10 Most Expensive VHS Tapes + The Last Movie Ever Released on VHS + Movie Review: Together Is NOT The Horror Movie of the Year +  Trailer Park: Hoppers and Why Disney is Their Own Villain

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Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome back to movie Mike's movie Podcast. I am your host Movie Mike. Today we are going full nostalgia. I want to talk about the VHS tape, the most expensive VHS tapes of all time, and the last movies to ever be released on the video home system from different genres. Again, nostalgia will be the death of me. In the movie review, we'll be talking about together with Alison Brie and Dave Franco, It's a new horror movie. And in the trailer Park we'll be talking about can Pixar comeback with their new movie Hoppers or are they destined to fail time and time again. Now, thank you for being here, thank you for being subscribed, Shout out to the Monday Morning Movie crew. And now let's talk movies from the Dustroe Podcast Network. This is Movie Mike Movie Podcast. The VHS Tape was developed in Japan and released in nineteen seventy one. We got it here in the United States in nineteen seventy seven, because we're always a little bit behind Japan. They're always limiting in the future. But it was dominant in the nineteen eighties, in the nineteen nineties and fizzled out right around the mid two thousands. I just associate watching VHS tapes with my childhood. It all goes back to I didn't have a whole lot of friends when I was a kid. My friends were the VHS tapes that I would borrow from family and friends because again, unless we were buying them at a garage sale or the flea market. All talk about my favorite place to go as a kid, Traders Village in Grand Prairie, Texas. We were there every Sunday, and I would always flock to all the people selling VHS tapes because that was the only place that we could afford them. We weren't affording those Walmart prices because they were overly priced, and different movies had different prices. Obviously, a movie like The Lion King was going to be more expensive, but then a lower tier movie like the straight to VHS movies would be a little bit cheaper, like a goofy movie. That's why that movie was so accessible is because they didn't price that the same as they were pricing a Lion King. They priced a little bit cheaper so people like me would have access to it. And I love going to Traders Village and going to the people who were selling used VHS tapes, and I would watch those movies all the time at home. I also associate the VHS tape with the best day ever at school and what day was that? It was movie day. And kids today don't have this. They have no idea the joy that you would get when your teacher would haul in that giant tube television and it was the combo rack where you have the huge TV on top and the thing was shrapped down. It was on there much like you would shrap down cargo now in the back of your F one fifty. That is what we were doing to these giant Zena TVs or whatever brand your school had, probably like a Phillips or something, but they were huge and massive. If they were fancy, you'd have the combo that on the left side of it had the VHS and on the right it would have the DVD slide, but that was like a low way. Later oftentimes it'd be the big TV on top, and then there'd be a middle shelf below it and that where the VHS tape would be, well the VCR, and your teacher would roll that thing in and you were probably set up to watch whatever Disney movie was out, even if it was like a really old bad movie, which is where I was exposed to some classics. Like the first time I ever watched The Sound of Music was in my elementary school music class, so I got that too. So shout out to the Wakasati Independent School District for really helping me shape my taste in movies early on. But I truly believe there's something to actually having physical media and having to put something into a device to play it. Like this sound just brings back a lot of memories for me, and we don't have that anymore because we just open up a streaming service and hit play. There's no rewinding, there's no tracking, there's no having like kind of okay picture quality, and there's also just kind of a warmth to watching a movie on a VHS tape. It kind of has like this warm, fuzzy feel and now it just feels like you're thrown on a file, which is all fun because it's so much easier. So they could take that away at any time, but they can't take away your physical media. So let's get into this list. It's coming to us from CGC, which is a grading company. So if you have comic books. If you have sports cards or memorabilia, you send it to them to be graded, which I've learned about them through some comics that I own. If you watch this show on YouTube, you can see I have a couple of graded comics on my wall, and you see that CGC at the top, letting you know that is legit, that somebody looked at it verified it. They verified the condition. So you send it in and you get a grade number, whether it's all. You very rarely get a ten, but you probably get maybe a nine point nine and nine point five. And depending on how highly it is rated, that is how much you can sell that thing for and how much it is valued at. And again these are sealed copies. They have to be in pristine condition. These are the most expensive ones that have ever been graded. At number ten is The Return of the Dead, a sealed copy sold on this list at eighteen thousand, seven hundred and fifty dollars. Obviously, this movie was very essential in the eighties for zombie movies. Not one of my favorite zombie movies of all time. When it comes to who I like from the early era of zombie movies, I'm more of a George a Romero guy from the nineteen seventies. But if you can get your hands on a sealed copy of this one, it is eighteen thousand, seven hundred and fifty dollars in your pocket. At number nine is First Blood, which had a graded copy valued at twenty two thousand, five hundred dollars. A sealed copy of this VHS sold for that price added auction in twenty twenty two. This is a movie I associate with my childhood because it's one of the only ones that my dad and uncles could agree on. This movie came out in nineteen eighty two, so anything in that genre that is Sylvester Stallone or John Claudevaden dam I feel like I watched without even trying as a kid, because anytime I would go over to my uncle's house, that is what they were watching. Because at that time my family was still learning English, and the way we learned English was by watching movies. So with a movie like this, you don't really have to know the language one hundred percent to get what is happening. If you see a dude like Sylvester Stallone on screen with a gun shooting down people and running and chasing from people and trying to kill people. You don't exactly need to know that language to understand that concept. So I think that is why a lot of my uncles, even my aunts for that matter, gravitated towards movies like this. They were also just massive in the eighties, and a lot of what I was exposed to in the early nineties was a lot of things that were kind of left over in remnants of the eighties. Because I have two older siblings who would be considered an eighties kids, so a lot of the things that were essential in their early childhood I learned from them. One of those being first Blood. At number eight is Ghostbusters, that had a copy cell for twenty three thousand, seven hundred and fifty dollars. The wild thing about Ghostbusters whenever it was first released on VHS back in the eighties, it's sold retail for seventy nine to ninety five, And I think we forget that sometimes how expensive movies were, because that was the thing whenever TV came around, and then whenever VHS came around, it was like, oh, now you can watch it at home. We have to charge a lot of money for this, And at first they were not as accessible as they later became. When you could just go to Blockbuster or just buy a copy at Walmart, it was seen as kind of a luxury, as you see with Ghostbusters being eighty dollars. And now when we rent a movie digitally at home for twenty dollars, I can't even do that because that's like the first run. Whenever a movie finishes its theatrical run and then you can own it on digital for the first time, it's usually twenty bucks. I usually end up waiting until it's like that five six, seven dollars range, and then I feel like most people now wait until it's on a streaming service that you already pay for. But could you imagine going to the store now to pay eighty dollars just to watch something at home. So that is also how we've seen a shift in the movie industry where they could make money like this, and a lot of films did see a second life from these home video sales because if a movie didn't do so well at the box office, but then Bam was a hit on VHS tape, it could make its money back. Movies now do not have that benefit. You can't really make that money back on streaming, because in the era of streaming, that throws residuals out of the way, that cuts off a lot of that back end money. But this is a case where not only was Ghostbusters super successful in theaters, I think it made almost three hundred million dollars by the end of its theatrical run, and then Bam with a eighty dollars VHS and then later in twenty twenty two selling a copy for twenty three thousand, seven hundred and fifty dollars. This is gonna have me by the end of this list, going to a good will and see if I can just find a sealed copy of anything, But that one is at number eight. At number seven, a copy of Rocky sold for a record twenty seven thousand, five hundred dollars. This was back in February seventeenth, twenty twenty three. This was one of the only known factory sealed copies of Rocky. And that's the thing you have to do now, if you want to make some money like this in twenty to thirty years, you have to think what could be of value now sealed that I could go back in thirty years and take to somebody or put it online. At one of these auctions and sell, and you just have to buy that thing and have the willpower not to open it. Because if you in the eighties went and bought this copy of Rocky and just kept it in a box anytime you moved houses, you made sure you took that, you'd have an easy almost thirty grand that is crazy. Next up on the list at number six, a copy of The Terminator, So for thirty two thousand, five hundred dollars back in February twenty twenty two, you're going to see a lot of this stuff happened recently because post COVID memorabilia just kind of shot up. Everybody realized they had stuff at home, and we got more nostalgeric thinking back on good times. This this is now would be the time to sell if you had anything thirty or forty years old, But again it has to be sealed. Terminator was released not only on VHS but also on Beta Max in nineteen eighty five, which I don't really remember that era. I remember Laser Disc a little bit only because I went to a school district that was, you know, not the richest of school districts, so we never watched anything on beta or laser disc, but I did see them because it was so old that some people still had them available. I think one teacher was like, let me pull out this huge disc and like, what is that? That is a giant CD. And whenever Terminator first came out back in nineteen eighty four, they did not think this movie would be successful, but it went on to be a number one movie at the box office, made almost eighty million dollars worldwide, and then somebody made a lot of money off of it in twenty twenty two by selling their sealed copy for thirty two thousand, five hundred dollars, getting into the top five. Next up is Jaws. A sealed copy from nineteen eighty three sold for thirty two thousand, five hundred dollars in a heritage auction sale on June ninth, twenty twenty two. This movie just celebrated its fifty year anniversary. It was the first ever summer blockbuster. The whole reason we have big movies come out in the summer like we do now is because what Steven Spielberg did with Jaws fifty years ago, and since then, it's become my favorite season of the entire year. This season, in particular for twenty twenty five, has been a fantastic summer blockbuster season, and despite everybody loving Jaws, it had great critical response. Jaws almost bankrupt Steven Spielberg and his entire crew. The film went massively over budget because of the filming issues, because of the props, but luckily it all worked out. Why because of the back end, because of these VHS sales. Because the movie didn't come out on VHS until nineteen eighty MCA Home Video put it out so that we could finally enjoy this movie at home, because that wasn't a thing. Also, back in when movies were coming out in the seventies, you couldn't go watch a movie in the theater and then eventually in like six months have it at home. You had to wait three years to watch the Jaws at home. And because of that, Jaws has now ended up as one of the top five most expensive VHS tapes of all time at number four. The Thing, not the Thing from Fantastic Four, No, the John Carpenter movie The Thing. It sold a sealed first edition copy of the nineteen eighty two movie on October thirty first, twenty twenty two, for whopping thirty seven thousand, five hundred dollars. The Thing was not a success when it came out in theaters. But the thing No pun intended that gave it its second live was its home video release. And that's what shows you that sometimes when people go see a movie in theaters, they can hate it. But then when it's released to everybody who can watch it at home, maybe you have some people a little bit more open minded, maybe they're in a better headspace so when they sit down to watch this movie. So initially this movie was a bomb and now has turned into a cult classic, which has happened with a lot of movies. Just because you don't do well in theaters, you can find your audience somehow, because sometimes movies are just released at the wrong time, or they're put in a position to fail where they don't have the promotion, or they go up against another really big movie. And the Thing now is a classic and a copyfore it's sold for a record amount of money at number three. Hey you guys, we have the goodies. A sealed and certified copy of this movie from nineteen eighty six sold for fifty thousand dollars in a heritage auctions on June ninth, twenty twenty two. They must have just had a massive sale in twenty twenty two. This movie goes beyond classic. If you told me The Goonies was your favorite movie of all time, I just know we be good friends. It's not my favorite of all time. I don't even know that I would put it in my top ten. But if you love this movie, I probably love you because it's just a piece of American history, so much so that the Library of Congress preserved this movie in the United States Film Registry in twenty seventeen. And that's like the biggest honor. Only movies in there that have really just etched themselves into American film history belong there. And that means maybe nothing on surface level, but that means kind of if everything else went away, we lost all other movies, but could only hold onto the movies in this registry. That is how impactful these movies would be. That would be like if we had to leave Earth and only take a certain amount of movies with us, we would take the movies in this registry to show how our culture has evolved over the years in film, and The Goonies has it all. It has action, it has adventure, it has romance, it has great characters, it has great music. Could easily make the argument that the Goonies and the movie coming up at number two are just perfect movies. And if Aliens came down and said show me your best movie, I would say, maybe start with the Goonies, or maybe start with number two. Because at number two, which sold for seventy five thousand dollars at an auction back in twenty twenty two, again it was a sealed and graded copy of this movie It is Back to the Future Man seventy five thousand dollars. That is a lot of money for a VHS tape. Just imagine the pressure. I know CGC puts them in cases, but just the pressure to even grade something like that where you're like, okay, even if I make because you know how hard it is to keep shrink wrap on something, especially VHS where it has like the corners, it has to be perfect. But this movie was not only a success in theaters because it made over three hundred and eighty million dollars at the box office, it was also so successful when it came out on VHS in nineteen eighty six. This was another movie that costs seventy nine to ninety five whenever it came out, which is one of the more higher priced video cassettes. But even though it had such a high price point, Back to the Future became the first movie to sell four thousand, five hundred units almost half a million units at that price point, and became the most rented cassette in nineteen eighty six. Why do I just love the word cassette? It just feels good to me. So not only was it super successful and popular when it came out in theaters, but then everybody had to own it and watch it at home. At number two is Back to the Future, but at number one the most expensive VHS tape of all time sold back in October twenty ninth, twenty twenty two, when somebody found a sealed copy of the first release of this movie, which is next to impossible. It was sold through Golden for an incredible one one hundred and fourteen thousand dollars, the most expensive VHS tape of all time. What do you think it is? At? Sci Fi originally came out in theaters in nineteen seventy seven, grossed over seven hundred and seventy five million dollars at the box office. Can you guess it? Well, it is none other than Star Wars, a new hope. The unusual thing about Star Wars is it didn't have a traditional rollout to home video because twentieth Century Fox actually delayed putting it out on VHS because they wanted to make more money from it in theaters. They were also concerned about the technology at the time. They were like, should we focus more on laser disc? Is this going to be what the future is? So what they did instead was released small clips through weird media products. They didn't have a traditional VHS release because they were holding out on it, but everybody was like, yo, we want to watch Star Wars at home. So they finally released it in nineteen eighty one, but it was only available for you couldn't buy it yet. Obviously that caused chaos because then people would go rent it. They wouldn't take it back. You had video rental places going rogue and just selling people a lifetime rental for one hundred dollars. So it just created this huge mess where people were stealing copies, pirting copies, they were going missing. And finally they had an official release to Star Wars on VHS in nineteen eighty two, and people ate this thing up. And if you had a seal copy like this person who sold it back in twenty twenty two, and if it's in mint condition, but you could make one hundred and fourteen thousand dollars the most expensive VHS of all time. Star Wars a New Hope. So now to close out the episode, let's say goodbye to the VHS format and talk about the last ever VHS movie released. It was in two thousand and six. The VHS was officially dead when A History of Violence came out. Vigo Mortensen plays an ex hitman turned quiet town family man. The movie also stars Ed Harris in one of his more sinister bad guy roles. It was the last ever major Hollywood movie to be released in VHS format, even though some Disney enthusiasts say that it was actually the Disney Pixar movie Cars, because in February of two thousand and seven, Disney released a copy, but it was only through their Disney Movie Club, so it wasn't available for everybody to purchase. But if you're going technically by a technicality, Cars, mister Kachow was the real ever last VHS tape made came out in two thousand and seven. I also have some of the last movies released on VHS from different genres. For horror, it was Saw Too Man. Sometimes when I think about Saw watching that first one, I think, Man, that was only like ten years ago. But the first one came out in two thousand and four and came out in two thousand and five, twenty years ago. But that was the last ever major horror movie to be released on VHS tape. For comedy, it was Just Friends, which was the movie with Ryan Reynolds, which I remember this being one of the movies we rented from our local video rental store in Waksahatchie. I think it was just called the Video Store, but we didn't rent it on VHS. We rented it on DVD. This place was so old school. You would walk up and take this little almost like a mini poker chip or is this mini tab that was hung up on the wall on literally a hook, and you would take that tab up to the counter and then they would pull that movie. And I remember doing that for Just Friends, which is the comedy with Ryan Reynolds, back in a pretty good era of comedies. But he gets friend zoned and he's like a bigger dude and then gets ripped up. I mean, it was Ryan Reynolds in a fat suit, and I believe he had braces, which I find a fence from on multiple levels as being a former big guy and a person who wore braces for a very long time. Probably couldn't make this movie today, but at the time I enjoyed it. He tries to get back with his high school crush and then he has his new girl, who was played by Anna Faris. Somehow this movie makes sense as the last one to be released in the comedy genre on VHS. The last war movie released on VHS was Jarhead. This was a movie that I should not have watched as young as I did. I was probably thirteen, maybe twelve years old whenever I watched Jarhead, a movie that really doesn't have a whole lot of action. It's more about the psychological scars of war, so I probably didn't even get it as a kid. The last drama romance released on VHS was Pride and Prejudice with Kiara Knightley. This was a movie that we read the book in probably middle school, maybe junior high, and then watched the movie, So this was definitely a movie day type film. If there was ever a book turned into a movie, that was definitely happening. We were gonna read it and we were gonna watch that movie. The last sci fi action movie released on VHS was Dwayne the Rock Johnson's Doom, and this was in February two thousand and six. I never played the video games, so I didn't really have a whole lot of attachment to this movie. It just seems like one of those in the list of mid movies that the Rock did in the two thousands before he really found this groove, before he really became a famous action star. The last adventure movie released on VHS was The Legend of Zoro, and the last superhero movie to be released on VHS. This is a good one. Fantastic four in two thousand and five, and we got a Fantastic four movie in two thousand and five, we got one in twenty fifteen, and we just got one last month in twenty twenty five. So pretty much every ten years we get a new Fantastic Four movie. And I'll leave you with this. My favorite thing from back in the day of watching a movie on VHS. It really goes back to watching Disney movies. I think that is what I watched the most, and it was whenever all of the trailers play it and they're like, oh, come on, I gotta fast forward through all of these, which is something we don't have to deal with anymore now. Our equivalent of that if you watch on a streaming service and you don't pay for the act free version, you have to sit through commercials, but you watch all the trailers and then Disney finally hits you with this, and it just feels magical because you know the show is about a start, and no all our feature presentation. Take me back for just one day. I'd do it all different. I'd watch way more movies. All right, we'll come back and give a spoiler free movie review of Together. Let's get into it now. A spoiler free movie review of Together, starring real life married couple Alison Brie and Dave Franco. I'm actually a fan of both of these actors. Alison Bree since way back in Community. She was also really great and glowed. Dave Franco, have been watching him since super Bad, also great in twenty one Jump Street. A lot of great twenty tens comedy movies from Dave Franco. But what this movie is about. They play a couple who has been together for about ten years. He is an aspiring musician has been trying ever since they've been together to make it big, but he just quite hasn't gotten there, just got dropped from his label. She just got a job as a small town school teacher. So they are moving away from the big city upstate New York. He's kind of leaving behind his dreams. They've been kind of on the fringes of their relationship, not really connecting emotionally or connecting physically, and they're almost hoping that this move is going to save everything. But again, he just feels like I got a hold on to this career that I'm building, and she just wants to move on and be with him. So that is kind of the premise of this movie. They moved to a small town where it seems like everything is quiet and comfortable. It's out in the country. The small town vibe is really showcasing the cinematography. I love a good aerial shot of some trees that really kind of puts you into a small town horror movie like this and you just get this really grand scope that I was a fan of. There were a lot of really great shots that were just establishing all the scenes in this movie, a lot of big zoomed in moments, especially from like behind them. It just kind of gave me feeling of like a classic horror movie, which is really what this movie is at its core. It is a body horror movie because, well, you see it in the poster, you see it in the trailer. They encounter something that has this weird curse, and then their bodies just kind of keep sticking to each other, so it becomes the ultimate thing to bring them together and they try to uncover exactly what is going on with their bodies and why each of them are starting to go crazy. Which this movie sounded like it was going to be right up my alley, especially coming off of one of the best body horror movies of all time last year with The Substance. I wanted more of that. I wanted gruesomeness on the poster they put Horror Movie of the Year, So my expectations were way up there, wanting it to be on the level of something like The Substance, and I didn't quite get that I really believe this movie stood in its way so much, and they were really trying to paint this backstory in this mystery read all that was kind of hidden in this town and going on. They even opened up with that that I felt like it was a detriment to the movie because they kept over explaining things, which I believe Alison Brie and Dave Franco do have great chemistry, obviously being married. I think both of them are good actors, but it almost felt like some of the dialogue was so forced and their characters were being a little bit too analytical at times, trying to just paint this backstory where I just wanted them to experience these things and show us more of that gruesomeness, because that is exactly what was just lacking in this movie, more of those moments that were supposed to churn your stomach. I wanted to leave this movie disgusted, and I did not. I got something different, though, and I don't think that is bad. I got a story about two people trying to navigate these waters where one of them really wants to make this relationship work, and question are they really doing the right thing and exactly what are they fighting for if you've invested ten year in a relationship, is it only worth keeping because you've invested those ten years If you were trying just so hard to make things work and forcing it, do you really love the other person or are you just comfortable? Because this movie is about a couple who maybe shouldn't be together, forced to come together. So I think the overall metaphor and overarching message of what they were trying to say, they got that through. But it's a horror movie, and I wanted more of the horror elements because that is great. I think to make a horror movie that has a little bit more substance, I'm all here for it because I enjoyed both of these characters. I thought what they were going through was really interesting, maybe even relatable to some people. It just never really reached its full potential. And the horror imagery was fantastic when it was there, but to me, it was just few and far between. So for me, this was a case of a movie that overpromised and underdelivered, and I wouldn't be holding it to that high of a standard if they did. Put that at the very top of the poster. If you call yourself horror movie of the year, and you use that quote. A lot of movies have done that in the last couple of years. I think Long Legs did it last year. Long Legs lived up to that potential now that I think about it. They're both neon movies, so maybe they just get any review that calls them horror movie of the year. That's what I just got to start saying in my reviews, horror movie of the year. I'll say that for every horror movie. Maybe that's what I need to do to get my reviews picked up, because oftentimes I call movies butt drenching that are really stressful. But I don't think movies to do is I want to put that on their posters. Although I would have known what I was getting into more if I would have seen together butt drenching Movie of the Year, as heard on Movie Mike's Movie podcast. Put that on a poster. And I do still love Alison Bria Dave Franco. I think they should do more movies together. They have worked together in films in the past. I think there's an entirely different level of chemistry when it's two people who have been together and married for so long that that just comes across so natural. So even though their characters in this movie kind of have conflicting feelings about each other, you can still tell how much chemistry they have together naturally, and that really sold this story. I'm all for horror movies with the message, but you also have to deliver on the elements of horror. So for Together, I give it three point five out of five Bus Saws because as soon as I left the theater, I thought, I have never seen a more three point five out of five movie because it was so close there it Maybe just a couple of more scenes could have made me love this movie and reached that four. Because to me, a four I have to love parts of it and then maybe not like some other parts. Four point five is I really love a lot of it, but there are just a couple of things that keep me from fully committing to a five. A three point five is like there was just nothing about it that I completely loved. I was so close to being there, but still so strong. I've never met a more three point five out of five movie than Together. It's time to head down to movie. Mike Treylar, Paul is Pixar cook or is there something else going on here? Is it a lack of originality? Are we tired of the same animation style? Is there new movie? Hoppers gonna be the one to get them back on top? That is what we are here to talk about today. Hoppers is coming out in theaters on March twenty six, twenty twenty six. You have Bobby moynihan, John Hamm among this cast. What this movie is about. It's about a group of scientists who discover a way to mind hop into robot animal bodies. So essentially they are able to take your mind, or your consciousness at least, and put it into a very cute, cuddly creature, and then that creature can go out into the world and not only interact with these animals, but be able to speak their languages. I think this is something we probably all thought of as kids, and I think that is what Pixar is good about doing. At least they were early on of creating ideas like what if you could do this? What if toys had feelings? What if cars had feelings? And obviously Disney and Pixar are no strangers to animal movies, but what if humans could go into these bodies and interact with other animals. So that is what we are here to talk about. We'll get into what Pixar has been doing so far in the twenty twenties. I have a theory on who the bad guy is here. But before we get into that, here's just a little bit of the Hoppers trailer. We've done it, Mabel, after years of work. This revolutionary technology gives us unprecedented access to the animal world. We put this into this. So let me get this straight. You created a fake animal, yes, which makes the other animals think you're an animals. Yes, guys, this is like Avatar. This is nothing like Avatar. Be careful. What hey, how you do? I understand you? So this got me there. So this movie is about a character named Mabel. She finds out that this construction company wants to tear down this local animal habitat, so she uses this technology to take over the body of a beaver in order to fight back. So Mabel is a huge animal lover and wants to use technology to place her consciousness into this robotic beaver to uncover the mysteries within the animal world and beyond her imagination. So what you see in the trailer is she realizes she's a beaver. I love the shot of the beaver running and everything else kind of going frantic behind her. It feels a little bit fresh for Pixar, and aside from the humans, which I think Pixar humans are always gonna look like Pixar humans, and I think that is just there. This is our animation style, this is what characters look like in a Pixar world. You're not really going to change a whole lot there, because if you do, then it doesn't feel like Pixar. But when it comes to the animals here, they look fantastic. The fur on the bear, the fur on the beavers looks so lifelike. And sometimes Pixar isn't as photorealistic as other animated movies. But I think the animation team crushed it here because I feel like I could jump into this trailer and touch all of these animal creatures and they would be as soft as they look on screen. So I think that is a big win here, because I think something that people have been criticizing in these Pixar movies lately is the animation just kind of all looks the same. And I do think there are some factors here because a lot of Pixar animators all went to a very famous art school called cal Arts. If you've listened to the episode I did with the creator of Lee Low and Stitch, Chris Sanders, he went there, he met a lot of other famous people, or at least people who went on to be famous, and they all learned this cal Arts animation style that is very specific. It's very simplistic. I would say the best example of that are recent movies like Luca and Turning Red, which some people think has just kind of simplified the character design and has maybe created a little bit too of a unified look where none of these movies look as exciting. They look more like Disney Plus originals, and they look like something you would want to pay money to go see in theaters. If you don't have a great character design or a boarding character design that doesn't translate into other sales that you need for animated movies, it doesn't make people want to buy a popcorn bucket, a big old cup in the movie theater, or even beyond that, the toys at Target and Walmart and t shirts. If you just have very unmemorable characters that kids aren't really good to attach themselves to, or even adults aren't going to attach themselves to And I think that is another issue here. But is it the animation style, is it Pixar or is it the overarching company of Disney? And I think we forgot that. Disney acquired Pixar beat on May fifth, two thousand and six. Pixar at the time was valued at seven point four billion dollars. The deal made Steve Jobs, who he didn't start Pixar, but he did acquire Pixar back in nineteen eighty six. In two thousand and six, it made him the largest individual shareholder, and that's where he made a lot of his money. But if I were to make a movie about the downfall of Pixar in the twenty twenties, and if I was going to have a place of villain, I think it would be Disney, not only with Pixar, but also with what we're seeing with Marvel, where I feel like they're less focused on making things that are dynamic, unique and creative and out of the box and more focused on just things that are going to make them money, which I get. Movies are a business. That is what they are in the business of doing, putting out big blockbuster hits that translate into ticket sales, translate into merch sales, but most importantly into people wanting to visit Disney in California and Florida, which is a major thing. Sometimes we forget that as people who love movies, that they can oftentimes just be commercials for their Disney properties. If we look at all the Pixar and Disney movies they put out since twenty twenty, which obviously the pandemic is going to throw a lot of things off here, they have been very unmemorable. Onward came out on March six, twenty twenty. That was the last movie in theaters I ever saw that year. Soul came out in December of that year, but it was a Disney Plus only release, and then the next year, this is where they really started to shift and started just putting things out on Disney Plus. But I feel like this is where their originality just really started to lack, and that war on us as Disney and Pixar fans. Luca came out in twenty twenty one Disney Plus only. I will say I did enjoy Luca, and I think the animation style was specific to telling a story like that. I think it fit, but overall, when you look at the characters and look at the animation design, it's not as bright and vibrant as some of the other things inside of the Pixar world. Turning Red was also a good movie that came out in twenty twenty two, also just on Disney Plus and then later they tried to push it out in the theaters. Also a great story, but I think the animation was just fine, and just fine was not good enough to make that movie a hit. Light Year came out in June of twenty twenty two, which there was a whole other reason that people were upset about this movie. I think that maybe was a little bit too ambitious, but again, they weren't trying anything completely original. They were just trying to make a standalone movie still in that toy story world. I just don't think light Year was probably the best person to make that with. They should have made a woody movie that would have crushed. It would have made people happy. It would have been less of them having to explain why he's not voiced by Tim Allen, why it's not about the toy, why it's actually about the person that inspired the toy. It was all just confusing for people. But that movie did not do well for them. Elemental again was just a middle of the road movie, and that one just didn't really have a lot of hype going into it. The story was fine, and fine again is not good enough. I think some people unfairly maybe didn't watch that movie or just didn't even know when it came out. Did much better when it went to Disney Plus than it did in theaters, But I think overall that story was just fine at best. Inside out too, that's kind of a no brainer, going back to their pool of great movies from the twenty tens, that movie did well. Was a billion dollar movie for them. And the sad thing is to some people who say they want to see new original ideas and then they put out a sequel to a very beloved movie, then they're like, Okay, we're not going to get another original for a while, because whenever they make sequels, that's when they're making all their money. And then Elio came out earlier this year in June. Its numbers were pretty dismal, and that'll probably come out on Disney Plus probably towards the end of September, even though they haven't announced that yet. But if you look at all these movies, you start to see a theme. And yes, the pandemic throws off the twenty twenty year, the twenty twenty one year a little bit, but that bled into twenty twenty two. But what I see is not what made Picksar so memorable in the beginning. If you think back to the first Toy Story movie, you think back to A Bugs Life, you think back to the first Cards movie, which was right around the time that Disney bought them, Monsters Inc. Finding Nemo, the Incredibles. All of these movies had great stories, great character designs that all look different from each other. But what does Disney like to do. They like to make things that feel like they're all a part of the same brand. They all have this synergy. So now everything since twenty twenty has started to look the same. Out of all those movies I mentioned there from the twenty twenties, they all look like they could be made by the exact same team, by the exact same people, And I think that makes a animated movies seem interesting. And then you see on the other side of animation, with movies like Transformers One, the New Teenage Mutant, Ninja Turtles animated movie into the Spider Verse, where they're being so much more ambitious with their animation. As you can tell, I love animation, and I feel like out of all styles of filmmaking, there is a whole other world that we can explore here, because I feel that it is a world where there's so much room for creativity. We haven't seen the best animated movie yet. I think we should be getting the best animated movies right now in the twenty twenties, and I just haven't seen that because they're relying on their properties at work. We're going to get a Toy Story five, six, seven, eight, nine, and ten because they continue to do well and we still are curious about those movies. I'll still go end up seeing those movies, but we're not going to get anything completely different as long as Disney says, these are the movies we need to make and this is what they need to look like, and we're gonna put out movies like Ilio, not really market it a whole lot, not really give it a fighting chance, and then use that as an example of Look, we tried to give you an original movie, but you didn't go support it. So here you go, here's Car sixty seven, and what do you know? We lost Nemo again and we have to find him for the sixteenth time. Is there a solution here? I don't think so. I think we support the things we want to support. I'm never gonna tell anybody how to spend your money when it comes to watching things in theaters. Go watch the things you want to watch, but just know that your money carries a lot of way to it in the decision making of what gets greenlit, what continues to have SEQL after sequel, and what movies and ideas they deem aren't worth the time or money. But that being said, I do think Hoppers is a step in the right direction. I think the story is interesting, and even though there's not one character I think will be the new poster child for Pixar. I do think it's gonna give people a reason to go into the theater and not feel like you could just wait and go and watch it on Disney Plus whenever it is about three or four months old. And finally, just because I've been rattling off all of my passionate thoughts about animation, I did wonder if I could put my brain into an animal like this and then go live in their habitat be able to speak to them. I don't want no funny business though. That was the one problem I had with picking this animal, because animals, well they're animals. They're to do things that you don't want them to do, whether you do it or not, So no funny business involved. I would want to be my favorite animal of all time on Orca. I've loved orcas ever since I was a kid. I still want to go well watching up in Seattle, the Pacific Northwest. I think that would be amazing just to be able to see an orca in the wild, not at SeaWorld, even though that is where my love of these animals did develop. SeaWorld not a great place for them. Ever since I saw Blackfish, I was like, I can't support the place. That documentary did change me a lot. But I've also seen a lot of other great documentaries about orcas that do give me hope, and that also just show you how smart a animals they are, Like they mourn they're dead, and they're just incredibly resourceful. Even that one summer where they were crashing boats and terrorizing some humans, I was still team Orca because I was like, humans had to have done something wrong. Somebody killed an orca and they wanted vengeance. Number two would probably be an owl, just because I feel like they're very majestic. I identify a lot with them being nocturnal. Misunderstood. I didn't get attacked by one a couple of years ago on a run because I was out very early in the morning. I was wearing a white hat, so I was convinced they thought I was a rabbit or something. And again, I love owl so much, I'll put that blame on me. And number three would definitely be a cat, because like cats, I am very independent. I will come to you only when I need a little bit of love. I may bite you, I may scratch you. Ultimately, I do love you, even though I probably don't say it every day. Bonus points for being able to lock myself. But again, Hoppers is coming out in theaters on March sixth, twenty twenty six. Geez, And that was this week's edition of Movie Lin Tramer Bar and that is gonna do it for another episode here of the podcast. But before I go, I gotta give my listeners shout out of the week. This week, I'm going over to X and shouting out Melody Smith, who commented on a post I made about last week's episode. Kelsey and I talked about Project Hail Mary. She read it for her book club, has now gone and watched the trailer in full and looking forward to that movie coming out next March. Melody said, I highly recommend listening to Project Hail Mary. The audio version is great. Melody, I never even thought of that, And to be honest, I've never listened to a book on audiobook. I don't know why. My brother is super into listening to biographies and he tells me about it all the time. I guess may maybe it's a time thing for me, because when I see that a book is like sixty eight hours on an audio book, I don't know if I could bring myself to listen to it. And also sometimes when I listen to things, I tend to zone out, so I feel like I would kind of forget things. If I were going on a long road trip, I would definitely do that, because I do enjoy listening to a bunch of podcasts. When I do that, and I really allow myself to get into that world, and that is where I do my best listening but Melody, I do think that's an interesting thing. But I'm really going to push myself to read that book because I am determined to read and finish a book and go see that movie in theaters. That is my goal. But Melody, I appreciate looking out. If it gets grim there and I think I'm not going to be able to finish this book, we're getting closer to that movie coming out in theaters, I'm like, all right, I got to speed this thing up and listen to the audiobook. I will do that. So I appreciate that message. Thank you, Melody, Thank you right now for listening wherever you are in your car at the gym. Thank you for not listening to an audiobook and listening to this podcast. And until next time, go out and watch good movies and I will talk to you later