FernGully: The Last Rainforest (1992)

Matt (00:00:00):

Hey folks. Welcome to what we are calling the season premiere of Season three of Load Bearing Beams. We are past the Summer of Rock. We’re onto our normally scheduled programs here, talking about an animated classic FernGully: The Last Rainforest, a movie whose ambitions were huge. They were going to save the rainforest. Also, the world, the environment, save everything instead. They kind of just made a lot of people horny for trees, but that’s okay. We go all into the sexy sultry fern golly. And the history of this movie, how this animated Australian classic came to be. Its feud with Disney, how Jeffrey Katzenberg tried to shut it down, the feud between Disney and Robin Williams as a result of this in Aladdin. We cover all of that and then we talk about the movie itself. Now, we are a little mixed on this movie if this movie is a beloved classic for you. Nothing against you, and there’s a lot to love about this movie, but it’s fun to just kind of make fun of a movie a little bit. Celebrate the movies. Hope you enjoy it. Look in the episode description, you’ll find the movie discussion there, the history segment. If you want to skip past the history segment, just look for movie discussion and skip to that part of the episode. Okay? Enjoy us talking about FernGully: The Last Rainforest.

Matt (00:01:34):

Oh, hello, this is the Load Bearing Beams podcast. I’m Matt Stokes.

Laci (00:01:37):

And I’m Laci Roth.

Matt (00:01:39):

Laci just finished watching the movie FernGully. I just hear it from the other room, “This is a floating vagina!” You don’t know what that meant.

Laci (00:01:46):

You’re going to find out.

Matt (00:01:48):

I look forward to finding that out. Okay, so this is our movie podcast. We’re back to our regular programming. The Summer of Rock is behind us, and if you’re a giant Fern Gully fan, just know this is a movie podcast where we do a deep dive into a movie, look at the history, review the movie itself, make fun of it, even if we like it. It’s all in

Laci (00:02:05):

Good fun, even if we like it, you can ask everyone. I love

Matt (00:02:08):

You make a lot of fun,

Laci (00:02:10):

And it’s mostly fun for me.

Matt (00:02:12):

And my rebranding of that is I’m celebrating You,

Laci (00:02:16):

Which it’s such a good rebrand.

Matt (00:02:18):

Yeah, it doesn’t help at

Laci (00:02:19):

All. The marketing blogs are going nuts,

Matt (00:02:21):

Really

Laci (00:02:21):

Over that rebrand.

Matt (00:02:23):

I wanted to say this though, about our podcast load bearing beams. We’re kind of now, we’re kind of now in season three of load-bearing beams. That’s how I think of it. This is actually,

Laci (00:02:32):

We’ve been doing it for nearly, well for nine years, but we’re in season

Matt (00:02:36):

Three. Okay. But don’t let that scare you off. So here’s the thing. This is the first animated movie we’ve covered since South Park, bigger, longer, and uncut. Two years ago, I don’t know, we’ve kind of struggled to cover animated movies for whatever reason, we’re going to try it again. But when I was thinking about that South Park episode, I realized this is coming out two years, pretty much two years to the day after that episode. And it’s kind a milestone. And I thought that I needed to give praise and gratitude to a specific person. And that’s you, Laci. I was going to pretend it was me, my beautiful wife.

Laci (00:03:10):

You’re all welcome

Matt (00:03:11):

Because okay, one thing, you’re kicking ass and taking names on the podcast for the past month as you have been busily preparing your busy season at work.

Speaker 3 (00:03:21):

Got

Matt (00:03:21):

It. Laci and I, our actual day jobs, well, Laci makes a lot more money than me, and she’s going to a conference that takes up all of her time and attention, and yet still is taking time to release a podcast every week. And why I’m proud of us is for two straight years, we have released a new podcast every Friday, something we struggled to do for years and years leading up to

Laci (00:03:42):

That. Harder than maybe it’s hard, but it’s harder than we thought and we kept going and it’s really, I don’t know why I get the praise. It’s you. You’re the steam engine.

Matt (00:03:51):

I drive the ship of state.

Laci (00:03:53):

You put the coal in the hole too though,

Matt (00:03:55):

Because you give it your all and you go along and I have ideas for like, Hey, what if we record a song?

Laci (00:04:00):

Sometimes I’m hanging off the back of that train and sometimes I’m a little, I’m behind the train, but I get there.

Matt (00:04:09):

Well, again, you make more money than I do. You are busier with work than I am, and you still take out the time to watch the movies, to take the notes to make the friends and the network of friends and supporters, and you’re funny and you stir the drink of the show. Okay, wow. But thank you again. Mainly it’s like the reality of putting out a podcast every week is way harder than you. It’s like having a baby. If you actually were confronted with how much work that is,

Laci (00:04:41):

You’d never fuck. You’d always get the condom going.

Matt (00:04:43):

And when we finally realized how much work it takes to make a podcast, that’s good. It

Laci (00:04:48):

Was

Matt (00:04:49):

The idea that

Laci (00:04:49):

Distinction,

Matt (00:04:50):

We’re just going to have to do this every single. That’s when we started two years ago. So when we started doing a PowerPoint research for the history segment, take detailed notes, have some actual structure to all this, we fully committed to video. So if you dive into our archives, you’ll see we’ve been doing this since 2017, but I think the actual version of the show that’s good. Started two years ago.

Laci (00:05:10):

Okay, I see what you’re saying. We had our training wheels on longer than most children.

Matt (00:05:16):

Yes. Yes, we did. There’s long breaks. And then we’ll come back with an episode where we’ll be like, sorry guys. And then we’ll say the thing about how the podcasting advice is always release an episode every week on the same day every weekend. We’re just not able to do that. But we finally got to doing it two years ago. And so that was season one, which ended with the summer of Spielberg. Season two was last year. Drumline was our season premiere all the way to the summer of Rock, and now we’re premiering season three with Fern. Yeah.

Laci (00:05:46):

Now I understand. I’m up to speed.

Matt (00:05:49):

This is an animated film that we’re going to discuss. I make these videos by myself about sort of quasi forgotten animated movies. None of these movies are forgotten. Like Fern is a big movie, but basically that just means it’s not released by Disney and it wasn’t an enormous hit.

Laci (00:06:09):

Right. There’s not merchandise that went crazy. So it’s not lasting. It’s not going to be licensed and popup on a Christmas stocking next year for whatever reason.

Matt (00:06:18):

That’s a good distinction. Yeah.

Laci (00:06:20):

There’s not a Fern Gully two. I mean, there might be.

Matt (00:06:22):

There is. Yeah.

Laci (00:06:22):

Well fuck that. But there’s not a four.

Matt (00:06:24):

Everything has a straight to video sequel.

Laci (00:06:27):

Sure. I just mean that there’s not going to be any live Action Fern Gully coming down the pipe because Disney does not own it.

Matt (00:06:32):

That’s right. Well, no, I think they can’t stop. Well, let’s see this. When

Laci (00:06:38):

Has it become,

Matt (00:06:39):

This isn’t on Disney plus. This is released by 20th Century Fox, which they own, but I think it was produced independently. I think whoever, I think it’s the producers own the movie,

Laci (00:06:48):

Probably an Australian.

Matt (00:06:49):

I do these videos. I did a video on Little Nemo. I do a freaking Planet 51, the first animated movie starring the Rock. I’m doing a movie called the Elm Ched Forest, which is a Yugoslavian movie from the eighties. So just if you’re interested in any of that, check out our YouTube

Laci (00:07:07):

Channel. They’re very good. Matt is really good when he is by himself. So

Matt (00:07:13):

I can give a capsule history of the production because,

Laci (00:07:16):

But you’re really good at that. You’re really good at putting it all together and taking it from different sources, making sure it’s your own, elevating it, extend you don’t steal. And I don’t know that I can do that. I write a book, here’s how the book goes. That’s what I

Matt (00:07:31):

Would do. Well, I mean, yeah, when I get insecure, I’m like, I’m just doing a book report. I’m just summarizing shit that

Laci (00:07:35):

I hards do a good book report a plus.

Matt (00:07:38):

But I’m just fascinated with these animated movies because animated movies are such, they’re so difficult to make. There has only been one big player in the American movie industry, and there’s all these times where competitors have risen up to try to challenge them. And those are the movies I’m really interested in. And Fern Gully I think falls into that.

Laci (00:07:59):

And timing must be kind of a nightmare with, you got to start the animation train and then you got to get the voice actors on board, but you also need licensing for whatever music. Are these going to be original to the movie? Are we going to try to license some music? I’ll bet It seems, and I can see it here, that all those things are not figured out all at once to where they flow necessarily. It feels like some things happen before others. Some things it’s too late to reanimate a part. So we’re just going to have a whole singing performance where the guy does not sing at all.

Matt (00:08:31):

Oh yeah. Often animation is locked. You have to be a really big budget movie to be able to redo animation that takes years. It’s not shooting where it’s like you have an alternate takes. There’s no alternate takes. That would mean people are just drawing stuff just to throw it away.

Laci (00:08:44):

I just mean they don’t break with the animation team until they can figure something out. It seems like one team has all the, has the urgency, has the hierarchy. It’s like, no, no, no, we’re just going, you didn’t figure this out yet. Fine. This scene will be they’re dancing to a one two beat. Just figure that out in post. And they did. And here’s the,

Matt (00:09:08):

You’re saying they did that here?

Laci (00:09:09):

Yes. This is how Zach does his performance when he puts on his stereo and the Fern Gollies go Wild, the fairies. They go and he’s like,

Matt (00:09:18):

Yeah, and this is the song. Yeah, you’re right. I didn’t even think of that. It is like

Laci (00:09:23):

He’s not even singing.

Matt (00:09:24):

I don’t even know what this song is. He’s

Laci (00:09:26):

Pretending to my, this is a classic song.

Matt (00:09:28):

This sounds like a you

Laci (00:09:29):

Got a no, A pony like po. You got a mashed potato.

Matt (00:09:35):

Do the

Laci (00:09:36):

Alligator. It’s a real song. It’s a good song.

Matt (00:09:37):

No, I know, but it’s not like it’s the biggest song in the world. It’s also, why is this like 20-year-old Australian guy listening to this and his tape

Laci (00:09:47):

Player in 1992? I have no idea.

Matt (00:09:50):

This was your movie. You made us watch this.

Laci (00:09:53):

I did. So

Matt (00:09:54):

What’s your history

Laci (00:09:54):

With it? Well, okay, so it’s not my fault, but a lot of forest movies came out all around the same time. That’d be the land before Time. Once Upon a Forest Fern Gully. I’m going to throw the rescuers in there because they were tiny and I feel like everything’s a forest when you’re small. I

Matt (00:10:07):

Guess.

Laci (00:10:09):

So Krista is very iconic looking. As soon as I saw her, I’m like, that’s what I remember. A Fungi Fernly is her look. And then the rest of the movie proceeded and I was like, what is this movie? And then I saw the cover of Once Upon a Forest and I went, that’s the movie I thought I was recommending. Oops.

Matt (00:10:31):

This is not the first time we’ve watched the wrong movie. No, it is not. Because Laci remembered incorrectly. We did Dogma instead of Jay and Silent Bob Strike

Laci (00:10:37):

Back. Correct.

Matt (00:10:38):

I’m sure there’s been others.

Laci (00:10:40):

I’m sure of it.

Matt (00:10:40):

Alright, well, what’d you think though?

Laci (00:10:43):

Well, I had my heart all set to love it. Animation. I don’t know enough about it.

(00:10:52):

There were moments where I’m like, well, this is beautiful. Because what I remember about this movie is it’s beautiful. And what I always connected to is Avatar. And I get why I did. There’s a tree. There’s fucking without fucking, there’s glowing. There’s lots of sparkles, lots of mystical tree growth shit. But I’m wondering if this animation isn’t cheating looking extra special. Because there’s moments in the animation where I’m like, this is just a coloring book. This is just not a shitty way. It’s a beautiful drawing. No movement at all except for Krista’s flying across it.

Speaker 3 (00:11:24):

And

Laci (00:11:24):

Then maybe one thing’s flapping and I’m like, that’s interesting. Is that good or bad animation? I don’t know. Everything that’s drawn seems really nice. I don’t know that the character development is quite there. I feel like everything around the characters is good, but the fairies and the humans to me feel a little under thought through. They’re very outlined. They’re very early Disney looking.

Matt (00:11:48):

You’re talking about the design, not the

Laci (00:11:50):

Oh yeah. Like the story. Yeah, I’m talking about the, they literally look like they’re kind of on top of something that was maybe more care was given to it, the backgrounds.

Matt (00:12:02):

I think this movie looks extraordinary for the budget that it

Laci (00:12:06):

Had. Okay. Well, I dunno, the budget.

Matt (00:12:07):

Yeah, static backgrounds. That is we don’t have the money to make the backgrounds move.

(00:12:13):

They made this for 24 million. I think it looks great. They augmented it with a lot of CGI, which is not that noticeable. I was surprised to see. I find it more noticeable in the beauty and the B sequence where they’re in the ballroom. I’ve always disliked that. I find it so distracting, but I was not distracted here. The character designs though, I think you have your main characters and then everyone else looks like sort of anonymous nymphs. But I’ve noticed, I also watched The Little Mermaid recently. That’s also the case with that movie, with all of the non-important mermaids. They all look so bland.

Laci (00:12:48):

Exactly the same shape, just like different color tops and D color tails.

Matt (00:12:53):

I don’t know what it is about designing a magical creature that makes them all look so boring and the same,

Laci (00:12:59):

I guess, because humans are also boring and the same

Matt (00:13:02):

With a human. You see, when you finally see the humans in this movie, you have an enormous one and then one with a giant nose and you can just have a lot of fun with those designs.

Laci (00:13:11):

Yeah, it seemed like a hodgepodge to me a little bit. The two characters operating the truck look like the two drivers from 101 Dalmatians, where the Zach main character dude in this looks kind of like Prince Eric. And then she also looks, I don’t know, just it all looks kind of iconic. It all springs back memories and stuff. I think mainly the cover of the movie, the Poofy Box movie cover art and parts of it are magical and beautiful, but other parts feel like afterthoughts.

Matt (00:13:45):

I mean ultimately. So you’re saying you’re mixed. There’s parts that you thought were great, parts that you thought were so, I mean, I guess

Laci (00:13:55):

Parts where I feel like it’s fully integrated. And then other parts where I feel like it’s literally someone turned the page to a beautifully illustrated children’s book and then there’s one animated character flying on top of it, which is not, I mean, it is kind of a nice break. It gets my attention. And usually those moments happen when they’re outside of their inner world, so it feels a little intentional. Like the stillness happens when something more somber is happening, which there’s movement to life, death, there’s no movement. It makes sense. Symbolically,

Matt (00:14:25):

I guess I kind of agree with you pretty much about all of that and my final assessment. I think I like the movie more Than You, I guess I had seen it before because I like it was not my movie and I thought, I’ve never seen that. I just know the cover. I know her and I know the pterodactyl, who it turns out is a bat, not a tactile, this is not a dinosaur movie. But then when the scene where they’re touching the tree and there’s red paint on it, something clicked in me, oh, I know this, I know this. I’ve seen this. So I don’t know, I had no memory of it. I think that it’s a really good looking movie with some really powerful moments. And I also think the script is a little chicken shit and its message is pretty muddled and we’ll kind of try to,

Laci (00:15:16):

Yeah, I think it had really lofty goals, especially since the title, the card on the Out. The last thing you see is for our children’s children, this sexed up Fairytale. Fairytale.

Matt (00:15:31):

We were laughing about that, about what they thought they were going to achieve with this movie.

Laci (00:15:35):

Yeah, cool. Okay. Maybe your ambitions were a little too lofty, but I mean, certainly as a kid wouldn’t have had much awareness of rainforest and why they’re important. So I mean, I’m sure that I was like, oh yeah, I use people, I use little things, need trees.

Matt (00:15:52):

But that’s the thing. That’s why I don’t think art can do much to change the world because that’s exactly what happens. People are like, oh yeah, okay, yeah, I guess the rainforest is important. All right, moving on,

Speaker 4 (00:16:06):

Let’s go to here. Whatcha going to

Matt (00:16:07):

Do? You’re not going to do shit. It doesn’t matter. To raise awareness. And I think of it at the end of this movie when Zach gets his two big bros and he’s like, guys, from here on out, things have got to change.

Laci (00:16:17):

I wrote it down, buddies, things have got to change. You’re going to be walking the rest of the forest out of here. By the time you get out of this forest, you’re going to hate the rainforest so fucking much that you’re going to burn down the first fucking pile of firewood. You see? Just do it.

Matt (00:16:35):

That’s why I like the South Park episode where they go to the rainforest as part of a chorus that’s going to sing about saving the rainforest. Then they get lost in the rainforest. They’re like, the rainforest fucking sucks. And they changed the song to being about how we need to destroy all the rainforests because

Laci (00:16:48):

They suck. I didn’t even know that just came up with

Matt (00:16:50):

That. But it’s funny you mentioned Avatar, the comparison. I was annoyed because I recorded a podcast with screen time. Coda mentioned Avatar, and he is like, it’s just Fern Gully. And then I yelled at him, he was, you like, who cares? It doesn’t matter. There’s only three or four stories in the history of the world, but it’s

Laci (00:17:10):

Literally an enchanted tree.

Matt (00:17:11):

This is like beat for beat in many ways. However, I think that we are so poisoned by only ingesting stories that are pro capitalist and therefore individual and about the individual rising to become a hero that when there’s it occasionally a movie that’s

Laci (00:17:32):

About the collective.

Matt (00:17:33):

Yes.

Laci (00:17:34):

It’s like up, yeah. Hippie dippy shit. I’ve heard that before.

Matt (00:17:36):

And we’ve lumped them all in together.

Laci (00:17:38):

It’s mainly the very important special tree and the touching of hands that basically was the sex scene in this movie. And just with Avatar where they just intimately touch Maines or wherever the fuck that was. And that I’m always with you as she dies and then her particles are everywhere.

Matt (00:17:57):

Well, but I think that this compares unfavorably to avatar because Avatar actually has a radical message of we need to fucking kill the humans. So we’re going to band together and do radical violence against basically the American military. Whereas this one’s like we’re going to kill them with kindness.

Laci (00:18:11):

I mean, honestly, if they were really about their business, not just a bunch of little fucking torps that can barely go a square mile out from their special tree, then they’d be going to where they think deforestation is going to happen. Use ferry magic to make them all this big. Leave them there to die.

Matt (00:18:26):

My God. They’ll be perfect. Yes.

Laci (00:18:28):

What else are you doing with you? Whatcha going to do? Just like he asked. But what do you do all day? I help things grow. Why don’t you actually help things grow and go minify all these, especially if you can make them big again, just every deforesting person that comes out here change their mind. How about that? And if they come back again, shrink ’em. I

Matt (00:18:46):

Think you just shrink them. Just shrink ’em to nothing. Shrink ’em to Adam’s eyes just right

Laci (00:18:51):

There. And then they’ll just really care about the puddles. Now everyone’s really draining all the puddles. We need these puddles or just whatever’s small.

Matt (00:18:56):

And I think the other chicken shit thing is Heuss who I think is a cool character that is a way out of saying, this isn’t the fault of humans. There’s an evil forest spirit who I guess, what is he supposed to represent?

Laci (00:19:07):

I have no, I was confused. I was like, okay, where are they going? He’s like, ha ha. Yeah, this will be great. Well, I’ll use mankind’s bad instincts for my purposes. So I guess he’s greed and capitalism,

Matt (00:19:23):

But disconnected from actual humans. He’s like an elemental spirit.

Laci (00:19:28):

But so kind of implying that little things like hexis can get into the brains of the humans.

Matt (00:19:38):

So it’s not their fault they’ve been cursed by edema.

Laci (00:19:40):

But it’s also interesting because it seems also this movie also seems to be saying something about testing on animals. So it cares about animals too. He’s like, it is kind of got a lot going on. You know what, let’s get into the history please. I think I’ll feel more informed.

Matt (00:19:55):

But they definitely thought we’re going to save the rainforest. We’re going to say the rainforests of Australia are in trouble and we’re going to save them. And Laci and I were laughing. What instead they did was make a generation of kids really horny for rainforest, see a tree. And they’re like, I’m just feeling things now because we didn’t watch this movie together, but I yelled at you from the other room. It’s like, this is a very sexual movie.

Laci (00:20:17):

It’s definitely about the character design. You can see all her skin doesn’t end. It goes all the way up.

Matt (00:20:23):

And not just her design, I mean her actual acting. She’ll be biting her lips to math’s sultry performance.

Laci (00:20:29):

Well, and she’s on all fours a lot. Yeah.

Matt (00:20:31):

She gets wet all the time.

Laci (00:20:33):

And when she gets wet, her hair grows to long fuckable hot girl length. And then when she’s dry, it’s pucky little character. It’s like, that’s not how hair works. It’s like tendrils down her tit when she’s wet. It’s like we’ll always have what we had here.

Matt (00:20:52):

But I think this isn’t a mistake necessarily because yeah, you

Laci (00:20:56):

Might as well want to fuck a tree and just don’t cut it down.

Matt (00:20:58):

But that’s what plants, that’s what plants, and that’s what it symbolizes in just the most elemental.

Laci (00:21:05):

She helps it grow.

Matt (00:21:06):

Imagery is plants make people horny when they think about them.

Laci (00:21:10):

Birds and bees and trees. That’s it.

Matt (00:21:38):

Alright, so the history of Fern Gully, this all begins in Australia,

Laci (00:21:42):

Which I didn’t know until I saw a kangaroo and a platypus. And I was like, what the fuck are they doing in a goddamn rainforest? And then I found out there are kangaroos and rainforest, but they’re smaller. They’re almost like monkey like the way that they utilize the trees.

Matt (00:21:55):

Yeah, they’re, they have emus in this rainforest. They have all these lizards, but it’s like we’re going to put the iconic animals of Australia without ever saying this is Australia, which I resent, and I wish there were some Australian voices, but that was like the, we can’t make a big movie set in Australia. Got to go get some Yanks. But this is a very Australian production. Starts with Wayne Young, the producer of the film in 1992, he told the Calgary Herald, once we had rainforest going down to the sea when the Aborigines were the only inhabitants, they barely left a footprint in the sand. Things are different now. There’s been a very strong, strong conservation movement in Australia since the early sixties. I was part of that. We fought to save the rainforest and have them declared a national park. We went to the World Heritage Council for support and luckily we preserved some large sections of rainforest, including the one that inspired this film end. Just

Laci (00:22:51):

One section of it. It was a real mossy section.

Matt (00:22:54):

We did that.

Laci (00:22:55):

It had a twisty rope betray.

Matt (00:22:57):

He and his wife Diana, were the stewards of this movie for a long time. She had written this story composed in her head and would tell the children, her children bedtime stories about the magical creatures that inhabit the rainforest of Australia. But Wayne Young had produced Crocodile Dundee, an international blockbuster out of Australia, and he decided I want to go over to Hollywood and try to make it over there. So most of my history comes from a 2017 Vanity Fair piece, Fern Gully at 25, how an upstart Disney rival created a millennial Silent Spring by Chantel to toe. Wayne Young. The producer said they had this idea, but the environmental movement wasn’t cool. We had to wait for it to get cool again. And by the late eighties, things had started to turn, Madonna had a benefit concert called Don’t Bungle the Jungle.

Laci (00:23:46):

Nice.

Matt (00:23:47):

So he went to Hollywood, sets up shop there, tries to start shopping around his project for Fernal, an animated movie about an Australian rainforest. But it wasn’t until the Little Mermaid in 1989 kind of reinvigorated the American animation industry. And I said this earlier when I was talking about the videos that I make, but I love exploring these movies by upstart rivals, whether they’re big studios trying to get an animation or they’re independent studios like Don Bluth making the American Tale movies, or like Warner Brothers and Dreamworks and 20th Century Fox all trying to get their own animation studios off the ground. It’s just a fascinating time in animation history. Bill Kreer is the director of this movie. He was a very important CGI animator. He did the CGI for Tron, and he worked at Disney for a long time. Never directed a feature, but he wasn’t animator on the Fox and the Hound. In 1988, he directed an animated short called Technological Threat, which was nominated for an Oscar. You can watch it. It’s on YouTube. It’s six minutes long. It’s about a dog who works. It’s about dogs who work in an office that are under constant surveillance. And if they like to have any drop in their productivity, if they have to sneeze, they might get instantly replaced with a computer that will literally like an anthropomorphic computer that will sit at the desk for them. It’s

Laci (00:25:08):

Amazon.

Matt (00:25:09):

It’s Amazon and ai. It’s predicting both of those things simultaneously. It’s incredible. But Fern Gully, the only movie that he has directed, the only feature film that he has directed, but he kept very busy doing CGI animation for the Garfield movie, the Scooby-Doo movie and cats and dogs. And what he said was the pitch was that the real rainforest is so magical itself. That’s the thing you want to portray to convey that it’s worth saving. We didn’t draw fantasy plants or animals. We saw these things. We went over there with a thin story, but everything came together when we saw the glowing fungi. So he and his team went to the rainforest in Australia and stayed there for a while and they ran into trouble with Jeffrey Katzenberg, who was running Disney’s animation, didn’t wanted to nip any competitors in the bud. This Bill Kroger’s team would rent animation facilities and then Katzenberg would come in and try to offer the landlord double to be able to rent it himself. And what they really ran into trouble with was Robin Williams, for whom the role of Batty the bat had been written. And he had never done animation before.

Laci (00:26:22):

You’re kidding. This is before Aladdin. I did not put that together. It seems like an Aladdin audition, how he cycles through Voices it’s Impression, impression, impression, impression.

Matt (00:26:34):

And both this movie and Al Lad. And what the director said is this was a smaller character, but he came in and he just had us in stitches. He just let him go, let him go, and he would go for 37 straight hours and suddenly the genie’s taken over the movie and suddenly bat’s taken over the movie.

Laci (00:26:50):

Batty iss. My favorite part,

Matt (00:26:52):

I think he’s annoying.

Laci (00:26:53):

I

Matt (00:26:53):

Know, I think the Genie works so much better than Batty Works, but at least in this movie, they have the in movie explanation for why he does so many pop culture references, which is that he’s a bat who has experimented on and ingested all this human pop culture.

Laci (00:27:09):

It could literally pick up frequencies.

Matt (00:27:12):

Whereas in Aladdin, he’s just like, he’ll just turn into Sigmund Freud just because he’s magical.

Laci (00:27:19):

Well, because he’s timeless. He’s existed always.

Matt (00:27:22):

He exists out. Okay, there you go.

Laci (00:27:25):

You just needed me to help you there.

Matt (00:27:27):

So he took this job first. He did this movie first, and then when he signed onto Aladdin, Katzenberg was very angry. You’re going to do another animated movie from a hated rival Bill Kreer Pictures. And that movie’s going to come out the same year as Aladdin. And it did. It came out six months before Aladdin. The screenwriter

Laci (00:27:45):

Just gets your palette. Wed for Aladdin though. I mean, Aladdin’s just so special.

Matt (00:27:49):

Yeah, there was no threat.

Laci (00:27:50):

Yeah, you’re okay.

Matt (00:27:51):

No threat at all. The screenwriter for the movie Jim Cox, he said quote Katzenberg did not want him voicing two animated characters in two animated movies at the same time and tried to force Robin not to do it. Robin was steaming like, it’s my voice. You can’t stop me. And he felt very strongly about the actionable green message. Yeah. Oh, I want your voice.

Laci (00:28:12):

You can’t have it. Kaz Berg.

Matt (00:28:14):

I know that this isn’t about Fern Gully, this is about him and his feud with Disney over Aladdin. But I think it’s an interesting story and it’s sort of a counterpoint to the modesty of Fern Gully that Robin Williams had a long feud with Disney after Aladdin. What I had always heard was that the source was that he didn’t want to be included in any marketing of Aladdin because he had the movie toys coming out around the same time and he didn’t want that to distract from toys. He cared a lot about toys,

(00:28:45):

But they put him front and center in the marketing. I couldn’t find any actual support for that. So what it seemed like it actually was, was that he had had an agreement with Disney that they wouldn’t use his voice in any merchandising and that they just went ahead and did it. And here’s what he said in New York Magazine in 1993, it wasn’t as if we hadn’t sent it out. I don’t want to sell stuff. It’s the one thing I don’t do. In Mork and Mindy, they did Mork Dolls. I didn’t mind The Dolls. The image is theirs, but the voice, that’s me. I gave them myself when it happened. I said, I don’t do that. And they apologized. They said it was done by other people. Do you know the story of Eric Von Stroheim getting a blowjob on the set? What the fuck? Eric Heim’s, a director from Hollywood’s

Laci (00:29:31):

Golden Age. Wait, and Morgan and Mindy?

Matt (00:29:32):

No. From the twenties.

Laci (00:29:34):

No, but okay, so he’s just bringing this up.

Matt (00:29:36):

Yes.

Laci (00:29:37):

Okay.

Matt (00:29:38):

The story of Eric Von Stroheim getting a blowjob on the set. Suddenly he notices that all the crew members are watching. He looks down and goes, what are you doing? You nasty girl. The Disney thing was like that. I swear I didn’t know what my right hand was doing. So saying like, yeah, you knew what I wanted, but there’s way more money and you can just buy me off.

Laci (00:29:56):

Well, and don’t ask permission, ask for forgiveness.

Matt (00:29:59):

So Jeffrey Katzenberg bought Robin Williams a $1 million Picasso, but it didn’t help. Robin Williams is still mad. He wanted a public apology, which Katzenberg, who is a wicked fuck, never gave him. But then he left Disney got replaced by Joe Roth who did do a public apology. That meant the defenses. And then Robin Williams could be in the

Speaker 5 (00:30:19):

Third return. Jafar

Matt (00:30:20):

Third? No, the one after return of Jafar because in return of Jafar, in Return of Jaffar, it’s Dan Castellaneta Homer. And in Aladdin in the Prince of Thieves, it’s Robin Williams’ back. So that’s the history of Robin Williams.

Laci (00:30:34):

I like that about, I’d like to know more about Robin Williams and seems like a very complicated deep thinking guy. I always like to stand up, even though there’s always one or two parts of his standup where I’m like, oh my God. And it’s exhausting. He just physically exhausted you to watch him

Speaker 4 (00:30:49):

Go and go and go and go. Yeah. That’s the part that I can’t,

Laci (00:30:51):

But that’s very, I mean that’s a really cool principle that he had them. He’s not trying, he just wants to give a performance. He isn’t trying to milk it in other people for all their worth after the point. It doesn’t seem like he’s very much into capitalism and for him to be into Feng Gully for the green aspect of it also Nate,

Matt (00:31:10):

And it’s like if you’re trying to work actually be anti-capitalist and work in the movie industry, it’s the great tension.

Laci (00:31:19):

Did he start as a standup or ski sketch comedy? I mean he probably didn’t know he was movie star material. He probably didn’t know he had a patch Adams in him or whatever. I’m sure a comedian just wants to get paid to be in a comedian and be able to make a living doing it. He just kind of seemed like lightning in a bottle and that probably got away from him. He grew so big so fast and didn’t really have a plan that he knew how to execute.

Matt (00:31:46):

And so even if it’s not totally thought out, like, oh really? You’re okay working with Disney, but you’re not okay with them using your voice, what’s the difference? And to him, to him, I just have to put my foot down somewhere. I have to have some sort of principles, even if it’s not coherent and make sense to me, it feels really important that you can’t just make a toy of the genie and use my voice.

Laci (00:32:10):

You don’t own. I can give a performance. It’s there. You can then sell the movie, but you don’t own the things I’ve said and you can’t apply them to other things in perpetuity. That’s not fair. Like ai. Right. Then you just can get any famous person to say whatever you want. You could just take clips of everything they made and stitch it all together and then all of a sudden you don’t even own your voice.

Matt (00:32:29):

He had no idea how important what he was is going to be.

Laci (00:32:33):

And when you say enough things, when you have enough takes, when they’re literally letting you go and go and go and for there’s a lot of shit left on the floor. You got to just trust that they’re going to take a cut, use it and that’s it. And not put it all together in some other kind of way and use it in a way you didn’t say that they could.

Matt (00:32:48):

Right. And with Ian Hol in the new alien movie that came out last year, people defended it by saying his family gave permission, his wife gave permission. Your wife is, yeah, I trust Laci with my life,

Laci (00:33:00):

But you don’t know what kind of debt I’m going to be in when you’re dead. He would like if you did that. Yeah. Use his penis is too

Matt (00:33:06):

Puppet

Laci (00:33:06):

That

Matt (00:33:06):

Yeah, it’s me, it’s my body, it’s my work. I don’t know. It’s weird. So the only other thing is this movie produced for 24 million, relatively modest budget for a movie with this much really high quality animation. I think it looks great. It made 33 million at the box office. But I have to imagine it was a giant movie on video. It was omni present when I was

Laci (00:33:32):

A kid. I feel like everyone had this in their collection. Was Christian Slater a big get? I feel like 92 was like Hot Christian Slater time.

Matt (00:33:41):

Yeah, I think it was Hot Christian Slater time.

Laci (00:33:44):

He doesn’t totally translate to a voice actor. Yeah, he’s the flattest thing. But he’s just Christian Slater. I mean, as he said this first one, Christian slate’s like a moody kind of brooding guy. You need the amazing genetic makeup of his face and body to kind of make him more interesting. Otherwise he’s just kind of flat.

Matt (00:34:05):

The only interesting thing about Kips, is it Kips or ps?

Laci (00:34:08):

Sure. I don’t know.

Matt (00:34:10):

I mean one of cinema’s like most okay, cooks

Laci (00:34:13):

Yes.

Matt (00:34:14):

Just keep seeing his girlfriend. Go to fucking Z Guy and go, well, I guess Chris is going off with that. Zach now ran.

Laci (00:34:26):

Then he is like, part of me really wants to stay. And he’s like, fuck yes. Fuck yes,

Speaker 3 (00:34:31):

But

Laci (00:34:31):

I know that I have to go. And then Chris was like, no. Chris was like, no, no. Yeah, no, no. You have to go. Just remember everything that happened here. Here’s the seed, AKA, I’m pregnant. Zach, love him and leave him.

Matt (00:34:50):

We’re all part of each other.

Laci (00:34:52):

She used her glowing hands on him. How do we know that wasn’t her first time anyway? Whatever. It’s stupid. Virginia’s dumb.

Matt (00:35:00):

You think that? Well see. Okay, we’ll get to that.

Laci (00:35:03):

We’ll get to it.

Matt (00:35:03):

We’ll get to it.

Laci (00:35:04):

We’re going to get to it.

Matt (00:35:04):

There was a directive video, sequel Fern Gully two, the Magical Rescue. Not a single person involved with Fern Gully was involved with the sequel. So I’m sure we will hear from people who said, I love the sequel. It’s actually better than the first every single movie we talk about.

Laci (00:35:17):

Well there is a carnival, so that sounds very Fern Gully.

Matt (00:35:21):

Yeah. You know what’s cheaper to animate than a very dense forest?

Laci (00:35:24):

A carnival?

Matt (00:35:25):

Yes, a carnival. The cheapest

Laci (00:35:27):

Thing of all. I didn’t know

Matt (00:35:28):

That. No, I don’t.

Laci (00:35:29):

It just

Matt (00:35:29):

Seems like easier. But what do I know?

Laci (00:35:31):

Fuck what is in the, okay, so it’s a man abusing animals. That’s the thing.

Matt (00:35:35):

We don’t want to see that.

Laci (00:35:37):

Well, that’s why they’re getting involved now. I understand.

Matt (00:35:41):

So this is Fern Gully too, not in Fern Gully. We are not.

Laci (00:35:45):

We bring it with us. I swear I thought her name was Fern Gully.

Matt (00:35:49):

I know. What is Fern Gully? It’s just the location until we get to Fern Gully. I thought we were in Fern Gully.

Laci (00:35:53):

No, no. Then all of a sudden they drop in the canoe and he is like, where are we? Fern Kelly? He was like, why are you

Matt (00:35:58):

Saying

Laci (00:35:59):

We’re here? It’s the glowy fun part. Also, I really don’t understand what magic can do. It seems very limited at times.

Matt (00:36:06):

She’s a floating vagina.

Laci (00:36:08):

She’s a floating labia majora and menorah. But both seem kind of major to me. She’s a floating roast beef sandwich.

Matt (00:36:15):

She is the floating spirit of all of nature and how we are all connecting each I understand. To each other. Underst

Laci (00:36:20):

Understand. I understand that Matt. But at the end, when she turns blue, because she uses up her last drop of magic to make a twisty tree, you made one tty tree, one twisty tree, and it’s not even an undefeatable tree. Still the big machine comes and it cuts into it. So what did you just do, Maggie?

Matt (00:36:39):

I know. And you died Krista. Krista says, and Heus is defeated and he could never come back. I think he could. I think if you just chopped down that tree, he’d back.

Laci (00:36:48):

Right? That very easily fool me once

Matt (00:36:51):

Krista. But she has way too much faith in Zach. He’s going to go back and raise awareness.

Laci (00:36:55):

Look at him with his cuffed jeans and his way too tan skin. Now that I understand it’s Australian. All makes sense. Come on boys. Things have got to change. Who society will listen to? A teenage boy and two overweight men? Let’s go change the world.

Matt (00:37:11):

We did a recap of the show severance earlier this year and we were saying season one seems to end with the heroes of that show being like the world needs to know what they’re doing to us. And we said, because we’re so smart, we said, Hey, guess what? It won’t matter if the world learns. Think about all the shit we know is going on in the world that we don’t do anything about. You think people are going to go, oh, the ferries in the marine force.

Laci (00:37:35):

What they want to know is the bottom line. What does this do for the cost of building a home? Well, it triples the price. Fuck those

Matt (00:37:41):

Ferries. Oh yeah, fuck that. Yeah,

Laci (00:37:42):

Fuck those fert. That’s what happens.

Matt (00:37:45):

Here’s what we’re going to do. Not think about the ferries. Okay.

Laci (00:37:47):

Or hey, we aren’t going to have to pull way back on wood because of the forest, but that just means ramp up the plastics industry. So we just fuck the ocean instead.

Matt (00:37:57):

One of the great things about avatar too.

Laci (00:38:00):

Avatar going to confront the forest avatars in the water avatars be like it’s you. No, it too.

Matt (00:38:05):

I believe that the fire avatar are working with the humans. I think that that’s the thing in the new movie

Laci (00:38:11):

Collaborators. Well, there are always that in an uprising or downfall. I don’t know what I’m saying. My point is, I’ve noticed more lately in our videos, there’s just a lot of me talking like this on the side.

Matt (00:38:27):

You’re holding the mic now these

Laci (00:38:28):

Days. No. Maybe, but I so need to point my aggression at you where it’s like, is it more engaging if I just stare in the camera? Really? I don’t know.

Matt (00:38:36):

Do both

Laci (00:38:37):

Viewer, listener, viewer tell me. Yell at Matt. Yell at you. They want you to yell at me. What’d you say?

Matt (00:38:48):

So what did you say, Fern? I said, you know they’re going to want you to yell at me.

Laci (00:38:51):

Yeah, but maybe this side of me is not great.

Matt (00:38:56):

All sides of you are great. So let’s talk about Fern Gully. The last rainforest. It’s the last one we open with these hand prints or whatever in white powder. It’s like a really beautifully illustrated tapestry of the history of the forest,

Laci (00:39:46):

Aboriginal forest.

Matt (00:39:47):

And I like that it starts with hand prints, but then the hand prints are the tops of trees. We are all the same. When somebody like James Cameron seems like he just did a lot of mushrooms and he’s now I see everything. I see the connectivity among all life. He sounds like a big giant nerd, but he is not wrong. We are all the same thing. It is an illusion that I am one person and you are a different person. We’re all the same exact thing.

Laci (00:40:11):

Literally the only difference between a human and a fairy was that the Zach wore shoes. Literally everything else is the same. We’re even pretty sure he had a penis in Cste vagina. We’re pretty sure.

Matt (00:40:21):

And that we all need each other and we are all connected in ways we will never see. And again, that sounds like boring nerd shit, but it’s very, very important.

Laci (00:40:30):

We return to the earth being thinking about what our bodies do. We are literally compost.

Matt (00:40:34):

Yeah. Yeah. Death is just, I take on a new fool.

Laci (00:40:39):

And what does compost do, Matt? It helps things grow. It’s just to continue. Lion King really knew what they were talking about with that circle of life. Bullshit Christians, Christians making that. Not something that young Christians like myself were allowed to hear. It’s like what? It just means when you’re dead, you don’t really die by what? Come? I can’t know that

Matt (00:41:00):

This is a real thing. You weren’t allowed to watch the Lion King. It had evolution or

Laci (00:41:05):

I still did because my mom’s like a sucka. But that was my one year at private school and it was a Baptist school and someone brought coloring sheets for everyone to do and it was Lion King and Ms. Stewart was pissed and threw ’em away in front of everyone. And that kid was sad.

Matt (00:41:23):

Should we try to find Ms. Stewart?

Laci (00:41:25):

She did.

Matt (00:41:26):

Yeah. Alright, good. She’s dead. She’s in heaven. So yeah,

Laci (00:41:30):

Without the Lion King,

Matt (00:41:31):

Our world was much larger then Forest went on forever. We tree spirits nurtured the harmony of all living things. But our closest friends were humans. Vanis sometimes happens. The balance of nature shifted and hexis, the very spirit of destruction rose up from the bowels of the earth and rained down his poison. The forest was nearly destroyed. Many lives were lost. So

Speaker 4 (00:41:50):

What was it what he did?

Matt (00:41:53):

I think he was European settlers. We were friends with the Aborigines. But then the European,

Laci (00:41:59):

The Texas got into their heads and turned them all mean against us. Yeah. I think these fairies just can’t really accept that humans don’t like you like that.

Matt (00:42:07):

And they’re just trying to make sense of it however they can. So they have to conjure up hexis.

Laci (00:42:11):

Right.

Matt (00:42:13):

Many lives were lost. The human fled in fear never to return. Most think they didn’t survive

Laci (00:42:18):

Because think about it, Matt. They even think as soon as they see smoke, they’re like hexis. And she’s like mad. Don’t you think she’s No, no, no. And then crystal leaves and Maggie’s like hex. That’s definitely No, it’s just like a campfire or something. It is just humans. It’s smoke.

Matt (00:42:35):

Yeah. That’s why its

Laci (00:42:35):

It.

Matt (00:42:37):

I know. That’s why it’s annoying that Hexis is real because that monies things.

Laci (00:42:41):

Yeah. You

Matt (00:42:41):

Did have to worry about him.

Laci (00:42:43):

Right? Or that’s why that tree was getting chopped so good. It was near the Hs tree.

Matt (00:42:49):

What does he

Laci (00:42:51):

Do?

Matt (00:42:52):

What does he do that the Deforesters wouldn’t do any, I guess he says No, you got to go deeper into her Fern Gully. That’s what he does.

Laci (00:42:58):

Big fucking whoop.

Matt (00:43:00):

They’d have gotten there eventually,

Laci (00:43:02):

Right? We need more forest. That’s what this machine does. It take forest. We’re not going to stop.

Matt (00:43:07):

Yeah, but mad, the narrator, she was able to trap Hexis inside of an enchanted tree. We see drawings of kangaroos and stuff and mad is telling Kris to all of this, but Krista’s got her. She’s not really listening. She’s, she’s

Laci (00:43:21):

Hearing music going to Half Naked Fair. He’s listening to music

Matt (00:43:24):

Because Krista, she’s supposed to take MAD’s place one day, but she’s like, huh. I don’t know.

Laci (00:43:29):

It’s kind of like the Trolls movie, right? It just so happens that troll for most of Krista’s life, everything’s been totally fine. I’m just a fairy doing fairy shit. Everything’s super chill. Imagine didn’t know. You’re always talking about these other things. To me, all of life has been this. She has no nine 11, no Katrina. Right. And then wake up Poppy

Matt (00:43:47):

Victory has made you soft.

Laci (00:43:49):

Wake up Poppy. I hope you had taken in all those lessons. You need to apply them all now.

Matt (00:43:55):

Yeah. You can only learn by doing so. Yeah, that’s the curse. It’s the curse of victory. She probably just needs, as Bain says to Batman.

Laci (00:44:02):

Yeah. Alright. I forgot what was

Matt (00:44:04):

Going. She goes and meets up with this hunk named Pips played by Christian Slater. Now Pip

Laci (00:44:09):

Just popping off the screen

Matt (00:44:10):

Is a drip. I think he

Laci (00:44:13):

Looks stupid. He’s always mad at editor too. Who you being Krista? Bella. Bella. Chico. Where you been at

Matt (00:44:18):

Bella?

Laci (00:44:20):

Jacob’s like, what’s up Loca, were you, that thing that everyone makes fun of Jacob for saying,

Matt (00:44:27):

Oh, I forgot. This is another, I think kind of significant flow of the movie is the songs are all,

Laci (00:44:32):

They’re all over the fucking place.

Matt (00:44:34):

It’s because there are a number of different composers,

Laci (00:44:37):

But they’re four unique to this movie and then one that’s not. And the tone and the quality of each of these songs is pretty different and some of them are just downright. That is a fucking song. How I recorded part of it. Just like Something’s Got to Die. I don’t know what it said. I just might as well.

Matt (00:44:57):

You the one ung by Tone Lo. Yeah.

Laci (00:44:58):

No, no, no, no. That one just sounds like Tone. I feel like Tone Lo was a gimmick in lots of things around this time. So all of a sudden Funky Medina happening and I’m like, yep, it’s the nineties

Matt (00:45:11):

With the Disney Renaissance movies. They literally started before anything else with Howard Ashman and Alan Mankin writing songs. And then the stories were built around the

Laci (00:45:21):

Songs, right. And Frozen as well.

Matt (00:45:24):

I don’t know if they did it that way with Frozen,

Laci (00:45:26):

Just because I mean, it’s all about the music with Disney movies. And I think they really understand that’s what lasts. Kids buy those soundtracks and let’s do ’em in the car over and over and over again. It’s just so smart. It does. The marketing for you

Matt (00:45:41):

Was, this is the first thing we do and everything goes from there. Now it’s time for a song. So we got to find a song. So we’ll hire Alan Silvestri, we’ll hire somebody. We’ll hire Jimmy Buffett writes one of these songs. It’s probably, he writes the tone. Luke one song. It’s about eating because Jimmy Buffett songs are all about

Laci (00:45:57):

Eating. That man was Hungry. The one where Robin Williams starts rapping. I’m like, uhoh, but you know what? He sells it for me. It doesn’t bother me. I’m ready for it to bother me because I hadn’t yet seen Mrs. Dow fire or Aladdin where he also wraps. It’s just like he takes his privilege as the black scent. But this was, I guess because he’s an animal, not a man. I’m just like, do your thing, whatever.

Matt (00:46:26):

So she’s playing with her friends. She’s got Pips who’s always angry at her. She’s not putting out,

Laci (00:46:34):

You’re always with magic. She’s literally going to take over the forest spirits to make everything cool and stay nice. You got to let her have her lessons, her 20 minute lessons where she’s looking at you anyway.

Matt (00:46:47):

He’s

Laci (00:46:48):

Such a little bitch.

Matt (00:46:50):

I’m

Laci (00:46:50):

Just going to play my pan flute.

Matt (00:46:52):

But here’s something I like about this movie, and we’ll contrast it with something like Moana and Moana’s a better movie than this, but just in how impossible it is for Hollywood to not tell a pro capitalist story. Krista is not, I want to get out of here. I know there’s a bigger, better world

Laci (00:47:12):

Out there. No, she’s

Matt (00:47:13):

Chill. Yeah. She loves this world and she wants to protect it.

Laci (00:47:16):

Right? Right.

Matt (00:47:17):

Moana will come up with reasons for like, you got to leave. You got to expand your empire.

Laci (00:47:22):

This island is bullshit. Yeah.

Matt (00:47:24):

So it’s like, yeah, our fish are dying. But then once she fixes the fish, she’s still like, well now we get on these huge canoes and go take over other islands.

Laci (00:47:32):

You guys heard of crabs? They’re delicious. Not indigenous to us. I will bring them in. It’s called an import.

Matt (00:47:39):

And I know it’s harder to tell a story that isn’t centered on a very special individual. And that’s Krista kind of is a very special individual. But it isn’t the chosen one wants to convince everybody like, no, humans are good. Their world is beautiful. We need to go see it. They have so much they can teach us. You’re humans have nothing to offer these people.

Laci (00:47:59):

Yeah. Yo, you’re glad you’re so right. There’s no gold in anything in here. Just two habitats trying to be who they need to be. And once they run into each other, do the best they can to be good to each other. There’s no special, I mean, there’s the moment where Krista’s walking down the tree after she’s almost died and she’s making flowers everywhere. But then that’s over. Then the boy breaks up with her and she’s like, yeah, remember everything you did here? Seed

Matt (00:48:20):

Breaks up with her.

Laci (00:48:23):

And then you think, oh, okay, well great. It was already an awkward triangle. Now she can be with, because my brain, my Disney brain is like, okay, so now she be with flip trip, drip, whatever. And now they’re just like, all right, well we’re friends. And the movie ends. Okay, that’s kind of advanced. I was getting spoonfed of relationship goals constantly as a child. This is just friendship. Friendship with hand stuff.

Matt (00:48:50):

It’s friendship and her listen, the

Laci (00:48:52):

Hand stuff.

Matt (00:48:54):

Yes, it is friendship and sex. And I think that

Speaker 3 (00:48:58):

Nice.

Matt (00:48:58):

The sex in this movie that is part of it. I mean it’s just implied, but it is like we don’t have your sort of like a bourgeois morality about sex. We live in close harmony with nature where nature is all sex. That’s all nature is. So why would we have any hangups about it?

Laci (00:49:13):

You got to fuck.

Matt (00:49:13):

I see this hot guy, I’m going to fucking him by putting my hand on his

Laci (00:49:16):

Head. We barely wear clothes. Look, it’s skip’s little loin cloth. If the wind blows, you just see is Dick and Berries mean right there.

Matt (00:49:24):

We got these ferries played by Cheech and Chong. They’re fine. I guess

Laci (00:49:27):

That’s the least Cheech and Chong performance they’ve ever done though. It’s really dialed back.

Matt (00:49:32):

You are used to hearing Cheech in movies. That’s what it’s not so much Chong.

Laci (00:49:36):

Chong Chong has a very less distinct voice. And he talks maybe a little bit more than Cheech in this. Yeah,

Matt (00:49:41):

Cheech was doing a lot of voiceover work. He was in Oliver and Company. Later he’ll be in Line King.

Laci (00:49:44):

He’s always a welcome. I mean, both of them, they’re both just very expressive. They always add people who can do voice work just are, I dunno. They have a better grasp of humanity. I dunno how they managed to make things interesting. They just know what to the little noises kind of like we were saying with

Matt (00:50:06):

Stage acting versus camera

Laci (00:50:07):

Acting. Yeah. I can’t think of his name. Johnny Depp.

Matt (00:50:09):

Of Johnny Depp.

Laci (00:50:10):

Right. He knows

Matt (00:50:12):

If you’re now working without your face, you’ve lost one of the tools you had as a trained actor. So you have to compensate in other ways.

Laci (00:50:18):

You need vocal ticks now. You need sound ticks. You need proper timing of things or whatever. Who’s in this? And she’s just like, fairy number two is Bobby Hill. She’s in this too.

Matt (00:50:30):

Pamela Adlon is. I didn’t hear

Laci (00:50:31):

Her.

Matt (00:50:32):

I didn’t hear any of

Laci (00:50:33):

The It’s just It’s a moment. Yeah. She’s like way down the cast list.

Matt (00:50:36):

Okay. So crystal flies above the canopy. Don’t go above the canopy. Crystal. We don’t do that. Crystal. Come on. Hey Crystal, don’t go up above the canopy. We all think that he should not, but she does. And she sees smoke in the distance. Huh? What’s up with this smoke? I need to go back to tell Madgie. So she left Madgie two minutes into the movie. Now she’s back with Madgie. Five minutes into the movie. Madgie mad. This movie moves so fast.

Speaker 3 (00:50:59):

It does.

Matt (00:51:00):

She’s like, I saw a big rock and mag’s like that was a mountain mount warning.

Laci (00:51:05):

There’s many things you don’t know. I don’t let you go above the canopy. It means I know everything above the canopy and you don’t

Matt (00:51:10):

Yeah. She’s kind of hoarding all these secrets. Little bit of an

Laci (00:51:12):

Asshole. Yeah. And where’d your teeth go, Maggie? You’re on a tree diet. That’s odd. Where are your teeth?

Matt (00:51:20):

You’re just gumming everything these

Laci (00:51:21):

Days. Well, you’ve been doing

Matt (00:51:23):

So yeah, there’s many things you don’t know about this world, about the outside world, but also the inside world. There are worlds within worlds within worlds. And here, here’s an example. This seed pod. A lot of shit inside there,

Laci (00:51:33):

Maggie. This is literally the only thing I know about is fucking seeds. Every time I come to you, you tell me it’s about a seed and then something glows and then you distract me and I walk away. And then you do actual magic. And then literally 45 minutes from now after you told me there’s much, I don’t know. You’re going to die so casually you don’t even hug

Speaker 4 (00:51:50):

Me. There’s no tears. Just I was with you. Don’t forget about the seed pod. You’re pregnant. What do I do with the

Matt (00:51:58):

Seed pod? What about the worlds out

Speaker 4 (00:52:00):

Of this world? Do I just stay in here in

Laci (00:52:02):

The twisty tree you made or

Matt (00:52:04):

What? So Krista is working on developing her magic power. She’s supposed to be able to use her magic to make things grow, but she’s not there yet. Kris Krista says to magic like, Hey, I’m worried. Do you think Hexis is coming back? Is that what the smoke means? And MAD’s like, no way. Get out of here.

Laci (00:52:23):

Stupid. Yeah, you’re done. You’re bothering me. You don’t know things.

Matt (00:52:25):

And then Chris, when MAD’s by herself, she’s like, oh my God. I think it’s hes, oh no, what are you

Laci (00:52:29):

Doing

Matt (00:52:31):

Now? We meet Batty. Played by Robin Williams, batty Coda batty screen time coda. He has been experimented on by humans. He has an electrical rod attached to his head. He talks about grad students were shocking him, I guess like a Stanford prison experiment with a

Speaker 3 (00:52:45):

Bat.

Matt (00:52:46):

How much pain can you inflict on this bat, which we learned a lot of valuable things about how much people will torture a bat, at least how much Australians will torture a bat.

Laci (00:52:55):

Well, if we only knew about Coronavirus, we would’ve been torturing all of the bats.

Matt (00:52:59):

That’s a good point, Laci.

Laci (00:53:00):

Thank you.

Matt (00:53:00):

That’s a good point. He is an agent of human interference, and he’s now arrived in the forest and he tells them, I’ve been experimented on by humans. And they’re like, but humans, we thought humans were

Laci (00:53:11):

Extinct. Well, Mag’s been lying to you about a lot of things, small creatures.

Matt (00:53:15):

And he starts like Robin Williams zing out. He does an annoying song that Laci likes. It

Laci (00:53:20):

Was fine. He

Matt (00:53:20):

Does a Freud. He does the des. Oh God, you’re going to get so many of these.

Laci (00:53:25):

I was glad he didn’t go further. He just says, Lucy, and then my favorite line of the entire movie is, and then it’s like, hi, Helen. That was his impression of what humans are like. Oh no. Humans are like, hi, Helen.

Matt (00:53:36):

That is funny. That is funny. That’s hilarious. Well, we meet Kris’s father. He’s like, you think humans still exist? He’s like, now Krister, you’re too old to believe in human terror.

Laci (00:53:46):

Ah. You see what he did though?

Matt (00:53:47):

But Kris says, she’s like, fuck this. I’m going to go look at Mount Warning. I need to go take a look for myself. And Batty decides to follow her, but Batty is scared. So he roosts upside down before he can get to the edge of the forest. And then Krista goes inside of his wings and she gives him just a sultry kiss. And she’s like, I’ll be right back, babe. Back. You

Laci (00:54:05):

Sexy.

Matt (00:54:05):

Fuck.

Laci (00:54:07):

You’re so horny for Krista.

Matt (00:54:09):

The movie is you telling me you’re not horny for Batty?

Laci (00:54:14):

I’m not.

Matt (00:54:15):

What about Zach?

Laci (00:54:16):

Definitely not.

Matt (00:54:17):

What about Cody?

Laci (00:54:18):

Who’s Cody?

Matt (00:54:19):

I don’t know. I made ’em up.

Laci (00:54:20):

Okay.

Matt (00:54:21):

So yeah, literally as you said that, I wrote in my notes, this movie had to be a sexual awakening for millions of kids because of Krista, but also Pips and Zach, they’re also Hotties. So she flies to this deforested area. Well, first she

Laci (00:54:35):

Reach more like Deflowered.

Matt (00:54:37):

She reached, please. We reach the edge of the forest, and I think this is so well done. The way it looks, it is just a sort of brush, or what do they call it? The bush?

Laci (00:54:48):

Yeah. It just looks like Australia all of a sudden.

Matt (00:54:50):

Yeah. So I stumbled upon Australia. It looks like shit,

Laci (00:54:53):

I, ew,

Matt (00:54:53):

Just covered in brand.

Laci (00:54:54):

I need sunblock now.

Matt (00:54:57):

And she goes up to a tree and touches it and feels that there’s paint on it. It’s the whole thing about, I feel the pain of the trees. And here it’s like I’m touching the tree’s, blood in this red

Laci (00:55:06):

Paint. Right? The fumes alone on the size of her body would kill her instantly, but fine.

Matt (00:55:11):

And this is when I thought like, oh, okay. I have seen this movie before. Yes. Okay. It’s just funny when that will happen to you.

Laci (00:55:19):

You probably thought it was about faries getting their periods.

Matt (00:55:21):

Probably fucking periods. Then we cut over to the big logging machine. An inside are two big old slobs.

Laci (00:55:28):

I just would like that. Zach’s entire fucking job is, here’s a tree X

Matt (00:55:32):

Go tree

Laci (00:55:33):

Look, a treat

Matt (00:55:34):

A tree

Laci (00:55:35):

1. That’s a plant.

Matt (00:55:38):

If you’re cutting down everything, if we have any loggers who listen, let us know how does this work?

Laci (00:55:43):

Right? The,

Matt (00:55:44):

Because it would seem to me just cut everything down

Laci (00:55:47):

Or it seems like one of those things, you just give the annoying kid, you won’t shut up inside the big vehicle. It’s like, why don’t you go put the Xes on the trees? Is that a thing? Yeah.

Matt (00:55:56):

I think you nailed it, Laci. They even say like, city kid come over from the big city with this college education

Laci (00:56:03):

Summer job. He doesn’t even want to be a real

Matt (00:56:06):

Logger. Yeah. Again, what’s that kid named down here from Melbourne?

Laci (00:56:12):

There you go.

Matt (00:56:12):

But yeah, just one of them is played by Robert Pastor

Laci (00:56:15):

That explains why they haven’t gotten the hip music yet. They were still listening to ABBA at this. It’s

Matt (00:56:20):

Just a prison island. Things move a little differently down.

Laci (00:56:22):

Sure.

Matt (00:56:25):

But I mean, the movie’s not subtle at all about this. They’re just pressing buttons to destroy entire swaths of forest as they chug donuts and pizza slices and stuff. And they’re watching their coworkers on video feeds, including Zach. And they’re like, he’s so lazy down there. Oh, another jelly donut in my face. But Zach, Zach is our main human character, and he goes up to a big old haunted tree, and even he can feel something’s up with this tree, and he just goes, freaky. And he sprays the tree. And this is such a good touch. The tree absorbs the paint. And then we hear, and then Zach, well, Krista’s watching all of this. She doesn’t understand what she’s seeing, but Zach sees her and catches her and his hand, but he’s so entranced by her that doesn’t know what just a tree’s about to fall on him. So she casts a spell on him to give him fairy sight so that now he can see the fairies. But accidentally, she says fairy size and not sight, and it shrinks ’em down to fairy size.

Laci (00:57:29):

Classic.

Matt (00:57:29):

Yeah. Then they’re going to get sucked up by the tree extracting machine, but then batty comes in, swings them and flies away with him. So as Zach,

Laci (00:57:39):

This bitch can read.

Matt (00:57:41):

Well, we don’t know that she can read. No. As Zach has passed out, Krista is going through his stuff, opens his pocket, looks at his wallet. I think there’s very funny drawing of his license where he just looks like a big dum idiot. But he clearly says New South Wales, Australia on his license.

Laci (00:57:57):

Oh, yeah, sure does. And then he is a nice guy because here’s a picture of him with two dogs, all of them with a bone in their mouth, including him. He’s just a goofball.

Matt (00:58:06):

And I think it’s funny that she takes a knife out of his pocket and he wakes up and just sees her holding a knife, and she’s just like, hi.

Laci (00:58:13):

I also like the way that they shake hands.

Matt (00:58:15):

Yeah, that’s fun.

Laci (00:58:16):

Like, yes. Salute.

Matt (00:58:17):

So he wakes up, he’s like, what? And she’s like, oh, well, you’re fairy now or something. What’s the deal with that monster? She keeps calling the machine a monster. And Zach’s like you’re talking about the leveler, but then he is like, oh, this is too weird. I’m out of here, baby. He’s

Laci (00:58:32):

Only 16 years old. I did not know that.

Matt (00:58:35):

Really?

Laci (00:58:35):

I’m learning that from the id.

Matt (00:58:37):

How many IDs will say your age? On age 16?

Laci (00:58:41):

They give the date and then you got to do the math.

Matt (00:58:43):

So he’s like, I’m out of here. You’re too weird for me. But then immediately runs into giant snakes in a giant Komodo dragon who sings a song by Tone Loc, written by Jimmy Buffett. If I’m going to eat somebody, it might as well be yo, okay. But Krista tells the lizard, don’t eat him. He’s a human. And then the lizard’s like, what’s a human? And Robin Williams says, delicious. I know Nutricia. So it taste like chicken. And I remember that line reading too, just clicked, unlocked something in my head. Great, great for you, whatever. So Zach is mad that he’s been shrunk and Krista’s like, I’ll turn you back here. But she actually turns him into an elephant and turns him into a frog. And he is like, no, no, no, no more magic. Let’s find somebody who actually knows how to do it. So the blue collar slobs pull the big curd tree into their tree machine, which slices up the tree real good. And out comes a bunch of blobby black goop that just squishes and forms and coagulates and squish

Laci (00:59:39):

Again, turned into Tim Curry.

Matt (00:59:41):

Proto like Venom and Symbi oes from Marvel looks great. They hired Kathy Zelensky, who is one of the animators for Ursula to do Hexis.

Laci (00:59:51):

I definitely see notes of Gie boogeyman and the Bad Guy from Frog, frog Princess, prince of the Frog.

Matt (01:00:04):

I forgot that guy’s name, but yeah, the one,

Laci (01:00:06):

The oo voodoo man.

Matt (01:00:07):

Yeah. Played by Keith David. And then I think also when Jaffar turns into a genie, he looks like the guy, he looks like Heus in his final

Laci (01:00:13):

Form form. Weird shrivel genie. Yeah,

Matt (01:00:14):

The ooze. So the ooze, it feeds on the smoke coming out of this machine.

Laci (01:00:20):

Definitely reads as oil though, right? Yeah. That’s another way of messing up the lands

Matt (01:00:26):

And feeding on the refuse of the extraction that the humans are doing. And when it eats some smoke, it’s like a first class smoke mother’s milk

Laci (01:00:41):

In a way that only Tim could say it.

Matt (01:00:43):

Yeah. So this is Tim Curry’s

Laci (01:00:44):

Milk. I can feel her smile, mother.

Matt (01:00:47):

No, I think you do a good Tim Curry.

Laci (01:00:48):

Thank you.

Matt (01:00:49):

You just got to make that smile stolen credit card. God, my face is so gross. Eli Thornbury. No, thank

Laci (01:00:59):

You.

Matt (01:01:00):

He looks admiringly on the humans. So wonderful, so helpful. As these two slobs are just reading magazines and jacking off and stuff. See, because humans, they’re doing their destructive job, even when they don’t even notice it, even they don’t know what they’re doing. They’re even trying hard.

Laci (01:01:15):

That’s why I think Hexis just is. And even if it’s what the forest creatures are misunderstanding when things go bad in the forest, it’s probably because something manmade. So it’s like, oh, no, hexis is back. Just the way ancient people blame things on things that weren’t real and just, yeah. So it’s just a metaphor here. Xi is not real.

Matt (01:01:34):

You think he’s literally not real in the movie?

Laci (01:01:38):

Yeah. I have no idea.

Matt (01:01:40):

I like that reading. It’s just a,

Laci (01:01:42):

I mean, it doesn’t make sense. All he is is amplifying the tools of destruction that were already made and the apathy that was already there. And I mean, all it really is is look now, these trees which have been cutting for months and months, as you can see, have now reached you. Fern Gully, those who believe in a thing called heus. Even when you saw the smoke, you’re like, Heus. So it’s like, yeah, because smoke is fire and fire kills trees. But now here’s another thing. It’s all just what kills trees.

Matt (01:02:11):

Yeah. It’s this personification of the effects of everything that you’re doing often without even thinking about it. Something you have to, something that you can’t look away from.

Speaker 4 (01:02:21):

Okay.

Matt (01:02:22):

What’s wrong with that?

Speaker 4 (01:02:24):

Nothing.

Matt (01:02:25):

He says, I must take this wonderful thing to fern. Golly. And he gets on the loudspeaker of the machine and he tells them, go into the forest, took fern golly. And one of the blue collar slobs is like, Hey, tho, you know what this means? And the other one’s like, yeah, over time ku. Over time ku. And then Heus sings his villain song. I think the one good song from the movie Toxic

Laci (01:02:48):

Love. Yes.

Matt (01:02:50):

Written by Thomas Dolby. She blinded me with science. Do you? But yeah, I mean, the number of different songwriters in the movie means you feel whiplash between tones.

Laci (01:03:02):

Yes. From the tone Lo to the tone deaf.

Matt (01:03:05):

Meanwhile, Chris is taking Zach to Fernal. You have to go see Fern. He’s like, what is Fernal? He’s like, that’s why everything is happening.

Speaker 5 (01:03:15):

Okay. Is that what she talks

Matt (01:03:17):

She needs to get? I don’t know. How does she talk? How do you sound sexy?

Laci (01:03:21):

Is that what you were doing?

Matt (01:03:23):

Yeah, I was trying to be sultry.

Laci (01:03:25):

You have to see Fern going. It’s more like that.

Matt (01:03:27):

You’re so funny.

Laci (01:03:29):

She’s more innocent. I’m not even meaning to be sexy. I’m just sexy.

Matt (01:03:33):

That’s what makes me sexy. They got to get back to magic. She can turn it back into a human. She knows how to actually do magic. And on the way they get to know each other a little better. He asks, do you have a job? And she’s like a job. I’m like, well, I guess that answers that. And then they’re walking through the forest, and then there’s a bad song about how great the forest is that’s written and sung by It’s

Laci (01:03:56):

Really

Matt (01:03:56):

Bad child performer, Raffi.

Laci (01:03:59):

Oh my God. It’s really bad.

Matt (01:04:01):

And he tries to teach her slang from the human world. You’re a bodacious babe.

Laci (01:04:06):

It is funny though, later when she calls him a bodacious.

Matt (01:04:08):

Yeah, that’s funny. Well, she’s her Samantha Mathis. Her voice performance is good, so sincere as she accepts it all. And he’s not laughing at her

Laci (01:04:19):

For

Matt (01:04:20):

Any of it either. When she says Tubular. So it’s the next morning, Krista wakes up and Zach is down at the bottom of the treat, and he’s like, look what I’m doing. I’m carving your name into the side of the tree.

Speaker 4 (01:04:30):

They love

Matt (01:04:30):

You. And she’s freaking out. She’s like, no, why would you do that? Can’t you feel its pain? No, he cannot. So now they finally reach Fernly, which I thought they were already in Fernly, whatever. They run into Che and Chong, who pick up Zach and fly away with him. And Krista goes, Hey, that’s my human. So then she presents him to her father, I’d like you to meet Zach. He’s a Bodacious babe. I whacked a human. And then Pips shows up and he’s immediately jealous. I go,

Laci (01:05:01):

Yeah, look what I fucking got. Kangaroo.

Matt (01:05:04):

Yeah, the kangaroo has Zach’s Walkman. So Zach’s like, yeah, this is mine. This is my music. I’ll show it to you all. And everybody’s kind of into it. This is the European settlers who have gifts for the natives. And I like that. He says it’s a recording of music. He doesn’t say music because the dad then says, I know music, and this isn’t music. So it’s like a little comment on technology. There is a difference between music itself, which anyone can do. And this a sort of professionalized and commodified product, but they’re all kind of into it, especially Krista, she’s getting into the pure raw sex of it all.

Laci (01:05:41):

She dances. It’s like, oh yeah, I don’t even have to touch the ground.

Matt (01:05:45):

But Maggie watches all of this with concern. She’s seen this before,

Laci (01:05:49):

Has she?

Matt (01:05:50):

I don’t know. It seems like she has, but, or just I know what’s happening. They’re getting tempted by the outside world. So when Christ has done sex dancing, she’s like, all right, Zach, come on, come with me. And grabs him by the hand and just takes him away so that they’re going to do this for real. And Pips just watches them go. And he is just like, see her around Zach

Laci (01:06:10):

Cash. You’re going to go do hand stuff. My sloppy seconds.

Matt (01:06:15):

They swim around and they play with bubbles. And then this adult contemporary song, A dream worth Keeping plays performed by Sheena Easton. And it’s always interesting in these movies when, because the Disney model was you play, you have your big song that the character sings, and then in the closing credits, you have the adult contemporary artist do a cover of it. Your pbo, Bryson or whatever. Is that the guy’s name?

Speaker 4 (01:06:38):

I have no idea.

Matt (01:06:40):

But sometimes they’ll just play the adult contemporary version in the movie itself. I think only one song in this movie has the character actually singing it. And it’s the lizard song. Is there another Oh, hexis.

Laci (01:06:52):

Oh, hexis, right? Oh, hexis. But also the one that just happened. He is miming a microphone the whole time, but never moves his mouth. It is so bizarre.

Matt (01:07:03):

It’s a lot of work to make someone’s mouth move.

Laci (01:07:05):

No, they just didn’t know what song they were going to put there.

Matt (01:07:07):

No, you’re exactly right. So yeah, they’re going through all this sexy imagery. They go into a sex cove, and they’re just giving each other sex eyes and just gets so close. She’s biting her lips. She’s looking so intensely at him with her enormous eyes. And then he goes in for a kiss, but she doesn’t know what a kiss is, but she likes it. And then he looks down

Laci (01:07:28):

And I’m waiting for a boner.

Matt (01:07:31):

Yes, of course. That’s what we are supposed to think happens. But no, he’s levitating.

Laci (01:07:35):

And then they both laugh at us. Oh, we thought it was a boner.

Matt (01:07:38):

Ha ha. No, you’re sick, you viewers. But then they get out of the cove and they are soaking wet, and they are talking to each other. They just fucked. It’s like, so I guess that we could go back to camp now if you want. No, I don’t know if we can just, and she’s like, you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to go check in with whoever. Wait here, I’ll be back.

Laci (01:08:00):

That’s how we talk after sex in our bed.

Matt (01:08:02):

Yes. But now that they’ve exchanged fluids, he hooks up to a tree or looks up at the tree and then presses his hand to it and suddenly he can feel its pain. He’s becoming part of the forest also. There’s oil the ground, and that’s his second clue. Oh no. Oil is piloting the lever toward Fern Gully and it’s destroying everything in its path. No. So Krista goes and talks to Magie, and she’s like, I found a human, but Magie doesn’t want to talk about it because look around you. You see all the destruction that is being wrought upon our land.

Speaker 3 (01:08:34):

Yeah, that’s what I want to talk to you about.

Matt (01:08:37):

Well, no, Krista just wanted to be like, Hey, I met a boy. It’s really fun. It’s really cool. I think you like him. She’s like, our world is being destroyed right now. Krista Krista’s like, but Zach, he’ll be able to stop this. He’s a human. He knows how to, he says that there machines are, he gave me a bunch of lies that I’m now realizing are lies. This is actually his fault. So they confront him, and she’s like, you lied to me. And so Zach has to come clean and tell everybody, the humans are not your friends. They’re not here to protect the trees. They’re here to destroy the forest. And I was helping them do it. You’re going to have to leave. So they do big war council or whatever, and Maji says, the humans have released Texas. Now we have to do something about it. But don’t worry, it won’t be that hard.

Laci (01:09:22):

You’re going to go on his mouth for a minute. Nuts. I

Matt (01:09:23):

Need you to remember the power of the seeds and the connectivity of all,

Laci (01:09:29):

Once again, magic. Something big is happening and you just want to talk about fucking seeds. But all right,

Matt (01:09:35):

Help it grow. Help it grow. All of the magic of creation exists within a tiny seed, she says, and she hands the seed to magic, and then she just dies. She turns blue. She says, look for the hero within yourself. Look for the good in every other creature in this world, and this is where I just get annoyed now, it’s with the movie’s message. I think it’s totally incoherent of either they’re your enemy or there’s good in everything, and you just need to shower them with kindness. It’s the sort of liberal Hollywood. You got to be the example you want to see in the world. And you have to just show them kindness.

Laci (01:10:09):

It was this movie’s mission. It’s like all they need to do is know. They just don’t know. They don’t know that they’re hurting little tiny things. And that those things are majestic and amazing. Yeah, exactly. But this movie will do that for our children’s children. Exactly. So it’s message is coherent with itself. It’s just naive.

Matt (01:10:28):

Yes. Perfectly said. But that is to a liberal, in contrast to someone who’s more left wing, who’s more socialist. All of liberalism is about, is just raise awareness is making people learn something in their heart. And then step three, change will happen. Step two, I don’t know.

Laci (01:10:46):

Put your head on it until they feel the pain.

Matt (01:10:48):

Exactly. Raising awareness doesn’t mean shit. It doesn’t do anything if it’s not attached to an actual plan of action, which is what’s great about Avatar is the plan of action is we have to kill them. But you can’t have these little fairies be like, we have to kill the humans.

Laci (01:11:02):

Well, you could shrink them,

Matt (01:11:03):

But you could shrink them. Yes. Put them in a tiny fun prison. You have the tools. So Xis arrives and what happens?

Laci (01:11:13):

Well, now this is where I’m like, okay, now we’re fighting both things, but I thought these two things were one thing. Is that truck dangerous without hexis in it?

Matt (01:11:23):

Yeah.

Laci (01:11:23):

Did Hexa ever need that truck? That’s why I think one brought out the other. It literally did. But that truck is not evil on its own. It’s the evil intentions of capitalism that makes that truck evil. And that’s what Hexis is. So yeah, hexis isn’t just walking around and going, can’t wait till somebody wants to make money in here. And he saw his opportunity with the truck. It’s fucking weird. I don’t know. They don’t make sense as things that are apart. I would’ve kind of rather this just be about a trucking company.

Matt (01:11:55):

Yes, exactly.

Laci (01:11:57):

A logging company. I mean a trucking,

Matt (01:11:59):

Sorry.

Laci (01:11:59):

Truckers.

Matt (01:11:59):

And then it tries to do the thing where Zach is like, hexis is gone, but humans are still here and they’re going to be back. So it seems like they’re

Laci (01:12:08):

Down like a million dollar fucking truck. They’re going to be pissed.

Matt (01:12:11):

Oh yeah. But I mean, Heus looks great. He’s a good villain.

Laci (01:12:15):

Sure. They just didn’t know what they were doing with him. And I think one was written before the other thing, or Hexis was the idea. And then they’re like, well, but that doesn’t get us to the capitalism. I don’t know.

Matt (01:12:26):

So Well, you’re too shy about saying that the actual reason that forest are being destroyed, and not because anybody has an evil spirit possessing their heart, but just

Laci (01:12:36):

Like Right. Or that anyone’s evil to want to take the logs.

Matt (01:12:39):

It’s

Laci (01:12:40):

Just they’re not thinking beyond their own nose.

Matt (01:12:42):

And we have economic incentives and this will happen. There is no way someone will do it.

Laci (01:12:48):

Right. We live in a society where we all need to make money. Here’s the way I found to make money. I’m a logger.

Matt (01:12:55):

Crystal’s like Crystal Krista, she’s trying to marshal the protective powers of the forest. She’s like grow to try to grow trees to block the thing, but hexes easily breaks through them. And he’s like, I’m back. I’m here at Fern Gully because he had an ancient confrontation with mad and he’s back for revenge.

Laci (01:13:14):

Madge was a real badge and put him in a tree for a long time,

Matt (01:13:18):

And then is carrying Zach. Zach. Zach’s like, I worked with that machine. I can put a stop to it. So Batty carries Zach as he’s doing a bunch of annoying, he’s like, does John Wayne door door door going to go stop the big explorer captain? We’ve got no, the lithium crystals.

Laci (01:13:39):

That is annoying. Matt.

Matt (01:13:41):

Yeah, I guess

Laci (01:13:42):

Do five more impressions.

Matt (01:13:44):

Fucking, he gets into the cockpit, he turns the key, turns the machine off. Now smoke isn’t coming out. So Hexis can no longer feed. And then he disappears. He’s like, okay, good. The movie’s over. Oh no. He comes

Laci (01:13:52):

Right back. Oh, there he is right back.

Matt (01:13:53):

Even bigger, even scarier. So Krista takes out a seed pod, hugs it to her breast, and then flies directly into the mouth of Heus, and then a tree,

Laci (01:14:01):

Just like the man from Independence Day. Thank you, Krista. I’m back.

Matt (01:14:06):

She says it too. Then I think this rules, a tree starts sprouting out of his head. He pulls it out, but just trees just start sprouting from all over him.

Laci (01:14:16):

And then all the fairies. Remember, the one thing they were taught in ferry school besides lounging, is help it grow. Oh, imagine always said, help it

Speaker 4 (01:14:23):

Grow, help it grow, help it grow. Come on, everybody. Help it grow. Doing grow hands. They do it. It works.

Matt (01:14:31):

They do it. They trap ’em in a tree. They

Laci (01:14:32):

Made motherfucker. Apparently the only thing you do is they make a

Matt (01:14:34):

Tree. They’ll never make it out of this tree.

Laci (01:14:36):

Nope. This tree’s very twisty.

Matt (01:14:39):

But then they think like, well, but Christ is dead now. She was in his belly,

Laci (01:14:43):

But Maggie just died and she was like the matriarch of our town. So things aren’t sad

Matt (01:14:49):

Also remember? Yes. Because remember, death isn’t sad. Death is good. It’s just

Laci (01:14:53):

Look at you go into your

Matt (01:14:54):

Final form. I just become like a spore or something.

Speaker 4 (01:14:58):

I hate spores, man.

Matt (01:15:01):

You even hear in the background, one of the characters is like, I wish Crystal hadn’t died.

Laci (01:15:07):

Oh, yeah.

Matt (01:15:07):

But then she just pops out of a flower

Laci (01:15:09):

And now she can make flowers with her pre

Matt (01:15:11):

Yeah. She is like Neo when he realizes he is the one, she’s fully self-actualized. She can make everything grow real fast. Texas can never harm burned again. She

Laci (01:15:22):

Definitely a foot movie, a foot fetish person would enjoy.

Matt (01:15:25):

Yeah, A lot of barefoot,

Laci (01:15:26):

A lot of dogs.

Matt (01:15:29):

But humans still could says Zach. So he’s going to go back to civilization.

Laci (01:15:33):

It has nothing to do with the fact that we already fucked and wasn’t that good for me. I don’t really like just the hand stuff. So I wish I could stay Crystal, but I think I need to go.

Matt (01:15:44):

I’m going to go be an advocate.

Laci (01:15:46):

You’ll have literally no idea what I’m doing once I leave this area. But rest assured,

Matt (01:15:52):

Yeah. So she hands him a seed pod and she’s like, remember Zach, remember everything. Just because like, oh God, you’re leaving. I have no mortgage. Please don’t forget.

Laci (01:16:00):

And don’t plant that seed. Exactly. Three feet from where we are right now. Okay, you did that. That was a souvenir.

Matt (01:16:07):

Yeah. I could have planted something over there that

Speaker 4 (01:16:10):

Was for you, was all to

Matt (01:16:11):

Take back to civilization,

Speaker 4 (01:16:13):

Then barely went

Matt (01:16:13):

Anywhere. Then Tony and Ralph finds Zach and they’re like, Hey, what happened here, Zach? And that’s when

Speaker 4 (01:16:18):

Called a ferry.

Matt (01:16:19):

And then he shows them and sees, they see all the magical growth, and they turn around and walk away after eight seconds, like, oh,

Laci (01:16:27):

Well. And they squat a mosquito. And they don’t do that, but that’d be funny if they do,

Matt (01:16:33):

They got a long walk ahead of them. Zach says, guys, things have got to change. Do tell. Krista grows a bunch of more magic plant shit. And then Pips puts his hand on Krista’s shoulder and she instantly flies away. Just one more final insult before the movie can end. And then that’s it. Just a screen, a black screen, and then a title card for our children and our children’s children. It’s just like Oliver Stone’s JFK ending

Laci (01:17:03):

With maybe they meant like the residuals from this movie because it wasn’t lack of, you know what I mean? The trees are going to die.

Matt (01:17:12):

Oliver Stone’s, JFK ends with a card dedicated to the future who will fight for the battle to learn the truth of JFK.

Laci (01:17:21):

Still

Matt (01:17:21):

Waiting on that.

Laci (01:17:22):

But we are still fighting.

Matt (01:17:23):

Still fighting.

Laci (01:17:24):

People still asking for stuff. Unlock

Speaker 4 (01:17:27):

The files. They say, come on, do it. Hello. I’m not getting tired out here.

Matt (01:17:51):

What are our final thoughts in star ratings for Fern Gully? The last rainforest. We’re going to start with Laci, who’s just,

Laci (01:17:58):

I was bored. I was bored. And it wasn’t the movie. I thought it was 2.5.

Matt (01:18:02):

Wow. Damn. Sorry.

Laci (01:18:04):

I’m not going to be watching that or recommending it. I get why I would’ve liked it then. I wouldn’t have understood sex. But she was like serving that sex. I’d been like, Ooh, hot fairy. I’d have been like that. But I’m a mature adult now. Who doesn’t need to have sex with fairies?

Matt (01:18:20):

But you want to.

Laci (01:18:21):

No, I don’t. I have sex with you.

Matt (01:18:24):

2.5. Do you think that it was, how would you judge our ability to talk about animation? Would you be,

Laci (01:18:29):

Well, I don’t understand why we were ever bad at it. We just nailed this.

Matt (01:18:32):

I agree. I would

Laci (01:18:33):

Say, well, you said it’s hard to talk about it. I’d say we weren’t good at talking.

Matt (01:18:37):

If we talk about another animated movie, you would think that’d be good.

Laci (01:18:40):

That’s why I recommended it. If you met, I feel like you are not paying attention.

Matt (01:18:44):

What have you recommended? Once Upon a Forest? Okay, look for that in the future. I like the movie a lot more than Laci does, even though I named a lot of problems with it. Three and a half stars for the quality of the animation, some of the voice performances, Mathis Curry, and I mean, Robin Williams is doing his thing, even though I think it’s annoying.

Laci (01:19:08):

I think Zach is a fine voice actor. He was engaging.

Matt (01:19:11):

Yeah.

Laci (01:19:11):

I don’t know the actor in

Matt (01:19:13):

General. No, me neither. But yeah, he is good. Just like dumb hunk.

Laci (01:19:16):

Yeah.

Matt (01:19:17):

And again, I think some really extraordinary moments of animation. I like the attempt to do a sort of anti-capitalist message, but it’s so incoherent and muddled and doesn’t know what it’s actually advocating for.

Laci (01:19:31):

It’s so Pollyanna that it’s embarrassing.

Matt (01:19:33):

Yes. Which is the risk when you try to do something like that.

Laci (01:19:36):

Well, I’ve been poisoned and my heuss lives inside me.

Matt (01:19:39):

Me too. Yes. Heus is within the nexus of the Heuss, but three and a half stars. It’s not a movie I have any nostalgia or attachment to, but I think you check it out, it’s one hour and 20 minutes long.

Laci (01:19:52):

I do appreciate that.

Matt (01:19:53):

In fact, no, I think it’s an hour and 15. It’s so fast. So check it out or don’t whatever. Live your life. Next week we are talking about the 2000 film Charlie’s Angels.

Laci (01:20:03):

Look how tiny Cameron Diaz is. Jesus

Matt (01:20:06):

Starring Cameron Diaz, drew Barrymore and Lucy Lou. This is a movie that I saw a lot of times. I have no memories of it whatsoever.

Laci (01:20:14):

Well, let’s see if you get an erection. I have an idea of why you watched it a lot.

Matt (01:20:18):

You always say that, but you know that I think a horny man that was never,

Laci (01:20:23):

I’m going to be right one of these times.

Matt (01:20:25):

I mean, it’s like

Laci (01:20:26):

If only I’d known Fern Kelly, it was one of your movies, I would’ve been right.

Matt (01:20:29):

But I had a computer in my room. I could have looked at pornography on the

Laci (01:20:32):

Internet. That doesn’t mean that you don’t like eye candy like I do. I just like to look at the clothes. You like to look at the hose.

Matt (01:20:38):

I think she nailed it. So that’s coming up next week, episode 1 72. Our 200th episode will be here before we know and we’ll have to talk about Hook again. We have a Patreon Beam’s Collector’s edition. Sign up for $5 a month and get bonus episodes every month. Tell a friend about Loberg beams. Tell ’em this podcast.

Laci (01:20:58):

Tell your boss.

Matt (01:21:00):

Tell your boss.

Laci (01:21:02):

Tell capitalism.

Matt (01:21:02):

Tell your assistants.

Laci (01:21:04):

Oh yeah. Make them do it. Say an assignment.

Matt (01:21:07):

Tell your people. Have your people. Get with some other people and tell ’em.

Laci (01:21:11):

Okay.

Matt (01:21:12):

And leave us a review on iTunes. Why don’t you subscribe? Twitter. Load bearing pod, Instagram load. Bring beams, TikTok, load bearing beams where things are happening. @MattStokes9 Letterboxd, @LoadBearingLaci. Rural Route Nine is the band, my band, the band.

Laci (01:21:31):

It’s your band. 

Matt (01:21:31):

That does the music for load-bearing beams, including the song you’re in right now. Check us out on Apple Music or Spotify or wherever you get your music. Why don’t you please and thank you.

Laci (01:21:41):

Okay. I love you. Goodbye.