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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. My name is Rob.
Speaker 3: Lamb and I am Joe McCormick. And hey folks, if
Speaker 3: I sound any different today, I am recording in an
Speaker 3: unusual place, so apologies if my audio is not where
Speaker 3: it always is, but I should be. I should be
Speaker 3: back to normal soon. But today on Weird House Cinema,
Speaker 3: we are going to be talking about the two thousand
Speaker 3: and four science fiction epic The Chronicles of Riddick. Now, Rob,
Speaker 3: unless I'm mistaken, your pick this week is our most
Speaker 3: recent film to date, is that correct?
Speaker 1: That's correct. For the longest we'd only done twentieth century films,
Speaker 1: and then we pushed into the twenty first century with
Speaker 1: two thousand and one's Jason X. That was our first
Speaker 1: venture into modern times, if you will. And so yeah,
Speaker 1: this one takes us just a little bit further into
Speaker 1: the future. This takes us all the way up to
Speaker 1: two thousand and four. So still, this is a movie
Speaker 1: that is almost twenty years old, which is kind of
Speaker 1: harrowing for me to think about that.
Speaker 3: This movie really makes me think about the year two
Speaker 3: thousand and four. I'm thinking about when I was selling
Speaker 3: tickets at an Imax movie theater and people were trying
Speaker 3: to buy tickets to this movie which was not showing
Speaker 3: in Imax.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I saw this in the theater. I remember going
Speaker 1: by myself to see it. So yeah, this is a
Speaker 1: very in many ways, a very two thousand and four film.
Speaker 1: It would be interesting to discuss this as we roll
Speaker 1: into it. You know, there are things that really sort
Speaker 1: of shriek from that time period, and there are the
Speaker 1: things I think stand alone pretty well.
Speaker 3: But it is.
Speaker 1: It's quite a picture. It fascinates me and has always
Speaker 1: resonated with me for a number of reasons. I mean,
Speaker 1: on one hand, yeah, it's basically Flash Gordon. It's Flash
Speaker 1: Gordon with Vin Diesel in it. That's that's my elevator
Speaker 1: pitch for the movie.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I can see that the hodgepodge of sci
Speaker 3: fi fantasy texture is all kind of thrown together with
Speaker 3: a with a one liner equipping hero.
Speaker 1: Right now, I think that the hero in Flash Gordon
Speaker 1: is is kind of invisible to times and is maybe
Speaker 1: the least interesting character in the film. It's a lot
Speaker 1: more complex when you're dealing with Vin Diesel's riddick here,
Speaker 1: so it'll be it'll be a lot to talk about.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I love this this film though, bit for
Speaker 1: a variety of reasons. I mean, for starters, it's a
Speaker 1: sequel that completely expands in the world of the original film,
Speaker 1: and in doing so, it just absolutely goes big as
Speaker 1: opposed to just doing what would be I guess the
Speaker 1: easy thing, you know, get just do a second scoop
Speaker 1: of the same flavor, which is generally more of the
Speaker 1: pattern with a sequel.
Speaker 3: So the first film in this series that created these
Speaker 3: characters in this world was the movie Pitch Black. That's
Speaker 3: where Vin Diesel first played Riddick, whose first name is Richard.
Speaker 3: I didn't know that, Yeah, Richard b Riddick.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I think of him as Riddick b Riddick, which
Speaker 1: amuses me for some reason.
Speaker 3: But that's sort of a it's almost a bottle episode
Speaker 3: of a movie. I mean, bottle episode's not the right
Speaker 3: to because I think that means it's, you know, you're
Speaker 3: trying to shoot it mostly in one room or something.
Speaker 3: I mean is it does have a lot of sweeping
Speaker 3: visions to show you of you know, multiple sons eclipsing
Speaker 3: at the same time and all these creatures and stuff,
Speaker 3: but it's stuck on one planet. You don't get a
Speaker 3: big sense of the broader world. They're just sort of
Speaker 3: like hints of the universe. It has created Ridick really
Speaker 3: expands on that. Going from Pitch Black to Chronicles of
Speaker 3: Ritick is kind of like going from Friday the Thirteenth
Speaker 3: to Lord of the Rings.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean it's it's full blown gothic space
Speaker 1: opera at this point. And yeah, it's I think it's
Speaker 1: pretty ambitious. The in the filmmaker's own words, they were
Speaker 1: pitching it is like this is going to be Lord
Speaker 1: of the Rings esque, Like Lord of the Rings, you know,
Speaker 1: is still like it's its impact is still resonating. At
Speaker 1: this time period, studio heads are all sort of salivating
Speaker 1: of the thought, oh, what'll be the next Lord of
Speaker 1: the Rings. And you know, it makes sense to pitch
Speaker 1: your project that way, like, oh, you want the next
Speaker 1: Lord of the Rings. Well, as it happens, we have
Speaker 1: it here. In fact, the story goes that that Vin
Speaker 1: diesel And and the director David Towey brought in three scripts,
Speaker 1: all of them. Each script has a lock on it,
Speaker 1: and they give this to the you know, the studio
Speaker 1: heads and like here you go, here's your next Lord
Speaker 1: of the Rings. And they give them one key. The
Speaker 1: key only opens the first script, the first lock, which
Speaker 1: you know, that's that's pretty audacious.
Speaker 3: Oh, you mean for it would be like for this
Speaker 3: and then the next two movies.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Like they allegedly wrote an entire trilogy that
Speaker 1: springboards off the success and the sort of glimpses of
Speaker 1: a possible wider universe in Pitch Black, and then this
Speaker 1: would be a big saga that takes place in this universe.
Speaker 1: And you know, the studios bought into it. They got
Speaker 1: a budget of I think I've seen estimates between one
Speaker 1: hundred and five and one hundred and twenty million. Universal
Speaker 1: Studios was banking on the success of two thousand and
Speaker 1: one's The Fast and the Furious and yeah, so they
Speaker 1: were like, okay, Vin Diesel, you got it. Pitch Black
Speaker 1: was a success. Fast and the Furious is a success.
Speaker 1: We want the next Lord of the Rings. We're in
Speaker 1: for Chronicles of Ritic. Let's make it. And if it's
Speaker 1: a success, yeah, then we'll unlock those other scripts.
Speaker 3: That's funny. I want to add as a quick note,
Speaker 3: by the way, that they even used the Peter Jackson
Speaker 3: Lord of the Rings font for the title when this
Speaker 3: movie opens.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I don't know if.
Speaker 3: You caught that. I mean, not exactly, it's pretty close.
Speaker 3: But the other thing is I don't want to be
Speaker 3: smirched this film franchise, because I know that you love it,
Speaker 3: But I think it's kind of ironic that they were
Speaker 3: levering off of The Fast and the Furious franchise to
Speaker 3: turn this into Lord of the Rings, because ultimately, I
Speaker 3: think the Fast and the Furious franchise became more like
Speaker 3: The Lord of the Rings Sokka than the ridic franchise.
Speaker 1: Did, except by this point perhaps longer in total runtime, right.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, longer than The Lord of the Rings and
Speaker 3: with more magic.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So yeah. To be clear, I really enjoyed this
Speaker 1: film a lot. I love this film, but I also
Speaker 1: one of the things I love about it as well
Speaker 1: is that it is so ridiculously over the top and
Speaker 1: self indulgent. This is a movie in which multiple people
Speaker 1: will yell riddic and our hero will outrun the sign.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So there's plenty to enjoy here on multiple levels, no
Speaker 1: matter what your cinematic diet happens to be.
Speaker 3: How many screen of Riddick where there were at least
Speaker 3: two by the same character Billy Bedlam from con Air
Speaker 3: he yells Riddick twice? I think maybe does the Lord
Speaker 3: Marshall ever Riddick.
Speaker 1: I don't know if he yells riddick, he definitely there's
Speaker 1: a lot. I would I want to see a super
Speaker 1: cut of just people saying riddick in this movie, saying it,
Speaker 1: yelling at, whispering at whatever. There's a it is a
Speaker 1: word that must be said a lot.
Speaker 3: I don't know if this needs to be observed because
Speaker 3: he is the star of multiple successful film franchises at
Speaker 3: this point. But another thing is that Vin Diesel just
Speaker 3: has such a fun screen presence. I just you know,
Speaker 3: there are a lot of Vin Diesel movies that are
Speaker 3: not exactly in my genre wheelhouse. I mean, I'm not
Speaker 3: really into car racing in the real world, but I
Speaker 3: do love the Fast and the Furious movies. A lot
Speaker 3: of it is just is just like Vin Diesel's line delivery.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, there's It's weird to try and just sort
Speaker 1: of sum up exactly what the Vin Diesel presence is
Speaker 1: in a movie like this, because I mean, clearly he's
Speaker 1: he's right here in the forefront. He's a driving force.
Speaker 1: And we'll get into too more of that as well,
Speaker 1: like behind the scenes as well as on the screen.
Speaker 1: And you know, me as a viewer and as a
Speaker 1: someone who appreciates this film, there's plenty of times where
Speaker 1: it's just too much. It's just too much Vin Diesel
Speaker 1: for me. You know, there are some real cornball lines
Speaker 1: that Ritti says.
Speaker 3: That's when he's at his best. That's but but.
Speaker 1: That's but that's the thing. Yeah, I mean it's like that.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't take those moments out, like, no, we need
Speaker 1: we need more of those in here. Like he's Vin Diesel,
Speaker 1: you know, absolutely is Vin Diesel in any film he's in,
Speaker 1: and it's it's a sight to behold. I don't know
Speaker 1: what else to say, Like you can't like you, There's
Speaker 1: there's no questioning you know, his choices. You can't say, oh,
Speaker 1: I think Vin Diesel would should have done this differently,
Speaker 1: Like no, no, Vin Diesel is going to do what
Speaker 1: Vin Diesel is going to do and you just have
Speaker 1: to hop in the car and hold on.
Speaker 3: Yes, I kept expecting Vin dieselisms from other franchises to
Speaker 3: be imported into this one. I was thinking when I
Speaker 3: was watching it, like what wins the part where he
Speaker 3: says it's about family?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and yeah there is kind of a family
Speaker 1: in this but yeah, they don't they don't really say
Speaker 1: family per se.
Speaker 3: And I think they all die.
Speaker 1: Now speaking of the whole family thing. And I'm not
Speaker 1: superversed in the in the world of the Fests and
Speaker 1: the Furious, but you know, there is that sense of like, Okay,
Speaker 1: Vin Diesel's at the center of this thing. He's going
Speaker 1: to build up this cast of people he likes to.
Speaker 3: Work with, getting the team together.
Speaker 1: Yeah, getting the team together, and also sometimes makes some
Speaker 1: choices that might seem like a little outside of what
Speaker 1: you'd expect from an action franchise, but like, clearly it's
Speaker 1: important to Vin Diesel as a person and an actor,
Speaker 1: and so you see a lot of that in the
Speaker 1: cast for this film as well. Like this, this film
Speaker 1: has a splendid supporting cast. On top of that, it
Speaker 1: has one full costumes and sets. The CGI at times
Speaker 1: is certainly a bit dated by today's standards, especially when
Speaker 1: it's recreating anything other than like a space ship.
Speaker 3: There are some egregious CGI fire in this movie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, fire and space dogs can be a bit much
Speaker 1: at times, but yeah, yeah, you know, for the most part,
Speaker 1: I think the space stuff holds up pretty well, or
Speaker 1: at least I'm more forgiving of that sort of thing.
Speaker 1: And yeah, this is just a straight up space opera,
Speaker 1: no matter how badly I want to see. Like, the
Speaker 1: Wikipedia page for this film describes it as a quote
Speaker 1: sci fi action horror film, But no, it's not a
Speaker 1: horror film. This this bit is a maybe it's a
Speaker 1: grim dark e space opera, but it's space opera.
Speaker 3: I don't think anybody just coming to this fresh would
Speaker 3: call it horror. I think that must be a carryover
Speaker 3: from Pitch Black, which is a horror movie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's more of a creature feature, characters marooned on
Speaker 1: a dangerous dealing with a specific threat, and also like
Speaker 1: interpersonal threats.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Now, like I said, this is a big swing, and
Speaker 1: you know the thing about big swings is sometimes you miss,
Speaker 1: And that was the story with the Chronicles of Ritick.
Speaker 1: It did not resonate enough with audiences or critics at
Speaker 1: the time, not on its theatrical debut anyway, it seems
Speaker 1: to have not made its money back. Though I'm never
Speaker 1: sure exactly how to really approach the Hollywood math on
Speaker 1: these sorts of things. I think it's one of those
Speaker 1: one of those situations where, especially as the years go by,
Speaker 1: you can make different arguments and be like, well, you know,
Speaker 1: wasn't the success of the box office, but it did
Speaker 1: really well on DVD or nowadays it's like, look how
Speaker 1: high it is, you know, in the streaming charts, et cetera.
Speaker 1: And so, yeah, Vin Diesel would continue to prove himself
Speaker 1: a box office straw. DVD sales seem to have been
Speaker 1: strong enough that after he got the rights to the
Speaker 1: Riddick character personally back in exchange for a cameo in
Speaker 1: the fest and the Furious Tokyo Drift, Yeah, apparently that's
Speaker 1: the story, he was like, no, I love this character.
Speaker 1: I want to do more with this character. I want
Speaker 1: to I'm going to make it happen. And so sure enough,
Speaker 1: in twenty thirteen, they ended up putting out Riddick, a
Speaker 1: sort of stripped down, less expensive Riddick Adventure, a mere
Speaker 1: thirty eight million dollar budget, I think. And it also
Speaker 1: kind of like returns to the well of shipwrecked survivalism,
Speaker 1: but not in a way that disregards the chronicles of
Speaker 1: Riddick either, So it like ties in some of those
Speaker 1: plot elements as well. And according to Diesel, he had
Speaker 1: to leverage his home and put in a lot of
Speaker 1: his own personal money to make that movie happen. So,
Speaker 1: you know, whatever you think of Riddick or whatever you
Speaker 1: think of Vin Diesel, you know you gotta admire that
Speaker 1: dedication to the dream.
Speaker 3: It is kind of all inspiring how much Vin Diesel
Speaker 3: seems to love playing Riddick b Riddick.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like you know, they're often you see like that
Speaker 1: sort of a meme going around like like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: nobody asked for a second Avatar film, why are we
Speaker 1: getting another Avatar film? Well, I mean, clearly the Avatar
Speaker 1: made a bazillion dollars and so you can like mathematically
Speaker 1: there seems to be a demand for a sequel, Like
Speaker 1: this is a case where, yeah, it seems there was
Speaker 1: a strong case to say like Chronicles of Riddick was enough,
Speaker 1: But you know, I think a lot of people did
Speaker 1: want to see more of the character, and Vin Diesel
Speaker 1: wanted to play the character again, and so it came together.
Speaker 1: It happened that one, I think was a success, and
Speaker 1: a fourth Riddick movie, Riddick Furia, is in production right now.
Speaker 1: I don't think they're filming yet, but it's like it
Speaker 1: seems like it's going to happen.
Speaker 3: So you said that I haven't seen the third movie,
Speaker 3: so it's a return to the you said, shipwrecked survivalism,
Speaker 3: which is kind of the plot of Pitch Black the
Speaker 3: first movie. But is he a like marooned on an
Speaker 3: alien planet as the emperor of the Necromonger Empire.
Speaker 1: They there's a sort of a return to form, like, obviously,
Speaker 1: if they're not going to go continue to go epic
Speaker 1: space opera, they've got to get him out of that position,
Speaker 1: and they do early on, but they do so in
Speaker 1: a way that that doesn't feel too abrupt. And yeah,
Speaker 1: I've only seen it once, but basically the plot concerns
Speaker 1: various mercenary groups at odds with each other, Riddick as
Speaker 1: the guy thereafter, and also weird creatures. Okay, Doki, Yeah,
Speaker 1: but again I've only seen it once. This is the one.
Speaker 1: This is the one I love though, This is the
Speaker 1: Chronicles Oferritic is the one for me. All right, Well,
Speaker 1: I already did mine? Do you have an elevator pitch
Speaker 1: for this one? Already did mine?
Speaker 3: Let's see, what's the only way to stop a a
Speaker 3: what would you even call the Necromongers a A an
Speaker 3: undead empire cult that is going to convert or destroy
Speaker 3: the entire galaxy. The only way to stop it is
Speaker 3: the world's coolest criminal.
Speaker 1: All right, let's listen to some trailer audio.
Speaker 4: They are a plague that now sweeps through the worlds
Speaker 4: of man, leaving behind a trail of dead planets and
Speaker 4: towering icons monuments to their unholy crusade. All those poets
Speaker 4: on all those worlds who spoke of war such an
Speaker 4: unsightly thing.
Speaker 3: They never stood.
Speaker 2: Here never fails to inspire, does it?
Speaker 4: Each time a world falls The necromongers a dark army
Speaker 4: that will convert or kill every last human life unless
Speaker 4: they can be stopped. But sometimes the only way to
Speaker 4: stop evil is not with good. You must confront it
Speaker 4: with another kind of evil.
Speaker 3: O thee Ready?
Speaker 1: Where does he come from? Who are his people? These
Speaker 1: are the things I need to know.
Speaker 3: You remember your home world? Have your rest of the others,
Speaker 3: others like yourself. It's not my fight.
Speaker 4: Consider it a test.
Speaker 1: Got bird now or fall forever?
Speaker 4: Are you gonna stop the monsters? Now?
Speaker 3: I am the monster?
Speaker 1: Get ridiculous.
Speaker 4: He's beginning to understand.
Speaker 3: Are you with me?
Speaker 1: Who is this man? He sees everything? You're not?
Speaker 3: Then word to bring me down? You're not afraid of
Speaker 3: the dark, are you.
Speaker 1: M M all right, Well, if you want to jump
Speaker 1: into the Chronicles of Ritick, if you want to jump
Speaker 1: into just the entire Riddick franchise, well, all those films
Speaker 1: are widely available in digital and physical formats. I think
Speaker 1: there are some three packs popping around if you want
Speaker 1: your your physical media. Now, you'll find two cuts of
Speaker 1: this film. There's the PG thirteen theatrical release, and then
Speaker 1: there's an R rated director's cut that is a bit
Speaker 1: longer includes some additional plot elements. I've seen that. I've
Speaker 1: seen the director's cut before, but this time around, I
Speaker 1: just watched the theatrical cut, and honestly I was happy
Speaker 1: with that.
Speaker 3: So that's PG thirteen and they fit their one permitted
Speaker 3: F bomb in the first five minutes of the movie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I was. I wasn't. I always forget about
Speaker 1: the rules with the F So I was like, did
Speaker 1: I get the wrong one? Am I watching? Which cut?
Speaker 1: Am I watching? And then eventually became clear I was
Speaker 1: watching theatrical.
Speaker 3: You can only say it once, and they put it
Speaker 3: right at the top. That's interesting. They you know, bet
Speaker 3: big in the first time on the first round I.
Speaker 1: Never understand the logic there. It's like a child can't
Speaker 1: repeat this word if they only heard it once, right,
Speaker 1: I have to hear it twice. They have to confirm
Speaker 1: what they heard, and then it becomes part of their vocabulary. Which, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I was thinking about letting my son
Speaker 1: watch this film. I was like, PT. Thirteen, maybe he'd
Speaker 1: maybe he'd enjoy it. I don't think he would have.
Speaker 1: But but then I was also thinking, yeah, the language.
Speaker 1: He doesn't need to watch anything with any strong that
Speaker 1: strong language in it. And if he wants, if I'm
Speaker 1: going to show him a film that has the F
Speaker 1: word in it, it needs to be Blade, because I
Speaker 1: want I want Blade to teach my son how to
Speaker 1: say it.
Speaker 3: Yes, Blade makes much better use of its language budget,
Speaker 3: which is a much higher budget because that was R rated. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. And ultimately, who do you want your children
Speaker 1: learning their curse words from Wesley Snipes or just some
Speaker 1: random kid at school who doesn't have a lot of practice.
Speaker 1: You want somebody who knows what they're doing.
Speaker 3: I couldn't agree more.
Speaker 1: All right, well, let's get into the people of note here,
Speaker 1: the connections starting at the top. David Towey is the
Speaker 1: director and writer. Born nineteen fifty five. He's come up
Speaker 1: a time or two on the show before American writer
Speaker 1: and director. His writing credits go all the way back
Speaker 1: to nineteen eighty eights Critters Too, followed by nineteen eighty
Speaker 1: nine's Warlock, which of course starred the late Julian Sands
Speaker 1: along with Richard D. Grant and Mary Warrenoff. Then he
Speaker 1: both wrote and directed a film. This is one of
Speaker 1: those occasionally I was like, oh wow, I didn't know
Speaker 1: till right now this film existed, nineteen ninety one's Grand
Speaker 1: Tour Disaster in Time aka Timesgate, starring Jeff Daniels. I
Speaker 1: think this is based on an old short story about
Speaker 1: time traveling disaster tourists. M yeah, so that sounds pretty weird.
Speaker 1: Subsequent straps includes.
Speaker 3: That kind of a sound of thunder, isn't it Yeah?
Speaker 1: But instead of like, I guess maybe they were doing
Speaker 1: that too, but this is like, let's go back in
Speaker 1: time and watch the Hindenburg crash that sort.
Speaker 3: Of thing, Oh okay, rather and then I think.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like, who are these weird, weirdly dressed people
Speaker 1: watching the Hindenburg crash? And then it's like, Oh, it's
Speaker 1: it's time disaster tourists.
Speaker 3: I see.
Speaker 1: So subsequent scripts after this included ninety three's Warlock The
Speaker 1: Armageddon that's the sequel to Warlock with Gilian Sands once more.
Speaker 1: Ninety three is The Fugitive, you know, big, big, big
Speaker 1: film there Harrison for Tommy Lee Jones. He directed that,
Speaker 1: Noroe wrote it. He wrote, wrote it. Oh okay Or
Speaker 1: was a screenwriter on that film. Ill who else might
Speaker 1: have been involved in it? So other scripts were ninety
Speaker 1: four's Terminal Velocity, ninety five's water World, and then nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety six is The Arrival. That one he also directed.
Speaker 1: Then came ninety seven's g I Jane, And in two
Speaker 1: thousand he wrote and well he was he was one
Speaker 1: of the writers on it. But he directed Pitch Black.
Speaker 1: He has a writing credit on that, alongside Jim and
Speaker 1: Ken Wheat, who also wrote The Return, The Battle for
Speaker 1: Indoor and The Fly two. And they retain character creation
Speaker 1: credits on these Rittick films.
Speaker 3: You know, one thing I do appreciate going back and
Speaker 3: watching these Rittick movies is that it was an attempt
Speaker 3: to create a whole new, original epic genre universe. Instead
Speaker 3: of like adapting an existing book or comic series, or
Speaker 3: just making sequels or remakes to older films. That's something
Speaker 3: I like to see, you know, just making up new stuff.
Speaker 3: People who fund movies today, please please put more money
Speaker 3: into that sort of thing.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, yeah, I think there are some interesting choices made
Speaker 1: in the world creation here, which we'll get into now.
Speaker 1: Tooey's subsequent writing work has included two thousand and ones
Speaker 1: Imposter two thousand and twos below which he directed that
Speaker 1: as well, I think as a Haunted submarine movie. His
Speaker 1: most recent writing and direct in credit was the Third
Speaker 1: Riddic Film in twenty thirteen. He's still active. He has
Speaker 1: two directorial projects in development. One is the next Riddick
Speaker 1: movie and another is a film titled Running with Lions
Speaker 1: that I don't know anything about, you know.
Speaker 3: Another thing, speaking of the Riddic universe is I don't
Speaker 3: know if you read the same thing. I have never
Speaker 3: played it, but there is a Riddic video game from
Speaker 3: the early two thousands. I think that is very highly regarded,
Speaker 3: like it's considered a fantastic game.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I never played the I think there were
Speaker 1: two of them, and then they were like re released
Speaker 1: again together. I never played them. I think they came
Speaker 1: out at a time when I was not doing a
Speaker 1: lot of video games and I didn't have like the
Speaker 1: technology to do them right or something. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: remember they were highly regarded and in Vin Diesel's company
Speaker 1: at the time. I think it's still around. He has
Speaker 1: a video game company. They were the ones who put
Speaker 1: it together, so he was heavily involved in it. So hey, yeah,
Speaker 1: now it's the time to talk about Vin Dee, to
Speaker 1: tell who the audience who this guy is. Right, I'm
Speaker 1: not sure if we can answer that question. I think
Speaker 1: you should go to his Instagram account and just spend
Speaker 1: some time there. Take it all in.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, on the Graham what's he doing on there?
Speaker 1: It's just a pure expression of his hopes, dreams in mind.
Speaker 1: You know, I can't say anything about Vin Diesel that
Speaker 1: his his his limitless Instagram account cannot tell you. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean he's a huge star. What can you say?
Speaker 3: I guess like workout clips and then clips of his
Speaker 3: kids doing something cute, and then him like cracking a
Speaker 3: Corona light.
Speaker 1: I think there's a lot of that sort of thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: But then also occasionally things related to his his key franchises,
Speaker 1: you know, some of his favorite characters and all interacting
Speaker 1: with the fans, being inspirational and so forth. I don't
Speaker 1: know a lot about Vin Diesel. I think there's a
Speaker 1: lot about him that's maybe more more private. You know,
Speaker 1: he's not maybe not one of these celebrities that you
Speaker 1: know everything about. But he seems like a nice, weird guy.
Speaker 1: You know, he's a weird celebrity, and you see that
Speaker 1: weirdness in something like this like this is you know,
Speaker 1: I think Chronicles of Ritic is a is a product
Speaker 1: of in part of, you know, of his interests, in
Speaker 1: his desire to see some sort of like a fantasy
Speaker 1: epic come to life.
Speaker 3: Wait, let me imagine the perfect Vin Diesel post Vin
Speaker 3: Diesel rolling up a new character and it is a chaotic,
Speaker 3: neutral cleric.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I've always heard that he's a longtime D and
Speaker 1: D fan and has like a particular character that like
Speaker 1: he always uses and so forth.
Speaker 3: Oh, okay, is it Riddic? That would be great.
Speaker 1: I've heard it has a name. I think it's like
Speaker 1: some sort of like a dark elf type thing. So
Speaker 1: it's not too it's exactly the sort of D and
Speaker 1: D character you'd expect him to have but it's not
Speaker 1: I think one to one with anything he's played all right.
Speaker 1: So Vin Diesel was born in nineteen sixty seven's He
Speaker 1: plays Riddck in this. He's also one of the producers.
Speaker 1: He's mostly known for what eleven in counting Fast and
Speaker 1: the Furious films.
Speaker 3: I don't know which ones you count it. So he
Speaker 3: was in the third one, but he's in it for
Speaker 3: like thirty seconds. I can't believe they gave him the
Speaker 3: rights to Ridick? Is that right? You said they gave
Speaker 3: him the right?
Speaker 1: That is what I've read. I don't know the full
Speaker 1: story on that, but I you know, I think that
Speaker 1: was also a time where they didn't really want to
Speaker 1: do any more Riddick. They're like, with this bomb, so
Speaker 1: you can you can have it. Sure, we would rather
Speaker 1: just have your cameo in this film.
Speaker 3: But The Fast and the Furious, though it barely has him.
Speaker 3: I really like the third movie. It is quite amusing.
Speaker 3: That's the one in Japan with the drift King. But
Speaker 3: he comes back, and in my opinion, the Fast and
Speaker 3: the Furious franchise gets a lot better as it goes
Speaker 3: on because it gets crazier and crazier with like it's
Speaker 3: I think starting around the six the movie or so
Speaker 3: is when like the cars are flying and stuff.
Speaker 1: Well, so that's the big franchise. But he also has
Speaker 1: the Triple X franchise, which I think that one's only
Speaker 1: like three movies, and he's not even in the second one.
Speaker 1: It was like he's in the first one, they got
Speaker 1: someone else in the second one, then they brought him
Speaker 1: back for the third one.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I don't really remember those.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I never saw them. Then of course we have
Speaker 1: the Riddic franchise. Then we have the Guardians of the
Speaker 1: Galaxy movies and related Marvel films because of course he
Speaker 1: is groot.
Speaker 3: I did see the first one of those, but I
Speaker 3: don't remember much about that either. I am, compared to
Speaker 3: most people listening, probably extremely underinformed on the Marvel movies
Speaker 3: in general.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, it's interesting because we were talking about
Speaker 1: space opera earlier, and of course Guardians of the Galaxy
Speaker 1: really pushes the Marvel universe into that space opera world.
Speaker 1: So I've enjoyed the Guardians of the Galaxy movies I've seen.
Speaker 1: I haven't watched the latest one yet. So Vin Diesel
Speaker 1: started out as an uncredited extra in nineteen nineties Awakenings,
Speaker 1: and then he went on to direct and produce both
Speaker 1: the nineteen ninety five short film Multi Facial and the
Speaker 1: feature Strays in nineteen ninety seven. He starred in both
Speaker 1: of those, and then came a string of early hits
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety eight, Saving Private Ryan. He is in that.
Speaker 1: He is the title voice in nineteen ninety nine's The
Speaker 1: Iron Giant, which, of course is is a really good
Speaker 1: animated feature about a boy and his giant robot. Two thousands,
Speaker 1: Pitch Black, and two thousand and ones to the Fast
Speaker 1: and the Furious, and yeah, the Fast and the Furious series,
Speaker 1: of course has continued, and he's mostly He's done a
Speaker 1: lot of other, mostly action films as well. I think
Speaker 1: there's some. There may be one bad comedy or two
Speaker 1: in the mix as well.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I'm vaguely imagining like a movie poster with
Speaker 3: Vin Diesel with his muscles out and he's wearing like
Speaker 3: a two to two or something or yeah.
Speaker 1: Is that the pacifier or is that another movie? I
Speaker 1: can't remember.
Speaker 3: I don't Oh yeah, there's one where they he stars
Speaker 3: across a baby.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I included a picture that I grabbed from Vin
Speaker 1: Diesel's instagram for you, Joe. I think it sums up
Speaker 1: a lot of what you'll see, the kind of inspirational
Speaker 1: imagery you'll find there. We see three images of Vin
Speaker 1: Diesel on here and one I don't know. This is
Speaker 1: him with like full sleeve tattoos. I don't know if
Speaker 1: these are his real tattoos or not, but he is
Speaker 1: opposed like the thinker right deep contemplation. Next to him,
Speaker 1: we also see Riddick from this franchise, and in the
Speaker 1: background there's like a Vin Diesel with a cross around
Speaker 1: his neck. I assume this is his character from Fast
Speaker 1: and the Furious.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I think he Dominic from The Fast and the Furious,
Speaker 3: whereas across necklace and talks about family. Yeah. Wow. So
Speaker 3: it's all It's like the real hymn. And then the
Speaker 3: two other sides of him, which are the characters he plays.
Speaker 1: Yes, and he is all of them at once. You know,
Speaker 1: in the same way that a person may be both
Speaker 1: child and parent Riddick, Vin Diesel is Riddic and also
Speaker 1: the Fast and the Furious guy.
Speaker 3: Yes. In theological terms, I would be called a modalist
Speaker 3: in my of Vin Diesel.
Speaker 1: All right, well more on Vin Diesel as we continue
Speaker 1: our discussion here, but we'll go through the rest of
Speaker 1: the cast here. We have the character Kira in this
Speaker 1: Kira was Jack in the first film. In the first film,
Speaker 1: Jack was played by Rihanna Griffith, and in this film,
Speaker 1: Jack Slash Kira is played by Alexa Davelos born nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty two, perhaps best known among some for portraying Gwynn
Speaker 1: Rayden on the fourth season of the TV series Angel,
Speaker 1: along with such films as Feast of Love from two
Speaker 1: thousand and seven, the two thousand and seven adaptation of
Speaker 1: The Mist, as well Stephen King's excellent novella Defiance in
Speaker 1: two thousand and eighty Tens Clash of the Titans, and
Speaker 1: she's mostly done TV, I think since then. She had
Speaker 1: a starring role in The Man in the High Castle,
Speaker 1: which ran twenty fifteen through twenty nineteen.
Speaker 3: So a kind of interesting thing is that I don't know.
Speaker 3: For some reason, I would have expected the next Riddick
Speaker 3: adventure after Pitch Black to be a total reset, you know,
Speaker 3: just essentially ignoring the previous film other than the general
Speaker 3: world it establishes and the Riddick character. But that's not
Speaker 3: the case, there is significant continuity from Pitch Black to
Speaker 3: Chronicles Riddick, including the two other characters that survive at
Speaker 3: the end of the previous movie are both in this movie.
Speaker 1: That's right. Yeah. On one hand Kira and Jack, and
Speaker 1: the other one is Imam played by Keith David.
Speaker 3: Oh always loving Keith David shows up. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Keith David's great born nineteen fifty six, best known, I
Speaker 1: think to many fans out there as Child's one of
Speaker 1: the two survivors at the end of nineteen eighty two
Speaker 1: is the thing from John Carpenter, and also he played
Speaker 1: Frank in John Carpenter's They Live in nineteen eighty eight.
Speaker 1: He of course has that epic fight with Roddy Rowdy Piper.
Speaker 3: I cannot. I don't even want to start talking about
Speaker 3: that fight scene and They Live I will, I will
Speaker 3: embarrass myself with all the good things I want to
Speaker 3: say about it.
Speaker 1: One of the best, yeah, fight scenes, long drawn out
Speaker 1: fight scenes you'll find and in a film no weapons
Speaker 1: per se, mostly fisticuffs and grappling, and also mostly realistically
Speaker 1: and comfort involves like at least a couple of wrestling
Speaker 1: maneuvers pro wrestling maneuvers it's a tree.
Speaker 3: It's one of the one of the times I have
Speaker 3: laughed hardest at a movie in my life was the
Speaker 3: first time I saw that fight scene.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, we may have to come back to that
Speaker 1: one sometime. So. Keith David has had a long and
Speaker 1: interesting career. He was in a film nineteen seventy nine
Speaker 1: production of Coriolanus with Morgan Freeman in the title role.
Speaker 1: He appeared as Keith and also Keith the Handyman on
Speaker 1: nine episodes of Mister Rogers. He's remained consistent and memorable
Speaker 1: presence both as as an actor and a voice actor,
Speaker 1: in large part due to that smooth voice of his,
Speaker 1: Like he's done a lot of voiceover work, and you
Speaker 1: can tell when it's him, like there's this dark, gravelly smoothness.
Speaker 1: There's kind of a seductive quality to it. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: he's really good. Like. His voice credits include Spawn like
Speaker 1: the HBO Spawn animated series. He's a voice only character
Speaker 1: in the Tales from the Crypt episode he was in.
Speaker 1: This is also encompassing at least a couple of video
Speaker 1: games here, Planescape, Torment, Coraline, Mass Effect, Rick and Morty
Speaker 1: Gargoyle's The Goliath Chronicles Princess Mononoke and Disney's The Princess
Speaker 1: and the Frog. And then when it comes to just
Speaker 1: straight up acting roles, he was in nineteen eighty six
Speaker 1: is Platoon, ninety eight's Armageddon, also ninety eights, Requiem for
Speaker 1: a Dream two thousand and fourths Crash twenty Twelves, Cloud
Speaker 1: Atlas twenty twenty two's Nope. He has a great role
Speaker 1: in that. He also had a really fun role as
Speaker 1: kind of the villain on TV's Futureman or Future Man
Speaker 1: and oh and he was also I think on one
Speaker 1: season of Community. Not to be confused, however, with his
Speaker 1: contemporary and fellow actor David ke This is Keith David Keith.
Speaker 1: David and David Keith have never worked together for film
Speaker 1: or TV, and I've always found that interesting. It seemed
Speaker 1: like they line up. They're very much peers. But I
Speaker 1: always wonder do they just not act together because it's
Speaker 1: just pure luck, or are people like, no, we can't
Speaker 1: do this, We can't have a Keith David and a
Speaker 1: David Keith in the same movie or TV show.
Speaker 3: The casting director won't allow it.
Speaker 1: But imagine that poster. Imagine if they were the stars.
Speaker 1: David Keith and Keith David are and then you have
Speaker 1: some sort of clever like buddy team up title to
Speaker 1: Keith to David. I don't know.
Speaker 3: Now this next actor you're gonna mention. I read that
Speaker 3: apparently Vin Diesel convinced her to be in the film
Speaker 3: by sending her an enormous bouquet of flowers.
Speaker 1: That's what I read too. Yeah, apparently he was like, look,
Speaker 1: we want to cast the rest of this film, and
Speaker 1: I can't do it until I cast you, like you're
Speaker 1: essential for this. And yeah, the actor he sent these
Speaker 1: flowers to is Dame Judy Dinch, who plays Arion, a
Speaker 1: member of the Element in this picture.
Speaker 3: I mean, Judy Dinch is wonderful. She's Judy Dinch. There
Speaker 3: is something funny about the fact that she's in Chronicles
Speaker 3: of Riddick.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think this is the only science
Speaker 1: fiction film she's done. I mean, you can make a
Speaker 1: case for James Bond essentially being sci fi and maybe
Speaker 1: one or two other films, but in terms of like
Speaker 1: pure people in space doing space things, this is it.
Speaker 1: And I think I saw that, Like in her autobiography,
Speaker 1: she doesn't have much to say about this film other
Speaker 1: than like, I didn't really understand any of it, but
Speaker 1: everyone was nice and the sets were really cool, so
Speaker 1: fair enough. But you know, she's the sort of actor
Speaker 1: who adds a splash of talent and class to anything
Speaker 1: she's in. Her presence can't help but elevate anything, and
Speaker 1: this is no exception. Born nineteen thirty four, highly regarded
Speaker 1: and honored British actor of stage, screen and TV. She
Speaker 1: burst on the theater scene in the late fifties, and
Speaker 1: this also included some TV mini series productions. She's had
Speaker 1: extensive credits over the decades, and we certainly can't list
Speaker 1: them all, but just a few highlights. Sixty Five's a
Speaker 1: Study in Terror, a Sherlock Holmes film, a nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: nine adaptation of Macbeth in which she played Lady Macbeth
Speaker 1: opposite Ian McKellen. Nineteen eighty five is a Room with
Speaker 1: a View, nineteen ninety five's GoldenEye, a James Bond movie,
Speaker 1: which of course kicked off an eight film run in
Speaker 1: which she played im. She's like Bond's boss, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's right. Ninety eight, Shakespeare in Love, twenty seventeen's Murder
Speaker 1: on the Orient Express and twenty twenty one's Belfast. So
Speaker 1: she's still out there, still going strong. Yeah. So yeah,
Speaker 1: she's quite a legend.
Speaker 3: Maybe she'll come back for Riddick Furia.
Speaker 1: She might, she might very well. I mean, I hope, so,
Speaker 1: I hope the next Riddick movie includes all of my
Speaker 1: favorite elements of this movie, and that includes our next actor,
Speaker 1: Nick Chinlund, who plays the character Toombs, a mercenary who's
Speaker 1: hot on Riddick's trail.
Speaker 3: You know, I noticed that they left him. They deliberately
Speaker 3: show him being left alive at the end of this
Speaker 3: movie so that he can come back in a sequel.
Speaker 1: Yeah. This was apparently a case where originally he died
Speaker 1: in the script and in fact the novelization of the
Speaker 1: Chronicles of Riddick by Alan Dean Foster, which which I
Speaker 1: read for this episode. I'll hold it up here for
Speaker 1: you to stay on screen. Jow.
Speaker 3: Wow, you read words. You did research.
Speaker 1: I did my research. He died. His character dies in
Speaker 1: the book too, because you know, clearly the book is
Speaker 1: you know, coming together at an earlier stage of production.
Speaker 1: But yeah, they decided this character is too much fun.
Speaker 1: We've got to leave the option open.
Speaker 3: So instead of dying, he gets left in a cage
Speaker 3: next to two CGI I don't know rock panthers and
Speaker 3: just is rattling the bars, screaming Riddy.
Speaker 1: It's great, so good. This is a role that called
Speaker 1: for a scene chewing gargoyle and chin Lind totally answered
Speaker 1: the call. And I think his facial hair in this
Speaker 1: is key, Like he has these super pointed sideburns and
Speaker 1: like this weird little soul patch going on, and his
Speaker 1: hair is all like he's he's got this just total
Speaker 1: gargoyle energy and just really leans into the performance.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, so.
Speaker 1: Chinlyn was born in sixty one, American actor, active since
Speaker 1: the late nineteen eighties. He played a character named Hashett
Speaker 1: in ninety two is Lethal Weapon three, which tracks. He
Speaker 1: voiced Kwan Chi on nineteen ninety six's Mortal Kombat Defenders
Speaker 1: of the Realm. You pointed this out already, but he
Speaker 1: played a character named Billy Bedlam in nineteen ninety seven's
Speaker 1: con Air. I've never seen Kanyir. You'll have to fill
Speaker 1: me in on this. Oh.
Speaker 3: Con Air is in kind of the same space as
Speaker 3: the Fast Later Fast and the Furious movies, Like it
Speaker 3: is a big, hilarious, over the top action movie. I
Speaker 3: think well, I was gonna say it's Michael Bay, but
Speaker 3: I think it's not Michael Bay. It is one of
Speaker 3: the movies that is not Michael Babe, but feels like
Speaker 3: Michael Bay.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and has a pretty great cast.
Speaker 3: Does that recall? Oh?
Speaker 1: Yes, Chinlyn played the serial killer Donnie Faster on two
Speaker 1: episodes of The X Files. I think he's a shape
Speaker 1: shifter in that.
Speaker 3: Okay, I almost remember this.
Speaker 1: Okay. He has played a wide range of supporting roles
Speaker 1: over the years, but you know, clearly he has the
Speaker 1: looks and the height. He's a pretty tall guy, so
Speaker 1: he plays a lot of heavies in villains in films.
Speaker 1: His other credits include Training Day, both the two thousand
Speaker 1: and one film and the TV show, and he was
Speaker 1: also in two thousand and five's The Legend of Zorro.
Speaker 1: Now this is a smaller role, but I noticed that
Speaker 1: Terry chin is in this. He plays the Murt pilot,
Speaker 1: or at least the second MYRT pilot that Toombs hires.
Speaker 1: He was born in seventy five. He's a Canadian actor
Speaker 1: that many will recognize from such films as two thousands,
Speaker 1: Almost Famous, in which he played American rock journalist Ben
Speaker 1: Fong Torres, and from there Chin went on to appear
Speaker 1: in all sorts of TV and film roles, including two
Speaker 1: thousand and six of Snakes on a Plane, twenty twelve's
Speaker 1: Cabin in the Woods, twenty two He's Falling, I think
Speaker 1: that's a Vigo Morrison picture, and also twenty twenty one's Demonic.
Speaker 1: His TV credits include Stargate SG one, Dark Angel, Battlestar Galactica,
Speaker 1: Jessica Jones, House of Cards, The Expanse, and The Last
Speaker 1: of Us.
Speaker 3: I did not notice him in this movie, but I
Speaker 3: certainly remember him as Ben Fong Torres and almost famous
Speaker 3: where the gag the whole movie is that the main
Speaker 3: character is a kid and he is trying to trick
Speaker 3: Ben Fong Torres into thinking he is an adult rock journalist.
Speaker 1: I've seen that one. It's been a long time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, all right, lowers his voice on the phone when
Speaker 3: he's talking to him. Oh yeah, yes, So I need
Speaker 3: to check with my wife.
Speaker 1: All right. Well, let's get to the real villains of
Speaker 1: the picture. These are members of the Necromonger Empire and
Speaker 1: heading up the Necromonger Empire. We have the Lord Marshall
Speaker 1: himself played by Column Fior born nineteen fifty eight, splendid
Speaker 1: Canadian actor with a strong resume of film, TV, in
Speaker 1: Shakespearean theater. He has that he has a particular knack
Speaker 1: for playing famous dead Canadians, such as Pierre Trudeau in
Speaker 1: the two thousand and two Canadian mini series titled Trudeau,
Speaker 1: and I think our Canadian listeners in general are going
Speaker 1: to tend to have a better understanding of his broader range.
Speaker 1: For instance, he's really fun as a craze marketing executive
Speaker 1: in the second season of the excellent Canadian dramedy series
Speaker 1: Slings and Arrows from several years back. That one starred
Speaker 1: Paul Gross, who's also a great actor. But American audience
Speaker 1: is probably no fer best for maybe either Kenneth Brono's
Speaker 1: Thor from twenty eleven, in which he plays the King
Speaker 1: of the Ice Giants, or the two thousand and two
Speaker 1: film adaptation of the musical Chicago, in which he plays
Speaker 1: a supporting role.
Speaker 3: I don't know why, but I thought he was Irish.
Speaker 3: He's not.
Speaker 1: No, he's I think he's American born technically, but Canadian,
Speaker 1: thoroughly Canadian. And yeah, he's great, And I mean he's
Speaker 1: playing your big bad. He's playing a warlord wizard in
Speaker 1: a grandiose space opera, so engines are on full power here,
Speaker 1: and I think he's great.
Speaker 3: He has some great scenes of revealing powers that you
Speaker 3: didn't know he had before, like in the first scene
Speaker 3: where he ripped somebody sol out, and then in the
Speaker 3: later scene where he tries to rip Vin Diesel's sol
Speaker 3: out but fails.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean it's an over the top
Speaker 1: supervillain role, but he does a great job with it,
Speaker 1: all right. A sub villain to this an important character.
Speaker 1: He is the character of Vaco, played by Carl Urban
Speaker 1: born nineteen seventy two, New Zealand actor who started out
Speaker 1: in the early nineties playing Julius Caesar on Zena and Hercules,
Speaker 1: and then he broke out more in two thousand and
Speaker 1: two with roles in ghost Ship and Lord of the
Speaker 1: Rings The Two Towers, followed of course, by Return of
Speaker 1: the King and then this film. He's subsequently gone on
Speaker 1: to be kind of like a dependable go to for
Speaker 1: various major sci fi roles, such as projects like two
Speaker 1: thousand and nine Star Trek and its sequels, in which
Speaker 1: he plays Bones, twenty twelve, Judge Dread in which he
Speaker 1: plays Judge Dread. He's in Thor, Ragnarok, and and also
Speaker 1: he's one of the stars of the TV series The Boys.
Speaker 3: Carl Urban can be really great. I don't know if
Speaker 3: this movie really makes the best use of his talents.
Speaker 3: He mostly just like stands there kind of looking mean
Speaker 3: and very grim and it actually I don't recall him
Speaker 3: having a lot of lines.
Speaker 1: No, but his partner, his character's partner in this is
Speaker 1: really the character that has a lot more going on,
Speaker 1: and he's kind of like this, he's very stoic and
Speaker 1: grim and is kind of like a drift, like he's like,
Speaker 1: he's a very loyal character, but she is Lady Macbeth
Speaker 1: and his Macbeth towards greatness, Like that's their whole dynamic. So,
Speaker 1: I mean, he's good in this. But I think Carl
Speaker 1: Urban's one of those actors that is at his best
Speaker 1: when he gets to inject some comedy into what he's doing.
Speaker 1: I think of the roles like Star Trek, like Ragnarok,
Speaker 1: Like he's terrific in those because yeah, he's physical and
Speaker 1: all that, but and serious when it calls for it.
Speaker 1: But also there's this underlying comedic energy that he does
Speaker 1: extremely well. Yeah, for this performance as well, though I
Speaker 1: would say the haircut is key.
Speaker 3: Yes, he has a kind of elevated Frankenstein flat top
Speaker 3: haircut that also ends in a mullet, so try to
Speaker 3: imagine Frankenstein. But the hair comes up several inches off
Speaker 3: the scalp and then it's flat on top, and then
Speaker 3: it goes down into a long tail. Extremely cool. Look,
Speaker 3: I'm surprised it didn't catch on with the kids. What
Speaker 3: am I remembering this wrong? No?
Speaker 1: No, that describes it to a t. It's kind of
Speaker 1: like this weird like slicked back Frankenstein mullet. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: Space warrior haircut.
Speaker 3: Right, But how does he keep it standing up like that?
Speaker 3: Because he wears a helmet. Sometimes I think the heavy
Speaker 3: metal helmet would push down the flat He must have
Speaker 3: really good hair gel.
Speaker 1: Yeah, or maybe he does do anything. It was here
Speaker 1: and it's just the helmet does that to his head.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 3: Oh, maybe that's all his head under there. Maybe it's
Speaker 3: bone all the way up.
Speaker 1: All right. So that's Vaco, and then we have Dame Vaco.
Speaker 1: This is his I guess she's like his consort. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure exactly what this character's official role in the
Speaker 1: Necromannger Empire is I guess she's kind of like nobility
Speaker 1: or something.
Speaker 3: Yeah, she's assigned official undermining the Lord Marshall duties.
Speaker 1: Yes, and she is played by the always terrific British
Speaker 1: actor Tandy or tandee Way Newton. Most of you probably
Speaker 1: know Newton best for her work on say HBO's West World.
Speaker 1: She has a major role on that TV series. She
Speaker 1: was also in two thousand's Mission Impossible Too, and some
Speaker 1: of her other bigger credits include nineteen ninety four's Interview
Speaker 1: with a Vampire, two thousand and fours, Crash in twenty
Speaker 1: eighteen solo a Star Wars story. Yeah, she's I think
Speaker 1: she's really great in this, especially when she is in
Speaker 1: full blown Lady made Beth mode. You know, when she's
Speaker 1: she's saying things like kill the beast while it's wounded
Speaker 1: and so forth. Yea, she has a tremendous no late
Speaker 1: in the film, And I think that's saying a lot
Speaker 1: because no moments in films can often be cheesy and
Speaker 1: so forth. But she gives I think, maybe the best
Speaker 1: one I've ever seen. Like it's just this visceral like
Speaker 1: rejection of what is happening. It's so for you know, connoisseurs.
Speaker 1: I highly recommend you check out her performance.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it competes with Revenge of the Siths. She is
Speaker 3: great in this, and she appears to be having a
Speaker 3: great time.
Speaker 1: Yeah. There are plenty of scenes where she is just
Speaker 1: comically seductive, you know, but she's still entertaining in those scenes.
Speaker 1: And she is dressed the whole time in this splendid
Speaker 1: golden dinosaur skin dress, of which is very stylish.
Speaker 3: She's like the only character in the movie who gets
Speaker 3: Riddic to do what she says.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: Everybody else is like, Riddick, do this, and he's like, no,
Speaker 3: I won't. But she's just like, well, why don't you
Speaker 3: just ask him nicely? But she says it in a
Speaker 3: very breathy, seductive voice, and then he's like, okay.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'll see where you're going with this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, all right.
Speaker 1: And then we also have a necromannger character named what
Speaker 1: We don't know his name, we just know him by
Speaker 1: his title. He is the Purifier or Purifier, and this
Speaker 1: character is played by the always excellent Linus Roach born
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty four. Roach is likely best known to many
Speaker 1: of you out there for his subdued performances Thomas Wayne
Speaker 1: in two thousand and five's Batman Begins, and also his
Speaker 1: intensely weird portrayal of the folk singer turned murderous cult
Speaker 1: leader Jeremiah sand in twenty eighteen's Mandy from director Panos Cosmantos.
Speaker 3: Those are two extremely different performances, but he's great in both.
Speaker 3: Like I remember, in seeing him and Mandy, it was
Speaker 3: hard to recall how comforting and reassuring instead he was
Speaker 3: in the Batman movie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like, this is a This is an act a
Speaker 1: deeply serious actor who by all counts takes his roles
Speaker 1: very seriously, and he seems to have deep reservoirs of
Speaker 1: weird energy to call upon when the role asks for it.
Speaker 1: And so it's a real treat when he's given at
Speaker 1: least even a little leeway to let that weirdness out.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: He played the title character in nineteen ninety four's Priest
Speaker 1: from Antonia Byrd. He played Robert F. Kennedy in a
Speaker 1: two thousand and two TV movie about the American politician,
Speaker 1: and he did, like a lot of you know, working
Speaker 1: actors of the modern era, did a whole lot of
Speaker 1: Law and Order. He did thirty three episodes of Vikings,
Speaker 1: twenty three episodes of Homeland, and what about NonStop? Well, yes,
Speaker 1: he was in the twenty fourteen NonStop movie starring Liam
Speaker 1: Neeson's all Right, Real Quick On just the rest of
Speaker 1: the couple of the technical notes here. Graham Revel did
Speaker 1: the score, born nineteen fifty five. We talked about him
Speaker 1: before because he did the score to Ghost in the
Speaker 1: Machine from nineteen ninety three, as well as nineteen eighty
Speaker 1: nine Spontaneous Combustion, which we've also discussed. New Zealand musician
Speaker 1: and composer and former member of the eighties Australian industrial
Speaker 1: music and noise group SPK. I'm not familiar with SPK,
Speaker 1: despite being somewhat familiar with a lot of industrial and
Speaker 1: noise music, so I don't know. Music fans. If you
Speaker 1: know SPK, write in and tell us all about it.
Speaker 1: He also did The Crow in nineteen ninety four, and
Speaker 1: just generally a lot of nineties horror and sci fi movies,
Speaker 1: So I guess that's kind of like that's the weird
Speaker 1: thing about the score for this film. The score works,
Speaker 1: totally works, does everything is required of it also feels
Speaker 1: very much set in the time, in part because this
Speaker 1: guy was just working a lot on films like this
Speaker 1: during that time period. And finally, on the art and
Speaker 1: design side of things, I'm not going to go into
Speaker 1: too much detail here other than to say that the
Speaker 1: production design and costuming was a work of several talents
Speaker 1: that have been involved and a lot of other sleek,
Speaker 1: big budget productions. Production designed by Holger Gross, who also
Speaker 1: worked on Stargate. Art, direction by Kevin Ishioka, Mark W.
Speaker 1: Mansbridge and Sandy Tanaka. Costuming by Michael Dennison and Ellen Mirojnik.
Speaker 1: All right, so those are the only people were going
Speaker 1: to cover here, though I will say it's a pretty
Speaker 1: deep cast, and there's some other faces you might recognize
Speaker 1: that went on to be in other things, and we
Speaker 1: might touch on some of those as they come out,
Speaker 1: but maybe not.
Speaker 3: All right, Well, you ready to talk about the plot,
Speaker 3: Let's jump in.
Speaker 1: All right?
Speaker 3: Well, the film opens with blue energy exploding out of
Speaker 3: some kind of metal hollow, and then we zoom out
Speaker 3: to see the light is blasting out of a giant
Speaker 3: metal structure looming tall in a dark and bloomy sky,
Speaker 3: kind of like a solid iron skyscraper with these deep
Speaker 3: ridges running top to bottom and decorated on the top
Speaker 3: with huge sculptures of stern faces with exaggerated masculine features,
Speaker 3: wearing military helmets. They look vaguely ancient Roman, but with
Speaker 3: like noseguards. So I don't know exactly what they're most
Speaker 3: modeled on, but I was looking at this, I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 3: imagine you went back in a time machine. You showed
Speaker 3: Benito Mussolini blade runner. I don't know why you do that,
Speaker 3: but then you send him to bed. This is the
Speaker 3: dream he would have.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I've read that aspects of the necromonger design here
Speaker 1: were inspired in part by Italian sculptor Adolfo Wilt but
Speaker 1: he was apparently noted for a lot of his proto
Speaker 1: fascist imagery. But also they took some inspiration from sixteenth
Speaker 1: century Italian armor designs as well as some twentieth century
Speaker 1: Art Deco, so you can see a lot of that
Speaker 1: mixed in to this very gothic space. Opera looked to this,
Speaker 1: you know, clearly evil empire.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so we zoom out to see this inner energy
Speaker 3: tower is looming over a conquered city and the buildings
Speaker 3: are reduced to smoking ruins, and there are giant airships
Speaker 3: flooding the sky over the remains of the metropolis. Then
Speaker 3: we cut to another one of the glowering metal faces.
Speaker 3: But this is not another tower. It is part of
Speaker 3: a helmet. It is a helmet worn by a man
Speaker 3: with a rigid metal impression of a face covering his
Speaker 3: actual face. Like there are only eye holes and then
Speaker 3: more faces on the sides of the helmet. So it's
Speaker 3: a helmet with metal faces in every direction.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I don't know exactly what the purpose here is.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's because this is of course Colin Fior playing
Speaker 1: the Grand Marshal. He's snatching souls left and right, so
Speaker 1: maybe those are supposed to be representations of souls. But also,
Speaker 1: as we'll learn, like he's very difficult to get the
Speaker 1: drop on, he's kind of he has a hyper awareness
Speaker 1: of his surroundings. So maybe it's kind of like with
Speaker 1: you know, like the Greek Hackaday goddess that you know,
Speaker 1: he's looking in more than one direction at the same time,
Speaker 1: and that's reflected on his helmet.
Speaker 3: And he's got more faces too, Like he's got pauldrons
Speaker 3: on his shoulders that have faces I bet if you
Speaker 3: lifted up his arm there'd be faces in the arm pits.
Speaker 3: So there's yeah, there's a lot of faces on his armor.
Speaker 3: So the face. This guy is standing with a bunch
Speaker 3: of other mean looking space toughs in threatening armor of
Speaker 3: various sorts. There's another guy with a mask covering only
Speaker 3: the lower part of his face, so he looks kind
Speaker 3: of like Scorpion or sub Zero. And they're looking out
Speaker 3: over the landscape like yep, we destroyed it. And then
Speaker 3: they turn and they go inside a palace, and then
Speaker 3: we pull back and it reveals that the palace is
Speaker 3: mounted on top of a space ship, so it's sort
Speaker 3: of a castle in the sky or in the stars.
Speaker 3: And then narration comes in. It is a female voice,
Speaker 3: I think it is Judy Dinch talking. She says they
Speaker 3: are an army unlike any other, crusading across the stars
Speaker 3: toward a place called the under Verse, their promised land,
Speaker 3: and a constellation of dark new worlds Necromongers, they're called.
Speaker 3: And if they cannot convert you, they will kill you.
Speaker 3: Leading them, the Lord Marshall, he alone has made a
Speaker 3: pilgrimage to the gates of the Underverse and returned a
Speaker 3: different being, stronger, stranger, half alive, and half something else.
Speaker 1: Yep, these are the Necromongers. They are I guess you
Speaker 1: could describe them as an imperialistic, astronomadic warrior culture centered
Speaker 1: around an anti natalist death cult. They believe that human
Speaker 1: life in the universe is a mistake and that there's
Speaker 1: a better life in the underverse, which is a concept
Speaker 1: that's kind of shrouded in mystery, but seems to at
Speaker 1: once be an afterlife and also an actual dimension that
Speaker 1: can be accessed through a physical threshold in addition to
Speaker 1: access via just normal death.
Speaker 3: So it's kind of like the ancient Greek vision of Hades.
Speaker 3: You know, it's a place you could go to. It's
Speaker 3: not Yes, it's hard to go there, but you can go.
Speaker 1: Right and some people can come back, and then they
Speaker 1: have privileged information about the universe. I'm gonna mention that
Speaker 1: Alan Dene Foster has an appendix in the novelization that
Speaker 1: runs through the details regarding the founding of Necroism and
Speaker 1: the Necromonger Empire, the six different regimes, and so it's
Speaker 1: explain that basically the Lord Marshall here is the Holy
Speaker 1: half Dead Zy law the last. He's the sixth and
Speaker 1: again possibly the last Lord Marshall, because eventually there's going
Speaker 1: to be a Lord Marshall that finishes off the rest
Speaker 1: of human life in the universe and then sets sail
Speaker 1: into the under verse and like leaves a closed sign
Speaker 1: on our universe.
Speaker 3: Okay, the movie does not make that clear. The less
Speaker 3: less is said about it in the film.
Speaker 1: I like the sense of mystery regarding the religion and
Speaker 1: beliefs of the Necromongres because I think it makes them
Speaker 1: feel more threatening and weird, like they have a strange
Speaker 1: religion that does not travel well unless it is delivered
Speaker 1: on the edge of the knife. It makes them feel
Speaker 1: like this great looming threat that they are of course
Speaker 1: supposed to be.
Speaker 3: So next we see the Necromongers inside their ship and
Speaker 3: one of them operates a device with a switch that
Speaker 3: is basically a gory crucifix. They've got like really anguished
Speaker 3: looking crucifix imagery all over the place.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're big on pain as much.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, kind of mixed with some Alex grayish kind
Speaker 3: of bodies with like the skin peeled back, you see
Speaker 3: the muscles and all that. They flip the crucifix switch
Speaker 3: and it unleashes this blast of energy that destroys the
Speaker 3: face of the entire planet, and the narration continues. Judy
Speaker 3: Dench says, if we are to survive, a new balance
Speaker 3: must be found in normal times. When are the normal times?
Speaker 3: I don't know. In normal times, evil would be fought
Speaker 3: by good, but in times like these, well, it should
Speaker 3: be fought by another kind of evil. And then title
Speaker 3: screen it says, Chronicles of Riddick in something that's really
Speaker 3: really darn close to the Peter Jackson, Lord of the
Speaker 3: Rings font.
Speaker 1: Now this bit about evil should be fought by another
Speaker 1: kind of evil. This always gave me pause because in
Speaker 1: any question the whole endeavor here, because he's Riddick really
Speaker 1: another kind of evil.
Speaker 3: Well, I think they're trying to set him up that
Speaker 3: way in order to achieve a character dynamic that a
Speaker 3: lot of films and stories try to do because it's
Speaker 3: fun and pleasing. So they want him to be perceived
Speaker 3: as bad in the beginning, and they do some work
Speaker 3: to achieve that. I've actually got a whole note about
Speaker 3: this and minute based on some stuff Riddick says in
Speaker 3: the first you know, ten minutes of the film.
Speaker 1: All right, well, we'll come back to most of that,
Speaker 1: but I'll just say briefly that I never think of
Speaker 1: Riddick as an evil care you know, he's the self
Speaker 1: interested loner who's very distrustful of others, and he's buried
Speaker 1: his heart and his feelings within this grim, hyper masculine exterior,
Speaker 1: this nihilistic mindset. But you know, and this is also
Speaker 1: part of sort of the hyper masculine stereotype that yeah,
Speaker 1: we see that that exterior can be pierced and the
Speaker 1: heart of our masculine character can be touched. You know.
Speaker 1: It might be through love, it might be through baseball
Speaker 1: or like a really cool dog, but you know, you can,
Speaker 1: you can reach him, you can make him feel again,
Speaker 1: and inevitably, in a Ritic movie that occurs, Ritic will
Speaker 1: inevitably Ungrinch. His heart will grow, you know, three sizes
Speaker 1: and will still and he'll save the day. But even then,
Speaker 1: we still see throughout these films that he has a code,
Speaker 1: like for the most part, he's only killing in self defense.
Speaker 1: He's not particularly sadistic or anything. He's killing to escape
Speaker 1: or maybe it's like an honor thing, direct retalitative retaliation
Speaker 1: for the depth of a friend, but you know, he's
Speaker 1: a mark with a code, but I would never think
Speaker 1: of him as evil per se.
Speaker 3: Well, in the first film in Pitch Black, they spend
Speaker 3: a big part like the first half of the film,
Speaker 3: he has understood as a brutal, sadistic murderer who will
Speaker 3: kill you the first chance he gets. Like he's a
Speaker 3: prisoner of I think, who is understood to be like
Speaker 3: a police officer at the beginning, but then is revealed
Speaker 3: to be like a sadistic bounty hunter later.
Speaker 1: Played by wings Houser's son.
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh yeah, okay what Cole Hauser?
Speaker 1: I think, wasn't it?
Speaker 3: But yeah, it's the classic, you know, the criminal with
Speaker 3: the heart of gold story, Like at the beginning, he's
Speaker 3: an evil, sadistic murderer who will kill anyone, but then
Speaker 3: he gets a chance to kill the good characters and
Speaker 3: he doesn't and then ends up helping them in the end.
Speaker 3: So he's revealed to actually be a sweetheart. But I'll
Speaker 3: come back to that in a minute. So we open
Speaker 3: on a chase scene. There's a blizzard blasting a man
Speaker 3: in like goggles sort of sunshaded goggles, with a scraggly
Speaker 3: beard and long hair, he's covered in snow. He's running
Speaker 3: over what looks like a chaotic glacier top with like
Speaker 3: patterns of parallel ridges and chasms, so it's sort of
Speaker 3: like the top of a maze made of ice. He's
Speaker 3: running on top of the walls of the maze and
Speaker 3: he is pursued by a spaceship. We get a little
Speaker 3: title that says UV System Planet six. And inside the
Speaker 3: spaceship there's Billy Bedlam. That's what's his name from Conair?
Speaker 3: What is his name? Chinlund? Chinlund?
Speaker 1: Yeah, playing tombs, tombs, And.
Speaker 3: So he's flying the spaceship. He's got a couple of
Speaker 3: gunners and they are chasing down the running Man, trying
Speaker 3: to shoot him with these wire spider webs to capture him.
Speaker 3: But the running Man is too fast, he's too crafty.
Speaker 3: He keeps faking them out.
Speaker 1: Yeah again, Tims is terrific. He's responsible for some of
Speaker 1: the most cheeseball lines in the whole picture. And Chinlan
Speaker 1: is just all the I'm giving us the maximum tombs
Speaker 1: experience you got to admire.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I guess the filmmakers are trying to fake
Speaker 3: us out for a second here with the hair and
Speaker 3: the beard but I mean, could this be anybody other
Speaker 3: than Riddick? And then toom says Riddish.
Speaker 1: Now, one of the things I love about novelizations of films,
Speaker 1: And I don't I mean, I mean, I'm not a
Speaker 1: It's rare that I'll actually pick one up. But I
Speaker 1: just happened to see this once I grabbed it. But
Speaker 1: I love this weird exercise of this being written at
Speaker 1: some earlier stage of production. And you get a little
Speaker 1: insight maybe into earlier visions of the film and earlier
Speaker 1: versions of the screenplay, as well as the author's attempt
Speaker 1: to make it all work as text as literature as
Speaker 1: opposed to just the visual medium of film and this
Speaker 1: and there are always some interesting nuggets like this. For instance,
Speaker 1: in the Alan Dean Foster novelization, Ridick is wearing space
Speaker 1: yety boots and a space yety hide in this opening
Speaker 1: that he got from slaying a space yety, and that's
Speaker 1: how he's been hiding out on this planet. Anyone looking
Speaker 1: into deaths on this world have been like, well, you know,
Speaker 1: these mercenaries were killed, but they were clearly killed by
Speaker 1: a space yety. Look at these space yety tracks.
Speaker 3: So he's disguised as a space yety right, yeah, shriek
Speaker 3: of the necromongered.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Oh, I guess they dropped that before
Speaker 1: they even filmed it, because I was playing close attention
Speaker 1: to the boots here and he's definitely just wearing boots
Speaker 1: and not big ridiculous like space yety feet.
Speaker 3: That is a real shame they discarded that. No, instead,
Speaker 3: he just looks like a yetti because he's got a
Speaker 3: long hair and a beard instead of his classic smooth
Speaker 3: Riddick look. So Riddick lures the space ship into a cave,
Speaker 3: Tombs flies in after him, despite warnings from the gunners
Speaker 3: that it is too tight, but he says this is
Speaker 3: going to be the biggest payday ever. But in the
Speaker 3: winding dark channels of the cave, Riddick manages to take
Speaker 3: out the two gunners on the sides of the ship
Speaker 3: as it flies by. And then there's another dude inside
Speaker 3: the ship who's just like, oh, I'm scared, and in
Speaker 3: a quivering voice, he's like, he just he ghosted two
Speaker 3: guys and I never even saw him. So it's your classic,
Speaker 3: you know. I am frightened by the power and skills
Speaker 3: of our protagonist kind of line.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that's the whole Riddic deal, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: he's he's always portrayed as highly capable and just outclassing
Speaker 1: most human beings he comes into contact with.
Speaker 3: So the scared guy goes outside side hatch with a gun,
Speaker 3: starts looking around for Riddick, but he outsmarts them again.
Speaker 3: Riddick is on top of the ship. They actually this
Speaker 3: happens multiple times in the movie where people are like
Speaker 3: looking out of some aperture at the world and they're
Speaker 3: like looking for Riddick, but Riddick is on top of
Speaker 3: whatever they're looking out of.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you gotta pan up if you want to find
Speaker 1: the Riddic.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So he like grabs the bounty hunter, throws him
Speaker 3: down into the chasm below, and then he's inside the
Speaker 3: ship alone with tombs and Vin Diesel said. The first
Speaker 3: thing he says here, he goes, you made three mistakes. First,
Speaker 3: you took the job, Second, you came light a four
Speaker 3: man crew for me. And for some reason, here's where
Speaker 3: they choose to use their movie the movie's f bomb,
Speaker 3: he says, insulting, but then he goes, but the worst
Speaker 3: mistake you made, and then Toom's lunges for the gunrack
Speaker 3: to get a gun, but there's nothing there, and Riddick
Speaker 3: explains the third mistake is empty gun rack. So Riddick
Speaker 3: now has control of the ship. Welcome to con Air,
Speaker 3: and so he wants to know, you know, what's the
Speaker 3: bounty on his head? Turns out its one point five million.
Speaker 3: Ridick wants to know who put the bounty on him.
Speaker 3: It's anonymous, but it came from the planet he Leon Prime,
Speaker 3: and Riddick knows something about that. And then finally he says,
Speaker 3: whose ship is this and Tomb says mine, and Riddick
Speaker 3: says wrong answer, throws him out of the ship and
Speaker 3: then blasts off. So they want to establish early on
Speaker 3: Riddick is bringing that attitude.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean Riddick had has tons of
Speaker 1: those attitude laden one liners in this film, and there's
Speaker 1: at least one scene in which he one liners and
Speaker 1: then drops his deal with it shades literally yeah, And
Speaker 1: I think that sums up a lot about the picture
Speaker 1: and the character, like that's that Rittic energy.
Speaker 3: So now Riddick narrates, he says, I knew they'd come
Speaker 3: for me. It took them five years but I knew
Speaker 3: you don't expect these merks to have any honor, any code.
Speaker 3: But this new bounty from a holy man, a guy
Speaker 3: whose neck eye saved well, Lesson learned no such word
Speaker 3: as friend can only end bad when you let someone
Speaker 3: get too close, bad for them. So now it's back
Speaker 3: to civilization. All the brightness and everything I hate just
Speaker 3: wanted to be left alone. So here's where I wanted
Speaker 3: to come back to the issue of Riddick's alignment. I
Speaker 3: think this monologue is part of something that movies of
Speaker 3: this particular sort have to deal with, which is what
Speaker 3: I would call the align arc reset. So the alignment
Speaker 3: arch is, you know what I already described, like movies
Speaker 3: and other stories that have a criminal protagonist often have
Speaker 3: an arc where the character starts off mean and cold
Speaker 3: and totally self interested, or at least you perceive them
Speaker 3: that way, and then by the end of the story
Speaker 3: they are revealed to have a heart of gold. In
Speaker 3: some way they either become or reveal themselves to be
Speaker 3: kind and helpful. It's a fun arc and it feels good,
Speaker 3: but you've got a problem if you want to do
Speaker 3: a sequel to a movie like that, because the heart
Speaker 3: of Gold was already revealed by the end of the
Speaker 3: previous movie. So I think often in a case with
Speaker 3: a movie like Chronicles of Ritic, the writers have to
Speaker 3: do some work to kind of reset the character, to
Speaker 3: re establish them as cold or mean, or cynical or
Speaker 3: self interested at the beginning of the next story, so
Speaker 3: that the evil to good or at least you know,
Speaker 3: sort of anti social to good alignment arch can be
Speaker 3: accomplished again. And I think that's kind of what's going
Speaker 3: on here. Ridick was saving lives at the end of
Speaker 3: Pitch Black, so now he's like, I have learned the
Speaker 3: lesson not to trust in friendship. My alignment is now reset.
Speaker 3: Does that make sense?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, I mean it's it Also it makes
Speaker 1: I think it also makes sense from like, you know,
Speaker 1: a character standpoint, It's like, Okay, you know, maybe he's
Speaker 1: relapsed into evil, or maybe that whole Heart of Gold
Speaker 1: thing was just that was just a quirk, you know, fluke. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was a fluke. You know, he's still actually evil.
Speaker 1: And then ultimately, like you got to tell a story
Speaker 1: about this guy. You need a new character arc. You
Speaker 1: can't just be like, oh, he's good now, and he's
Speaker 1: good for the entire picture. So yeah, this reset makes sense.
Speaker 3: Also in the scene, Ridick is doing some kind of
Speaker 3: medical thing to himself and it looks like a kind
Speaker 3: of alien dialysis where he's cycling his blood through tubes
Speaker 3: with this blue liquid.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think he's getting ready for space travel. I
Speaker 1: think in the first movie too, space travel, hyper sleep,
Speaker 1: cryo sleep, whatever they call it, and this one, you know,
Speaker 1: it's kind of like a hot sleep. It's not pleasant.
Speaker 1: One note that my wife had on this film is
Speaker 1: too much part of it with me or rewatch part
Speaker 1: of it with me over lunch the other day is
Speaker 1: that travel through space and this is depicted as challenging
Speaker 1: and hard, which is I think an interesting choice. I mean,
Speaker 1: the necromonger seemed to have an easy time of it,
Speaker 1: but for everyone else, for the Merks, it's pretty hot
Speaker 1: and painful looking.
Speaker 3: Okay, So Ritick arrives on Helion Prime and also happens
Speaker 3: to wreck a local police ship on the way in.
Speaker 3: I don't know why. I guess they're just showing he's
Speaker 3: bad again, like he just sort of does.
Speaker 1: An entire establishment.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and this is where Keith David lives in a
Speaker 3: city called New Mecca on Helion Prime. And so we
Speaker 3: see Keith David walking around the marketplace, arriving at his
Speaker 3: home only to find Vin Diesel already in his house
Speaker 3: shaving his head. Now, this is the smooth muscle man
Speaker 3: we are familiar, you're with he is he is smooth
Speaker 3: once more. Now, this is the first scene in the
Speaker 3: movie where we see Riddick's eyes shine where his pupils
Speaker 3: are kind of shining in the dark. Uh, do you
Speaker 3: want to explain that that concept?
Speaker 1: Rob? Yeah? I think the idea here is that Riddick
Speaker 1: uh had his eyes were replaced or souped up on
Speaker 1: a prison planet where the prisoners had to work in
Speaker 1: the dark. And so they were like, well they got
Speaker 1: to work in the dark, let's give them all, you know,
Speaker 1: night vision. Let's give them let's give them all goggles
Speaker 1: a night right there, and their their eyeballs. I don't
Speaker 1: think it's part of being a Furian. Being a Furian
Speaker 1: is all about being from a planetary group of humans
Speaker 1: noted for their warrior skills and resistance. As we'll learn,
Speaker 1: and if you're watching the director's cut, it also gives
Speaker 1: you weird energy power. So that's that's a different cut
Speaker 1: of the film.
Speaker 3: Uh yeah, I think I I think he says in
Speaker 3: the movie that they did this to him with his eyes,
Speaker 3: so I think it was a surgical procedure, and it
Speaker 3: has the cont so he can see in the dark,
Speaker 3: and that comes in multiple scenes where he's like fighting
Speaker 3: people in a dark room and all he can see.
Speaker 3: But also it means that he has to wear those
Speaker 3: goggles whenever there's light because the light hurts his eyes.
Speaker 1: Honestly, this is something that always confuses me and seems
Speaker 1: needlessly complex with comic book characters where they have an
Speaker 1: origin story where it's like, well, first, these are the
Speaker 1: crazy things that I was either born with or got
Speaker 1: via exposure to radiation, But then I also got these
Speaker 1: other things, so that's like, yeah, the Spider Man, it's like, well,
Speaker 1: radioactive Spider bit me, and now I can climb on walls,
Speaker 1: and then also I invented highly advanced web shooting technology
Speaker 1: to strap under my wrists. Or Wolverine has a similar
Speaker 1: thing where it's like, well, I was born like this,
Speaker 1: and then oh yeah, they replaced my bones with adamantium
Speaker 1: or coated them or whatever the case is, and it's
Speaker 1: like that's a lot of staffs guys.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. So Riddick confronts Imam about the bounty on
Speaker 3: his head and he threatens him with a knife, and
Speaker 3: Immam explains that he had to find him because it
Speaker 3: was a matter of saving the universe. So he takes
Speaker 3: him out that night to show him what he means.
Speaker 3: There's this giant white shape burning in the night sky,
Speaker 3: and he says, it is said that the comet always
Speaker 3: precedes them, these world enders. The Coalsack planets are gone,
Speaker 3: eight million settlers are missing, the entire aqualin system has gone. Too.
Speaker 3: My god, how do I save my family? And so
Speaker 3: you know, he's describing how the whole universe is going
Speaker 3: to be destroyed by the Necromongers, and Riddick says had
Speaker 3: to end sometime.
Speaker 1: Now. This moment with the comet, I always like this,
Speaker 1: And we see a shot either here or later where
Speaker 1: we I think it's later we see the comet, and
Speaker 1: I think it gives a weird astrological bent to the
Speaker 1: impending arrival of the Necromongers, and it helps drive this
Speaker 1: kind of ancient world model of into planetary human civilization
Speaker 1: that we see in the film, because while the world
Speaker 1: building is not always like super overt we're not shown
Speaker 1: maps of star systems and so forth. You know, there's
Speaker 1: this sense of planets as ancient city states. And there's
Speaker 1: also this clear clear importance of merks or mercenaries in
Speaker 1: the franchise and supposedly the larger universe as well. So
Speaker 1: while it seems that planets do have planetary defense forces,
Speaker 1: in this universe, mercenaries fill in vital gaps, and I
Speaker 1: think we could also easily imagine how something like the
Speaker 1: Necromongers evolve out of like powerful stateless militaries that are
Speaker 1: important for this interplanetary balance. Anyway, I do. I like
Speaker 1: little subtle moments like this regarding the necro mind. There's
Speaker 1: another one later with some prison guards where they just
Speaker 1: talk like it's just hearsay, there's no hard information. They're like, well,
Speaker 1: they say, there's there's a force out there. Like it's
Speaker 1: not like in Star Wars, where so often it's like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: the Empire. You guys know the Empire, right, Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: they're bad. It's like there's a lot of a lot
Speaker 1: of mystery surrounding what is happening in the world, and
Speaker 1: you get the sense that these planets are very disconnected
Speaker 1: from each other.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but we're about to get some more solid information
Speaker 3: because Judy Dench is about to show up. So the
Speaker 3: people who ultimately place the bounty on Riddick, they show
Speaker 3: up and explain things. It's like three guys in robes
Speaker 3: with hoods and Judy Dinch and she she kind of
Speaker 3: morphs into being out of gusts of wind and explains
Speaker 3: that she is an elemental being called named Arion, and
Speaker 3: then Riddick puts a knife to her throat.
Speaker 1: Once you get to know Riddick, you know, that's just
Speaker 1: what he does. That's that's like, this means he likes you.
Speaker 3: It's how he says hello, Yeah, knife to your throat
Speaker 3: and she explains some backstory. Okay, we got the Necromongers.
Speaker 3: They're a scourge, a militaristic religious cult goes from planet
Speaker 3: to planet, converting everybody to their faith of secrets from
Speaker 3: beyond death and killing everyone who will not convert. There
Speaker 3: is a planet who stood up to them, the only
Speaker 3: one so far, called the Furians. The Furians were all
Speaker 3: destroyed by the Necromongers, all but one, a young male
Speaker 3: Furian named Riddick, and Judy Dinch thinks Riddick is the
Speaker 3: last Furian warrior left alive and the only person in
Speaker 3: the galaxy who can stop the Lord Marshall.
Speaker 1: Oh, sounds like we got ourselves a prophecy.
Speaker 3: That's right. So they're interrupted when soldiers come to the
Speaker 3: house looking for a quote spy that was seen arriving earlier.
Speaker 3: So I guess that part seems a little off, like,
Speaker 3: wouldn't Riddick be able to sneak in undetected? It seems
Speaker 3: weird that they saw him, but they did, and so
Speaker 3: the soldiers come in to arrest him. But then Riddick
Speaker 3: snuffs out some candles so the room is dark, and
Speaker 3: then beats them all up in the dark, so we
Speaker 3: see him, you know, this is sort of his thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's like, oh yeah, there's a great scene where
Speaker 1: he puts his hands over the candles and he's like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm turning out the lights now. And it's like a
Speaker 1: plus five to every attack.
Speaker 3: So Ridick also finds out some other stuff that the
Speaker 3: other survivor from the first movie, the young girl named Jack,
Speaker 3: she went looking for him, and she was last heard
Speaker 3: of going to the planet Crematoria, where it is too
Speaker 3: hot to set foot on the surface, and there's a
Speaker 3: general sense that Riddick somehow let her down, like he
Speaker 3: was supposed to watch out for her. She idolized him,
Speaker 3: but he went on to do crimes or something. Then
Speaker 3: there's more attacking. The Necromongers attack the planet and there's
Speaker 3: a fierce battle. The Necromongers they drop their space fascist
Speaker 3: iron skyscraper on the city and then they fly over
Speaker 3: in airships, bombarding everything with heavy artillery. The soldiers of
Speaker 3: Helion Prime try to put up a fight, but they
Speaker 3: are no match for the overwhelming force of the Necromongar fleet.
Speaker 3: The defending army is crushed and the Necromongers capture the city.
Speaker 3: So there's a bunch of action going on here. I
Speaker 3: don't know if you want to focus on anything that
Speaker 3: happens in this part. One is the revelation of these
Speaker 3: weird creatures that, like the Necromonger troopers with pink purple
Speaker 3: scuba masks that allow them to I think see anything alive,
Speaker 3: Is that right?
Speaker 1: Yeah? They have you know, enhanced vision kind of like
Speaker 1: I think you've described as predator vision.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Notes, So these are these are lensers and they're
Speaker 1: not really there's not nothing, not a lot of backstory
Speaker 1: to what these guys are other than what you see
Speaker 1: in the film. But Alan Dene Foster describes them as
Speaker 1: necromongers who, after catastrophic injuries, have been repurposed into these
Speaker 1: altered sensed tracking units. Necromongers, we should if it's not
Speaker 1: clear yet. They apparently can't feel pain. That's part of
Speaker 1: the necromonger process. If you are converted, if your planet
Speaker 1: is conquered, and you join the ranks, they do some
Speaker 1: horrible things to you. You can no longer feel pain.
Speaker 1: You not afraid of death, but if you get too
Speaker 1: messed up, they might repurpose you into some other task
Speaker 1: within the empire.
Speaker 3: M Okay, well, here, I think the movie can't wait
Speaker 3: as long as Pitch Black did to reveal that no
Speaker 3: Rittic is actually good, because he starts already doing heroic stuff,
Speaker 3: like a mom's wife and daughter are threatened by the
Speaker 3: lensors and then Riddick saves them. He crushes one necromonger's
Speaker 3: head with his hands, and so he's generally sort of
Speaker 3: coming to the rescue in this sequence.
Speaker 1: Now I can go on it not about things I
Speaker 1: like about the Necromongers because I think they're they're pretty cool,
Speaker 1: but also, like you can, you can probably take issue
Speaker 1: with some of what you see regarding their military tactics.
Speaker 1: Like Necromonger troops are big on using things like halbards
Speaker 1: and maces and knives. They also have some manner of
Speaker 1: force gun but there they seem to be largely you know,
Speaker 1: melee shock troops, backed up by overpowering aerial support from
Speaker 1: these various space ships, so they're they're not afraid to die.
Speaker 1: They're supposed to inspire the conquered as well, where afterwards
Speaker 1: they're like, hey, do you want to join up and
Speaker 1: become like these super soldiers And you're like, okay, I guess.
Speaker 1: So they seem like they seem like they're pretty powerful,
Speaker 1: but yeah, if you put up even a little bit
Speaker 1: of a fight, they're going to kill you right away.
Speaker 1: And I feel like I'm a little vague on exactly
Speaker 1: exactly what death means for the non believer in the
Speaker 1: Necroism religion. It I'm not sure if if like, if
Speaker 1: they kill you, do you get to go to Underverse
Speaker 1: or is it only I your believer and you die
Speaker 1: you get to go to I'm not sure.
Speaker 3: I don't know so anyway, Unfortunately, Keith David is killed,
Speaker 3: but he says, like to the to the Necromonger commander
Speaker 3: who kills him, he says, there will be an afterlife
Speaker 3: for me? Will there be for you? And then the
Speaker 3: next day we see the Necromongers surveying their victory, and
Speaker 3: we meet new Necromonger characters. So this is Carl Urban
Speaker 3: and ten dy Way Newton as Voco and Dame Voco,
Speaker 3: and she is like, man, I love the smell of
Speaker 3: Necro in the morning. Isn't it great when another empire falls? Yep?
Speaker 3: We also meet Linus Roach as the Necromannger priest. He's
Speaker 3: like giving a sermon to the civilian prisoners standing before
Speaker 3: him about how great it is to convert to the
Speaker 3: Necromonger religion. It's very much I was once like you,
Speaker 3: you know, fractured all the you know. It's sort of
Speaker 3: a speech against diversity. He's all like, all, you know,
Speaker 3: all you people come from different backgrounds, different places, different religions.
Speaker 3: Wouldn't it be great to all be all one thing,
Speaker 3: to just be Necromonger, and so we can take away
Speaker 3: your pain and you can be one of us. And
Speaker 3: then a guy stands up and he's like, we sorry,
Speaker 3: we all have our different religious beliefs, but we're not
Speaker 3: going to be converted to yours. And then the Lord
Speaker 3: Marshall looks at this guy and he's like, then I'll
Speaker 3: take your soul and just rips his soul out. He
Speaker 3: rips out like a ghost of the guy.
Speaker 1: That guy, by the way, is a recognizable Canadian actor,
Speaker 1: Christopher hayer Doll, who's been in a bunch of things
Speaker 1: if anyone recognizes him. But yeah, this may be our
Speaker 1: first look at the Lord Marshall's strange powers, brought on
Speaker 1: by his half dead status via a journey to the
Speaker 1: threshold of the Underverse. So these are I really like
Speaker 1: these effects. They're very fluid shadow movements that allow him
Speaker 1: to position his astral body ahead of his physical body
Speaker 1: and it creates a neat visual motif on the screen.
Speaker 1: But then what it's relating to us is that he
Speaker 1: moves super fast and it allows him to sort of
Speaker 1: look in two places at once and almost be in
Speaker 1: two places at once. It's more than most people can handle.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so after this, it's like, oh, everybody's like, I
Speaker 3: don't want to get my soul ripped out. So everybody
Speaker 3: kneels except one guy. Oh it's Riddick. He's not kneeling,
Speaker 3: but what but he did get ushered into the room
Speaker 3: with all the other prisoners. I guess, I don't know,
Speaker 3: and he says, I bow to no man. So Riddick
Speaker 3: picks a fight with the huge soldier who killed Keith
Speaker 3: David and then stabs him in the heart.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's this weird bit with a dagger embedded in
Speaker 1: the big soldier's back. And I always took this to
Speaker 1: be something from the battle, like, you know, like maybe
Speaker 1: they can't feel pain or it's just stuck in the
Speaker 1: armor but not his back, and that Riddick takes strategic
Speaker 1: advantage of this. But in the novelization, Alan Dene Foster
Speaker 1: is like, oh no, no, this dagger got sunk into
Speaker 1: his back in a previous battle. Oh and he left
Speaker 1: it there as a symbol of his devotion to Necroism.
Speaker 3: This is how much I love Necroism. Yeah, not even
Speaker 3: going to take the knife.
Speaker 1: Out, which is strange, but again we're dealing with what's
Speaker 1: supposed to be a strange religion.
Speaker 3: So so so Riddick kills that guy and The Lord
Speaker 3: Marshall is impressed by this, so he goes up to
Speaker 3: talk to Ridick and he shows him the dagger. He says,
Speaker 3: what do you think of this blade? And then I
Speaker 3: laughed out loud at the CGI two thousand and four
Speaker 3: CGI blade spinning in Riddick's hand. I didn't, yeah, And
Speaker 3: Ridick is like, it's a half a gram heavy on
Speaker 3: the back end, and the Lord Marshall offers him the dagger.
Speaker 3: He's like, in our faith, you keep what you kill. H.
Speaker 3: So that's something to keep in mind because that'll play
Speaker 3: into the plot later. So it's like, he killed this guy,
Speaker 3: you get his dagger. But then Lord Marshall's like, anyway,
Speaker 3: take him to my ship for mind regression and h.
Speaker 3: Then Dame Vako she comes up. She starts walking around
Speaker 3: Riddick and just like oozing Breathy's seduction at him. Riddick says,
Speaker 3: it's been a long time since I smelled beautiful.
Speaker 1: Oh, this may be goofiest cheeseball line of dialogue in
Speaker 1: the entire film. And there's some tough competition.
Speaker 3: I don't even know what that means though.
Speaker 1: Like she's beautiful and he hasn't been around beautiful in
Speaker 1: a while, and beautiful has its own smell. Okay, but
Speaker 1: also clearly he hasn't talked to women in a while either,
Speaker 1: and doesn't really know how it works. I don't know.
Speaker 1: Riddick is supposed to also have his own natural charisma
Speaker 1: and whatever. Yeah, now that Cgi Blakesman. Do you think
Speaker 1: there are like multiple takes where Vin Diesel tried to
Speaker 1: do it on his own and just drop the like
Speaker 1: plastic prop dagger all over the place, and then they're like,
Speaker 1: don't worry, we'll fix it in post.
Speaker 3: I don't know, that's a good question, but yeah, so anyway,
Speaker 3: he so now he first he's like, I bow to
Speaker 3: no one, but then Dame Voco is like, come to
Speaker 3: the ship for mind regression, and he does.
Speaker 1: This is a part where the novelization, I think, you know,
Speaker 1: Alan Dene Foster maybe put in a little extra work
Speaker 1: to make it makes make a little more sense, where
Speaker 1: it's like he walks aboard and he's kind of like
Speaker 1: taken him by the grandeur of things, and then he's
Speaker 1: kind of like, you know, tricked into going into the
Speaker 1: mind regression chamber, whereas in the movie Proper, she's kind
Speaker 1: of like, hey, come on in here, big boy. Okay,
Speaker 1: stand here, I'm going to walk outside the mind regression
Speaker 1: chamber while they flip that big scary switch.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And so they put him in the mind regression chamber,
Speaker 3: and this causes him to interface with these ghostlike people
Speaker 3: stuck in gold machines that are called the quasi Deads.
Speaker 1: Well, now, according to Alan den Foster, these are actually
Speaker 1: the greater quasi Deads used for kind of mental interrogation,
Speaker 1: while the normal quasi deads or quasis are used for
Speaker 1: psychic communication across space. Oh okay, so I like those
Speaker 1: additional details, you know, little extra world building.
Speaker 3: Well, the Greater Quasi Deads read his mind and they
Speaker 3: discovered the backstory about the Furians that he learned earlier.
Speaker 3: And then they learned the prophecy that the last Furian
Speaker 3: will destroy them. And then they start freaking out and
Speaker 3: they like shatter these glass pieces that they're connected to,
Speaker 3: and they just start going kill the Riddick, Kill the Riddick,
Speaker 3: And so the Necromongers try, but you know, it's Riddick.
Speaker 3: He fights his way out, but unfortunately it's weird. He
Speaker 3: fights his way out of the Necromonger hive, makes his
Speaker 3: way to the ground of the planet, only to be
Speaker 3: immediately recaptured by tombs and a group of bounty hunters.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I like this, this, this detail that because it's
Speaker 1: also kind of like he's saved by them. He's saved
Speaker 1: by the other, the lesser threat that is after him,
Speaker 1: and he's kind of like, okay, yes, you got me,
Speaker 1: go ahead and take me off planet.
Speaker 3: So they take him to the prison planet of Crematoria
Speaker 3: to collect a bounty. And what do you know, isn't
Speaker 3: that where Jack went looking for him earlier.
Speaker 1: Now it's Crematoria in the Metallica system.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is their new album. Uh it's pronounced Crematoria.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So the Lord Marshall sends Voco to go out hunting
Speaker 3: for him, and there is a scene with Dame Voco
Speaker 3: and she's putting on makeup, but her makeup is like
Speaker 3: a hot iron. She's like burning her eyelids, so her
Speaker 3: eyeliner is a hot iron burn. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure exactly how this is supposed to work.
Speaker 1: They don't feel pain, but that's true.
Speaker 3: So she's egging on her husband. She says, you know,
Speaker 3: the Lord Marshall knows he's not half the warrior you are.
Speaker 3: Some say he's too artistic for the job. What does
Speaker 3: that mean, I have no idea, she says, I wouldn't
Speaker 3: be surprised if someone soon promoted him to full dead.
Speaker 3: That's good.
Speaker 1: Yeah. It also this also drives something like the kind
Speaker 1: of questions you have, like about the necromonger's relationship with death,
Speaker 1: like how much of it is this whole magic other
Speaker 1: realm of strange energy, and how much of it is
Speaker 1: like sort of the traditional religious fascinating with an after
Speaker 1: life and and the worship of death.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so she wants her husband Vocco to kill the
Speaker 3: Lord Marshall and take his place, because the Necromonger ways
Speaker 3: that whoever kills Lord Marshall becomes the new Lord Marshall.
Speaker 3: And you know what, I think that's a bad system
Speaker 3: for electing leaders.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it doesn't. It probably doesn't make for a
Speaker 1: stable work environment. And that's that's not really what we
Speaker 1: see here.
Speaker 3: I mean, I guess you just not create the right
Speaker 3: incentives for leadership.
Speaker 1: Yeah. This is another case where Alan Dean Foster does
Speaker 1: a good job in the appendix to the book, weaving
Speaker 1: this into the history of the movement, particularly as a
Speaker 1: way that the Necromongers had to handle a really delicate
Speaker 1: transition from the third to the fourth regime. So like,
Speaker 1: basically one guy kills the Necromonger leader and becomes the
Speaker 1: new leader, and then they have to smooth it over
Speaker 1: by saying, well, actually, did not our founder say you
Speaker 1: keep what you kill? Therefore I'm in the clear on
Speaker 1: this one.
Speaker 3: Perfect. Okay, So Riddick in the Merks who caught him
Speaker 3: arrive on Crematoria, Billy Bedlam says a line like if
Speaker 3: I owned this place and hell, I'd rent this place
Speaker 3: out and live in Hell. Yeah, I get the sentiment.
Speaker 3: It's a little clunky. I don't know it could have
Speaker 3: workshopped that one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is a line. It feels like it takes
Speaker 1: forever for him to roll out. It's a long walk
Speaker 1: for less impact than was intended. And I think this
Speaker 1: is a pup part where Tombs is coming in strong,
Speaker 1: challenging Reddick for Riddick for cheeseball line of the film.
Speaker 1: This's a real groner.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they take Riddick to the prison. So on this planet, basically,
Speaker 3: on the night side, it's okay, but on the day side,
Speaker 3: the sun will roast anything in its path. It's just
Speaker 3: bombing the surface with fire. So they take Ridick to
Speaker 3: the prison and they lower him down on the like rope,
Speaker 3: and then while the bounty hunters are haggling about the
Speaker 3: price with the prison warden, random prisoners just start attacking
Speaker 3: Riddick until they are chain whipped by Jack, who reveals that, oh,
Speaker 3: she's here in the prison. She changed her name to Kirah,
Speaker 3: and she is now prison tough. And so we see
Speaker 3: that in action when there's a thing where they the
Speaker 3: prison wardens say a feeding time, but that doesn't mean
Speaker 3: what you would assume. It means that the guards unleash
Speaker 3: these stone panthers on the prisoners, who all like scramble
Speaker 3: for hiding places, except Kira, who just seems to enjoy
Speaker 3: like taunting and beating up the panthers. And then there's
Speaker 3: a scene where one of them is creeping up on
Speaker 3: Riddick and you think it's gonna eat Riddick, but then
Speaker 3: all buddy, they end up bonding and Riddick's like scratching
Speaker 3: him behind the ears and it's adorable.
Speaker 1: Oh and then he belts out another wonderful line of dialogue. Real,
Speaker 1: oh lord, moment.
Speaker 3: Yeah, somebody's looking at him like rough house and having
Speaker 3: a good time with this panther that was previously eating prisoners,
Speaker 3: and Riddick just goes, it's an animal thing.
Speaker 1: There's another scene earlier on where they're in they're taking
Speaker 1: Riddick in on this train and you know, he kills
Speaker 1: somebody in the way in and you know, and all
Speaker 1: this and he's tapping his foot and then when they
Speaker 1: get there, he says to himself something like eight point
Speaker 1: three kilometers like he's been oh yeah, timing it out.
Speaker 1: And he's like, ah, Riddick, you're too good.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he counted the distance so that he and that'll
Speaker 3: come in later when they escape. So oh yeah, a
Speaker 3: Riddic and Kira have to sort of rebond. So there's
Speaker 3: like a scene where some prison guards are attacking Kira
Speaker 3: and then Riddick comes to the rescue and runs them off.
Speaker 3: This is the I'm going to kill you with the
Speaker 3: tea cup scene.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he places the tea cup down and has a
Speaker 1: standoff and then does kill them with the tea cup.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, at first they're like, you're gonna kill me
Speaker 3: with your soup cup and he goes, it's tea I'm
Speaker 3: going to kill you with my tea cup, which is nice.
Speaker 3: And then there's a funny moment where he appears to
Speaker 3: be threatening them with like the key to open a tunican.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, the whole scene's grown inducing, but when he
Speaker 1: busts out the tunic can key, I do legitimately laugh,
Speaker 1: as I think is intended.
Speaker 3: Okay, but we get some backstory with Riddick and Kira.
Speaker 3: So Ridick was taking care of her back in New
Speaker 3: Mecca after the first movie, but then he left and
Speaker 3: he told her to stay there where she was safe,
Speaker 3: but she went looking for him. She signed up with mercenaries,
Speaker 3: ended up getting sold into slavery. Now she's here in
Speaker 3: this prison and she is a crispy prison warrior. Meanwhile,
Speaker 3: Ridick is like, I went to snow yetti planet to
Speaker 3: keep the mercenaries who chase me from getting to you.
Speaker 3: So you made a mistake. So they have tension.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they got to work through it. They got to
Speaker 1: kill a bunch of guards and necromongers and that's hopefully
Speaker 1: going to bring them back together.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So later the bounty hunters and the prison guards,
Speaker 3: I'll start shooting each other for some reason. I think
Speaker 3: they're the warden I think is mad about necromongers snooping
Speaker 3: around the planet and this caught. This destruction creates the
Speaker 3: opportunity to allow Riddick and the others to escape. So
Speaker 3: Riddick and Kira, a group of other prisoners start getting
Speaker 3: out of there. Toms is left behind in a cage
Speaker 3: between two alien panthers, screaming ritty.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's great. I think they were originally going to
Speaker 1: kill off Tunes and he dies in the novelization, but yeah,
Speaker 1: they clearly were like, this is too good. We got
Speaker 1: to save this character and hopefully they'll bring him back
Speaker 1: in the next Critic movie.
Speaker 3: So there's a big action sequence where they're like trying
Speaker 3: to escape the planet. You know, they're the guards, are
Speaker 3: taking this tunnel to get to the spaceship to escape,
Speaker 3: but Riddick and company are running over the surface of
Speaker 3: the planet before the sunrise catches them and basically just
Speaker 3: unleashes Napal, these bright orange belches of CGI fire. So
Speaker 3: they're scampering around in lava channels and over rocks trying
Speaker 3: to beat the wardens. Ridic does a lot of hopping
Speaker 3: while he climbs. It's kind of like an uncharted game
Speaker 3: in here, and there are some ridiculous stunts.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I mean the whole this whole sequence is
Speaker 1: clearly a huge action set piece for the film, but
Speaker 1: is also just fundamentally dumb because they are out running
Speaker 1: the sun. They are out running the horizon. And I
Speaker 1: remember years and years ago I looked at like somebody
Speaker 1: like breaking this down about how fast they would have
Speaker 1: to be running to outrun the horizon line of the
Speaker 1: sun coming up.
Speaker 3: But wouldn't you know it, when they finally do get
Speaker 3: back to the ship, here come a bunch of necromongers.
Speaker 3: They're already there. And so we got Carl Urban with
Speaker 3: his like football eyeshadow and the Frankenstein flat top and
Speaker 3: there's Linus Roach looking squirrely scuba mask guys running around.
Speaker 3: And there's another big action set piece where they're like
Speaker 3: fighting the necromongers doing a necromonger beat down while the
Speaker 3: sunrise is just about to explode over the mountains until
Speaker 3: Vaco shows up and gets the upper hand and then
Speaker 3: Riddick is basically he's like left there on the runway,
Speaker 3: you know, to die when the sun hits him.
Speaker 1: There's some great action in this and Vacco gets to
Speaker 1: bust out some wrestling moves too, like closeline somebody and
Speaker 1: does a backbreaker move. So this is a this is fun,
Speaker 1: fun action sequence.
Speaker 3: And Kira sneaks away on the Necromonger ship. So you think, oh, no,
Speaker 3: is Riddick done for Is he's just going to get
Speaker 3: bombed by the sun.
Speaker 1: Is this the end of Riddick.
Speaker 3: Nope, he is saved strangely by Linus Roach, the Necromonger
Speaker 3: priest known as the Purifier, and so he like takes
Speaker 3: him inside, and then when Riddick wakes up, he delivers
Speaker 3: a secret message from the Lord Marshall. He's like, okay, Riddick,
Speaker 3: you just go off somewhere he never come near the
Speaker 3: Necromongers again, and we won't hunt you. You can just
Speaker 3: go your own way. And he says, the necromonger in
Speaker 3: me hopes you stay away, but the fury in in
Speaker 3: me hopes you won't listen. And then I was like,
Speaker 3: oh wait a minute, he's fury in too. I guess
Speaker 3: Ridick is not the only one left after all.
Speaker 1: I guess the rest of the Furians were all either
Speaker 1: destroyed or converted, and so maybe this is one of
Speaker 1: the rare examples of a convert because again that the
Speaker 1: Necromanngers do not believe in procreation. The only way they
Speaker 1: replenish their ranks is by taking some of the conquered
Speaker 1: people that are willing to join the ranks, taking them
Speaker 1: in and then decimating the rest.
Speaker 3: And then he just walks out into the sun and
Speaker 3: immolates himself.
Speaker 1: Three pretty cool, very goth death.
Speaker 3: So all this is leading up to a final confrontation. Obviously,
Speaker 3: Riddick takes the ship. He's going to go back to
Speaker 3: confront the Necromongers, maybe get Kira back. I think that's
Speaker 3: what he wants to do. The Lord Marshall was not
Speaker 3: given a good omen by Judy Densch about whether Riddick
Speaker 3: is still alive or not, so he gets mad. He
Speaker 3: tells his dudes on heally unprime to begin the ascension Protocol,
Speaker 3: and they're like, but our dudes are still all over
Speaker 3: the place, and He's like, I don't care about them
Speaker 3: ascension protocol now and now whenever I want to leave somewhere,
Speaker 3: I'm going to be thinking begin the ascension Protocol. But
Speaker 3: of course Riddick he gets in there. He sneaks onto
Speaker 3: the ship disguised in necromonger armor. Dame Focco sees him
Speaker 3: and she tells Voco she you know that. She's like, hey,
Speaker 3: Riddick's here, and Voco, of course he's very loyal. He
Speaker 3: wants to go warn the Lord Marshall, but she talks
Speaker 3: him out of it. So this kind of a scene
Speaker 3: where they are talking themselves into using Riddick to help
Speaker 3: kill the Lord Marshall so Voco can take over again
Speaker 3: big Macbeth energy. They're like, oh, yeah, yeah, it's for
Speaker 3: the good of the faith.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, I mean her her arguments are pretty pretty solid.
Speaker 1: She's like, look how afraid he is, Like this is weakness.
Speaker 1: We don't need this kind of weakness heading up the
Speaker 1: whole movement here.
Speaker 3: But when Riddick gets this shot, there's like a time
Speaker 3: when the Lord Marshall's back is turned, so he just
Speaker 3: like jumps out of a balcony with two knives in
Speaker 3: his hands and he's just diving at him. It doesn't
Speaker 3: quite get him in that one dive, but it sets
Speaker 3: up the final battle. So now what else could it be.
Speaker 3: It's a big final battle.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I really love this this final battle. We
Speaker 1: get the we get the culmination of prophecy and plotting.
Speaker 1: The sets and costumes are all, of course amazing, and
Speaker 1: the fight tells the story, which is always something that
Speaker 1: I think is essential to a solid fight. You know,
Speaker 1: there's a physical story going on there blow to blow. Also,
Speaker 1: each character seems to have a believable expectation of his opponent.
Speaker 1: Each character is fighting the way they're fighting for a reason,
Speaker 1: Like the Lord Marshall has to has to sort of
Speaker 1: make a show of his dominance. And Riddick, on the
Speaker 1: other hand, knows he is severely overmatched here by the
Speaker 1: holy half dead Lord Marshall, and so he's trying. He
Speaker 1: i think, on two occasions, tries to end it quickly
Speaker 1: and sneakily, you know, first with that big flying attack,
Speaker 1: and then he throws a knife at him later on
Speaker 1: while he's speaking, you know, so he knows he's got
Speaker 1: to fight dirty if he's got anything like a shot.
Speaker 3: But then, of course there are interventions, so the Lord
Speaker 3: Marshall can like teleport, so you know, so Riddick can't
Speaker 3: beat him alone, but he gets some help from Kira
Speaker 3: and from Voco.
Speaker 1: Right right, because Kira has like her loyalties tested, she
Speaker 1: has a change of heart, it seems, but then she's
Speaker 1: just killed by the Lord Marshall out of hand. Voco,
Speaker 1: on the other hand, is like, you know, he's being
Speaker 1: pushed to greatness. You know, there's no way that Voco
Speaker 1: could take out the Lord Marshall on his own. But
Speaker 1: if the Lord Marshall is distracted and or injured by Riddick, well,
Speaker 1: then there's his opportunity. And then it's it's I like
Speaker 1: the way it plays out, because there's not a real
Speaker 1: clear sense that you know who's going to win here,
Speaker 1: or that it's going to end the way that it
Speaker 1: ultimately does, because ultimately, yeah, there's no way Riddick could
Speaker 1: win this battle on his own. There's no way Voco could.
Speaker 1: There's no way Riddick and Voco would ever team up.
Speaker 1: But the double threat they end up posing to the
Speaker 1: Lord Marshall here is too much even for his speed
Speaker 1: and ability. So he can stay one step ahead of anyone,
Speaker 1: but he can't stay two steps ahead, and so ultimately
Speaker 1: Riddick pulls off a lucky death below because as Voco
Speaker 1: is coming to execute the Lord Marshall and claim the
Speaker 1: throne for himself, Lord Marshall does his shadow teleport thing
Speaker 1: out of the way to grab a weapon, and that's
Speaker 1: where Ridick is, and he does a cool kill maneuver
Speaker 1: where he stabs him to the top of the head
Speaker 1: with the blade and snaps it off.
Speaker 3: So Ridick gets him instead of Voco. And then you
Speaker 3: see Lady Vodco. She unleashes the no oh.
Speaker 1: God, and I'm serious, like it is the most like riveting,
Speaker 1: like you feel that no in your bones. It's this.
Speaker 1: This is I love these little moments where you get
Speaker 1: to see an actor take a very what could be
Speaker 1: very throwaway and forgettable, especially in a genre movie, to
Speaker 1: see them just really like wrench their guts out and
Speaker 1: the audience's guts out with that moment.
Speaker 3: And hey, so Ridick, you remember the Necromonger way you
Speaker 3: keep what you kill, So now Riddick is the Lord
Speaker 3: Marshall of the Neckromonger Empire. Just turns to Vin Diesel
Speaker 3: and kneels before him.
Speaker 1: It's i mean rules, his rules.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's great.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it's like a thoroughly you know, conan Esque,
Speaker 1: over the top grim dark ending where it's like, yep,
Speaker 1: it looks like our hero did succeed in overcoming the
Speaker 1: dark evil threat that threatened the universe, but he did
Speaker 1: so by becoming the head of it. And so it
Speaker 1: kind of raises the question what kind of Lord Marshall
Speaker 1: will he be? Will he be completely overtaken by necroism,
Speaker 1: will he become even worse than that which he opposed,
Speaker 1: or is there some way that he's going to be
Speaker 1: able to subvert the movement or is it just going
Speaker 1: to cause enough chaos at the top of the necro
Speaker 1: Monger order that it's just going to cause fractures and
Speaker 1: so forth.
Speaker 3: All great questions. And there is a third movie, but
Speaker 3: I haven't seen it, so I can't answer them.
Speaker 1: Well, the third movie, like I said, ultimately is a
Speaker 1: lower budget affair that I get the impression does not
Speaker 1: go as hard as they wanted to go. Like I
Speaker 1: bet the second script that's locked up behind that lock,
Speaker 1: I bet it was as epic as this one and
Speaker 1: had a lot more Necromonger stuff, and like clearly they
Speaker 1: like they had to do something a little more stripped
Speaker 1: down for the third movie. I'm just hoping that that
Speaker 1: fourth movie brings it back to this Flash Gordon level
Speaker 1: that that I love.
Speaker 3: Okay, Well, I think that's all I can say. About
Speaker 3: Chronicles Ridick.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, there's a there's a lot lot more we
Speaker 1: could say, there's there's so many there's so many wonderful
Speaker 1: moments and so many goofy lines. Uh, this film's a
Speaker 1: lot of fun. So we'd love to hear from everyone
Speaker 1: out there if you have thoughts on the Chronicles of
Speaker 1: Ritick or pitch Black or Riddick or any of the
Speaker 1: various films and actors that we've discussed here. Uh yeah,
Speaker 1: let us know. We'll talk about it in future episode
Speaker 1: of Listener Mail. And uh yeah, just a reminder, we're
Speaker 1: primarily a science podcast here. It's stuff to blow your mind,
Speaker 1: but on Fridays we set aside most serious concerns to
Speaker 1: just talk about a weird film on Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 1: If you want to complete list of the movies we've
Speaker 1: covered so far, you can go to letterbox dot com.
Speaker 1: That's L E T T E R B O x
Speaker 1: D dot com. Our username there is weird House, and
Speaker 1: we have a list. You can go through it and
Speaker 1: look at everything we've covered, including the two movies we've
Speaker 1: covered from this Century now we're up to too. And
Speaker 1: I also blog about these films at smut to music dot.
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