NOT say that Oscar campaigns make us mad about blockbusters.
Richard Doyle
2025-03-25 13:28:06 +0000 UTCWhich is weird because Kershner and Marquand weren't on the same level. And he did get Spielberg for a sequence in ROTS.
Mountain of Conflict
2025-03-25 11:55:13 +0000 UTCDon’t forget, in Jeff’s snap scenario we would still have the Holiday Special. I’m also reminded that George tried to get ANYONE but himself to make the prequels. He approached Spielberg, Coppola, Lynch, they all told him he should make them himself
Gareth
2025-03-24 19:17:46 +0000 UTCI understand the disappointment with Rise of Skywalker dropping some of the interesting parts from The Last Jedi. In my opinion, the reason that happened is because TLJ itself drops many story aspects that TFA set up. And then Disney chose to use the same person that made TFA to make the third movie, and he wanted his plot elements back that TLJ discarded. TLJ is a good movie if you ignore the entire casino thing, how utterly broken the weaponization of a hyperdrive is, and how stupid Holdo refusing to talk to her team was. It would've been great fun as A Star Wars Story. It was a bad fit as the middle movie of a trilogy where the same guy made the first and third movies. I do not blame this on TLJ (or Rian), and not on JJ either. The sequel trilogy is a mess because of Disney/Lucasfilm, and their inane decision to not have any sort of a trilogy narrative prior to making the first film. The sequel trilogy was doomed from the start because it was set up to be three independent movies. (In the aftermath of the Holdo Maneuver, all armies in Star Wars should now be mass producing specially designed, drone-piloted "ships" fitted with a hyperdrive that are just weapons.)
Hank Patton
2025-03-24 16:32:17 +0000 UTCMaybe you had to have been there at the time, seeing it in the theatre (I’m not sure if it holds up now in this streaming era), but: Neil Jordan’s THE CRYING GAME (1993) was a marvelous bit of trickery and plot-twistery. It didn’t work for everyone that saw it, but a large percentage of those that did see the movie were utterly surprised by it. There was also quite the campaign at the time for folks NOT to spoil it; “just go see it, it’s best if you know nothing about it,” was the usual conversation.
CDMatthew
2025-03-24 10:31:32 +0000 UTCYeah I’m 38, been running 5k without hills three days a week for like 6 years, and I’m always averaging around 9:30 pace. I’ve actually been fairly proud of the pace! I didn’t realize this was shamefully slow 😂😂😭😭
Andrew O.
2025-03-23 17:16:51 +0000 UTCRegarding the spoilers convo: This reminds me that I've always wanted to thank Jeff for the way he handled the spoiler warning for their review of Split. I think he said something like "If you are a fan of Shyamalan's films, trust me, turn off this podcast and watch Split. You will want to experience the movie for yourself." I immediately turned off the episode and went out to the theater to see it and I was so happy I did. Thank you, Jeff, for preserving that experience for me!
Hahmstrung
2025-03-23 15:27:06 +0000 UTCSay what you want about the tenets of the prequel trilogy, dude, at least it had an ethos. I'll take Lucas standing his ground and telling the stories he wants any day of the week over Disney's shameful pandering to the worst of the "fandom." Whether you liked the final product or not, at least Lucas was trying to push the franchise and filmmaking technology in new directions. I will give credit to whoever at Disney gave Rian Johnson free reign with The Last Jedi, but all that goodwill was more than erased with the, I'll say again, shameful way the company responded (or lack-there-of in the case of their minority stars getting attacked online) to the most vile, hateful corners of the internet, ignoring the virtually universal critical acclaim and pandering to the extremely loud minority of man-babies. Star Wars died with The Rise of Skywalker.
Hahmstrung
2025-03-23 15:09:07 +0000 UTCSuggestion for a greatest twist movie: CASABLANCA. Rewatched recently. Everything in the film has you convinced of one version of Rick. A closing scene to prove us wrong.
TJR
2025-03-23 11:36:06 +0000 UTCBro you can just edit your original message
Mark P
2025-03-23 09:00:31 +0000 UTCRon Moore (Star Trek, BSG) was recently on Katee Sackhoff's podcast and mentioned how George Lucas created an international writers room where they wrote 40 episodes of a Star Wars TV series that Lucas was going to make and find a distributor for after-the-fact. A year later the Disney acquisition happened. Here is Moore talking about it: https://youtu.be/Xu704p568-Y?t=3132
ivano
2025-03-23 08:01:19 +0000 UTCJust because something is new or trying to be creative doesn’t make it good. Dear god the effort to make the prequels good is PATHETIC.
Reynaldo K. Cruz
2025-03-23 05:48:31 +0000 UTCRed letter media has its problems but their breakdown of the prequel trilogy is undefeated.
Reynaldo K. Cruz
2025-03-23 05:47:27 +0000 UTCRight lol
Reynaldo K. Cruz
2025-03-23 05:39:48 +0000 UTCWrite
Reynaldo K. Cruz
2025-03-23 05:39:42 +0000 UTCJeff is wrote the prequels are by and large embarrassing trash
Reynaldo K. Cruz
2025-03-23 05:39:38 +0000 UTCAny pace faster than 10:00 means you’re running, not jogging, so 9:30 is really good for your health and that’s what counts. I’m a similar age to Jeff and when I was 30 I ran a sub-4 hour marathon. Nowadays, if/when I manage to run that pace I can barely believe I once did it for 26.2 miles! Happens to us all, just maintaining the routine amidst middle-age responsibilities is an achievement in itself.
DarmineDoggyDoor
2025-03-22 23:45:45 +0000 UTCI will say I absolutely agree with Jeff about the prequels. I think if Lucas has let other people direct them like he did the original trilogy we might have something superior to what we got even if they were still working with the same scripts Lucas wrote. And the Phantom Menace was absolutely the beginning of the fracturing of the fandom. But I've gotta say... Things were better when the franchise simply lived on in novels and comics. The fandom was especially less toxic and outwardly hateful, although it's important to note there wasn't anything really putting women in the forefront of the canon back then, which seems to be a source of a lot of hate towards the new stuff. And I'll parenthetically point out the argument that the prequels were just for kids... I'm not clear if that's a defense or a criticism. But I will point out there were Star Wars cartoons that were very much for kids well before the prequels existed. It's certainly not a reason why the prequels were bad. As for what would things look like if LucasFilm were independent... Well, yes, the output would be lessened. But I don't think the creative direction overall would be much different since Kathleen Kennedy is the one who took over steering LucasFilm and Star Wars from her friend George Lucas. She is devoted to keeping his vision of the franchise alive, which is why we've gotten more fan service stories than original and novel directions.
Jeff Gibson
2025-03-22 23:13:14 +0000 UTCPlease pass my thanks to Jeff for answering my running question, which I listened to on a Sunday morning run. Assure him I was not trying to favourably compare my running times to his - I’m also an ‘old’ runner, born 1978. I was curious at this age if I’m doing the right routines and realise Jeff is about my vintage and could learn from him
Mark P
2025-03-22 22:00:05 +0000 UTCIt’s also on Max as of now.
Jon See
2025-03-22 12:48:30 +0000 UTCSo much better than Ghostlight.
Mountain of Conflict
2025-03-22 11:11:22 +0000 UTCAnd no, La Jetée is so much better than 12 Monkeys
Mountain of Conflict
2025-03-22 09:56:46 +0000 UTCRegarding movies with great twists, I feel like one that I rarely see mentioned is Christopher Nolan's movie The Prestige. That movie has a series of overlapping and intertwined twists which really recontextualize the film, but I think some people maybe miss them on the first viewing, or they're distracted by the biggest most obvious twist reveal that it almost the obscures the other ones for a lot of people. Michael Caine describing what drowning was really like and how that pays off later in particular, I feel like many people miss that. If you haven't seen The Prestige or if you only saw it once, give it a shot.
Stranger2Reality
2025-03-22 04:46:24 +0000 UTCSing Sing is 99 cents to rent right now - perhaps now is the time we all can finally hear the Sing Sing discussion.
Tyler Appleby
2025-03-22 03:38:21 +0000 UTCI wonder how often Jeff went to the Burbank AMC when he lived out here in LA. I always got the impression that he lived across from the Woodland Hills one, but could be wrong about that. Burbank is a bit of a drive from there. I don't know if the old Woodland Hills AMC had laser projection, but the newer Topanga one does.
Stranger2Reality
2025-03-22 00:54:37 +0000 UTCThe Star Wars prequels are really no different than something like Hook for Devindra: bad movies that some people have extreme fondness for because of childhood nostalgia. When Hook came out, everyone agreed it was terrible, but then fast forward 15 years or so and all the people who were kids when it came out and who grew up watching it were calling it a masterpiece. The Prequels had the exact same thing happen, where everyone agreed they sucked, but it's because none of us bothered to ask what 5 year olds thought. Those kids grew up loving those movies and now that's "their Star Wars". I will say the people who judged Hayden Christiansen poorly for those movies weren't placing the blame in the appropriate place though. He was bad in those movies, but so was everyone else, even highly respected actors like Ewan Macgregor or Natalie Portman. The performances were so bad because Lucas wasn't focusing on them cause he was so caught up in the technical aspects of being one of the first people ever to shoot a movie that way, all digital with basically completely digital sets and characters. Hayden Christiansen was basically hung out to dry along with all the other actors, only people had plenty of experience seeing everyone else doing good work elsewhere, so he got the brunt of the criticism. I grew up when the original movies were being released and they were a huge part of my childhood, but literally all of my interest in everything Star Wars is now completely gone. I don't even have any interest in rewatching those OG movies and haven't watched the last 3-4 shows they've made. It's just not for me anymore, but that's totally fine. I'm glad other people get enjoyment out of all that stuff.
Stranger2Reality
2025-03-22 00:50:02 +0000 UTCChris Gore is one of those deeply sexist "anti woke" bigots, so I'm guessing that's why he's repellent to Jeff and anyone else who's a decent person.
Stranger2Reality
2025-03-22 00:40:24 +0000 UTCOn the Star Wars and the younger generation topic… As the father of a young boy (5) I have thought, like Jeff, what his first experience with Star Wars would be. I didn’t have as big a dream as Jeff but I was still surprised when he came home one day from a visit to the library with the graphic novel for Episode I The Phantom Menace (he knew already that there was something called Star Wars from kids at school and Legos and all the other branded stuff that kids are exposed to). I hesitated to read it to him due to his age, but when I reminded myself of all of the plot points of TPM, I realized that this is probably the most young-kid-friendly piece of the main SW saga. Setting aside the complex trade taxation politics, the rest of the story is a fun adventure where most of the violence/death involves soul-less droids being slashed to pieces (aside of course from QuiGon and Darth Maul) and the hero of the story is a young boy with special abilities who loves his mom! So with a few creative liberties and omissions, my 5 year old really loved the story and thankfully is old enough to not be emotionally devastated by QuiGon’s death (or so I hope). I think this speaks to how the prequels may be the way many young kids are onboarded to Star Wars, and how TPM, though rightfully mocked for its flaws, it’s not a bad story for kids. Maybe in a few years he can watch the movie in all its glory but for now, the story and some illustrations have brought him into the Star Wars fandom at a pretty early age.
Chris Cameron
2025-03-21 21:48:24 +0000 UTCSome AMCs are REALLY bad and horrendously slow at updating auditoriums. Where I live the lone AMC has no premium options at all.
Papool Chaudhari
2025-03-21 21:32:12 +0000 UTCJeff’s slow running time is what I’d consider a great average mile time for me 😵
Rob
2025-03-21 21:11:11 +0000 UTCOh man Jeff. I am happy, excited even for a 11 minute mile. 3 at a time. Sheesh. You are great.
Glenn Zigli
2025-03-21 19:45:37 +0000 UTCJesus Jeff, show us on the doll where Chris Gore touched you.
Mr. Ford
2025-03-21 19:16:38 +0000 UTCI don't expect you guys to know that, but hearing you talk about Star Wars is hard to listen to, because you know so little about the history. Has Jeff never heard of Star Wars Underworld? Clone Wars was his idea. Lucas was already planning sequels, they used some of his ideas! And I implore Devindra to rewatch AOTC. In the running for worst Star Wars Movie.
Mountain of Conflict
2025-03-21 17:52:51 +0000 UTCCurious! Has Jeff not seen the laser projection at AMC until now? LA has had a few AMCs with laser for the past maybe 5+ years - Burbank IMAX is a laser projector. Is this something different?
Timothy Mably
2025-03-21 17:13:05 +0000 UTC
