Pixar’s Hoppers Review

Lucia and Ameera Wilson took time out of their precious Sunday to watch Hoppers. After almost two hours of complete garbage, the two sisters decided to make a podcast about what they witnessed. During the episode, you’ll hear nine major problems they had with the new Pixar film. Tune in to find out why Hoppers missed the mark!

What is Help Help We're Being Repressed!?

Join Lucia and Ameera Wilson each week for discussions about story in all its various forms, but primarily books and movies.

Help Help We're Being Repressed! is presented by Canon Press.

Okay, so apparently our movies have been so bad that this is doing fantastic. Everyone should despair. Anything, let's hop to the character. Mabel, Mabel. Why I hate her, Mabel. This is my biggest beef with her. Is she never truly apologizes or repents the pro-actions. But yeah, she nearly gets hundreds of people murdered. She murders someone. The fire burns down the thing she was trying to save and everything surrounding it and is headed towards the city. And I'm a singer like, we made this so, so much worse. By you doing anything at all. Welcome back to Help Help for Being Repressed. Yay. We are back in person for two episodes only. Special treat. Before you have to despair away to finish your education to Michigan. But we're almost done with this tragedy of us being a part. Oh, very, very sad times. It's really rough. Yeah, yeah. So I was looking at our past episodes, which we have so many now. And we're realizing that we haven't done a hater podcast in so long. I know, I've ever called those haters, but we've actually been like, at the beginning of joy and light. We really have a decent amount of time. Yeah, we have just been little rays of sunlight. Yeah, being like, look, kind of good. Mm-hmm. Yeah, maybe not raising reviews. We had some mess, but we haven't like properly heated on something since Phantom of the Opera. That was three months ago. Wow. Wow. All right, we're here. Well, we are here to break our positivity streak. No, we're going to, we're going to actually begin with slight positivity just to try to keep the love going. But this is going to be a hater podcast. This is a hater podcast because new movie came out, which is doing quite well. Mm-hmm. New picks are filmed. Hoppers. Yes. So our first positive comment about hoppers, because we need to, because we need to see, we're being beacons of joy, as we said, is that it is an original animated film and it's doing quite well. Yay. At least it's not a remake. It's not a remake, a sequel. Live act. Some bizarre spin on previous IP. It's none of that. And so even if it sucks to high heavens, it is a good thing that Hollywood will is getting this win. Because hopefully that means we'll get more originals. Oh, yeah. And you're like, okay, watching the trailers before the movie is like the Mario Galaxy. Yeah, the next Mario movie. And I'm like, well, at least this isn't that, because that sucks. So that is our positive comment number one for hoppers, which is like some of the negatives. But it's doing really well. And hopefully that means we see some more original films. Yeah. And hopefully some of those are better than this. Maybe at least one. We're pulling for one. Mm-hmm. Positive comment number two. And it's not going to be the last positive comment. This is the I have to say about the heat comment. It was better than the animal farm trailer if that played. I am deeply offended by the new animal farm coming out. If you haven't read on by deeply offended, I mean, I'm not offended. I don't like to hate it. It's not personal. It's just not personal. It's objective. Objective. You know, I just have standards. Yeah. I just have standards. When someone writes a book that is a direct, you know, condemnation of communism in Russia. And you twist it to make it anti-capitalism. Yeah. For those of you who didn't know, angel acquired a movie adaptation of animal farm. And it is based off of the trailer, which we had the pleasure of seeing in theaters. Yeah. It was horrible. I didn't know that I was signing myself up for such torture. That was the animal farm trailer. So we're watching this and it's clearly horrendously twisted from the book to be anti-capitalist. Don't get me wrong. Animal Farm is not pro-capitalism. No, it's an anti-authoritarian, yeah, totalitarian. Yeah. But it's very anti-communism. Extremely. And based on that trailer, they had the animal farm be like a little pleasant utopia that was ruined by capital. And it was in the book. It took approximately 30 seconds for everything to start going around. I believe the phrase is go to hell in a hand basket. Yes, basically. So to say it nicely, that was awful. But none of you should watch it, but all of you should read the book, because the book is amazing. Book is fantastic. But that's our positive spin. The movie was better than that trailer. It wasn't as bad as that. Well, partially because Hoppers didn't have any previous work of literature that it was spitting upon. Starting on the actual movie, I didn't hate the first three minutes. Four minutes? I don't know how long the little section that I did not hate was. Actually, that was a con-cute. Well, before she was like the most advanced, we're going to try to be structured in our hatred today. We really do, but you know, yeah, it's when we make an effort. When there's too many things wrong with something, we had a similar problem with Tron Erie. When there's too many things wrong with something, it's hard not to just like vomit into the microphone. We're trying to have like structured garbage first. First issue. Shall we talk about the technical problem? We're going to talk about the technical problems. So as you said, the first couple minutes are not bad. So the con-cute points. It's like this little girl. So should we like- Yeah, we should give a little plot summary. And this is one of our technical complaints. Is this will be difficult. Yeah, so the kind of the premise is you have this little girl who's- I guess she's not a good girl. She's 19. She's 19. And she's all, you know, saved the world. Save the turtles type. Yeah, save the turtles type. And her favorite little gleeid. Yeah, so she has- She's being destroyed for a her grandma- Her late grandmother's backyard essentially, probably somewhere that her- Wasn't actually her grandma's land. It was just a place that her grandma would take her- And they bonded over nature. And when she was a little kid with anger issues, because everyone knows that sitting still and looking at nature is how you fix children's anger issues. It is. Try it in true. So that's this little spot. Marjorie is building a highway or something- Freeway. Something fast over that little gleeid and it's going to destroy it. And by the way, just frame of reference, very small plot of land. This freeway is like 98-5% done, maybe more. And there's just this little patch of nature that it has to go over and it's done. Yeah. But it's her special gleeid. And so because it's very special to her, she's going to try to save it. She goes to war against Marjorie. Turns out there's this fancy new technology that one of our teachers at our college is inventing- That you do- Called hopping, which is you have this little robot animal body that you can put your mind into basically- Mm-hmm. And then go and be among the animals and hear them talk and like- Yeah, don't think you're hard about it. Yes, observe them from a much closer distance. Because you actually can- And it's supposed to be for researching. Yes, for research purposes only. She finds out about it immediately hops and books it off. Well, because the whole- The way they framed this was that Jerry was allowed to destroy this little patch of nature because there was no wildlife there. And so her goal was to convince some wildlife to come back, which automatically tells you that her little moral crusade is hypocritical. Because her whole thing is like saving the animals. It's like there aren't any animals there. Like we're not hurting any animals and it's clearly- It's just sentimental value. Which I understand- I understand sentimental value. But we lie in a little bit. Yeah. But that's her whole thing is she's going to possess an animal and convince wildlife to come back to the glade. Yeah. But basically to like try to quickly summarize it a lot goes wrong. The animals try to end up trying to kill Jerry. There's a whole thing. Kind of spins out of control until very end. Like there's kings of the animal and it's all dramatic. Yes, Spiro's out of control. Very end ends up she saves the glade. You know, fun. She doesn't really save the glade. Well, she burns it down. She burns it down. But then Jerry decides not to build this highway and it becomes like a park. Yeah. Yay. It's preserved. So that's the quick summary of the movie. And if you thought we did a bad job with that, what you have no idea, the chaos we're working with. Okay, so that's our little summary. So technical problems. Let's kick it off. You want to give us our first technical problems. We can just list them. Just the directing of the film. Mm-hmm. So it's funny because you don't always remember that animated films also need to be directed. Yeah. Cast your mind back to the old greats like Wally as we talked about. Wally and Crubbles. And like the directing on those. Phenomenal. So I mean, you just have to make choices with the angles, like perspective, all these different things that you have to take into account. We were sitting there in the first, the beginning of the movie being like, okay, what is wrong? Like something. About five minutes in. Like something's weird and flat and like not. Something's disturbing about this. And we realized almost every single shot was centered. Like, but just something directors have done on purpose. So like Mad Max Fury Road. Yeah, but that's a very deliberate. Well, yes, it's a deliberate type of plot. It's a deliberate choice, but part of the reason for it is there was so much chaos and so many things going on on the screen that it gave your eyes a place to look at. So it really focused where you should be seeing what you have all of this dramatic stuff happening in the background. Especially since that is a chase scene movie. So it's like it has a very direct focus for the entire time. Yes. That one was so much is happening that you are given someplace to look at. Direct line phones. Yes, it's a very interesting effect. But then this movie is like not very much was happening on screen. Well, a ton was happening later. Yes, but at the beginning, when we noticed it, it's very peaceful. So it's just like, you know, grass in the background. There's not much. It's nothing much is going on. And so if you just centered every single thing, it gives kind of like a weird. Yeah, and it's like, I don't know where to look. I stopped noting it at some point. So I don't know how much I don't know how much they actually did that, but the directing was weak sauce from the beginning. Just throughout the whole thing. It's like I wasn't paying attention to every shot, but it's just you're never. You're never in awe of anything. No, it's like there's movies. You always want there to be like, ah, that shot. At some point, like we need it. We need at least something like that. Something to look at. Something that's pretty. But it was funny to me because there's the Mad Max example where it's like, okay, it gives you something to look at. But then I also thought of separates the show that also does a lot of just centered shots to be. But it's very, very still. So it's kind of like unnerving. Yeah. So it's the choice that gives an effect. So the choice, yeah, it gives an effect. But in this, it just felt lazy. And then my eyes didn't know where to go or what to look at. And it was like, what's well, they're often wasn't much. I don't know how I was supposed to feel looking at the screen. Because it's just like it made it just flattened it. And so the animation very much functioned as just a package for this story and did not carry any weight on its own. Yeah. So to be the part I enjoyed at the very beginning was this little girl like going and grabbing all these like little pets. She was stealing the class pets to set them for try to release them into the wild, which as a silly kindergarten or a refrigerator might do. Yeah. If you love animals and you're a little girl, like I could see a little girl who has a little bit of spunk doing that. It was more unfortunate because we could all see where it was going. And it was going to end up with her being a super self-righteous brat. But at the moment, it was like kind of cute when she's shoving turtles and parents into her backpack, along with a snake and the guinea pig. And you're like, this is such a bad plan. Yes, but it was falling to me because I really feel like it set out to just summarize the rest of the movie in my mind. Kind of unaccident. Yes, unaccident. I don't think it was supposed to do that. It was supposed to set like her character, I think, and be a little like just a cat of like she wants to free the turtle. The poor oppressed turtle. The turtle was slightly oppressed by the children. Yeah, it was sad. It was a sad turtle. But for me, I was like, oh, so you have this little girl with all these well wishes who wants to help the little animals. But she's an idiot because she's a kid and she's emotional and doesn't actually know what to do with it. And so she has all these well wishes and attempts to say things and actually she's just going to kill the guinea pig because if you see the wild, it's not it's not going to thrive. You throw all these class pets outside. It's actually stupid. Yeah, it's like so as well wishes, but it's stupid. Yes, not going to worry about that. And that kind of represents her for the rest of the film. I was like, okay. She never got unstupid. Yes, but yes, that was a great tone setter. I thought that was kind of funny. But yes, so the animation. The animation. The animation. It's just pretty weak. Didn't come into its own. The adults especially. The adults look like they're made out of play. So her is a kid. I love Jerry. But that's great. The her is a kid. It's kind of cute. So it's not a disagance. All of the design choices is just the fact that the animation really did not hold its own. Yeah. Everything was like very blobby. Yeah, everything's blobby. And a lot of stuff just centered. We didn't have fun with it at all. No, it didn't make me want to keep looking at it. Yeah, that's for sure. And here, my technical thing. Pacing. Slash plot. Slash is a movie. Well, just when you look at kids movies, and it's a little different when you talk adult movies, but you take a kid's adventure movie. What's frequently the case, if I'm just going to break it down to the bearous bone structure, we have inciting incident, plot starts. Then we have escalation finale. Right. So take a look at how to train you dragon. We've got hiccup and toothless. Yeah. The escalation is the nest. So they thought their problem was just their own little personal situation. Yes. And then it's like surprise. Everyone's in danger. And then we have finale. You look at Kung Fu Panda. It's like inciting incident. Congrats. You're the dragon warrior. Escalation. Ty lung has defeated the furious five and is on his way here right now. And there's nothing in the dragon scroll. Finale. And like so that's really. And you have really, that's like very, very simplified. I mean, you have like the arcs, but even just if you add in the arcs, it's like training arc. Yeah. Like it's, it's, but I'm just talking about like the threat. Yeah. Like this is a very, very bare bones thing. But you typically have like one, you've got the initial threat. You got the escalation. Yeah. Okay. What you don't do is what this did. Initial threat. Which we go initial threat. Initial threat. And what, what should have been the case, what should have been the case was that inciting incident is her discovering hoppers. Right. The tech. Yes. So because of that decision, where it was like half an hour in or whatever, she, uh, the inciting is incident was more the blade being under threat and her trying to find a beaver to bring it back. And so we have that. And then we have escalation, which is she's. Hoppers. She's new tech. She steals one of the robots. She finds herself in the wild and discovers that there's a whole civilization out here with the king. Then we have escalation. Is finding out Jerry's. Put up. And by the way, this was like a whole shebang moment. Oh my gosh, that I totally supported on the villain's part. Was that she discovered that in this blade, Jerry had put up a fake tree. That played a sound on the animals could hear to drive the animals away. I'm like, that's actually kind of ethical. It's like if we're destroying a very small plot of land to have cleared out the animals in advance so that you're not. So they've already moved and you have a disturbed any home or kill any. Yeah. That sounds good by me. But that was escalation. We are like, there's a whole plot here. We've got it tear down the tree. And then there's the escalation. Of Jerry coming in with more trees and he's. Exploding the damn. And then there's the escalation. And then there's the escalation of the animal council. Yeah, then there's the escalation of the fact that there's not just an animal king, the animal council of kings. And they decide to kill Jerry. And then there's an escalation of the fact that she just killed the insect king, which was crazy. Probably one of the only things that amused me. But deeply have a critical but we'll get there when we talk about worldview. But then we have that escalation of everybody's after them because she's a murderer. And then we have escalation escalation escalation escalation. And it ends. And keep getting so much worse. And the wheels just fell off the plot. And it's just funny because the best perspective I can put on it is at the beginning. What were the stakes? The glade. The glade. Very, very small patch of land. Strong sentimental value. No threat to animals. No animals. No, not all patch of land. You know what happens by the end? And so threats like hundreds of human lives. Yeah, probably more. She burns down the entire glade and the surrounding forest and the fire is headed to the land. The animals have to destroy their homes. The animals have to destroy their main habitat in order to put out the fire. And so, the fire. She almost gets hundreds of people murdered by one of the other bad guys. She nearly, the fire. The fire, two hops into a human. Yeah, they, they pumped out that bot fast. Yeah. Yeah, so. The science was the science was like skipping, skipping. I mean, I know it's a kid. It's like, it's not funny though. I was like. But yeah, she nearly gets hundreds of people murdered. And so, she's like, I'm going to go to the forest and see if I can get a chance to kill someone. The fire burns down the thing she was trying to save and everything surrounding it and is headed towards the city. And I'm sitting here like, oh my gosh, we made this so, so much worse. By you doing anything at all. By you doing like every single move she made was the wrong move that made things worse. And we made the stakes so, so, so much higher. And I think it was a threat and an escalation because we don't have a lot of time in a kids' movie. It's like one and a half hours, one 45. It made it feel much, much longer than it was. Yeah, they were because it was so overcomplicated. You kept on thinking that we hit the worst point and it got worse. And I'm not talking about it sucking. It sucked the whole time. I'm talking about it getting like dark night of the souly. Yeah, we had like four. Okay, like, oh, so this is the moment where you like change. Are we gonna apologize? We never apologize. I should be like, nope, never come back. But just, so that's my complaint about pacing is like, for one, the beginning was really slow and then everything was really fast. And so many things happening. And I'm like, that's that's so much stuff. Way too much stuff is happening. And the resolution did not hit at all. No, it didn't because they had to like, tack it out real fast. You said, everything worked out. I'm like, did I miss the part where you burned down the whole forest? Like, hold up. I don't like you. But we'll get to know. Check out animation, weak sauce, plot, terrible. Elite mess. Like totally screwed up, complete. It's kind of disappointed. Oh, here's the thing. It's like, okay, so apparently our movies have been so bad that this is doing fantastic. Everyone should despair. Because I'm like, this is doing so well in theaters and this is crap. It was number one in box office for a second. I'm like, I don't know if it still is, but. And at least people like originals, I'm holding onto that. I'm like, and maybe we'll get more originals. However, I was just like, compare it to any movie of our channel. All of it wise, compare this to Incredibles, compare it to any other picks on the movie. Monster thing. When it's like, these are the story. They actually are works of art in their own way. And this is just such a mess. See, Monster's Inc had kind of two escalations, but it still kept it very clean. Because you have boo comes to the monster world. Then you have Randall is a real threat. And then you have Mr. Waterhouse is a real threat. Yeah. And as I'm so escalation, escalation. So you've got a two beat escalation. And that's great. But it's like, but you don't have like bam, bam, bam. And it is just like, their old movies used to be so tidy. Because it's, I think part of the thing is, you don't even notice how tidy it is. So I know people talk about this when you talk about like, obviously writing or something. I think it's Orwell who describes it as like a, it should be like a pan of like glass. It should be there. You don't notice. And you should not think about it. It should make whatever you're trying to say extremely clear. Like you should be able to see through it. So the movies are like showing you something and you should not be noticing. Unless you're like, you know, watching it too. Notice I don't think you should be just instinctively noticing all of these things about it. Well, they shouldn't be grabbing you by the throat. Yes. So I'm like, yeah, you can appreciate it. Yeah, you should learn how to recognize it. But it should not be like cool window. But you don't want to have a window you can't see through. Yeah, you shouldn't just be looking at the window all the time. And this was just like, I cannot stop thinking about like, like the just setting of the person in the center of the frame every single time was just like, it was I was noticing it. Like I was like, what is wrong with the way they're trying it? And before we jump into more technical stuff, something we've, we've come into it on before but always comes up is it's just a kids movie. You're not the target audience. I'm like, I'm sorry. I want my imaginary kids to have good movies. Your imaginary kids. Yes. Oh, they're not gonna see this movie. You can just say no, they're not. It's not gonna be possible in the later generation. It's just, it's really lazy to take advantage of your audience's ignorance. Especially when stories have such a strong effect on audiences and especially kids. So kids movies are making kids like stories really, really build a kids mind. I mean, our dad's podcasts, stories are soul food. We've obviously thought about this before. Just a little bit. It's like totally new and original thought. Okay. Yeah, that's what we're here for. Original thoughts. No parody at all. But it's just stories really shape kids. And so you're not supposed to be like, oh, but they won't notice. It's like you're actually building their taste right now and you're building it up to be garbage. Yep. It's like, it's not the kids fault that if you feed them Super Mario Bros. the movie, they end up liking things like Super Mario Bros. movie. That's not their fault, it's yours. And I'm not saying they can't watch Super Mario Bros. It's just a diet of that kind of movie. No, that's not as much like poison as honestly this one. This one's more poison, but we'll get there. Yeah, but I was saying you can't feed. It's like how kids can have the occasional Dorito, but they shouldn't have a diet of Doritos. That's fun as that might be temporarily. Yeah, and the thing is, your kid would be totally down. That's just a thing about dealing with kids. It's like they would be so down. You need babysitter knowledge. Yeah, they would. My deep nannying insight. It's like they totally would. Kids, I mean, I also was once a child, my child. So that experience, kids would love to make horrible decisions. That'll have awful long-term consequences. And they would do it. They would do it, actually. It's the adults job to say, we're not going to do that. And so it's like a steady, like you raise them to like crap. They'll like crap. It's like, let's not do that. I think we can move on to the technical side. Because there's more we could say, but we're going to be skipping. We're going to zoom forward to the world view. Okay, so let's just hit the, well, let's hit the, the explicit themes and then move on to a little broader world view. Yeah. Shoot. The theme, the one that was stated in the theme spaces was, which we give it, it was like, oh, look. Oh, they actually had some spaces. They just did it wrong. But for one, they did it twice, which you're not supposed to do. Just saying. You're not supposed to do. Well, it's funny. You can make rules sometimes. That's not if you suck at it. The thing is you have theme statement for first five minutes and then you have break into act three after the dark night of the soul, break in three frequently, not always. But it's just something you can do. We'll involve a call back to the theme or to a statement from act one. Sure. So trying to think of a, don't think of an example. Just make the claim and move on. Make the claim and move on. I promise I have examples. We have my grindable. But no one can stop us. Well, this one did that, but they did it twice, which is part of what we were talking about about the messiness of having like multiple apparent dark nights. We had multiple breaking out of the dark nights. Yeah. Which one was the real problem? But the one that did like official theme statement at the beginning and then had one of the break in the last month was the granny. So little girl tries to read all this class pets, gets in trouble is soaking at her grandma's house. Her grandma takes her out to the pond in the back, sits there on a rock and is just like, be quiet. By the way, it would have totally worked on me as a child. No, you would have flipped out. And they just sit there in silence and then there's like, there's ducks and dragonflies. Listen and you can hear it all. And the granny goes, it's hard to be mad when you realize you're part of something big. For one thing, you can feel the mad. It's like a drop though. The other thing is just like, that's another one where I'm like, do you guys just not have kids in Hollywood? Which they don't. Because I'm like, when you have a kid with anger issues and then the solution is having sit down and you'd be quiet and watch nature and that'll just fix them. It's a weird bad attitude. But the other thing is it's crazy to not like get into the nature. Oh yeah. Because we were outdoorsy children. Oh yeah. Such an adverse children. Well, you know, we got thrown out in the mud occasionally. Yeah, not always. We loved ponds and flipping rocks and the classics. We mud making competitions. Yeah, we did mud making golfers. Who can make the best mud pond? Yeah. The mud cake factory. The brewery was pretty good at that. He was. He was kind of the king of the mud. But any who's it's the thing about kids and nature as they get into the nature. So it was funny to just have it be like, no, just sit and watch. Absurd. My dear six year old. We just sit and we sit and we sit and we feel. Can't you feel it? And it'll just make you feel. It's how it felt very romantic. It felt very romantic. Like a very romantic perspective, you know, very young. Which made it feel really weird when she said it to the 40 year old single guy later. Okay, that's the one I meant by romantic. This is my mind. No, no, I was thinking romantic romanticism more like I was thinking a little more like Hawthorne. Ah, yes. Where you have the idea of the noble savage and like our kids being these like pure things naturally. Oh, yeah. And so a kid in nature is like the most the most pure thing. The most pure thing. The other thing is it wildly dishonest about nature. Yeah. But yeah, let's finish the theme first. We'll round back. Should go. So for theme one, it's hard to be mad when you're probably something big. Watch me. I, it's probably one of the most ineffective themes I've ever come across. Because the way that you didn't get that point across knew. So it kind of just lived. She said it like it meant something and then way later she read it. She repeats it to the mayor who's currently tied up in his underwear with his life under threat and hundreds of his supporters about to be murdered. And he's finally his patience is worn. He was he always finally yelling at her, but he wasn't like actually. Yeah, he's finally flipping out at her. And she's like, Jerry, it's hard to be mad when you realize you're part of something big. I'm like, now's the time to apologize. Like no, all your fault. Like genuinely all your fault. Like what's with this zen advice? But I don't actually have the same about that thing. I feel like they will. Well, they did do work. They just forgot about it. So it's like they had at the beginning and then they have this whole section of like where we like without the theme where none of the theme is developed or mentioned or like reference. You're supposed to like play out a theme through the movie. No, but this theme was dropped, forgotten and then remembered at her moment of crisis. It was just like, I didn't. Oh, this is the solution. Which is not like how the theme should work. No, it's not at all. It's just a story. Yeah, you're supposed to build it up. Yeah, I should be developed. Imagine that. Wow. No, we forgot about it and then we dropped it. Oh, it's a solution. And it's like no. So the second theme was dropped way too late, but it was clearly a theme drop was pond rules. Oh, side note about the first one. Yeah, I also didn't understand like why it even helped in the final situation. No, it didn't. She was just like chill, Jerry. It was basically, yeah, that was kind of it. It was just a chill, Jerry. And he was like instead of the rational response, which is shut the heck up, Maidl, he was like part of what? And she's like everything. But I'm like, so it didn't do anything. It didn't do any calm Jerry down. That was all. That was all it did. So I didn't know why that was the main theme. And he made some good looking pancakes. For his mom, I liked Jerry. We liked Jerry. Jerry lived with his mother and took care of her. Like he was a support. And he put up with Maidl. And everybody loves Jerry. And everybody. Literally everyone except Maidl loves Jerry, which is tell Maidl she's on the wrong side. Right. Okay, here's the thing about politicians, right? Just because people like him does not make them however nobody is on them. Everybody loves the politician expert. One stick in the mud girl. What? Odds are he's doing an okay job running the city. Anywho. I was on Jerry's side. We were on Jerry's side. Until at the end where they tried to develop him. You just made me want to stop. I was like, you just made me want to destroy the game. Okay, but the pawn rules continue. Is a second theme drop? It came from the beaver king. And we explained that at all. There's a king. There's a king of beavers. You saw him in the trailer. Yeah, king George. I've heard his name. Yeah. Basically, when she saw it, after we talked about this thing, we're going to have to hit all the romance. When she's in the beaver suit, she runs into the king beaver. She becomes, which is where all of the animals are living under the king, king mammal, king of the mammals, king George the beaver. And they're overcrowded. But like, they do it over. I mean, there's more nature out there, you know? It's right out there. It's like city person thing where I'm like looking at the setting and I'm like, I see a lot of woods. You guys can just move a little further around. I think there's a city and then there's nature. And for some reason, all the animals are like, are in this overcrowded, I mean, little possible. Right by the city. And I'm like, I mean, you have more options. I think city people forget how much nature there is out and about, you know? Okay, but pawn rules. Pond rules. He's dropping the pond rules. Uh, which are the ways from God about most of the pond rules, like, like the themes they kind of just forgot about him. He's deleted it. But the one they didn't forget about is we're all in this together. Do you remember? And he also said he's like, animal homes, human homes, it's all just one place. We're all in this together. And that was more, I mean, it really wasn't developed either, but that was more of the thing of that kind of everyone's equal. We're all just people. And that was dropped again later after a different dark night. That was after like Titus almost killed everybody. No, right before Titus almost killed everybody. Titus is the caterpillar who turns to be a man. Who's mom got murdered. See, when you try to explain it, it sounds just as bad as it is. But, yeah, so he's probably king of the bugs. Yeah. So I have to, we were going to talk about her character last, but I have to pull up a little bit to talk about this. I know. I know I would try to keep things separate, but the problem is you are allowed to have someone suck at the beginning of a movie and then get developed, right? We all, we all approve of that. Yes. I mean, I preferably they're not wildly. Well, that's why we have the save the cat is you're supposed to have some element of likeability, but they can suck overall. Yes. That's allowed because we're going to develop the problem is we did it wrong. So she sucked the entire movie. Yeah, but we just had a like we had a quote unquote growth as a result of this theme that was entirely incorrect. Together. So we started that song as well. Just do a, it's from a high school musical, isn't it? It's like the credits on why do I know it? I don't know. You know anything. Maybe all at the beginning. So insanely self-righteous of not just is and hate people hate humans, genuinely hate humans, loves animals, hates humans, super self-righteous. So basically like I pointed out actual character development, the gave her was at the end. That's when I'm getting at she didn't hate people yet, but that's what I'm getting at. So sorry, super self-righteous, crazy self-absorbed, zero thought towards consequences. So there were several things that we commented on as humor beats like to each other. I like those clearly for humorous purposes at the beginning to be like she's so quirky and isn't this funny and it was actually her being a horrible person. No, it's like actually she's like why only thought she invaded someone's, she'd broken in someone's class, like interrupted a lecture. She made a mess out of their office. She ran into their lab and like grabbed something. She ran into her brain and jumped on their desk and it's knocking things around. And no, she's so quirky and different. And it's like she loses massive mess. She sucks. Like that's horrible. Like her, her horrible behavior. She genuinely doesn't care about anyone except herself and her perception of animals. Yes. So that's how she starts. So that's how she starts. So that's how she starts. So the reason we have a million and a half escalations is because never at any point did you think about the consequences of her actions. So that's Mabel. And when she meets the beaver king, he really piles on the praise for Mabel. You're so awesome, you're so cool, you're so amazing, all the things. The only thing he has beef with is her hatred. Yeah. So which basically, let's be fair, we have beef with the hatred. But the way that it's just, yes, we're with the same thing, but with the faction. So the kind of all we have to change is our feelings. Yeah. And to be perfectly fair, we've talked before about how some actions are okay and not okay, depending on your own motives and mental state. Like that's true. But she is herself righteousness and her thoughtlessness and like all of this horrendous behavior. None of it is addressed. She just has to do it cheerfully. The theme of, oh, we're all in this together. She's combating that character flaw in her, which was a character flaw because she was wildly hateful towards people. But she never actually, she never spotted the hypocrisy, which is kind of funny. It's like they address the feelings, but not the hypocrisy. The fact that she's the one who's like all lives are equal except humans that I will also, this is what I wanted to bring up with the insect king. All lives are equal except the one that I accidentally killed for comedic purposes. The way that she never had any kind of guilt about killing a sentient being that she was talking to just murdered them. Because we had no price. We are fine with squishing bugs. True. I mean, not like just willy-nilly because we like don't be a said. Yeah, we like bugs. So, you know, they're great. However, squishing bugs, A, okay. But when the whole message is like the equality of all lives, then you just squish a bug. And we don't have a single moment of regret. I mean, she apologizes to the caterpillar. Like I'm sorry, I killed your mom. But she doesn't have any kind of crisis of her killing it. And she never spots, like I said, she never comments on the hypocrisy of hating humans. Yes. So, I think we should slide from the theme of we're all in this together, which ended up not. Well, actually, no, they kind of like completed that theme. I think was when the animals had to destroy their home to save the human home. Yeah. So, we did tie a bow in that theme. So, that was actually had, I think, a better- It was is not a good resolution than the other theme. Because it actually had like something where it meant, you know, where we actually did. We actually had to work together to fix it. And then Jerry, like, came and cleaned up and fixed up the glade. So, like, we had our little help in each other. That one, even if I was not a massive fan of the theme, actually had a resolution. So, there's that. But if we move into like, Mabel's character, which was one more, one more stop before we hit that. And then we talked about the romanticizing of nature. Oh, yeah. That was obnoxious. So, nothing was dirty. We gave our little commentary that we hit up nature occasionally as children. Yeah, occasionally. Do you want to know a fun fact about ponds? They grow. They grow. They have algae. We love them. But the thing about outside is that it's dirty. It's where we get the dirt from, you know? Right. So, imagine dirt being in the outer world. You can really hype up a childhood in nature because it's great. Catching frogs and petting turtles and flipping rocks. Sometimes you're going to flip a rock and there's going to be a really gross bug under there. Yeah, sometimes it's going to be centipedes. And you're going to like drop the rock and run. And we're going to make a fast in their big and red. And you're like, you're like, oh, you're going to watch an earwig get executed by ants. You're going to get algae. You're going to get algae. algae in your boots of your trying to grab a frog. It's going to smell. It's going to be a mud cake. The snake is going to must on your hands. Yeah, and your hands are going to smell really bad for the rest of it. Because I'm going to dare you to kiss a cat spider and it's not. Or lick a slug. Yeah. Like, it's gross. It's gross. It's amazing, but there's a lot of grossness to it. And you know what else is gross animals. They smell. They are. No, but they're also fun fact. Also fallen. Yeah. Oh, the we're all in this together theme. Forgot that they also constantly repeat the everyone's good on the inside. And now that one we do aggressively disagree with because we're girls together. I think it's technically like true. Yeah, but everyone's good on the inside are. No, they're not. It's like, and that holds for people and it holds for animals. Where I'm like, animals are fallen too. You're going to get lost of bad behavior for animals. They tried to do a hat tip, I think, to the reality of nature. The barely. By being like, eat when you're hungry. Yeah. Just like they do have to make more comment on that. So they did have like the one of the scenes that like the bear gets introduced and it tries to eat a beaver. Or they never show you the bear eating. They like, no. They say like it would have been okay if you eat the beaver. So they do they do have a slight hat tip towards like, so nature does have, you know, predators and all that, all that jazz. But the nature depicted. Well, like we said, when it's at the very beginning, the everything's shiny and it's totally. And it's yes, it's ducklings and dragonflies and dragonflies. You get the animals all ducklings are awesome. They tried to do like some of the other. There was a little bit of scaryness to the council members. So like the other monarchs were a little over aggressive. Yeah. But for the vast majority, all the animals you met were just the goodest little things. They were all just good. Everyone is just flat and good. And so there's no mud, everything's green and sparkly and lovely and we're all best of friends. So I'm just like, give me some dirt. Give me a more accurate picture of both kids and nature. Mm-hmm. So there's that. So yeah, we wanted to hate on that real fast. So the fact that like you meet the beaver king and it's hello little mister perfect means deeply obnoxious. Don't get me wrong. But not on purpose. And it's like, he's just the nicest guy. He's just the nicest guy. He's just nice. I prefer him good and everybody. He's not able. True. But the other thing is man, do they not know what a father-daughter relationship looks like? No. I don't know what they were trying to do there. Well, because she had a relationship. She ended up being like both the beaver king and the mayor. Who was it ended up by the end? It was like advisor to both of them. Uh-huh. But it was kind of like that's a 19 year old girl. I definitely had, I just didn't think it's, I don't think it's appropriate for the 40 year old single mayor to have like a close relationship with this 19 year old girl and getting advice from her before he makes any decisions. Like maybe that's just me, you know? And I'm like, at least at the end she's a different species than the beaver, but it's still was weird the whole time, you know? Well, like I think that they were aiming for father-daughter, did not hit father-daughter. But they were aiming for father-daughter with the mayor. Why don't know what they were doing there? It felt like they were trying to aim for siblings, but he's in his 40. It was like bickering and, you know, and I'm like, we should not be hanging out. You just don't know. And he let's hop to the character. Mabel. Mabel. Why I hate her, Mabel. Welcome to my TED Talk. Welcome to our TED Talk and why we hate Mabel. In three easy steps. Um. Do you like to kick us off? We've already mentioned some things, but go for it. She, this is my biggest beef with her, is she never truly apologizes or repents of her actions or the ones that she was. When she was an idiot plot, all of it was her self-esteem. It wasn't an idiot plot. The whole plot was pushed by Mabel's decisions and planned decisions. Bad decisions. So when we get to the point. And selfish decisions. So it's not even just foolish, immoral. One of my least favorite moments in the whole movie. Oh my gosh, it's so hilar. Yeah, you know what I'm talking about. We just died. After Mabel makes the whole disaster. When one whole disaster. One of, one of the times she makes a disaster. There's like three more animals. She kills the insect king. Oops. Has to run away. Um, you know, she accidentally inspired all the animals to put a hit on the mare. Yeah, she, she hyped them all up and now they want to murder the mare and then she murdered one of them. Yeah. So she runs away with the beef or king because he's also been condemned because of her. Mm-hmm. They, you know, fall down a waterfall or something. I don't know. Stuck in a water. I'm like, roll up. And he finally kind of gets mad at her being like, why did you do that, you know? Well, a little bit mad. It was more like the little hurt puppy. Okay, yeah, it was more hurt. Like, I trusted you. I trusted you. It was very much. I trusted you. Why did you do that? Because she ruined everything. Yeah, right? And we're like, okay, so this is the moment for her daughter. We're like in three. Yes. We're like, this is the moment for her to realize she's out of control. She's being wildly impulsive, selfish, emotional. Like she's doing everything wrong. It's wrong. Because she is. And obviously, like the movie semi-recognized that she has. She did technically cause all this. Bad decisions and they recognize that she is the cause of the situation, right? She starts crying and being sad and she's like, but you just don't understand. She's like, she, I don't know, I don't think she says I'm sorry. She was starting to ease. She was an impologist. It was like, we did not. We did not. Yes. It felt like, oh, she's going to say sorry. We were getting like a little bit hurt. She like did a nice 180 and went, but you don't understand. I'm just so tired. So tired of being the only one who cares. Yeah. Doing this all by myself. And we had a complete pivot to just blatant self pity and believing everyone else. Literally everyone else. She's just like it's so hard to be me. Because I am the only one being moral. Once again, I will repeat the fact that up until this point, everything has been emotionally motivated. So it's like we were incredibly dishonest in the movie about motives. She was not well meaning. No, like sure. Well, like I said, I understand wanting to preserve a place with your grandmother. I don't want to be vulnerable. I like land. I like land. Well, you were lying about it. Yes. I mean, like a huge moral high ground on it and someone building a highway, which does sometimes have to be done. You know, yeah. And he did clear out all the animals. Lengen's just, I'm not judging him for that one. It was a tiny flood of land. Yeah. It was really fun. Obviously, it was a pretty plot of land. So it's like, oh, kind of a bummer because it's nice. But we're just being so dishonest about our motives. And then she pulled this whole, it's everyone else's fault. It's so hard to be me. And the beaver king just like gives her a hug. And it's like you're not alone anymore. Yes. So that was another tie into the theme of like we're all in this together. Yeah, but we're affirming this blade and unhielding. We're affirming that this, the reason everything's going wrong is actually because of her moral crusade, which is still good, which is still good. It's the fact that she's been fighting alone and it's so difficult and poor baby. Like any mistakes is because she was so tired from being alone. I hate you. Like it's toxic. So this is the moment where you actually have to realize everything that you did that caused this. Like now you're going to get someone murdered most likely. Then even more people murdered potentially. Yeah, you're going to get people killed not to mention you murdered someone. Yeah. And you don't want to acknowledge that it's your fault. And at this point, by the way, she's still lying to the beaver about being a beaver. Yes. So like we still blatant like there is that moment where she should have apologized. But then there's the secondary moment where she really needed to apologize, which we already commented on, which is when when hundreds of people are going to get murder and murder. So the animals here is currently tied up and is underwear and some caterpillar is possessed in a copy of his body. Let's say that a little more clearly. No, she kills the insect king, right? Yeah. The insect king's kid was a caterpillar. Turns into a butterfly. He learns about the hopper technology because they realize she's a fake beaver. So it honestly isn't like the next rational conclusion to assume that it was a human possessing a robot. Yes, but they assume that immediately they find they find the side of it. They kidnapped her and Jerry, right? And the scientists who created it and make them make a human body real fast real fast. It looks exactly like Jerry, a Jerry. So basically then the insect gets to inhabit a fake Jerry, right? So he leaves to go murder all of Jerry's followers. Yes. So he's going to a rally. So planning in he's such a chaotic boss. He informs them. He's like, I'm going to go murder all of the people who showed up to support laughs evenly. And so right now Jerry's having a hard time. We've had a bad day. Yeah, Jerry, Jerry loves his people. Like Jerry's full of sweetness and light. I mean, so if he liked Jerry, we're a fan of Jerry. He's not, he argues with Maple all the time, but she deserves it, right? I think that was him being patient. I don't think he's a patient, man. I did not ever get that impression. But sure, well, she deserved much worse many times. Sure. This is the moment where he's like, what is wrong with you? Finally. Like, before he was bickering with her, now he's like genuinely. She made everything go wrong. Yeah, she's getting hundreds of people. And that's when she goes all Zen. And his life. I remember you, again, when you were a grandmother. I remember that year. Part of something, Jerry. I don't know if I like what's wrong. You owe this man an apology. And you just went on like, have you Bengal thought of trying like meditation in response to wrecking his life? And I was just like, what is- I think the only time I remember her apologizing is she says, I'm sorry when like, the beaver king gets hurt. But that's not even a real apology because it's like, it's like, I'm sorry in the heat of the moment if he's currently hurt. I'm like, we're going to have a meal. It's not a real apology. But we give credit where credit is due. She said the words I'm sorry. Yeah. But we never rehashed that sober kind of thing. Like, off the adrenaline, I- Yeah. So there's that. And then one of my- of this was wild. We speak the same language. Do you know what I'm talking about? Yes, I do. I'm talking about the very end of the video. I know. Very end of the movie, everything's chill, you know. She goes- She goes to the researcher, her teacher, who invented the hopper technology. Yep. That she stole- Yep. And abused. And got revealed to the animal kingdom who then kidnapped and forced- Yes, the whole thing. The whole thing. To make- So, like- Hearty, I was dramatizing for everybody not to mention. She wrecked multiple really expensive bottles. It was the teacher's life work. And then she- She got it- She got it- Yeah, it's- She's been working on it since she was- Yeah. And now she's old. She got it shut down, lost its funding, all of that. Yeah, no, like government slam down on it. She's never- This is too day again. Right. She goes to her teacher and basically asked she can work for her. Because she's like- Like I'd like a job. Because I want to work for people who care. Mm-hmm. So I want to work for you. And she's- She does- She's saying I'm sorry. She's like, I know I wrecked all your stuff. No, she didn't say I'm sorry. She's like, I know I wrecked some of your stuff, but- She's like, I know I wrecked all your life work. But can you give me a job? And they just did a little dismissive. Like, yeah, it's fine. Now I can work another thing. Yes, it's so exciting. So completely inaccurate. Because it's like, this was this woman's life work. You had the flashbacks of sense she was like in college and now she's an old woman working on this. Yeah. And now you're like, oh no, it's great. I actually can work on other things. And then she hires her because she's strong. Yes, we want people who are strong. And I'm like, she- But this just goes to shit like the character- She did all just to read it. The character just being so self-observed. But also the movie being so in support of it. Because it just brushes past the fact that she wrecked someone's life. She wrecked- She almost wrecked more people's lives. But like she wrecked this lady's life. And we're just pretending as chill. Like we're just- We're moving past it. She's- She's a long- She's a long- She's a long- She's a long- And it just is like, oh, but would you hire me because you can't? I'm like, you clearly don't though. You're just on an emotional side. You clearly care about nobody but you. I'm sorry. I did not like this kid. Oh my gosh. And one last thing I'll give to her character is she was genuinely stupid. No. So I'm not talking about like, oh, she made bad choices. Which she did. Or oh, she's immoral. Which she was. She was retarded. She was like, if you watch the movie, she's genuinely stupid. Like even when she- This is for humorous purposes, but- Yes, but I'm like- People have to remember that when you give humor beats, that still counts. If it's still something like that. That's still something that happened that informed you to this person's character. But she was making the most irrational illogical jumps. But one of the gedumist things with them, they made a comedic beat out of her not understanding the hoppers technology. Mm-hmm. Where they were like, I believe they said something relatively simple. Like we put our consciousness into a robotic animal and she goes, ha. And they're like, we put this just during their heads into this. Just during at the robot. Just during at the robot and they'd like repeat that a while and she's like, oh, like that kind of thing that they just did. Really? And I'm like, she's 19. She's a coach, dude. She's 19. She shouldn't be a complete idiot. She shouldn't be this dumb. Not to mention she just went out and like set cabbage in the middle of the field, trying to attract a beaver. Like cabbage and pieces of wood. I'm like, don't worry you. Like that's how you did. This is what like a nine year old would do. Maybe a dumb nine year old. A stupid nine year old. Yes, so that was a horrible waste of my Sunday. It was not a good time. Yeah. I'm gonna enjoy it. I knew it. But I actually was surprised how bad it was. Yeah, no, because this is what another, you know, I'm being positive. It exceeded my expectations. Yeah, my is the sort of situation where the bar is on the floor and they brought a shovel kind of situation. Well, I was what I was expecting was I was expecting bad worldview. I was expecting. I was. Well, I expected bad. Yeah, possibly also shallow. Yeah. And I was expecting poor plot. What I was hoping for positively is maybe funny animation and funny jokes. Yeah. Because based on the marketing, I thought there'd be better humor. Yeah. It was so not funny. It was shocking. It was like preacher than the Barbie movie, which is just a flex. Really impressive to hit that bar. Yeah. And Jerry kind of funny because I liked him. See, because Jerry had a sense of humor in the worst moment when like the insect like inhabited the spiked Jerry body. He looked at it and he was like, well, I guess I'm not getting reelected. Yeah. And we're like, you have a sense of humor. Yeah. Look at that dark humor we got. So it's like we kind of like Jerry, mostly because he hated Mabel for most of the movie. No, we kind of bonded. We were kind of amused, but at the expense of the movie with the killing the butterfly. Yes. And I was like, well, that's not consistent. Yeah. Like that was another one where I'm like, they did it partially for humor. And I'm like, you have to remember that humor beats are real. Right. So like it still happened. But it was genuinely not funny. The other, I mean, funny thing about it was the fact that, I don't know if you've seen the lizard memes. I feel like everybody has at this point. But it was funny to me the fact that the lizard was so popular in marketing. Yeah, they have a little like, I don't know. The little like lizard lizard. Lizard, yeah. But like, they are so many memes. I've seen so many memes. And it was really popular in marketing. The way like, Brow wasn't in the movie. Like I think only one of the lizard memes from the marketing was even in the movie. Yeah. So that was kind of like a lizard design. Yeah, but I expected. I expected a little more to actually amuse me. It was tragically unfunny. Yeah. So it was nice and refreshing to do another Hater podcast. Yay, we love to hate. Next up, Amazing Marise. And his educated road is, if you haven't read it, read it. Which includes me. I will. Yeah, get on. Read it real swiftly. Yeah, so cheers. That's all I got to say. We love to spread hate. But yeah, fun to get daily lives. Don't watch it. Bye.