[Show Intro] Jala Hey, thanks for coming! I'm glad you're here. Come on in! Everyone's out on the patio right now. Looks like a couple of people are in the garden. I can't wait to introduce you! Can I get you anything? [turned away] Hey folks, our new guest is here! [Intro music] 00:00.00 Jala Hello world and welcome to Jala-chan's Place! I'm your host Jala-chan and this is a special episode with two Monster Dear Monster hosts. We've got Leonard (he/him) and Adam (he/him). How are you guys doing today. 00:19.88 Adam Bucceri I'm doing tremendous. 00:19.96 Jala Tremendous is a great way to do! Leonard, how are you doing? 00:24.56 Leonard I'm highly caffeinated and ready to talk about ah who friend Roger Rabbit at an early hour in the morning but otherwise I'm good. No I'm joking I'm perfectly fine and really excited to talk about. Of this film and book. 00:44.12 Jala Yeah, yeah for sure. So um, as Leonard said we are talking about Who Framed Roger Rabbit. It's a 1988 live action in animated comedy directed by Robert Zemeckis. 00:59.30 Jala We'll throw to you Leonard tell me a little bit about the premise of this movie. 01:05.54 Leonard Ah yes, Who Framed Roger Rabbit is a naked chinatown pastiche set in the oh man, what is it is it. It is. It's the 40 s ok I was going to say the 50 s but I can never remember my notes are really bad I'm really bad at taking notes so please. 01:13.64 Jala 40s. 01:23.16 Leonard Bear with me audience. Ah um, it is a chinatown pastiche where a private detective named Eddie Valiant is hired ah to ah take some compromising photos of a tune star. Yes, because in this world cartoons are actual individuals. That work in the horrific hollywood studio system and ah take photos of ah Maroon Cartoons ah star Roger Rabbit's wife Jessica rabbit because he's being real bad at his job. Ah Eddie does he takes the compromising photos. Roger Flies off the handle and ah presumably kills. Ah um, what is it? Ah marvin acme of of Warner Brothers Acme Fame who is ah the owner of tunetown. But all the tunes live the tune ghetto if you will and um ah the story kicks off from there. Ah, really because the primmit like that's the basic premise and then Roger enlists Eddie to help clear his name. And discover who the real killer is. 02:39.30 Jala Yeah, and this movie is actually based on a 1981 novel which is news to me I didn't know that but when doing research I found out that who censored Roger Rabbit was the original book that this was based off of. And it was um, actually like I went through and I read that book. It's actually interesting because it's a very different animal. It talks about tunes but tunes from cartoon strips like from the newspaper versus animated stuff. So like. The way that it works is a little bit different and the entire plot and the characters themselves are very different. So it's kind of like it's completely different animal than the movie. So um, so Adam tell me a little bit about. The exceptional nature of the animation of this film. 03:38.56 Adam Bucceri Yeah, so um, again I'm fairly new to the Fireheart Media cinematic Universe Um, but I am an animator by Trade I went to college for excuse me, let me take that again make a audio spike. 03:56.28 Adam Bucceri I am an animator by trade I went to college for traditional pencil and paper two d animation I now work in the field. It's less exciting than it sounds, but it's still pretty cool and who framed Roger Rabbit is one of the single greatest. Technical achievements in animation that's ever been brought to the mainstream it ah is in large part to canadian animator Richard Williams who up until his death recently I think many would have considered the the greatest living animator currently working at the time. Ah, you know he is unquestionably in the hall of fame. Ah, absolute lunatic of a man. Um. 04:46.28 Adam Bucceri He but he genuinely wrote the animation bible. Ah, if you are an animator the first book that you are going to be told to purchase is the animator survival kit by Richard Williams I'm looking at it right now it is a ah exceptional textbook. Ah, contains all the fundamentals. He is really a powerful voice in the cultivation of the next generation of animators. Um, you know he was this ah teacher figure who was constantly trying to pass on knowledge. Ah, while also largely failing to achieve his own dreams and ambitions. So when I attribute like a lot of this film to him. This is not me being you know doing autur theory and saying that his is the only voice that matters. But he was the animation lead and supervisor for this film and so his philosophy. Um and his approach is ah taken on by his entire animation team and that's really the the fingerprint that is being left here. 05:50.53 Jala Yeah, and there were 326 animators working full time on this film and in fact, the location was moved to accommodate Williams and just. His artists and everything and so like they actually moved where they were going to even film it based on this person's in you know, interests and in whims. So I don't know exactly why he needed it to be in the u k but I think it went over to the Uk instead of being in hollywood. 06:24.29 Adam Bucceri Yeah, I'm not certain about the logistics other than like you know I'm sure that he's fussy. 06:31.89 Jala Yeah, yeah for sure. So yeah, so the thing that's very notable about this is of course. Um for a while there had been stuff like the rotoscope um Ralph Boshi work and things like that. Um. This was very notable for just the way in which the live action elements and the animated elements are um, interacting with 1 another and how convincing it looks like it quote unquote looks like they're there and things like that that's like the lighting that is the interactions where the people are looking and this that and the other one silly thing that I can tell you about this is during filming the person who voiced Roger rabbit literally wore. Ah, Roger Rabbit Costume on set and so even though they had like a little dummy for Bob Hoskins who plays Eddie Valiant to talk to? um, the guy who does Roger Rabbit's voice was off on the sidelines in his little outfit with the little bunny ears and everything. 07:40.47 Jala Doing the voice from over there live you know?? Um, so that was that that's interesting because um, a lot of the other actors and stuff on the set were just like yeah that guy was absolutely just like in a costume the whole time you know to get into his character and like you know trying to um. You know, like live his role I guess. 08:03.64 Adam Bucceri Yeah, absolutely um, do ou want me to spend more time on the technical aspects of this right now or do you want to to save that for a little bit later. 08:11.60 Jala Well I would like actually for Leonard to talk a little bit about his history with this movie like I grew up I watched this movie and when it came out and of course because it was half animated I was just like oh this is you know, cool and everything. 08:31.50 Jala Um, but like I don't have like the ongoing history with this that say Leonard and Adam have so um I want both of you in turn to talk about it. But since Leonard hasn't spoken in a minute I'll let him go first. 08:44.60 Leonard Oh you know how I am I like ah fading into the background like a shadow so that people forget that I'm even here I appreciate it I appreciate the anonymity of it all to be perfectly honest, but ah yes, my personal history is. 09:02.00 Leonard I saw it as a child on Vhs had been indicating how old I I am ah and um, really ah, rediscovered it in my early 20 s and um. Really gained an appreciation for the film aside from the the this this wonderful combination of live action animation and technical details behind that. Really kind of gained gained an appreciation for it as a film which um has probably one of the titus scripts I've I've seen in a movie. Um, there is almost nothing in the film that is isn't set up that doesn't pay off. Um, let's see I'm just going to run through a couple of examples. There's a sequence in the film which is a really wonderfully done ah montage that is a fake kind of time lapse montage that ah shows. Ah Eddie's desk ah because Eddie ah is. 10:13.70 Leonard Is ah, once again in the norse style is a ah private and investigator with a a a troubled past he and his brother teddy I believe his brother's name is. Ah, were once police officers assigned to tunetown and ah during a case Teddy was murdered by a tune and ah Eddie and his grief has left Teddy's side of their desk completely untouched since Teddy's death so. There's this wonderful montage where the camera pans across the desk covered in cobwebs and kind of just gives a visual history of Eddie and Teddy um, as you know from their childhood as as children clowns in the wrinkling brothers circus. Up to becoming police officers and it's just lovely and well done and that that wordless montage sets so much so many things up that end up paying off later in the film. Ah that I really appreciate. Um, when Eddie tells Roger about the night of teddy's murder he mentions that the tune in question stole a bunch of somolians which ah we later find out. Do. Do we care about spoilers. We're just. 11:32.17 Jala No no. 11:34.57 Leonard Doing it. Ok good i. Ah we later find out that the film's antagonist judge doom is in fact, a tune and not only is doom a tune but he is the tune that killed Eddie's brother it is mentioned earlier. Ah before Eddie tells the story of Teddy's murder that ah, an old police friend of Eddie's tells Eddie himself a man so many eddies. Ah that doom bought the um, um, who bought the election. Well he bought the election to become judge of tunetown meaning that he used the money that he stole from the the bank to buy the election once again, a really great ah setup and payoff and then ah there is ah the the Marvin Acme's will. Ah, which is set up with his ah disappearing reappearing inc and I'm going to stop there with just all the reference. But there's so many things in the film that are are it. It helps create the cohesion that the film needs. Especially based on its premise to really make it feel alive and and genuine and like really really tight. 13:02.50 Adam Bucceri Yeah I Just want to second that ah camera Pan Montage as if you are someone who values like economy of storytelling like oh boy that is really a masterful shot for how much it accomplishes. 13:19.80 Adam Bucceri With how little it's an exceedingly low tech shot. It's basically just a camera move but it functions. Yeah, as a time lapse as a montage it Illuminates character It gives context it does foreshadowing like really impressive. Um. 13:37.30 Adam Bucceri Accomplishment in a very small time frame and just a very dense ah piece of Cinema Really impressive shot. 13:45.97 Jala And what's interesting about that is that that same kind of um method of compact storytelling is also part of the original book by Gary K wolf is a svelte 238 pages and up until the very very end I was not 100 % sure I knew what was going on because it kept on throwing curveballs you know, ah 1 after the other and it would lead you one way and there's all these different moving parts and all these different. Um. And mos at play and different people who are crooks at play. Um, and you don't know exactly what's going on and the real reason behind a lot of different elements until the very last page and so it's. Very very well writtentten. It surprised the hell out of me honestly when I was reading it because I was just like I did not expect this book about tunes and stuff to be like as well-w writtentten. So. Definitely um, was an interesting experience. But yeah, the 1 thing about Roger Rabbit is that you know when I was a kid and I was watching this. It was hard for me to follow everything because you know like I'm watching the tunes and I'm trying to you know, do whatever but like kid kid movies were not. 15:06.76 Jala This layered you know like I this this movie came out when I was 6 okay, like I was and I saw it in theater. So I mean like you know I I'm just like ok um, you know I wasn't 100% on everything that was going on and mostly what stuck with me was my horror. At the the shue being killed and then my horror when judge doom was flattened by the steamroller and like I was terrified of steamrollers weirdly irrationally scared of steamrollers for a while after that. So yeah, yeah, it really is so. 15:24.96 Adam Bucceri Yes. Correct. 15:38.65 Adam Bucceri It's extremely scary. 15:43.36 Jala Um, yeah, and it's interesting because the book. Ah the way that it works is that it is using the same kind of setup of basically racial divides being brought up in terms of tune versus Human. You know, like black people are akin to the tunes in this and they are segregated. There are bars and there are things that are segregated because this is in the 40 s still. You know that this is taking place so and then like some of the things that are said by humans about tunes and everything sound just like. People being racist you know and it's just about tunes and it's really interesting the way that it it does that kind of interplay and you know overlays current topics to um, you know, just like this this setting that was created. So. 16:38.54 Adam Bucceri Yeah, tunes tunes are very much a exploited underclass in this. Um and there are a lot of social and civil rights. Ah reads of this film. Ah that are supported I do kind of wish that the movie was a little bit. 16:55.21 Adam Bucceri More blunt about it. Maybe Um, because ultimately the movie isn't really about like ah the the struggles about these systems of Oppression. You know it's a little bit simpler than that. It's a little bit broader. Um, but I E I found it generally. Rewatching as an adult. Um like I think there's so much there and it's a really fertile ground for maybe a more scathing social commentary if they wanted it. 17:24.26 Jala Yeah, yeah, but there is the whole freeway speech that Leonard loves very much. 17:29.13 Leonard I I love Judge Doom's Freeway speech so much. It is one of my favorite Monologues in all of film. It is. 17:45.50 Leonard Ah, so I just to to let the ah the the listeners know I am a native californian I have I was born in 1982 I have watched the slow horrific nightmare that ah Los Angeles freeways system has become. Ah, from from then till now and the idea that ah judge doom is like a man a world with freeways. Do you know how great it would be. You know how great it would be to have fast food restaurants and cheap motels and car dealerships and. Beautiful, beautiful billboards as far as the eye can see my god it will be beautiful. Um, it's it's. 18:34.38 Leonard Fantastic and of course the joke is oh yeah, that's a stupid idea and only a cartoon would come up with it and I'm like oh oh, that's such a good joke. That's like 1 of my fate once again, my favorite Monologue is also like 1 of my favorite jokes and I'm like ah I love this movie so much. 18:54.27 Leonard Ah, yeah I just to get back to my history with it when when I rediscovered it in my twenty s and realized like how nice and tight I found the writing and like the the film as a whole I've ah really, ah. Made a conscious effort to every couple of years like revisit it because ah I I once again I think I think it is as the probably like. 19:29.44 Leonard In my opinion. Ah for my personal tastes as close to a perfect movie as as I've I've seen and and I love it and I'm always. 19:44.21 Leonard Gaining some new level of appreciation for it Every single time that I watch it. 19:53.13 Jala It's hard to follow that up Leonard. 19:54.77 Leonard Um, sorry about that. 19:59.55 Jala Adam go for it. 20:03.89 Adam Bucceri Yeah I was just going to say I think we would also be ah remiss if we did not mention that the titular judge doom that we were referencing is played by Christopher Lloyd and just the incredible of vocal performance that he brings to this role. Ah, really charismatic and yeah, the the way that he delivers that freeway. Ah monologue is ah chef kiss wow. 20:31.31 Leonard Um, just to just one 1 quick note because I did actually write down a note about how much more I appreciate Christopher Lloyd's performance in this film. Ah, having seen it so many times which is once again, the the fact that judge doom is at tune is the big like finale reveal of the movie and the fact that. 20:57.63 Leonard His performance is the way that it is throughout the film is kind of brilliant because what he's doing is he is a cartoon pretending to be a human being so all of his movements all of his. Dialogue the way he acts the way he is is weird and offputting because it is ultimately so against his nature as a tune. He's not wacky. He's not you know, crazy. He's not spastic. He's. Dilted and weird and it's like oh yeah, it's like ah it's it's like an alien living under the skin like this rubber suit skin pretending to be a human being and um, just ah, a note. There's ah, there's a bit with the old shave and the haircut trick which is ah shave in the haircut. 2 bits. Um, my favorite part about that is he's doom says it's a trick that no toon can resist. 22:03.95 Leonard And before he gets roger to reveal himself with it. He himself has to do shave and a haircut because he's a tune and it's just brilliant. 22:20.67 Jala Yeah, yeah, that's definitely um, it's it really echoes a lot of again just the original book's way of setting you up to where in the book. It's so many layers that it makes you want to go back and reread it after you know. All of the different curves to the plot so that you can catch all of those little beds. It's kind of the same thing with Roger Rabbit because it's such a dense ah dense style of narration and there's so many different there are so many different things going on that. Lead into things that happen later in the movie that it really does require 2 watches at least you know first watch just to get general impressions and soak in the story and then once you know that turn around or rewatch it again. Um, and. Look at it through the lens of knowing what happens later and then you know taking that time to reflect on it. 23:20.39 Adam Bucceri Yeah, it's not quite an edgar right film where you know every subsequent rewatch is going to reveal new layers. But there's a lot to be found at a lot of connections to be discovered and it's ah it's denser than you might expect a children's movie to be. 23:38.40 Jala Oh yeah, because this this is they kind of it's supposed to allegedly be a children's movie but it wasn't even released under the ah general Disney Label I think it was under their more adult like Touchstone. 23:53.53 Leonard Yes. 23:54.15 Jala Is how they released it was under Touchstone Pictures and the only other movie that was released under that and that was animated was Nightmare Before Christmas so um so anyway so there's that but also how you're talking about the layers of of setting up judge doom. 24:13.10 Jala And his tune-ness also reminds me of in the book. The aspects of these characters being newspaper strip Comic strip characters ah include that they have like pixelated dots. Yeah of color on their skin and like. 24:30.58 Jala The more humanoid ones can suppress their word balloons. But the quote unquote barnyards which are like Roger rabbit the ones that are animals. They actually have word balloons that pop out all the time while they're talking and these word balloons are actual physical things that can be. Grabbed and manipulated not just by tunes but also by humans and they're also used in forensics to figure out when a tune died and things like that. So. It's really kind of interesting like I'll read a little clip from the book just to give you an idea of how that works so there did appear to be something underneath him though. Gently I took roger by the shoulders and lifted him off the banister sure enough hanging over either side of the railing like a sheet of congealed candle wax I found a balloon containing Roger's last words. Yep, that's right Roger did die in this book anyway, Roger must have mumbled them immediately after being shot. And then had fallen across them when he died I lifted the u-shaped ballooned by its edges off the railing handling it gently. It had stiffened to the brittleness of a potato chip and that combined with its natural thinness made it extremely fragile. When the scientists in the police forensic lab got ahold of it. They would measure its rate of hardening and use that to to determine the exact time of death I didn't know enough about the process to estimate what they might find the balloon had clouded over and its words had faded out drastically but by holding it up to the light I found it still quite readable. 26:01.20 Jala And then he reads off what his last words were which I'm not going to go into but anyway, um, it's interesting because the balloons are manipulated and they are even at 1 point collected to be used like all of the words that fall out of the balloons. Are collected to be sold to typesetters to save money on printing and stuff like there's a whole economy and like everything like Gary K Wolff really thought deeply about tunes in the real world and it was just amazing. So like. 26:35.35 Jala It is different. It is very different from the movie. The plot is 100% different. There is no judge doom character that was created just for the movie. But what happens and how it plays out is so just like Twisty turning and just kind of feels has the same pacing as the movie. Um, in such a way that. People who enjoy the movie would also enjoy the book. There's ah actually a series of books. There's a trilogy and then there's an a fourth book that is just about Jessica Rabbit so um anyway so that was me inserting my little bit um about just like a judge. 27:13.97 Jala Doom and like how he his tune-ness is and how that's that's echoing and kind of faithful to the source material I do know that they did 3 different scripts at least with different people as the killer before they finally settled. 27:27.39 Leonard Oh that's interesting. 27:30.67 Jala Yeah, they had multiple scripts where Baby Herman was the killer or Jessica was the killer or something and they ended up finally coming up with this judge doom character and all of that. But yeah it it had been reworked several times in script phase. 27:46.85 Adam Bucceri Yeah, so I I did not read the books and I believe Leonard didn't as well. But you have been posting tantalizing little tidbits like that ah in the discussion channel and I have really enjoyed. 28:01.10 Adam Bucceri Seeing you talk about these books and like watching you be surprised by them in real time. 28:06.49 Jala Oh yeah, like it. It has been like I Definitely um, it's a little bit different because when you're reading a book. It is still a slower thing than watching a movie. So It's like um. Kind of payoff of of seeing what's happening in the movie or what you know what's happening in the books is a slower and um, you know, kind of more considered pacing like it's over a series of days for me because I don't have a lot of time to read every single day. 28:36.24 Jala Ah, whereas like with a movie. It's 1 sitting so you get all of that boom boom boom boom boom as you're going, you know in like real time. Um pretty quickly and like you know it's it's kind of a different different feel different pacing. Ah while also still feeling similar. So. 28:55.76 Leonard Um, so I did just want to interject because I'm also looking at the Wikipedia page which I I should have done beforehand but I like surprises just as much as the next person and I'm looking at casting and apparently Tim Curry originally auditioned for the role of judge doom but the producers thought found him too terrifying. Ah. 29:17.36 Jala Too scary now he was way too scary for it for sure. Harrison Ford was so Spielberg's original choice to play Eddie Valiant but you month with money much money. It was also Chevy Chase was the second choice Bill Murray was 29:23.20 Adam Bucceri Ah, that would have been so good. 29:26.86 Leonard Oh man I'm so glad. 29:35.94 Jala They considered basically everybody Robin Williams Robert Redford Jack Nicholson Sylvester Stallone like everybody everybody was considered in that before they came up with Bob Hoskins so 29:47.94 Leonard Who I think is perfect because he he plays sad broken man so well and really looks the part of like a sad broken 40 s ah former cop turn private investigator. 30:03.28 Adam Bucceri Exactly um, like 1 thing that I like is that so many of the classic film noir movies feature. You know the tall handsome chiseled maybe a little rough around the edges. 30:17.58 Adam Bucceri Ah, but Bob Hoskins just like has the body type where he's just like short and kind of wide and squat and just really makes him look like he's washed up and past his prime like I love the the choices that they make with this. Ah. 30:37.32 Leonard Like to be out sorry about that. Um, to be honest, the only other person that I can think of that I would have that I would have been okay with playing Eddie valued. 30:37.55 Adam Bucceri I think is great testing. 30:52.49 Leonard Would have been Danny Devito 30:53.41 Jala You you know the thing is is that they're they don't look all that different I hate you know? so but some yeah I actually think Christopher Lloyd was a really good choice for judge doom especially since at the time he was. 31:09.88 Jala The Back to the Future guy. Everybody knew him as Doc you know? So ah I know that when I realized who it was I was like what because you know again I was a little kid and I was just like but wait Doc that's not doc would never yeah so so that was kind of. 31:28.68 Jala Part of my experience was like oh you know it's I can't believe it's that guy. 31:34.39 Leonard Doc Brown would never murder a shoe would you. 31:35.80 Jala Well actually in one of the earlier versions of the script Judge Doom was revealed to be the one who killed Bambby's mother I think that out but that would have been very good if they had left that in. 31:50.89 Adam Bucceri That would be incredible. That's ah, such a good detail. 31:55.42 Jala Yeah, oh oh but like I did want to circle back to the animation stuff. So Adam you your history with this movie first off and then also I want you to tell me about the rules of animation that um. 32:10.57 Jala What's his head the Animator Williams guy ah what what did he break? What what rules did he break and so on. 32:18.78 Adam Bucceri Right? So um, from a technical perspective. We had already seen compositing ah characters that are 2 d into live action footage and having them interact. So the most famous example probably being Mary Poppins with the penguin scene the difference between that and this is that for Mary Poppins and other previous incarnations. The fleischer brothers also I believe had um, an alice in Wonderland. Series that featured a combination of animation and live action. But before I go any further, fun fact. Roger Rabbit is played by Charles Fleischer who I do believe is related to the fleischer brothers of Fleischer Studios Fleischer Studios being the studio that made betty boop pop by the sailorman and those amazing old Superman Cartoons um so I just think that's a really neat. 33:22.58 Adam Bucceri Ah connection and throughline I don't know if that was ah intentional or if he was just the best man for the job. But I think that's such a cool detail. So back to the technical aspects of it one this was before. 33:38.71 Adam Bucceri Digital compositing really came mainstream. They had already done a few early experiments but the technology wasn't mature enough for this video which means that the process of compositing these characters was literally. We're going to Layer. You know a frame of the movie and then overlay and animation sell and capture everything camera already difficult to do the next thing is that animation traditionally is done on Twos So if you are watching. 34:13.53 Adam Bucceri Ah, basically any 2 d animated thing even up until today. Ah, it's probably not being There's probably not a new image on every single frame film is traditionally done at 24 frames per second but animation is often done on twos which means that the image is held twice. So you're you're seeing 12 new frames across across 24 total frames per second Richard Williams almost exclusively ah animates on ones which means one new image per frame. Ah, so he's doing 24 drawings per second so already twice the amount of work twice. The amount of cleanup twice. The amount of budget and time that's going to be required for everything but he was really insistent on this because the live action elements are happening at 24 frames per second. Obviously it's captured in camera. And so it's going to be more noticeable if the characters are not shot at the same frame rate so he insisted 24 frames the entire film. 35:13.61 Jala Well and and I have to pause pause you for just a second to say some of the other things that he was doing which also would necessitate that single frame per second is that he was intentionally making sure that they are moving the camera as much as possible. So the tunes don't look like they're pasted in there. They are using light and shadow a lot very extremely like you know there's the scene where Rogers got his hands on the the lamp or whatever and all of that. 35:44.37 Adam Bucceri Yes, absolutely. 35:46.92 Jala And then also they are interacting with real world objects in people a lot and so if they're not in time at matching time on the animation to the live action then none of that's going to look right. 35:51.80 Adam Bucceri Correct. 36:03.91 Adam Bucceri Yeah, the the other major thing that I was going to say that Williams insisted on was ah the camera so to loop back to the Mary Poppins penguin scene the camera is very specifically locked off and this is for the benefit of the animators so that they're able to ah you know, animate the movement on a steady ground plane which is going to make their job possible for the most part. 36:35.44 Adam Bucceri Um, but Zemeckis is what or I'm sorry but Williams he specifically insisted that the camera be unbound that it not be restricted at all and that he film it like a movie and that they would put the characters in their place. Ah, with the simple trick of drawing it correctly in perspective which I cannot overstate how difficult of a task that is because not only are you having to think about the arcs of motion. About how the characters move about how they land the weight of it. The anticipation all of the normal considerations you have in animation. You now have to manually counter animate against the camera movement manually. 37:29.12 Adam Bucceri Without cg assistance without reference without even like a tennis ball on a stick that you can wrote a scope out. Basically they they could disguise like some wires but that's about it like there are as you said tons of physical gags gags being the um. Movie vocabulary for any kind of like practical effect stunt. So if you are watching the movie and there's a live action gun floating through the scene and then they animate a tune character one of the weasels holding that gun. Um, you know the gun is a gag and they have to then manually track you know the weasel's hand to the gun and then still have him move and still have him perform and have that be grounded in the physical tangible space. 38:23.34 Jala Your key animators have to be way on point. They have to know so much to be able to get those keyframes in there for the rest of the animators to fill in. 38:37.87 Adam Bucceri Yeah, so this is something that Richard Williams um kind of made his signature is his ability to draw on this perspective to have these camera movements. And you see it recur in his works like he's always doing this and it is a flex make no mistake he is showing off while doing it. But um at the time I don't think that there was anyone else who was doing that. Kind of work because there's no tricks and there's no shortcut. It's just labor intensive um his his film thief and the cobbler is the other thing that he is kind of famously known for. The thief in the cobbler was an animated film that he started but never finished. He worked on it for thirty years before the studio finally got impatient and pulled the plug but it is unbelievably meticulously. Ah, drawn and animated and there's all kinds of shots that are feature turning cameras and moving cameras and these like optical illusions with perspectives and I remember there's one part where characters in a mine cart. 39:52.53 Adam Bucceri And it like comes up and does like this slow backflip in camera like it's a bird's eye camera and you see the the mine cart rise up to the camera flip and then like head back down and it's done very slowly and very meticulously and it looks basically like. We would now say like oh they just put a cgi mine carton there and rotated it. But it's not It's just this mastery of perspective where he's able to meticulously draw and rotate it at 24 frames per second. And the ability to be consistent with your line with with your volume with your perspective in order to make that illusion so convincing. Um, really remarkable. 40:45.70 Jala So what this whole conversation about the animation itself is reminding me of is I had a conversation with Cameron also from monster deer monster about violins and how they are made and he was talking about how. Ah there's just like this whole lost art of handmaking violins the way in which they used to be made to where these violins are still sound better than modern violins and are still in great repair hundreds of years later and we just don't know the techniques and everything behind that. Process that used to be done by hand because everything's been. You know industrialized since the revolution and this is kind of when you mentioned cgi versus the hand drawnwn animation is that a thing where you feel like um, we're going to see like a loss of. 41:43.56 Jala Mastery so technique when it comes to some of the original drawing skills and just artistry really when it comes to that because of the heavy reliance on computers these days. 41:55.27 Adam Bucceri I think that is a genuinely great question. The short version is kind of it's like Richard Williams unquestionably is a once in a generation probably once in a lifetime talent and. The stuff that he would do was always remarkable on a technical level but I don't think that he's an amazing filmmaker and I do very firmly believe that ultimately like. 42:30.37 Adam Bucceri Whatever you make whatever you put on the screen does have to be in service to the story and to um, you know the larger concerns of this. It can't just be technically impressive. So while. 42:46.22 Adam Bucceri We might not have that many people who are operating on that level the tools that are being developed and a lot of them are computer assisted. Um, they really are remarkable and they allow us to get some phenomenal looking stuff. I think that we are currently in a real golden age of animation right now. Um you know Spider verse and arcane ah really kind of like pushing the boundaries of what cg animation can look like and bringing a hybrid 3 d 2 d approach. I think that we've got stuff that looks amazing that is bringing new dimension and really kind of fusing what was previously separate disciplines into something more holistic. Um. 43:40.61 Adam Bucceri So yes, like I think that I do feel the theoretical loss of this grandmaster but you have to also understand that he worked on thief and the cobbler for 30 years and didn't finish it and the and ultimately. 43:58.83 Adam Bucceri Like um fans have have made the recobbled cut which is them taking various storyboards and pencil tests and all that stuff and trying to get it restored as close to the original vision as they possibly can and if you if you're interested in Animation. I'd recommend that you watch it because it is fascinating to see this pure technical mastery I don't think it's a good movie though. 44:26.97 Jala Um, well on on that note though first Adam your history with the film. 44:38.10 Adam Bucceri Yes, absolutely. Um, so I do want to kind of get up front and say that I like this film a lot. But I think I admire it more than I like it I I have some. 44:55.32 Adam Bucceri Problems with the script I think that it's slight like there are some things that I would change given the opportunity. But ultimately like when I watch it the the overwhelming feeling I get is just like man This is cool to watch. 45:12.75 Adam Bucceri Like my eyeballs really like this. So what's my history with it. Um I also saw it as a kid I didn't remember much of it aside from Judge Doom being run over by a steamroller and then happens their eyes and a shoe being melted. 45:29.64 Adam Bucceri Ah, in the same way that you know someone might be like oh brave little toaster. That's the thing with the air conditioner dying horrifically in the scary clown like ah. You know those things left impressions as a child but I didn't really appreciate it until I came back to it in college as part of animation studies. Um, and since then I've only watched it maybe twice. But I I do really enjoy it and I think the lens through which I enjoy it the most is as this kind of chinatown pastiche like I like seeing these hardboiled noir tropes in this different context you know, ah 1 of my favorite lines from this movie. Ah partially just because it's so blunt. Is that someone's talking shit and Eddie Valiant Crams an egg sandwich in his mouth and storms off and he's just like what's his problem and someone's just like take it easy tune killed his brother and it's. Like presented is such a flat and like serious tone that it just makes me burst out laughing every time. Um, that kind of stuff really works for me. 46:40.71 Jala Um, so Leonard we've talked a little bit about um okay so the animation is phenomenal. You've talked a bit about how film making-wise how this film is exceptional because it's very tight the plot in the pacing moves so quickly. There's a lot of compact storytelling what about things like the camera work and the lighting and things like that. 47:12.26 Leonard Um, well you know it it It ultimately kind of breaks the mold of of a nor pick because of course it can't be in black and white because that would. Kind of ah you know eliminate the point of having all of these wacky cartoon characters. So It is ultimately a significantly brighter and and and ah um, lighter ah film compared to most other noirs. Um, there's. 47:44.92 Leonard Um, a lot of really great stuff. There's ah the ah the Eddie Roger and ah Bennie the talking tune cab chase sequence which is ah pretty amazing, especially knowing that it's just. In in actuality Bob Hoskins driving ah a dopey little ah go cart ah down the street. Um, so that's like a super fun super dynamic like. 48:16.33 Leonard Very nor a typical sequence in this film. It also has like my first recorded memory of like oh that's a pun which is hey Roger what do you call middle of a song gee I don't know a bridge. Um, it's really great. The lighting is amazing, especially once again as Adam indicated like having to animated on ones to make sure that light and shadow interacts properly on the characters. We get a a slight little very. 48:52.28 Leonard Kind of vaguely nor sequence near the end when Eddie's in tombtown and down the suspiciously like filthy tomb back alley that appeared out of nowhere. Um I love that I love when his shadow takes on the the appearance of like this chiseled like. 49:11.82 Leonard Where Jod ah man just for a little gag but there's the yeah that sequence where he confronts Jessica and she's like yeah I'm not actually the the bad guy. Um, it's it's judge do who's comically running away down the alley and screaming about how. He's going to kill you all, um, is he like well immediately as soon as as soon as he gets shot is like I'm actually I'm I'm actually emperor palpatine and I'm just like. 49:33.63 Adam Bucceri Um, yeah, he drops the mask like real fast. 49:47.53 Leonard Yeah, we we figured doom here you're too creepy Otherwise um, but there's just once again just from ah like I think one of the things that is really hard to express with um with the way that that. This film is shot and and ah and ah lit is I think Also once again, exemplified in that little Montage like ah sequence because the the point of it and the reason that it's like a weird time lapse is. It's not actually a time Lapse. It's a simple pan around the table in really like tight close up but the transition is from night to day and all they had to do was just raise the lights and then pull out and it goes from night to day and it's just. Ah, once again, just this really brilliant in camera of fact, which is something that where I think the the film industry as a whole is is losing and I really want to. Trying to capitalize on when I I start making my own films is is reviving the use of in cameraa facts because they're so budget friendly and considering how how much access. 51:10.65 Leonard Ah, independent filmmakers now have 2 techniques that used to be wildly expensive. Ah, really should be utilized more and in smarter ways instead of trying to devote like so much time and money to Cg effects that may or may not work. 51:31.60 Jala Yeah, like 1 thing. Okay so post-production on this lasted for fourteen months and what was interesting is that when I was reading and and looking at post pro stuff. Ah, one of the most difficult effects for them to do in the film was in the nightclub when Jessica's dress is reflecting light everywhere. They had to do the flashing sequencequins and what they ended up doing was using a plastic bag and steel wool scratching the plastic bag with steel wool and then filtering light through that to have like the in-camera effect of the reflected sequence even though they're animating that character So that's kind of an interesting tidbit. Um, so um, let's see also the lighting effects were. 52:13.43 Adam Bucceri Ah, that kind of stuff is so cool to me. 52:23.88 Jala Optically composited onto the cartoon characters who were in turn composited into the live action footage. So when it comes to lighting there was there were layers of things going on and that's why the post pro was probably a big nightmare for these people. 52:37.56 Adam Bucceri Yeah, that's kind of the final piece of the puzzle for why this movie looks so amazing and you mentioned the the shot where they're in the the back room with like just the the dim bulb which they knock into and it starts swinging around and like. 52:56.56 Adam Bucceri Again, what a what a flex ah from a technical perspective to have this light shifting around and then you have to manually draw all the shadows and you have to manually draw like the way that they fit into it up to an including like there's subsurface scattering which. You know now we know as a cgi term of the way that light will penetrate your skin and change the way it looks so if you like put a flashlight behind your hand and you see like that red glow around your fingers that subsurface scattering and so depending on like the thickness of your the skin and. Ah, the lighting source like that'll create a different look and so there'll be times when Rogers ears will pass in front of the light and you'll get like that warm like glow wrapping around it. Um, yeah, like the the stuff they do with lighting and the way that they deliberately. Make it hard on themselves ah in order to perform a magic trick. You know is is remarkable to see. 53:57.82 Jala Yeah, yeah, yeah for sure and so some of my problems that I personally have with this movie are absolutely not at all with any of the technical stuff any of the filmmaking or the animation. All of that stuff is masterful. It's mostly in the fact that in having a movie with this many twists and turns to it in the time that they have to do the movie.. There's just like ah a flattening out of the characters like there's not enough time to give. As much dimension to the characters or motives or feelings or anything to any of the characters and the problem is that the way that it is paced. There is no way to keep the pacing fit in the amount of story and turns and you know densely packed. 54:51.70 Jala Bits and still do extra character work. You know on top of what they're already doing like they're they're already mastering so many different other elements that it's like they just cannot master every single thing you know and for me like for example, the character of Roger himself. He's just. Annoying. He is not sympathetic to me. He's just annoying. He stays annoying. He doesn't get any better. Um, we were kind of talking a little bit in just like our our pre-show chat about the Jessica and Roger relationship which is extremely different in the book and you don't. 55:29.50 Jala Know what's going on with that until the very end of the book like I was saying before. Basically you don't know anything about anybody until the end of the book. But um in the movie. 1 of the things that most people draw away from it is the fact that Jessica and Roger truly love each other. And the thing that I like about that is the fact that they are turning on your head. The expectation of Jessica who is this sexy you know humanoid character. You know oh well. The first thing that you hear is that she's cheating on Roger and so. 56:02.70 Jala Like they set you up to think that she's a lying cheating horrible person who's going to do him wrong and no she doesn't ever. But when I went back like as a kid I had more of an impression of a character from her than I did when I was watching it as an adult I went back and I'm like actually I have a lot more memories that don't. Don't fit with what I'm seeing when I'm watching this as an adult like I don't see you know I can't extrapolate much by way of like dimensionality to a lot of these characters except for you know, certain key characters that have to be focused on for the story for the narrative. So You know that's where it kind of falls flat for me, but it's like. That's not enough of a nitpick for me to say that it's a bad movie or that I don't like the movie or anything like that. But that is you know like just a real um you know something that they can't they can't slow down to give you more development of these characters and there's so many characters in. The movie. There's no way to develop everybody you know or develop um you know more motives and more more backstory and stuff like that. So Um I was curious though about the screenwriters because I did mention of course. That this was rewritten 3 different times. They had different versions of the script and they ended up coming up with this one with Judge doom which I think was a solid pick because as much as they are faithful to the feeling of the original novel they are. 57:31.69 Jala Doing something completely different. It is its own animal and I like that I don't want them to try to 100% ah match. You know what was going on in the Gary K Wolf novel ah so the the screenwriters were Jeffrey Lawrence price and Peter Stewart Seaman who are apparently just. Ah, screenwriting-producing duo and they did trench code who framed Roger Rabbit Doc Hollywood Wild Wild West how the Grinch stole Christmas from 2000 and last holiday and Shrek the third and that's real wacky because I'm like. They did what how did they churn this one out and then like yeah I don't know like they they were um like the nominations. So for Roger Rabbit bafta award for best adapted screenplay. I can get behind that nomination then for wild wild west they got the golden raspberry award for worst screenplay and then nominated for Grinch ah golden raspberry award for worst screenplay like. That's a track record. That's a weird track record I don't I don't know it's like they they did this one and then I don't know what happened after that. 58:46.66 Leonard Well well to be fair in terms of Wild Wild West that movie is a nightmare because the I believe the executive producer is a known nightmare that seemingly has an obsession with ah trying to jam a giant mechanical spider into literally every single screenplay that he has presented. Um you you should look it up ah listeners and and fellow fellow hosts because yeah. He was also involved with that ah failed Nicholas Cage Superman Superman lives at which he wanted to jam a giant mechanical spider into as well and as somebody who is a big fan of giant mechanical spiders like it's. 59:40.64 Leonard It's literally the only thing from Wild Wild West that I actually appreciate you don't need to put it into everything. Ah, really you You don't Um, so ah, it. 59:49.82 Adam Bucceri Yeah, it is amazing. What a single issue voter he is. 59:56.68 Leonard Um, if if I could jalla and go back to um, ah the point ah that you were making about how kind of flat the characters are in in Roger in the film I think ah one of the most interesting points and it's a thing that I didn't really realize until you started talking about it which is um in in kind of classic nor tradition. The film is presented strictly from Eddie's point of view. We are never given except for one shot and it's that one single shot where Rogers at the after seeing the patty cake photos roger is ah crying outside the the acme warehouse house. But I believe that every other. 01:00:47.81 Leonard Seen in the movie Eddie is there and present and so we are only given the information that Eddie himself is is is given in in the film and so in order to you know expand these characters. They. Me to interact with Eddie um himself and we only get that like twice with Jessica where she slaps him at the acme warehouse and and admonches them for the the photos and then ah when she comes to his office. Ah, but. I I can understand I do understand how that can make everybody else, especially with the number of characters and the number of gears spinning feel like they don't get anything but for me at least it is um it is kind of like this. Ah. Ah, master craft of like adhering to this once again, chinatown nor pastiche that this movie is desperately trying to be. 01:01:52.40 Jala Yeah, and the thing is is Eddie being the noir detective like the kind of one of the things about noir films generally or books or whatever Raymond Chandrill Chandler novels that kind of thing is that. It's always some older white dude who is jaded and just passing judgment on everybody who's not an older white dude who is cynical you know and whatever and so like um they tend to have a very flat perspective themselves like in flat interpretation of everybody else around them. And ah, that's just a consistent theme I actually got into this whole conversation. It was touched on on my last episode about intersectionality. We actually I brought it up there because I was mulling it over in my head and we were talking about intersectionality and I brought up like. I don't know what the why I like noir stuff I think it's just you know the jaded character and the detective in the kind of gritty and the stoicism and you know lighting effects and I don't know that kind of thing but it's also highly misogynist highly racist highly all different kinds of terrible things. You know, um. 01:03:06.69 Jala And anyway, um, we were talking about that and just like new iterations on noir in general and you know like this film is weird because it's bringing new color and new like ah a softer perspective sort of to the the detective because Eddie is not. You know the super grizzled you know, dude who doesn't have like any kind of development that you know he like he has a character arc right? and then he gets to the point at the end of the thing where he accepts tunes again and he's you know more or less healed from like his past traumas or whatnot or at least getting there. 01:03:44.58 Jala And that's like not typical for a noir film. So I mean like there are ways in which some of the characters do have some development that is just like selected characters the same attitude that same duoir flat perspective only from Eddie's perspective is in the book. But even though it's only 238 pages like I was talking about timing when Adam was saying you know how he appreciated my reactions to the book in real time and and I was trying to talk about how it's different with a book versus a movie because the movie is faster. Um. I kind of feel too that the book because in the book you are getting Eddie's thoughts not just his words it makes it completely different like us here's one description I'm just going to pull from the book just to give you an idea of how he talks and how it paints a picture very succinctly. 01:04:38.88 Jala But also in this this super noir sarcastic way. How Mrs Kuntz ever came to be associated with the speedy messenger service I'll never know unless she was an old time employee who had started with them when they used to ride horses and call themselves the pony express she took forever to answer the door. Another forever to examine my license and yet a third forever to show us into her parlor. She offered us a beer and I would have accepted but I didn't want to waste the rest of the day waiting for her to return from the kitchen Thanks anyway I said but we just have a few questions to ask and we'll be on our way. And um, like ah the way that he describes this lady's house looked at lives in a house that looked like it had been built by a bakery school dropout. It had gingerbread trim lady finger shutters, a mint frosting front lawn and a vanilla wafer walkway. The gutters were peppered with stunned woodpeckers who had taken a whack at the milk chocolate roof only to bash a beak against solid slate a brightly colored carpet of the kinds arabians use when they fly economy class lay draped over the porch railing like that's like 2 or 3 sentences and he's just like. Got a real vivid image in your head but you have the benefit in the book of hearing his thoughts. You don't have Eddie movie narrating all of this and telling you his impressions of everybody and so you can't get these kinds of of descriptors and you know. 01:06:09.70 Jala Interestingly written like so jaded prose the same way they do and the books. So I mean like that's just it's part of the medium. It's part of interacting with the movie medium like you're not going to get that in older noir films either. You know. 01:06:25.17 Jala The the characters in older and wire films are going to be real flat in real. You know one note so um I did want to ask though? What do you guys? think about Roger Rabbit as a noir film and dick Tracy the Warren Beatty Dick Tracy movie has a noir film. They're both very colorful and you know more family. Friendly. Both based on some other kind of thing but they're also both noir detective shticks. 01:06:56.44 Adam Bucceri I am embarrassed that I have not seen the dick Tracy film though it has been on my backlog for a very long time. Um I think that the like the colorfulness and the family friendliness of it. Do not make it less of a noir to me. Um, you know a lot of the tropes that are present ah are lifted wholesale and are twisted and made to work in ah in this context I think that Jessica Rabbit is 01:07:32.90 Adam Bucceri A quintessential feme fatale. You know I think that the ah larger conspiracy and how it has like these ultimately like very mundane business oriented routes like are are very noir. 01:07:50.20 Adam Bucceri And I think that Eddie Valiant is lifted wholesale from you know the the noir cannon without any compromises like he has a circus background and he does a ah. 01:08:06.89 Adam Bucceri Weird song and dance routine at the end and that's about the only thing that separates him from your traditional ah hardboiled detective. 01:08:14.91 Jala And I will ah pause to insert like that I'm sorry that does not get sold to me at all when he starts the song and dance number like I think it's I really think that it's like Bob Hoskins trying to figure out how to do a song a dance number. 01:08:24.81 Adam Bucceri He's not very good. 01:08:31.88 Jala As a serious hard-boiled detective and kind of like settling in a lukewarm position with it. You know is is kind of how that felt to me. Um, anyway like I that. 01:08:42.88 Adam Bucceri It's the kind of thing that I think works better on the page maybe than it ended up working in the film itself. Um. 01:08:46.96 Jala I Don't know that maybe they should have done another cut of it or something that they were like no, we're not going to do that. This is already much too much of a headache to retake this again. So. 01:09:00.40 Adam Bucceri Yeah, it's not entirely successful to me while also not ah you know, totally bringing it down. 01:09:06.88 Jala Yeah, yeah, so Leonard. What do you think have you seen first let me ask I guess have you seen the Warren Beatty Dick Tracy movie 01:09:15.50 Leonard Oh yes I love ah I un ironically love Dick Tracy I think it's one of like the most interesting films that Disney put out at that time because it is. It is literally like precursor to the hyper stylization that was the phenomenon that was Sin City. 01:09:35.91 Jala And I was going to say one of the things that it made me think of actually because of how colorful in stuff. It was is Bunaku which is also it also reminds me. It's also got some Sin City connectivity and connective tissue there. So it kind of reminds me of Bunraku who just in like that kind of um, super fictional world very color codeed and like solid colors kind of feeling like ah, an old comic strip kind of vibe. You know. 01:10:07.92 Leonard Right? Which of course Dick Tracy was it was a a comic strip and the fact that they go so hard. They go once again like it's it's so hyper stized before um, audiences I really think were. Willing to accept something so hyper stlized like once again, you've got the Dick Tracy like ah gangster canon and they're all weird misshapen free people. Um and and they do not compromise on that makeup whatsoever like they are. 01:10:43.35 Leonard Horrible and grotesque because they because you know once again, ah ugly people are bad that is the the rule from back then but the fact that they just and that's a joke by the way I don't actually believe that they ah they ah really just Hammer home on it like. 01:11:03.16 Leonard So hard and I'm like I love it I Love every single thing about that movie to the point where I'm actually I actually kind of kick myself because I've been meaning to revisit it and I have it in a really long time. But I oh dawn. 01:11:17.56 Jala Um, I yeah I had rewatched that like last year or something because I was telling Dave about it and he had never seen it and I was like oh my gosh you have to watch this movie. That's definitely going to be something that I'm going to be covering on podcasts at some point so I will keep in mind that I should ask you to return to podcast for that episode whenever I do that one. 01:11:41.23 Leonard Yeah, yeah, because I've yeah been chopping at the bit to get that because I remember um like sometime last year I was like oh man, there's that bit in Dick Tracy where where ah where big boy is like. Doing Madonna's dance routine because she thinks that she's doing it wrong, but it's Al Pacino in this fat suit with this terrible goddamn makeup and he's slumpy and tiny and he's doing like this Madonna dance routine and I'm like. That's the funniest shit that I've seen in a really long time I really need to rewatch this movie. 01:12:18.37 Jala One of my favorite things from that movie was when he's like, "I had a thought I had a thought it's coming. It's coming. It's gone." It's just like...I Love it. It's very quotable. 01:12:32.60 Adam Bucceri I also want to throw out the Wahowski's speed racer as being part of the pantheon of films that were too stylized and weren't appreciated at their time. 01:12:42.94 Jala I had not seen that one so you'll have to tell me about it tell me about this stylization of this movie. 01:12:51.92 Adam Bucceri It's borderline cubist in its editing like ah, it's really difficult to describe the way that shots blend in and overlap and combine and Morph with each other. Ah, it's a deeply strange movie that I Love. Um. 01:13:11.76 Jala Awesome! Awesome! So Leonard when it comes to Dick Tracy since you know about it. Um, and Roger rabbit they are doing different things but there's both still pulling on noir. What do you think. 01:13:26.87 Jala What is there any kind of connective DNA here is it just you know like totally different takes what what do you think about it. 01:13:34.12 Leonard the the I think the the biggest connection is the fact that they're at the at the core there is this kind of fascinating mystery at at the center of both movies Roger Rabbit is of course who killed Marvin Acme it then becomes. Um, hey tune towns in danger and clover leaf. It will buy it if the will isn't found and ah like Adam said they're like kind of banal. Ah you know, kind of banal sit like city stuff which ends up being the focus. But. Impact so many lives that it's it. It becomes like a big deal and with Dick Tracy it's this weird murder mystery um, ah as far as I can remember once again, it's been so long since I've seen it. But like it's this weird murder mystery that is also like this superstar cops fall from Grace while like this the gang in the city takes control and it's Dick Tracy like having this kind of weird love triangle between Madonna's character and his long term girlfriend while also taking care of this orphan kid at the like am I getting it do am I actually recalling this movie that oh that's crazy. That's crazy. Okay. But yeah, there's like there are a lot of there lot of like it's once again, it's the mystery I still remember like the weird furnace assassination that flattop tries to pull and because it's such an amazing set piece that I'm just like Amen most of this would have been cg nowadays. But now they built this big dumb giant like Steam Boiler set for this movie and once again, it's just it's just really stylish and slick and funny and like just interesting I like that it's visually interesting I like that the all the mobsters are weird like monster men I like that the like that ah big boy is like a man you got to give them the bath put them in a crate fill it with cement and then drop it into the ocean like it's so amazing and that's I think that's the thing that that gets me to gravitate to that. Um, not gets me to gravitate but ah Roger Rabbit helped instill in me which is you know once again, you. Nor is is a is an american institution as far as storytelling goes but I need like this twist on it to make it like super interesting like i've dealt with a lot of Noir and that's and it's all you know for the most part good. But I like it when there is so like a twist a subversion something interesting to make it different from all the things that I've seen before. 01:16:46.69 Jala Yeah, and the interesting thing is that who framed Roger Rabbit doesn't really have like a lot of action but the pacing in it is a very action pace whereas Dick Tracy is kind of like more so like a slower pace to the entire thing and it it has fewer characters so it doesn't feel as breakneck. But really I think that's the word I'm looking for the Roger Rabbit pacing just feels really breakneck and I mean like that works the movie's advantage because it is trying to be that way. That's how the book is I mean like it's It's like that for a reason like it might be a little bit of a slow burn write at first. But then as soon as the stuff starts happening you know everything that was set up in the very beginning part starts. You know all the dominoes start to tip over and then you get just like Boobo Boom Bo Bo Boom you know from there with the plot. 01:17:16.73 Leonard Right. 01:17:36.31 Jala And um, the way that it's directed is is vastly different than the Warren Beatty Dick Tracy but like I feel like that Dick Tracy movie. Although it is a very different animal was also cribbing some of the ways in which it can um. I don't know pay homage to the source material you know and also be its own thing in a way that feels similar to how Roger Rabbit works with the original novel is kind of what I was thinking. 01:18:07.68 Leonard Absolutely I 100 % agree with you on on that that point it it is it is it is its own thing but you look at Dick Tracy and you're like and if you're even passingly familiar with. The Dick Tracy comics you're like that's dick Tracy. 01:18:28.29 Jala Absolutely so and and another thing because I'm I'm bringing these up because I'm trying to kind of talk about like what are some ways in which Roger Rabbit influenced other things that came later like say for example, um I can't think about Roger Rabbit without thinking about Cool World and there's a reason for that. 01:18:43.93 Jala I have this you know Cool World pop up in my brain for multiple reasons I mean yes, there's a detective. There is a femfatal it is tunes in humans and all of that kind of mess like those are some similar things. They also came out. Um. You know, like the the cool world movie came out in what 1990 or something like that. Um, it was a pretty fast follow after Roger Rabbit ah totally different team. Totally different intentions and everything but like it's. 01:19:08.64 Adam Bucceri It's a fast follow. 01:19:19.92 Jala Also like I ended up watching cool world in the theater when I was way too young to be watching that movie because I was thinking it was going to be like Roger Rabbit I was like ok so what? if there's a sexy tune female. There was a sexy tune female in that other movie that I watched and it was fine. You know and. Then ah my cousins like I was visiting family and all of my older cousins were like you don't really want to come watch this movie with us and I was like no I do you know because Roger Rabbit you know and and I went and um I came out of that movie and I'm like, you know, imagine saucer eyed small Jala going. My mother would be so upset at me for having watched that movie. Yeah so I have not watched it in 20 to 30 years. So I am very vague on anything that goes on in that movie other than the fact that I was ah like scandalized by the, I think it looks like a baby toon that was pissing on somebody at during some scene on a car I don't know what was going on, I don't remember anything about it but I was very upset about that. 01:20:19.22 Leonard Um, yeah, yeah, hey guess what you did accurately remember that and that baby Tune's name is nails because it has sharp fingernails and yes it does in fact, piss on ah on people during a arch a I do distinctly remember that from Cool World. 01:20:34.98 Jala Yeah, and I was like oh that's terrible here's little Jala scandalized by the baby bit like not by the sex and stuff I'm like okay sex I get that but like the the baby pissing on the other people I was like oh, I can't I can't that was my my no no deal breaker right there. So anyway how about what do you guys think about Cool World and Roger Rabbit and like how those things relate or do not relate at all. 01:21:09.84 Leonard I'll go ahead and and get my thoughts out of the way real quick. Um, cool world is conceptually interesting I do not think it is a good movie I do not find the plot remotely engaging. 01:21:27.39 Leonard Um, of course the animation isn't as tight because it doesn't have the same budget. There's some interesting concepts and then like there are some visuals that I like when ah at the end of the film when everything's going to pop pot that I think are super interesting. 01:21:46.16 Leonard Um, really the thing that I appreciate most about cool world are the the cityscape backgrounds because I have always thought that those were super interesting and super evocative. Um, oh and I will say this. 01:22:02.65 Leonard From the perspective of somebody that is um, really kind of a love craft adherent and loves ah everything like elder god Eldridge all that the concept that cartoons are kind of presented as these like. Horrific eldritch entities that exist on this plane that doesn't adhere to the you know, normal rules of of human existence is once again, 1 of those concepts that I think is super interesting. And I think that's reflected the most in once again, those background city skates where it's like yeah this is a nightmare hell world. Um, but they're just cartoons. So like there's this weird. Um jottaposition between those 2 concepts because. Of course there would be because that's not how ah the western audiences view cartoons. 01:23:03.25 Adam Bucceri Yeah, my perspective on it. Um is that it's a film that's made by Ralph Bakshi and by that I mean it's a film that's made by Ralph Bakshi. He is a very ah distinct and recognizable voice in American Animation he's a real fucking weirdo ah that I appreciate in again more than I really like I'm like. Ah, say that his films are good but they're really interesting to watch and I have a good time watching them. Um. 01:23:35.35 Jala Yeah I think that's that kind of tracks of my experience with his voice. 01:23:43.20 Adam Bucceri Yeah, ah, Bakshi's Lord of the Rings is so strange. Um, but yeah, the actual film itself I think is a great companion piece because it like clearly exists in conversation with who framed roger rabbit and on a technical level. It does not do any of the remarkable things that I told you about ah Roger rabbit it locks off the camera It's not animated on ones. It does not have this sophisticated lighting pass that's done to it. There's considerably less interaction and a sense of physicality between them. Ah, this is back. She's like by far highest budgeted movie. Um, but it still doesn't hold a candle to. Ah, Roger rabbit both in terms of budget and in terms of ambition and a big part of that I also just attribute to the fact that Bakshi is such a gurilla filmmaker. You know he has the philosophy of just just make a damn movie. You know doesn't matter doesn't matter what you're doing and I both admire that. But also my admiration for it is on a completely different axis. 01:25:00.73 Jala I I did and this is off the conversation about cool world but kind of looping back to dick Tracy there Dick Tracy as a character shows up in the Roger Rabbit novel at one point and Eddie Valiant talks to him. 01:25:20.34 Jala So Dick Tracy came over to the car I'd never seen him in person before and I couldn't believe how tall he was usually tunes turn actor to compensate for being shrimpy but Tracy could look me straight in the eye with no trouble and talk about squarejawed now that's hilarious because he is such a square jaw drawn tune anyway. I could have used his chin for a letter opener. Carol introduced us and his grip almost broke my hand he yaked with us for a while and impressed me as a gutsy standup guy I nearly asked him for my autograph or for his autograph myself. So. 01:25:55.17 Leonard That's funny. 01:25:58.32 Jala So yeah, like I bring up these other movies again just because I'm just those are things that came out after Roger Rabbit who have to kind of exist in a space you know, ah in a world where the Roger Rabbit movie exists and how do. These filmmakers grapple with it and I feel like Dick Tracy ah managed to do the colorful noir thing in a very good way without actually having like the animation you know integrated in but still paying homage to the source material in a way that as we kind of talked about. Laid groundwork for later. Um more stylized films and also paid omash to the source material and cool world to me it really? It's like I feel like Ralph Bakshi was just doing his thing that he always does but also. Wanted to riff on ah the Roger Rabbit premise to some degree you know and just do his own weird take on everything is kind of how it felt to me it kind of felt like ah I guess a reaction piece is what I mean to say. 01:27:10.88 Leonard Ah I don't know if this analogy is going to work for everyone but cool world. Ah Roger rabbit to cool world feels like Archie comics to riverdale. 01:27:28.51 Jala So um, I don't know have has there been any like ok other than space jam which. Everybody talkgs like always tries to compare space jam and and Roger Rabbit and I don't know why because they are just totally different classes of things really but like ah have there been very many other ah live action and animated. You know integrated composited films other than like the space jam stuff. Since Roger Rabbit. 01:27:59.30 Adam Bucceri I mean sure there have been a million but they're all you know cgi characters rather than traditional two d um there there have been. Yeah, there was like Looney Tunes Back in Action which no one remembers that's fine. Which actually ah the failure of that movie tanked the original proposed sequel to space jam which was going to be called skate jam starring Tony Hawk and it's a crime that we were robbed of that masterpiece. But yeah, it's There's not a ton and anything that you see now is regardless going to be you know computer assisted in one way or another and to be clear. It should be like it would be silly not to use the tools that are available to you. But um, it came out right? kind of almost with the dying breath of ah traditional special effects techniques before you know Jurassic Parks and iolm um, introduced the cgi revolution that we know today so you'll see um if you Youtube it you can find like screen tests for a who framed roger rabbit to where they were trying a you know cgi roger and ah seeing how they could use those new tools to to integrate it? Um, so yeah, they are couple minor examples but nothing particularly noteworthy and ah I'm not sure that we will see the likes of of it again. Really. 01:29:42.26 Jala Yeah, and that's kind of what I was trying to get at like there's there's other movies that are ah trying to do similar things and you know being their own entities but still kind of um, grappling with kind of the. Fact that Roger rabbit exists but there isn't another thing that's truly like it and truly in its class like we were talking about it. Um, several weeks ago at this point because we had this um concept for this show back a while. But we were talking about how like a Roger Rabbit 2. Just there's no way it would be a good movie. You know like you can't ah make a movie that's going to be in the same class as the original Roger Rabbit and have it be a sequel and have it be. You know cgi with different teams and different people and still like have the same kind of convincing feel and mastery I mean like it. It is possible. It is not probable. Let's put it that way. 01:30:46.93 Adam Bucceri Yeah, um, mind you I think that there's some amazing stuff going on again with hybrid cgi 2 d animation techniques and also it occurs to me like like the the closest equivalent that you're going to find to like something like Roger Rabbit is going to be like the recent. Chip and Dae Rescue Rangers movie I I haven't watched it but I've seen yeah various clips from it and it's it's trying to do something like fairly similar where you have you know ah 2 d characters and 3 d cgi characters all interacting with humans in the real world and doing like a oh let's call it a thought experiment of like let's pretend that these characters are actors and they exist in the world and like there's tunes in people's living you know, coexisting? Um, but ultimately it's just a less interesting product. Ah, to me both visually and conceptually another thing Shockingly I don't think we've mentioned it explicitly. But for people who are unfamiliar with the film. Um, this movie is a crossover movie on a scale that was really rare at the time that's now like. 01:32:01.23 Adam Bucceri Not only common but kind of banal. So a big selling point back in the day um is considerably less of a selling point when you have Space Jam. The new generation trying to yet you know, tell me that it's cool to have a cameo by. 01:32:20.70 Adam Bucceri Alex Delarge from a clockwork orange in your fucking east damn movie. That's fucking weird. 01:32:31.90 Leonard Yeah, it's bad. It's really bad. It's really bad. I wanted to make a note because I too have not seen Chip 'n' Dale's Rescue Rangers. But as thought experiments ah because ah once again, aspiring filmmaker I do like to occasionally think up. Ah, what could possibly work for as a sequel for a film that I really enjoy and they did actually kind of take elements that I had thought about in in doing a a roger rabbit sequel that was set current day which is like some weird class like. Integrating a weird class war between like cg ah you know Cg ah characters and handdrawn tunes and maybe pushing them out of like deliberately pushing them out of the limelight. I've become aware that ah Roger apparently makes a cameo in the Chip 'n' Dale Rescue Ranger moving um, ah, but like but the yeah the execution of it does not seem great. The the story that it is trying to tell and the way that it is telling it doesn't seem great. 01:33:40.25 Adam Bucceri Yes. 01:33:55.19 Leonard But like they're just nuggets of ideas of like a man I wish I wish they they would have committed to like these interesting concepts of like ah yeah, now cg and they're less expensive. They're more still, well not less the well they're. Yeah, it's weird like because because once again I'm thinking about it and I you know I'm not an animator but I I'm I'm a well aware enough of of the process both with hand drawn traditional animation and cg. Animation to like there could be something interesting there with like these 2 similar yet different factions having something going on between them and it doesn't necessarily need to be like. A classic nor mystery like ah the original it could be some kind of other mystery with Roger and you know whoever else is the the lead protagonist. 01:35:03.40 Jala And that's that's kind of one of the things that's very notable about the book who censored Roger Rabbit is that Gary K Wolf the author of that book spent a lot of time really thinking deeply about if toons were interacting with the human world. What would that look like and let's map that onto what? Um, what was also going on in just human our actual human world back in the 40 s and that kind of thing and mapping this kind of ah alternate scenario on there. 01:35:41.43 Jala And it's kind of like that kind of depth of thought and consideration and um, just layering of you know metaphor and everything into the. Product that you're making would have to be part and parcel of any kind of sequel to the film because the film you know is taking the quee from the book that was you know they bought the rights to it and they were taking the cue from you know, just the spirit of the book. Not the letter and. That same level of consideration is not I don't think typical ah for anybody working on on you know, a family friendly film and that has animated elements and stuff to it anymore like I don't feel like that's that's really a consideration that's brought as often. Ah, you know the kind of depth of world building that you would have to do. 01:36:42.80 Adam Bucceri Yeah, that that's something that's a real value to me that like I agree is is exceedingly rare to see brought to a really high level. Um, kind of my perennial whipping boy for this is Pixar's cars where it's like. There are buildings that very clearly have human sized doors. But there's no humans in this universe. So ah, what What's the logistics of anything that's happening here like it's it's very strange. Um and it doesn't kind of take its fiction seriously in a way that ah I find a little bit dissatisfying. You know I'm happy to let it be its own thing but I'm never going to write a story like cars because that's just not my values. 01:37:31.30 Jala Yeah, yeah, and that's kind of what I'm at that word, right? there values I think that's what I'm trying to pinpoint is like the values that were in play in the production of this movie are not. You know, ah mirrored or mapped Onto. You know the kinds of ah filmmaking values that are currently in vogue. Let's say like of course people want to make a good film and this and that and the other but like for the type of movie that it is. Roger Rabbit is doing a lot of legwork you know and it somehow manages to be kid friendly enough while still scarring small children about certain things. 01:38:21.30 Jala And then also having enough going on that. It also is in service to a broader audience than that and I I mean like that is something that happens these days but it's usually like in the jokes you know like they have to make like I just watched sonic two for the first time last night and. 01:38:40.47 Jala I was just like okay they're paying homage to the source material in these ways with these certain things that they're doing but really the stuff That's there for the adults watching this movie are just in the jokes and that's it. The jokes that fly over the kids heads that you know kids don't get the references and that's the only thing but like. 01:39:00.15 Jala Roger Rabbit is doing so much more and is in service to a story that has more layers and stuff going on that it weirdly appeals to you know audiences from a very young age all the way up in a way that like I don't feel many. Family friendly, animated films manage anymore. 01:39:27.90 Adam Bucceri Yeah, ah can I also just say brief digression I want to give a special shout out to ah one of my top 3 visual jokes in film. Ah those top 3 in no particular order are as follows 1 airplane I have a drinking problem to evil dead 2 a farewell to arms and three who framed Roger Rabbit ah patty cake where he is flipping through those photos and making like a little flip book of Jessica rabbit. And ah, who is it Marvin Acme ah playing patty cake with all the cadence of it being an affair and like this deepest betrayal that's so so funny to me like what a great visual joke. 01:40:16.49 Jala It is and that thing is is that um the word using the word patty cake to talk about it is in in the book too. But um, anyway, yeah, but like as a kid. It was funny because even when I was 6 and I watched this movie for the first time I was like oh I know what that means. But then when I saw the photos like it went over my head that it was a joke I was just like that's stupid. Why is he getting upset about that I thought it was sex. Then I'm like that doesn't make any sense and the fact that it was a joke was the part that flew over my head. Not what it was joking about. So yeah. 01:40:56.23 Adam Bucceri Yeah, they got you with the double bluff. 01:41:04.97 Leonard Ah, so I think ah as far I don't I personally um, um, just want to say that. Ah for me. The reason why. Roger who framed Roger Rabbit Endures as like this kind of touchstone this this this like golden god in terms of like filmmaking and story and all of that for me is it's the productions commitment to. This film's premise. This is a this is a nor film where humans and cartoons interact we are going to do the world building necessary to make that seem real. We are going to commit to the animation to make you believe that these things that. 01:41:58.70 Leonard Clearly do not actually interact are interacting with each other and we are going to take the premise seriously enough to tell a legitimately compelling interesting story that hits the beats that we are trying to replicate from. This genre of film and the fact that they are so committed to every single aspect of what this film needs to be in order to work is the thing that causes it and allows it to endure as once again this like. Piece of upper echelon entertainment in my opinion. 01:42:41.59 Jala Well, what's interesting and this was a little factoid I found out when I was doing the research for the show is that Michael Eisner who was the CEO of Disney at that time and also Roy Disney who was the vice chairman, both felt that the film was too risque and had too much in way by way of adult themes and sexual references and stuff and Zemeckis had the final cut privilege and he refused to make any of the alterations they were suggesting. It's actually on account of Zemeckis saying screw you my film that we have this film that is doing those kind of exceptional things that I was mentioning where it has these elements that are in service to you know, like an adult audience as well as a child audience you know and it was just. On Zemeckis's part. There. The director's part. Yeah, absolutely because I feel like this would have been such a like I don't I can't say that it would be super weakened but it wouldn't have kind of like the staying power in the same way if they had dumbed it down if you will. 01:43:35.86 Adam Bucceri Um, yeah, good on him for holding his ground. 01:43:36.74 Leonard Right. 01:43:56.53 Adam Bucceri Yeah I would agree like it needs a little bit of an edge to like really sell the noir aspect of it. 01:44:05.66 Jala Yeah, yeah, and that's that's I guess what I'm trying to say about it like um, the Dick Tracy movie is like the detective story but it doesn't feel as noir as like a Roger Rabbit or anything like that because Dick Tracy is a kind you know and kind man who doesn't have drinking problems and isn't like the the so stereotypical detective guy um to the same degree like he's a cleaner cut character than Bob Hoskins character of Eddie Valiant in this movie. So the the result is that the dick Tracy movie is able to be cleaner cut and more family friendly and doesn't require like the same degree of grittiness to it like yes, it's got the scary monster men in it but it doesn't need to be edgy. In the same way to get to where it's going but with this film if it did pull the punches then that would make for a very different experience and it wouldn't feel um as convincingly noir but also with tunes you know. 01:45:17.50 Leonard Right. 01:45:17.87 Adam Bucceri So yeah. 01:45:19.55 Jala So okay, how about some wrap up thoughts. Leonard: wrap up thoughts about this film. 01:45:28.47 Leonard Yeah, it's a classic I Love it. I Love everything about it. It's super influential to me. Um, it's it's it's a testament to to production design. It's a testament to. Classic Handdraw Animation. It's a testament to in Cameramera effects. It's it's once again I you know I for me, it is almost a perfect. Film. It is a film that I will continue to review for the rest of my life. Um, you know every every so often because it it is It is like a it is a piece of media that made me and kind of opened my eyes to. What you can do with film and animation and story and all these you know elements that make a movie a movie and it's going to stay with me for the rest of my life I Love it. 01:46:34.90 Jala Awesome Adam what are your final thoughts. 01:46:35.52 Leonard It's amazing. 01:46:39.79 Adam Bucceri Yeah, as I said first of all I think this is a very fun film I like it a lot I recommend you watch it. But if you want to see a little bit more of my perspective if you want to get a little bit of that. Appreciation of animation and just the sheer display of craft on this. Um I recommend that you find the scene with the the bare bulb where they're in kind of the back room and then literally just frame by frame through it and think about the logistics. Of what they had to do for the camera for the gags that are happening for the actors needing to maintain sightlines with characters who aren't there. There's ah you know a creepy guy offstage dressed like a rabbit who's just saying lines. Um. And then the actual animation that needs to be layered on top of that and just think about like all of the work that goes into making something like this and for me, um, when I really like take those dives into all the technical. Aspects that go into it it greatly increases my appreciation of ah art like this. So yeah, ah check it out frame by frame. It's cool I I really enjoy doing that with ah animation that I love and just. 01:48:13.65 Adam Bucceri Really seeing the hand of the artist that's in there. 01:48:19.49 Jala Um, for sure and just even the opening animation that they start with when they are recording the Baby Herman and Roger Rabbit snippet in the kitchen. You know like that is. 01:48:22.73 Adam Bucceri Oh my god. 01:48:31.72 Jala Got so many different perspectives going on and all this other stuff. That's just flexing absolutely flexing and gorgeous. 01:48:38.48 Adam Bucceri Absolutely ah and also those takes are so long like the camera just stays in one location and it's fixed and you think oh this looks just like a Tom and Jerry cartoon and then the camera starts moving and it doesn't stop moving and it's just following and weaving in and out like ah amazing. 01:48:58.61 Jala Yeah, yeah for sure. So for me, it was interesting because when I asked Leonard hey Leonard what do you want to cover give me some ideas of what you might want to cover on an episode because I absolutely want you on my show. Um, he mentioned this movie and I was like oh yeah. I remember I have not seen that in a long time and I just the first thing I thought about was just how the animation was and how stand out all of that was to me and like I said I mean like it kind of was weird when I went back and watched it again. The difference in. How I absorbed the character like how I assumed the characters were and just filled it all in as a child. But then when I'm watching it as an adult and I'm like no actually like you know and the different things that I noticed as a child versus as an adult and the things that I continually noticed. 01:49:49.82 Jala Throughout either time that I had watched it um, but also I was happy to delve into this because it led me to the book. Um I'm probably going to be covering those books. Um the whole trilogy and the extra 1 about Jessica Rabbit on another show at some other time when I've actually gone through. 01:50:09.21 Jala All of them because they are pretty great. So you know listeners can expect that I will be talking about Roger Rabbit the book form at some juncture and also that we'll be talking about Dick Tracy at some juncture and probably also boon rau at some juncture because that's also a very weird and interesting movie. So. But yeah, like ah this movie is definitely standout insofar as technical and filmmaking stuff is concerned and that's why I was like absolutely you know like I'm happy to revisit this. so yeah so where can people find you on the internet Leonard? 01:50:50.63 Leonard Yes, people can find me on Twitter @drfaustisdead. Ah that is my primary Twitter account. Ah where you'll get pictures of food, my cats and empty platitudes on occasion and ah maybe a witty insight. Um, you can also find my business ah page on Twitter as well. Ah by searching @umbranoxprod. I am a freelance video editor I am also a content creator and as I've mentioned before aspiring filmmaker. You can ah view my video game video essay work on Youtube by searching drfaustisdead. And my film work by searching for Umbra Nox Productions. 01:51:46.51 Jala Consistency! I love it. Adam, where can people find you? 01:51:52.37 Adam Bucceri Yeah, ah so I am a ah game designer in my spare time. So if you would like to find my games you can check out boo cherry that's boo like ghost cherry-like fruit. Itch io and you can find my various games I've got a board game I've got a bunch of tabletop games. My kind of flagship product is enter the survival horror a tabletop rpg inspired by resident evil ah if you want to follow me on Twitter you can follow me at Adam Bucherry spelled like my name. And then also this is a sneak preview I don't think you know about this jalla I am starting a podcast of my own with a good friend and we're going to be launching that in just a couple of weeks hopefully 01:52:36.10 Jala Woo you I had seen some talk about it in places like my Discord. But yes, yes, yes I am excited for your new project. 01:52:45.36 Adam Bucceri Yeah, so keep an eye out on Twitter for updates about that. 01:52:48.84 Jala Yeah, and of course you can find this show at jalachan.place and you can find myself at @jalachan in any place that I may be found and that is all for now folks until next time, take care of yourself and remember to smile. [Show Outro] Jala Jala-chan's Place is brought to you by Fireheart Media. If you enjoyed the show, please share this and all of our episodes with friends and remember to rate and review us on your podcast platform of choice. Word of mouth is the only way we grow. If you like, you can also kick us a few bucks to help us keep the lights on at ko-fi.com/fireheartmedia. Check out our other show Monster Dear Monster: A Monster Exploration Podcast at monsterdear.monster. Music composed and produced by Jake Lionhart with additional guitars and mixed by Spencer Smith. Follow along with my adventures via jalachan.place or find me at jalachan in places on the net! [Outro Music]