Speaker 1: Wanning. Today's episode contains spoilers for the smash hit animated
Speaker 1: movie on Netflix, K Pop Demon Hunters, So if you
Speaker 1: haven't watched it, go watch it because it's amazing, or
Speaker 1: listen to this and then realize how amazing it is
Speaker 1: and go watch it. Hello, my name is Rosie Knight,
Speaker 1: and welcome back to X ray Vision, the podcast where
Speaker 1: we dive deep into your favorite shows, movies, comics and
Speaker 1: pop culture. We are here at iHeart Podcast where we'll
Speaker 1: be bringing you episodes every Tuesday Thursday, and the summer's
Speaker 1: biggest movie news and talk on Friday, Popcorn pop Out,
Speaker 1: and a little way of news on a Saturday. In
Speaker 1: today's episode, I am joined by two of the most
Speaker 1: super of our super producers, Joelle and our And to
Speaker 1: discuss the surprise animated smash of the summer K Pop
Speaker 1: Demon Hunters. We're gonna recap the movie quickly, then Aaron
Speaker 1: is gonna take us through the voices behind K Pop
Speaker 1: Demon Hunter's chart topping music, featuring a custom playlist of
Speaker 1: some favorite fictional boy band and girl groups. Joel has
Speaker 1: done an incredible investigation of Sony's animation projects and what
Speaker 1: they've got coming up. So we'll dip into that in
Speaker 1: the omnibus. And remember, guys, I just got some DMS
Speaker 1: about this, so I guess the Rebirth episodes are just
Speaker 1: coming out. People are listening to them. They've seen Jurassic Park.
Speaker 1: We will be at SDCC San Diego Comic Con. Xtra
Speaker 1: Vision is gonna be there Thursday at twelve thirty. Our
Speaker 1: panel with the Roddenbury Does It Fly Podcast will be
Speaker 1: in Room twenty four ABC. Me and Jason will be
Speaker 1: there on that panel talking science, pop culture, all the
Speaker 1: things we love. Then come join us at Petco Park
Speaker 1: at four pm for the chance to bid on real
Speaker 1: Superman comic book art. And on Saturday we'll be retured
Speaker 1: learning to pet Coo for a Godzilla auction with IDW
Speaker 1: super seven and of course Den of Geek. Then you
Speaker 1: want to hang out with Jason Concepcion, I know you do,
Speaker 1: I know I do, And guess what, I'll be there
Speaker 1: too with Joel and Ian and you can join us
Speaker 1: at the Mission Brewery for a meet and greet and
Speaker 1: a live podcast recording. But first let's talk about K
Speaker 1: pop Demon Hunters. Okay, Aaron and Joel, welcome to the show.
Speaker 2: Thank you very excited to go into some of the
Speaker 2: best music to come out of film in a long time.
Speaker 1: I feel like, yes, Aaron, let's talk. Let's start with you,
Speaker 1: how did you hear about K pop Demon Hunters? Because
Speaker 1: you were the early trendsetter for our pod on this one.
Speaker 1: You were the one who saw it first.
Speaker 2: So I think, as someone who is Chinese, I am
Speaker 2: subscribed to or following a lot of Asian American art
Speaker 2: accounts and influencers, and this started showing up quite a
Speaker 2: bit as like, hey, this film is coming out on Netflix,
Speaker 2: it's animated, it's about K pop stars. No shortage of
Speaker 2: K pop focused shows or movies, but this one seemed
Speaker 2: a little different and was like, you know, there have
Speaker 2: been some other things with kind of fighting demons as
Speaker 2: K pop stars, et cetera, but this seemed a little interesting.
Speaker 2: So I watched it that opening weekend, and I think
Speaker 2: in the beginning I was like, Wow, music's pretty good.
Speaker 2: I'm surprised, and there's like a point where when they
Speaker 2: go through Golden I was like, this is this is
Speaker 2: not just like a couple good things. This is a
Speaker 2: very well put together thing. And then I think what
Speaker 2: sealed it for me was the Cat and the Magpie,
Speaker 2: The Tiger and the Magpie. That I was just like, Okay,
Speaker 2: I need to like pay one hundred percent attention because
Speaker 2: this is like credible.
Speaker 1: I need to be in.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So the movie was released on June twentieth, twenty
Speaker 1: twenty five, on Netflix, directed by Maggie Kang Chris Applehans
Speaker 1: and starring Ardentchoa's Roomy, Mayhong's Mirror, and Jijong Zhou as Zoe.
Speaker 1: And they are three K pop superstars who are part
Speaker 1: of a traditional lineage of demon hunters, and their role
Speaker 1: is essentially to stop demons feeding on humans by creating
Speaker 1: a magical kind of gate called the hon Moon or
Speaker 1: the Golden hom Moon. And we get to see the
Speaker 1: in a really lovely opening scene that again, I think
Speaker 1: was the moment where I sort of understood, like, oh,
Speaker 1: this isn't a K pop movie because k pop is
Speaker 1: popular right now and Netflix wants to make something this
Speaker 1: is a gorgeously animated sony movie with people who love
Speaker 1: Korean music and love the history of cre culture. Yes,
Speaker 1: and Korean culture. We get this gorgeous kind of We
Speaker 1: open with this gorgeous look back through history. We get
Speaker 1: to see the Demons, which are really really cool and
Speaker 1: nicely designed and very interesting. But then we also get
Speaker 1: to see the different trio girl groups through the ages,
Speaker 1: which I thought was so fantastic and so lovely, and
Speaker 1: we eventually get to see Hunterricks which is our main group, Rumy,
Speaker 1: Mirror and Zoe, and they are trained by the very sexy,
Speaker 1: older but very evil coded with her gray hair Selene,
Speaker 1: who basically was a Demon Hunter and is now ready
Speaker 1: for the girls to release their big bad song Golden, which,
Speaker 1: as Aaron mentions, you get into and you start to
Speaker 1: realize like, oh, these are the kind of songs that
Speaker 1: are going to be in your head for a long time,
Speaker 1: and also, as we have seen, have gone on to
Speaker 1: become incredible smash hits K pop. Demon Hunters is the
Speaker 1: highest charting soundtrack of twenty twenty five, earning what they
Speaker 1: would say is like the equivalent of seventy five thousand
Speaker 1: album units. In its third week, Golden is in the
Speaker 1: top ten of the Hot one hundred with eighteen point
Speaker 1: eight million streams, nine hundred and fifty thousand airplay impressions.
Speaker 1: Thanks Variety, and the entire Demon Hunter's soundtrack has logged
Speaker 1: ninety six million on demand official streams, so they're in
Speaker 1: the twenty twenties. They've only have There been three other
Speaker 1: soundtracks that have reached the top two on Billboard two
Speaker 1: hundred Wicked, which debuted and peaked at number two, Barbie
Speaker 1: also number two debut, and Encanto, which spent nine weeks
Speaker 1: at number one in twenty twenty two and was second
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty three. All of those were nominated, so
Speaker 1: this is kind of a big gonna be a big
Speaker 1: push for Netflix, even though that might not have been
Speaker 1: their original plan, seeing as this is being seen as
Speaker 1: a huge surprise, Joelle, before we start getting into the
Speaker 1: surprises in the twist of capop themeon Hunters, how did
Speaker 1: you find out about it?
Speaker 3: So? I messaged our good friend Laura a few weeks
Speaker 3: before it came out because she had been promoting it
Speaker 3: on her page, and I was like, so, I'm seeing
Speaker 3: it the posters and everything. It looks cool. Tell me
Speaker 3: about it. And Lara was like, girl, it's so good,
Speaker 3: and I was like, but how good is it really?
Speaker 3: She's like She's like, I'm gonna hedge my bats because
Speaker 3: they don't want to overhype it because again, the movie
Speaker 3: was not out yet, so she's just enjoying all the
Speaker 3: goodness by herself. And she was like, but I really
Speaker 3: liked it, and I was like, Okay, I'm gonna give
Speaker 3: it a shot. So when it first came out, I said, no,
Speaker 3: I'm not going to get into it's too early and
Speaker 3: my heart is tender. I fall in love with things
Speaker 3: too easily. I'm gonna wait a day where my dog
Speaker 3: was a daycare and my brother was out of the house,
Speaker 3: and I said, no one will judge me for watching
Speaker 3: this movie. Okay, I won't be interrupted.
Speaker 1: In the cinephile household exactly.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna buckle in and get into this. And I
Speaker 3: was hooked. Like the airplane fight scene, like parachuting down
Speaker 3: the stadium was way cool.
Speaker 4: I agree, Like the tie you're in the bird the little.
Speaker 3: Hat was always little and the tiger was little. I
Speaker 3: just said, so cute. But then but then my favorite song,
Speaker 3: this is what it sounds like? Yeah, I said this.
Speaker 3: I will protect this movie with my life.
Speaker 4: Who do I have to kill? This movie's everything to me,
Speaker 4: that's all.
Speaker 3: I baled so hard the first time they sound I
Speaker 3: was like, this is so beautiful. What a great message.
Speaker 3: Costumes are outstanding. I love the girls like.
Speaker 4: And we get like a K drama. It's too many.
Speaker 3: Good things and I really loved it.
Speaker 1: I was looked, Yeah, I'm glad you brought up the
Speaker 1: aeroplane sequence, because that is where we really get to
Speaker 1: see kind of the girls in action, not just as
Speaker 1: demon hunters, though they are delayed from going to the
Speaker 1: show by demons who take over their airplane and they
Speaker 1: take them over. But one of the things I loved
Speaker 1: about this was the way that it understood. And it's
Speaker 1: obviously it's kind of almost like a parasite thing where
Speaker 1: I know that they are trying to make a movie
Speaker 1: about a very unique experience, which is being a K
Speaker 1: pop star, something we can't really relate to. But one
Speaker 1: of the biggest tropes about K pop stars is they
Speaker 1: love to eat right because of all the training and stuff,
Speaker 1: and then they'll do mook bangs and and but that
Speaker 1: is so universally relatable as a woman who has to
Speaker 1: do stuff is like, yeah, I want to sit with
Speaker 1: my friends in our nice outfits and eat fucking ramen
Speaker 1: from a cup like that to me is so wonderful
Speaker 1: and cozy and relatable and also plays into you know
Speaker 1: what we see of K pop stars on talent shows
Speaker 1: and daily star shows and stuff. So I loved it
Speaker 1: and I love how they use gag animation for the faces,
Speaker 1: very anime influenced, very Sailor Moon. So we begin with
Speaker 1: this incredible fight. They land, they land down, and they're
Speaker 1: about to launch. They want to have a rest, which
Speaker 1: relatable after the show. I love this scene too, where
Speaker 1: we get to see two of the girls, but Roomy
Speaker 1: just can't wait. She's like, we're gonna release it. We're
Speaker 1: not gonna have a break. We're gonna press play on
Speaker 1: it right now. But she probably should have thought about that.
Speaker 4: Roomy is me and I am Roomy. She was like,
Speaker 4: stop working.
Speaker 1: She was like I can't wait.
Speaker 3: She's like, no, gross, now we have to keep working.
Speaker 1: And I love that moment because I have been wrapped
Speaker 1: up in my cardigan, in my little like robe, ready
Speaker 1: to relax, and then had a friend come and be like,
Speaker 1: so we're going out and I'm like, no, don't do.
Speaker 3: It to me.
Speaker 1: But this is this is the moment for me story wise,
Speaker 1: I was just loving to be in the world. I
Speaker 1: was loving the music, I loving the visuals. It's very
Speaker 1: spider Us kind of style of bringing in new type
Speaker 1: of animation. But it's the moment when we kind of
Speaker 1: get this big reveal that Roomy is in fact losing
Speaker 1: her voice. She goes up to the roof, she tries
Speaker 1: to sing. We see the horm moon across the sky,
Speaker 1: and that is when we learn, when she takes off
Speaker 1: the jacket that she has the patterns that show that
Speaker 1: you are a demon or at least part demon, and
Speaker 1: they're kind of these purple tattoos. I just like screamed
Speaker 1: at the TV and in that moment it worked for
Speaker 1: me immediately as a massive twist, and I just couldn't
Speaker 1: kind of believe how well it was done, how well
Speaker 1: they set it up. It's such an obvious kind of
Speaker 1: like from two worlds, can you save both? Set up?
Speaker 1: But it works and they do such a great reveal
Speaker 1: and then we start to really get into it. We
Speaker 1: go to the demon realm, we see guem on his
Speaker 1: nobody's demoning enough, everybody's getting failed by the Demon Hunt
Speaker 1: as they're smashing them, and then done, we meet the
Speaker 1: Saja boys.
Speaker 3: Aaron first reaction to the Saga voice.
Speaker 2: To I mean, I think first reaction to Genu his
Speaker 2: introduction coming out playing a like, you know, I actually
Speaker 2: don't remember what instrument it is, not a guitar but something,
Speaker 2: you know, acoustic instrument singing there that was very powerful
Speaker 2: to me. And then conjuring up these four other characters
Speaker 2: voiced by kind of like a great all star cast
Speaker 2: of career and talent too. Joel Kin Booster is in there,
Speaker 2: song one show is in there, and like that their
Speaker 2: intro is these hooded or not hooded, but these cloaked
Speaker 2: figures with these hats and everything beautiful. And I love
Speaker 2: the idea of like creating this demonic boy band. And
Speaker 2: I think their introduction is so nice in comparison to
Speaker 2: Huntricks's introduction where we learn all their backstory, and I
Speaker 2: think a really nice way of filmmaking with fans fan
Speaker 2: girling or fanboying out over each.
Speaker 1: Character showing, oh my god.
Speaker 2: Such a good lyricist and you know Owen and Roomy
Speaker 2: is the diva, Oh my god, you know. So I
Speaker 2: love the way they did that to intro each character
Speaker 2: and keep it in like really quick succession and give
Speaker 2: us just like more context for them as like K
Speaker 2: pop idols are percent.
Speaker 1: It also sets up a really great juxtaposition between Ginu,
Speaker 1: who wants to like erase his human memories, who is
Speaker 1: clearly like lonely and heartbroken, and this creation of the
Speaker 1: Sager Boys, and like the comparison of how Huntrix gets
Speaker 1: to live and how Huntrix is beloved and how Hundrix's
Speaker 1: music is beloved. So the plan of the Saga Boys
Speaker 1: is to essentially weaken the hormon drain all the energy
Speaker 1: from the fans, and then in return, Genu wall have
Speaker 1: his human memories gone, which means he won't be heartbroken anymore.
Speaker 1: Very K drama set, they're are very very K drama sets.
Speaker 2: Just the story of like stealing fans from another arrival
Speaker 2: K pop group is also a very common K drama trope.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love how they have managed to manifest so
Speaker 1: many of the brilliant feelings and emotions and tropes that
Speaker 1: we get in K dramas, Like I watch a lot
Speaker 1: of K dramas, and to see an animated show that
Speaker 1: takes on the aesthetics and the intricacies and the romantic
Speaker 1: relateationships is so pleasing and so enjoyable. So Ginu obviously
Speaker 1: discovers Room is secret, because what else would happen and
Speaker 1: then we learn that the demons are actually enslaved by
Speaker 1: kind of the feelings of shame and sorrow. And it's
Speaker 1: this I think there's this really interesting concept here of
Speaker 1: the power of music and how music can be used. Aaron,
Speaker 1: could you talk a little bit about that aspect of
Speaker 1: the film.
Speaker 2: So this is one of my favorite conversation topics about
Speaker 2: film literature, anything that's not music. When as a musician,
Speaker 2: I remember growing up I always wanted there to be
Speaker 2: cool musician characters in other mediums to follow, and that
Speaker 2: never really happens. I think like Name of the Wind
Speaker 2: is like the first time really that I felt like,
Speaker 2: oh wow, this musician is cool. And here I love
Speaker 2: the way they did it. And I think that using
Speaker 2: music both as like something to strengthen and bring people together,
Speaker 2: but also this sort of mystical ancestral thing that's passed
Speaker 2: down through generations, whether or not the music is the
Speaker 2: same genre. They're showing these I mean very almost sinners
Speaker 2: coded and like, here's how the music has transcended each
Speaker 2: generation to do the same thing of bringing people together
Speaker 2: and protecting them.
Speaker 1: I love that.
Speaker 2: And this is like maybe the third time in my
Speaker 2: life when I've watched or read something and been like,
Speaker 2: they made musicians seem cool. I'm very happy with that.
Speaker 2: I like the idea of someone that can sing and
Speaker 2: then conjure a glave out of thin air or a
Speaker 2: sword and fight demons with it, and like also be
Speaker 2: wrong at the site.
Speaker 1: Okay, Aaron, you have to watch. There was this really
Speaker 1: incredible animated movie that I was lucky enough. No, but
Speaker 1: I love Kubo. There's a movie that I was lucky
Speaker 1: enough to go and see with a friend who invited
Speaker 1: me at the Arrow a few years ago. Now, wow,
Speaker 1: it came out in twenty twenty one. It's called Inuo,
Speaker 1: and it is set in like fourteenth century Pan but
Speaker 1: it is about two guys who basically create like a
Speaker 1: glam rock musical show in the fourteenth century of Japan.
Speaker 1: It's honestly like a truly astounding movie. I immediately bought it.
Speaker 1: It's directed by a Misaki Yuasa, who has made a
Speaker 1: bunch of really famous stuff. I believe Ping Pong is
Speaker 1: his most famous creation. He also actually did an episode
Speaker 1: of Adventure Time because he's really cool. But Inuo is
Speaker 1: one of the It was the first movie I thought
Speaker 1: of when I watched this where I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is a whole different way of showing how music
Speaker 1: can influence people, how music can be brought to life
Speaker 1: on screen, because I do as well love the visualization
Speaker 1: of music. Here, Aaron, how did you feel as a musician,
Speaker 1: do you ever have those kind of moments where you
Speaker 1: can see your music as you play it? Or do
Speaker 1: you feel like in this movement they managed to bring
Speaker 1: something new to that because we don't get to see
Speaker 1: that a lot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a that's a really big question. I think God,
Speaker 2: I would love selfishly if at some point I felt
Speaker 2: like my music was having that sort of impact of
Speaker 2: strengthening the hun moon and you know, binding things together.
Speaker 2: But I think what this does really well is it
Speaker 2: feels so natural in how it's delivered within Because they're singers,
Speaker 2: then that's like a huge part of it. But like,
Speaker 2: if you're watching it as much as I love the
Speaker 2: Disney Robin Hood, there's no real reason these characters should
Speaker 2: be singing. There's no real reason Disney symbol needs to sing.
Speaker 2: He just can't wait to be king. I get the emotion,
Speaker 2: but like, where is it coming from? Here? It makes
Speaker 2: total sense, and that's a such a victory for everyone
Speaker 2: on the music side of things, that these songs seamlessly
Speaker 2: fit into this whole thing, whether it be Genu and
Speaker 2: Roomy singing together this like forlorn love song, whether it
Speaker 2: be them writing and performing Takedown, whether it's them you know,
Speaker 2: on the plane like kicking there the demon's ass while
Speaker 2: they're getting ready to drop into the show. I mean,
Speaker 2: there's so many just points where this movie does it perfectly.
Speaker 3: I think Soda Pop, I mean the introduction of that song,
Speaker 3: literally seeing it catch up like these are fans as
Speaker 3: extras in this movie is really well done because you see, like, Okay,
Speaker 3: you're so much Yes, you're the old walking grannies, You're
Speaker 3: the group of male friends who really dig K pop.
Speaker 4: Here are your teeney boppers.
Speaker 3: Who stands sort of like more the rapper, more folks
Speaker 3: on the dancer, and like, you know, I love the
Speaker 3: two crying guys.
Speaker 2: Here's here's the kid who always rips the shirt off
Speaker 2: to have the other band's shirt underneath.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, so conflicted. And I think like the introduction
Speaker 3: of Sodapop botha is a like overly sweet, like hiding
Speaker 3: the sort of like evilness. But then also this catchy
Speaker 3: jam that everybody, even our girls like, can't stop shimmying
Speaker 3: their shoulders too. Like it's just such a wonderful musical
Speaker 3: introduction and it really shows like the threat to them
Speaker 3: musically so quick when people boards start popping up right after.
Speaker 4: Like this visual storytelling is like on another level here.
Speaker 1: I also think that's a great point too, is this
Speaker 1: isn't a movie that has one great band. This is
Speaker 1: a movie that had to make two great bands. And
Speaker 1: as kind of the Saga Boys grow in popularity. Obviously
Speaker 1: they're beautiful, they're great dancers, they're great singers, they got abs,
Speaker 1: they got cool costumes, and Hunterricks try to make this
Speaker 1: new song take down, which I this is where I
Speaker 1: thought the movie really showcases its emotional intelligence because they
Speaker 1: essentially have this story and this song that's about like
Speaker 1: it's an anti demon kind of song. It's We're gonna
Speaker 1: take you out. And Rumy becomes conflicted and starts to
Speaker 1: feel like shame and worry, and that's when she comes
Speaker 1: up with this plan to work with Gino and together
Speaker 1: maybe they can save the hon Moon, help them win
Speaker 1: the award, and then he can stay on this side,
Speaker 1: say he can stay here too, and.
Speaker 4: Isn't that a boyfriend?
Speaker 1: Isn't that what four year old hot boyfriend? Boyfriend?
Speaker 4: The literature tells us. This is what the ladies are.
Speaker 1: Hundred year old hot boyfriend who has been up with demons.
Speaker 1: He's been fighting. Maybe he's killed a few people, but
Speaker 1: you know what, he would never do. He would never
Speaker 1: hurt us. That's the class Tigerie.
Speaker 4: Yes, or reveal your secret? Can we talk?
Speaker 3: Okay, wait, we'll we come back. We're going to talk
Speaker 3: about the scene where he hides her demon mark because wow,
Speaker 3: thank you.
Speaker 4: Okay, we're back.
Speaker 1: We're back, Joel, talk about it. Gush, gush, gush.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 3: So my mom is really into CA dramas. She discovered
Speaker 3: them on wearing Netflix. Thank you for introducing us to
Speaker 3: global television as in your Americans. It's been really beautiful. Yeah,
Speaker 3: she loves them. She gobbles them up. She came over,
Speaker 3: created an entire channel on my Netflix so she could
Speaker 3: watch her K dramas. And so I've learned a lot
Speaker 3: about the K drama tropes and uh, I'll keep your
Speaker 3: secret for you. Trope is easily one of my favorites.
Speaker 3: It's so like, I mean, so easy to swoop into
Speaker 3: romance that way, A lot of K dramas have a
Speaker 3: lot of similarities with like Victorian romance literature, which is
Speaker 3: a lot of we cannot touch and no one can.
Speaker 4: Know we like each other.
Speaker 3: So they'll be yearning so much yearning longings here and
Speaker 3: they effing nail it, like she can't tell her friends
Speaker 3: that she's a demon or that she's like having this
Speaker 3: crushed like flirty time with a demon. He knows all
Speaker 3: of the secrets and possibly more because he's already on
Speaker 3: the other side of the demon culture, so he alos
Speaker 3: doing on there.
Speaker 1: He is keeping his own secret, which I love because
Speaker 1: he has his own shame. I also think, and this
Speaker 1: is something I would love. Maybe who knows the movie
Speaker 1: keeps popping off. If it really becomes a FYC movie,
Speaker 1: which I think it will becomes the astome movie for Netflix,
Speaker 1: maybe we can have Laura on because I would also.
Speaker 1: I feel like something that's quite deep about this movie
Speaker 1: is it uses the context of the demons and the
Speaker 1: kind of way that they make people feel shame, and
Speaker 1: the fact that Ginu has this secret that he left
Speaker 1: his family when he gained fame, and I think that
Speaker 1: there has been a lot of complexity and exploitation in
Speaker 1: the real world of kpop, and over the last ten
Speaker 1: years there has been a shift to a more open,
Speaker 1: transparent conversation around that kind of stuff. And I found
Speaker 1: this to be quite profound in its way of talking
Speaker 1: about fame through this kind of supernatural lens, but being
Speaker 1: realistic about the choices people have to make, the people
Speaker 1: they have to leave behind, the things that you have
Speaker 1: to do, like lying to your friends. These three are
Speaker 1: an ideal friendship. You love them, you want to root
Speaker 1: for them, but she cannot tell them this deepest truth
Speaker 1: about herself in case it impacts their fame as a
Speaker 1: band and their role in life. I just think that
Speaker 1: is really deep, and I think it's another reason that
Speaker 1: people are finding this movie because it has so many layers.
Speaker 1: Banging music, incredible animation, but also a story that I
Speaker 1: think is is quite profound and real. Yeeah go for
Speaker 1: Aaron No.
Speaker 2: I was gonna say one hundred percent, I mean, and
Speaker 2: that's I think. I'm excited. You know. In a little bit,
Speaker 2: I'm going to talk more about the music. Joelle's going
Speaker 2: to talk some more about the animation and some of
Speaker 2: the things that we think really made this stand out
Speaker 2: over any number of other animated movies that have come
Speaker 2: out in the past, musical or otherwise. I mean, this,
Speaker 2: this is up there. I think with Disney animated pieces
Speaker 2: of question like this is this is very.
Speaker 1: High Ironically, I actually yeah, I think you make a
Speaker 1: great point because I think that one of the biggest
Speaker 1: struggles all animated movies have had is living up to
Speaker 1: your say Beauty and the Beast or your Little Mermaid
Speaker 1: or You're a Laddin, where you just have these absolute
Speaker 1: banger songs that become part of the cultural lexicon. The
Speaker 1: thing is, if you listen and I do as you
Speaker 1: will know I listened to a lot of Disney music.
Speaker 1: I listened to a lot of musicals. I listened to
Speaker 1: a lot of Wicked. If you put that on the
Speaker 1: car in the Orcs with the wrong person, someone's gonna
Speaker 1: be like, oh, not musical music. It's not Disney song.
Speaker 1: You want to listen to a whole new world. But
Speaker 1: you know what, if you want to listen to any
Speaker 1: song from this, people are going to be like, that's
Speaker 1: a banger. And I think that has set a new
Speaker 1: stage because spite of us didn't have original songs, we
Speaker 1: haven't dream works. Basically just was like, we're not going
Speaker 1: to do that and did needle drops with Shrek and stuff.
Speaker 1: So in that way, Aaron, you bring up a great point.
Speaker 1: This is a true competitor and maybe a new kind
Speaker 1: of watermark for what people are going to expect from
Speaker 1: animated musical films. And we get, you know, this big
Speaker 1: performance of Golden to kind of perfor to promote this
Speaker 1: idea of everyone coming together at the awards. When the
Speaker 1: Sogat Boys don't turn up obviously, we get this big,
Speaker 1: big imposter demon fight they split roomy up, and then
Speaker 1: you know, we get that performance of Takedown, which is
Speaker 1: so incredible, and we see the reveal and it feels like,
Speaker 1: you know, that ultimate heartbreak moment that you can't come
Speaker 1: back from, and I think it's kind of incredible again
Speaker 1: to be able to bring that to life in an
Speaker 1: animated movie. This is not like your minor conflict, Like
Speaker 1: this is a heartbreaking thing like Gino Trickter he lied
Speaker 1: about his past. She has to go up there and
Speaker 1: reveal who she truly is. Like it's so so well done,
Speaker 1: and again, as you say, you're all so k drama.
Speaker 1: One of my favorite rewatch K dramas is Cinderella and
Speaker 1: Four Nights, which is one of my favorite tropes, which
Speaker 1: is a broke girl who meets a billionaire and then
Speaker 1: has to move in with him and his four billionaire car,
Speaker 1: you know, and she does date basically all of them,
Speaker 1: but then in that final watch is one you know,
Speaker 1: and then you have to choose at the end. But
Speaker 1: I remember when the conflict of that show happened, it
Speaker 1: hit me so deeply because I was just rooting for
Speaker 1: her and rooting for this other guy who is also poor,
Speaker 1: who had found out he's a cousin by his you know,
Speaker 1: illicit dad, and he wasn't used to being rich. But
Speaker 1: that was the thought. I was like, Oh, these shows
Speaker 1: managed to hit in a way emotionally that a lot
Speaker 1: of like American prestige TV doesn't even interested in exploring,
Speaker 1: you know, they want to make you feel bummed out,
Speaker 1: but they don't want you to.
Speaker 3: About your set pieces, which I think American prestige TV
Speaker 3: is either extremely dialogue theater focused or big flashy set
Speaker 3: piece is on like a cinematic scale focus that sort
Speaker 3: of has been if you think about our broadcast TV. Yeah,
Speaker 3: broadcast TV days like in order to be good TV.
Speaker 3: You just had to have good dialogue writing. When we
Speaker 3: got to our streaming and our big you know, our
Speaker 3: hbos H spaces, then yes, then we could we could
Speaker 3: move into the cinematic giant action pieces, and so that
Speaker 3: became a thing. And so with I think K dramas specifically,
Speaker 3: because these studios are churning out so many at such
Speaker 3: a fast rate, what you really have to do is
Speaker 3: like sink into the characters because also you're doing many,
Speaker 3: many episodes, and.
Speaker 1: The cost is often much lower than an American dege.
Speaker 4: We don't have time, gotta go.
Speaker 1: Also, something they don't really talk you know, that hasn't
Speaker 1: really been talked about, but I talk about a lot
Speaker 1: is like so many K dramas are adapted from comic books,
Speaker 1: online webtoons by women. So I also think it is
Speaker 1: like a completely different perspective on what entertainment can and
Speaker 1: should be. And I think they translate that here really
Speaker 1: well by adding relationships that you root for, characters that
Speaker 1: you care about, and also allowing characters who have secrets
Speaker 1: to redeem themselves and to be honest and to find happiness.
Speaker 1: And that is essentially like we we get there's the
Speaker 1: demon Gemar, he comes back, he puts everyone in an
Speaker 1: evil trance. We have to see the Serja Boys final performance,
Speaker 1: which is gonna you know, destroy the horn Moon, but
Speaker 1: of course that doesn't happen because Rumy interrupts the performance
Speaker 1: and does this song about like it's about like shame
Speaker 1: and fear and honesty and pain and what it feels
Speaker 1: like to keep a secret. And I also loved the
Speaker 1: show the kind of confrontation between Rumy and Selene, because
Speaker 1: early on I had assumed that Selene was like part
Speaker 1: of the villainous story just because of the way they
Speaker 1: were playing out cool and so she's so cool, and
Speaker 1: also the fact that she wanted me to keep it
Speaker 1: a secret her demon marks rather than just embracing her.
Speaker 1: And I thought that there was something very real about
Speaker 1: the writing and that scene where they have the showdown
Speaker 1: between the two of them and really like Selena is
Speaker 1: still trying to protect Rumy and be like, I can
Speaker 1: cover this up for you, but she doesn't understand that
Speaker 1: that is not what Rumy wants. So you know, that
Speaker 1: just feels like a novel.
Speaker 3: Which is so excited for the sequel to be, like
Speaker 3: who is the father?
Speaker 4: Please, let's mort demon daddy.
Speaker 1: I need to know the demon daddy.
Speaker 3: And I love the idea of like, hey, I understand
Speaker 3: that you love me, but if you don't love all
Speaker 3: of me, this does not work for us.
Speaker 4: I thought that was.
Speaker 3: Really beautiful and for her to immediately go from that
Speaker 3: to like, this is the sound of my truth to
Speaker 3: her friend.
Speaker 4: This is my favorite part of any musical. It's like
Speaker 4: all the.
Speaker 3: Voices are joining yes, yes, yes, you're going like that incredible.
Speaker 1: I talk a lot about in my opinion because of
Speaker 1: how great the music is and because of the story
Speaker 1: the very underrated Disney movie Wish, but I would also say,
Speaker 1: like visually compared to this, that it makes Wish look
Speaker 1: really awful. They made some interesting choices with like rotoscoping,
Speaker 1: but it does have one of my all time favorites.
Speaker 1: And I thought about this at the end where it's
Speaker 1: there's a great song, it's Ariana debos is that play
Speaker 1: is the main character, and she has this great song
Speaker 1: about the wish, which is the big kind of like
Speaker 1: oh I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna go on my
Speaker 1: own way, and it's about this idea that she makes
Speaker 1: this wish for her community to be able to have
Speaker 1: control over their own dreams. And it's so great, It's
Speaker 1: so brilliantly written. I love it. And the final song
Speaker 1: is the entire village comes together and sings the song,
Speaker 1: and like, just thinking about it is giving me goosebumps.
Speaker 1: But I have often found that in recent years it
Speaker 1: is a compromise if you get great songs or you
Speaker 1: get you know, Frozen two, a movie that loads of
Speaker 1: people love that had really great songs, but you had
Speaker 1: the storyline is very complicated and honestly pretty problematic, And
Speaker 1: there's always seems to be this kind of trade off
Speaker 1: in modern animation because they have to make the audiences
Speaker 1: like they think it's for young kids, but they want
Speaker 1: to have songs that people like. And this feels like
Speaker 1: somehow they manage to create something where the quality of
Speaker 1: the storytelling and animation is as high as the quality
Speaker 1: of the stories, and that all of those pieces work together.
Speaker 1: And I think that also as well. Something you know,
Speaker 1: I'm guessing that this is the people who made this
Speaker 1: movie obviously read a lot of fanfic and watch a
Speaker 1: lot of movies, and the way that Ginu like sacrifices
Speaker 1: himself ultimately and then basically becomes one with Rumy and
Speaker 1: that's how she is saved. Is like so ultimately romantic
Speaker 1: and just like yeah, a total kind of incredible situation.
Speaker 1: And also I like that it also gives us kind
Speaker 1: of like a romance doesn't save the day kind of
Speaker 1: ending to where at the end she is just chilling
Speaker 1: her marked with her friends and the boy is gone,
Speaker 1: Like that was great love that put you're a stored
Speaker 1: soul in me. But now it's just me and my
Speaker 1: crew and we're gonna go see our fans. And yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that is a K Pop Demon Hunter as
Speaker 1: the recap, and it is such a fantastic movie. It's
Speaker 1: hard to tell you, guys even how great it is
Speaker 1: by our conversation, but make sure that you go watch
Speaker 1: it on Netflix. And then when we've come back, Aaron
Speaker 1: is going to talk to us about the music of
Speaker 1: K Pop Demon Hunters. And we're back. Am we ready
Speaker 1: to unleash Aaron the talented musician and super producer onto
Speaker 1: your airwaves to tell you everything you need to know
Speaker 1: about this incredible soundtrack.
Speaker 2: So I thought it was important to talk about some
Speaker 2: of the backgrounds of the music as well as the
Speaker 2: voices because the singing voices were very intentionally chosen for
Speaker 2: each of the three leads, as well as for the
Speaker 2: Saga boys. But I think, you know, we talked, we
Speaker 2: mentioned some other musicals, whether they be sort of stage
Speaker 2: musicals like Wicked, whether it be something like Disney movie.
Speaker 2: A lot of times those kind of musicals, the music
Speaker 2: is written by one or two people. It's someone doing
Speaker 2: the libretto. You know, it's a small group. One of
Speaker 2: the things that I thought was amazing about this they
Speaker 2: treated this like a Rayana album. So this has been
Speaker 2: in production for three years. And Ian Eisendraft, who was
Speaker 2: the executive music producer. He conducted, arranged, he was a
Speaker 2: vocal producer. He worked closely with the Black Label, which
Speaker 2: is a South Korean record label. So they had teams
Speaker 2: of people working on each song.
Speaker 1: For each scene that.
Speaker 2: Had a they would create five, six, seven different tracks
Speaker 2: and try to figure out which one fit the story best.
Speaker 2: So there are multiple interviews with the cast or the
Speaker 2: writers talking about like, oh yeah, Golden, this was the
Speaker 2: fifth thing that we came up with here and one
Speaker 2: this happened to be perfect, and so this worked. And
Speaker 2: then as we were recording it, you would do a verse,
Speaker 2: write the verse, record the verse, send it to the team,
Speaker 2: the producers and director. They would okay, like, yes, this
Speaker 2: verse hits the story beat what we want?
Speaker 1: Okay, cool, do.
Speaker 2: The next verse and then do the bridge separately. And
Speaker 2: so it was a very much like collaborative thing across
Speaker 2: different countries, different writers all around. And that's typically how
Speaker 2: pop albums are written. So you'll have someone a producer
Speaker 2: will make a track, someone else will do the top
Speaker 2: line and they will which is the melody and the
Speaker 2: lyrics typically, and then someone else may come in and
Speaker 2: add to the top line. Someone else may come in
Speaker 2: and change up the production of the track itself, keeping
Speaker 2: the other top line. So that's exactly how they went
Speaker 2: about writing this, and they got like real true K
Speaker 2: pop writers and performers. The K pop band Twice came
Speaker 2: into this and it was like, we love these songs.
Speaker 2: They did their own version of Takedown that plays in
Speaker 2: the credits, and then they also did Strategy, which plays
Speaker 2: in the you know, I'm going to say iconic, maybe
Speaker 2: a little bit dedation.
Speaker 1: Panic already, I think it's okay to say that.
Speaker 2: But the iconic scene of her walking into her closet
Speaker 2: and you see the rows and rose of outfits and
Speaker 2: that's there. They're playing a twice song in there I have.
Speaker 1: I was so just excited and happy to see like
Speaker 1: somebody with lots of clothes. I have so many clothes, guys,
Speaker 1: like it's it's it's my vice. I love charity shops,
Speaker 1: I love thrift stores. I'm always putting together a look.
Speaker 1: And I loved I love a good closet scene, very clueless,
Speaker 1: Yeah where you go? And I thought that was so brilliant. Also, Aaron,
Speaker 1: something I had read was that they actually knocked twice
Speaker 1: off of the Spotify number one with Golden and with
Speaker 1: the the girls from the from Hunt Trix, which I
Speaker 1: thought was also like, that's kind of incredible.
Speaker 2: I mean they they like surpassed bts. I mean they've
Speaker 2: they've they're they're going through the K pop stars. And
Speaker 2: so now for the playlist part, I'm gonna go through
Speaker 2: different voices and give you a song recommendation to go
Speaker 2: check them out. So the singing voices for Hunter Tricks.
Speaker 2: For Mira, it was Audrey Nuda, who's an R and
Speaker 2: B singer and rapper. She just recently put out a
Speaker 2: song called too High, which feels very moody, drugged out,
Speaker 2: R and B. I mean, this is, like I said,
Speaker 2: this is like looking out the window from of a
Speaker 2: neon city from a crowded party, potentially in Hunters's apartment
Speaker 2: there they're loft.
Speaker 4: Her.
Speaker 2: My favorite song of hers is Mine, which samples Brandy
Speaker 2: and Monica's The Boy is Mine. So depending on whether
Speaker 2: or not you are nostalgic for that nineties hit, the
Speaker 2: song is incredible and it while I don't think it
Speaker 2: would be a HUNTERX song, this is definitely something they
Speaker 2: would play at a party going on in their own
Speaker 2: So check out Audrey.
Speaker 3: I also recommend Damn Right by Audrey, which is a
Speaker 3: jam that's been on my playlist for years and when
Speaker 3: I saw her name, I was like, no, no, it
Speaker 3: was just like, it's very vindicated, it's so fun. It's
Speaker 3: very like edgy and aggressive, and I like it a lot.
Speaker 3: I think we're to listen to.
Speaker 1: And I'm also going to say I am gonna officially
Speaker 1: take the duty of making an x ray Vision Spotify
Speaker 1: account and making a playlist of this beau.
Speaker 2: I have this playlist.
Speaker 1: Description. Okay, thank you. I don't even need to do it,
Speaker 1: because I was going to say we have had people
Speaker 1: when Arrows talked about music before asking us to make
Speaker 1: playlists to set that up. And obviously, Joel, your very
Speaker 1: viral superman in a views with Den of Geek. Have
Speaker 1: been getting a lot of comments on our page asking
Speaker 1: us to make the playlist that the cast gave us.
Speaker 1: So I think this is a wonderful first start, and Aaron,
Speaker 1: I appreciate you doing that. What's your next recommendation? So next?
Speaker 2: Always singing and rapping voice is by Ray Ami and
Speaker 2: Ray is another R and B singer rapper. She is
Speaker 2: known for having an incredibly aggressive rap style and then
Speaker 2: very melodic singing hooks, and she does them within the
Speaker 2: same song. It will alternate from one to the other.
Speaker 2: She'll start off the first half is heavy rapping and
Speaker 2: then it goes to this like soft singing section. My
Speaker 2: favorite song of hers is her breakout single snow Cone.
Speaker 2: Check out the song, check out the video which she
Speaker 2: recorded like on her phone for one hundred dollars. But
Speaker 2: I would say, if you are a parent and your
Speaker 2: little children love K pop demon hunters, just test these
Speaker 2: songs ahead of time. They do it.
Speaker 1: This is a parental approval first, yes, check check on
Speaker 1: them first.
Speaker 2: But ray Amy's Spotify bio is Hello Kitty with a Knife,
Speaker 2: which is honestly perfect for her sound.
Speaker 1: I'm about to go get a tattoo and now I'm like,
Speaker 1: maybe that's why I'm gonna gaes. I'm like, you're killing me.
Speaker 1: That's a great, great line.
Speaker 2: RuMIS vocal performer was EJ and EJ is a songwriter
Speaker 2: and producer, but she herself was a former K pop
Speaker 2: trainey so K pop has just like so many training
Speaker 2: programs for people to be K pop stars. EJ has
Speaker 2: gone through that. She was at SNSM Entertainment for ten
Speaker 2: years the biggest YEP was unable to break out and
Speaker 2: she met with another producer who got her writing on something.
Speaker 2: He just wanted her to like test something a track
Speaker 2: for her. Through that, she met Andrew Choi, who is
Speaker 2: the voice of Genu, and he started to teach her
Speaker 2: and they were writing together and he got her writing
Speaker 2: with Red Velvet kpop group and she wrote the song
Speaker 2: Psycho as well as a number of others. She wound
Speaker 2: up getting on the writing team for K Pop Demon
Speaker 2: Hunters and wrote a number of the demos and sang
Speaker 2: on the demos and Maggie Kane the director was praising
Speaker 2: her demo vocals and said, like, this is the reason
Speaker 2: this movie got Greenlitz, because your demo vocals were so good.
Speaker 2: And then they eventually came back to her and we're like,
Speaker 2: we want you to be the official voice. Yeah, just
Speaker 2: for one of the characters, but the lead character. So
Speaker 2: she wound up being the being Rumy's voice. And she
Speaker 2: has written a bunch of stuff for other artists, including Twice,
Speaker 2: who we talked about earlier. But the two songs for
Speaker 2: the playlist that I want to suggest for her are
Speaker 2: Armageddon by Espa, which features like this really grimy grinding
Speaker 2: verse and then like a huge bubblegum pre chorus that
Speaker 2: goes right back into this like grimy chorus. And then
Speaker 2: the second one is Last Waltz by Twice, which it
Speaker 2: feels like it would fit right at home on a
Speaker 2: Hunterricks album, and it is incredibly catchy and has these
Speaker 2: really dramatic, like theatrical builds. You can tell like this
Speaker 2: is her writing evolving from those songs from a couple
Speaker 2: of years ago into the Huntrix songs. And now the
Speaker 2: next set of things for the playlist, I'm not giving
Speaker 2: like basic K pop things. I think there are much
Speaker 2: people who are much better at Fantastic. If you are
Speaker 2: unfamiliar with K pop, this movie is a great intro.
Speaker 2: There are plenty of things you can go out there.
Speaker 2: Listen to bts, listen to new genes, listen to you know,
Speaker 2: like XG, whatever band hits you. But now I want
Speaker 2: to go through some of my favorite fictional boy group,
Speaker 2: boy bands and girl groups. So first of all, obviously
Speaker 2: we have Huntricks doing Golden. I think that's the perfect number.
Speaker 1: One million streams on Spotify.
Speaker 2: Second, Saja Boys, your idol. I think soda pop is good.
Speaker 2: I think your idol is great. So we're gonna have
Speaker 2: that there, and the charts agree. The charts agree. Next,
Speaker 2: we're going to go to a twenty twenty one Korean
Speaker 2: series called Imitation, which is about Korean idols, and this
Speaker 2: has a young girl group named Tea Party, a little
Speaker 2: unfortunate given in America, but outside outside and this there's
Speaker 2: a the lead in Tea Party falls in love with
Speaker 2: a member of the boy band Shacks, and two songs
Speaker 2: from that show. One is shown Me by Tea Party,
Speaker 2: which is like hyper pop, chibby act Sense and everything
Speaker 2: like very very K pop and then Mallow by Shacks
Speaker 2: is like a super slick, well produced pop song, very upbeat.
Speaker 2: The next one I want to focus on is Idle
Speaker 2: the Coup, another Korean show following K pop groups. This
Speaker 2: is following Cotton Candy, who's a failed K pop group
Speaker 2: who are on the brink of disbanding. They're going to
Speaker 2: try one last time to make it by you can
Speaker 2: guess getting the number one slot on an idol show.
Speaker 2: Just like in K pop Demon Hunters, they have a
Speaker 2: bunch of like the cast members were also members of
Speaker 2: established K pop groups like xID and so two of
Speaker 2: the Cotton Candy songs that I really love first is Honest,
Speaker 2: which has an enormous chorus. I love it. It's like
Speaker 2: this straight eighths to a triplet feel on the chorus,
Speaker 2: and it is such a good hit when that chorus
Speaker 2: comes in. And then second is We Rise, which is
Speaker 2: like quintessential twenty tens pop. You have big synth, stabby verses,
Speaker 2: and then you have like this dirtiest fuck edm hook
Speaker 2: in there. So it just it hits that kind of pop.
Speaker 2: The next famous, maybe not famous, but favorite fictional boy
Speaker 2: band from Bob's Burgers. We have Boys for Now singing
Speaker 2: coal Mine my favorite of the Boys for Now songs.
Speaker 2: They have many songs about a variety of things, coal
Speaker 2: Mine is my favorite. Now, I will say Boys for
Speaker 2: Now is deservedly so. The worst singers on this list
Speaker 2: one hundred percent, as you can tell by the massive
Speaker 2: amounts of auto tune that are just messily used, especially
Speaker 2: on the young the young one I forget what his
Speaker 2: name is, bo Bobo or whatever, and then the last
Speaker 2: one boo boo, boo boo. And then lastly from Turning Red,
Speaker 2: we have for Town singing Nobody Like You, No You,
Speaker 2: a song that is incredible, and partly is incredible because
Speaker 2: it was written by Phineas and Billie Eilish. So when
Speaker 2: you get these like successful great songwriters to write you
Speaker 2: great songs, I think that's awesome. And then an honorable
Speaker 2: mention it doesn't fit because they play instruments and they
Speaker 2: are not technically a boy band or a girl group.
Speaker 2: But from Doug the Beats singing Killer Tofu, it's not
Speaker 2: on the playlist because it doesn't really count, but I
Speaker 2: just wanted to just wanted to call that out.
Speaker 3: And I know if we were not counting bands that
Speaker 3: play instruments. But I just think Carolin Tuesday with the
Speaker 3: Netflix you know, partnership here Loneliest Girls so good. It
Speaker 3: does have sixteen point eight these dreams on Spotify. I
Speaker 3: dig Carolyn Tuesday a lot, have rewatched multiple times.
Speaker 1: Good and he is by you know, one of the
Speaker 1: greatest anime directs of all time. You make Cowboy Bebop.
Speaker 1: So yeah, we'll a joy.
Speaker 2: So we'll put all those songs and artists and titles
Speaker 2: in the description, as well as a link to a
Speaker 2: Spotify playlist if you want to listen, get a little
Speaker 2: bit of you know, fictional boy band girl groups in
Speaker 2: your life.
Speaker 1: Love that all right?
Speaker 3: To take break and we're we come back. We're gonna
Speaker 3: talk Sony Animation and I'll give you a little rundown
Speaker 3: of its history and we're back.
Speaker 1: Okay. So, guys, Joel has prepared an unbelievable history of
Speaker 1: Sony Animation's first twenty years thanks to some really great
Speaker 1: reporting from Drew Taylor at The Wrap, and Joelle is
Speaker 1: gonna speed us through twenty years of Sony history.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 3: So here's what you really need to know, really early
Speaker 3: on in the creation of Sony Animation, which is only
Speaker 3: twenty years old, if you can believe it. Chris Miller
Speaker 3: and Phil Lord, the geniuses are babies. They don't know
Speaker 3: how to make a movie, and they don't know how
Speaker 3: to navigate a studio space, which is fine because Sony
Speaker 3: Pictures animation is new and they don't have no rules here.
Speaker 4: They don't know what they're looking for.
Speaker 3: They don't know what a Sony animated picture looks like.
Speaker 3: It's never been done before, and so it kind of
Speaker 3: works for them. So they're coming off of Clone High
Speaker 3: with a friend of the pod, Bill Lawrence's show that
Speaker 3: was on MTV really successful, and they come in for
Speaker 3: a pitch meeting and they they're throwing things at them.
Speaker 3: They're like, what about this? So what about this? We
Speaker 3: don't really know about any of these things. And then
Speaker 3: they're like, we do have Cloudy with the Chance Meatballs,
Speaker 3: And these two guys who did not spend their childhoods
Speaker 3: together both loved this book in their youth, and they
Speaker 3: were like, we could maybe do something with like that. Possibly.
Speaker 3: They're like, come in tomorrow and pitch us. They said, what,
Speaker 3: I came in the day after tomorrow, which is smart.
Speaker 3: So they they pulled an all nighter they come back
Speaker 3: in and they pitch it. Now, here's something really funny
Speaker 3: to me. They get greenlit three separate times, no cancelations
Speaker 3: in between, so you could tell things are very chaotic
Speaker 3: in the background. They almost get the boot a couple
Speaker 3: of times. No one's really They're like muppets and animation.
Speaker 3: Everybody's doing hyperrealism in animation at this time, and so
Speaker 3: the studio was confused by their messaging. But eventually they
Speaker 3: spend so much money on this film, studio is like,
Speaker 3: it is actually going to be more expensive to cancel
Speaker 3: you than to just let you finish, And unlike some
Speaker 3: spaces where they might you know, hover over you and
Speaker 3: be really uptight about, they were like, just do it
Speaker 3: your own way, because again we are trying to figure
Speaker 3: out what we should look like. So they finish and voila.
Speaker 3: It's a huge success. And part of that huge success
Speaker 3: is because we're also coming off of the first two
Speaker 3: animated films that Sony Animation did.
Speaker 1: Which was Open Season, Thank You.
Speaker 3: Surfs Up Yes, So those have two very different distinct looks.
Speaker 4: So the studio was like.
Speaker 3: Okay, fine, do you It's great.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 3: So a few years pass and they're really not sure
Speaker 3: like what direction they're going. And they're working on Hotel Transylvania,
Speaker 3: which is another one of the.
Speaker 4: First scripts they got.
Speaker 3: Early five directors have come and gone. It's a hot mess.
Speaker 3: And then Jenny Tartakovski walks in. Okay, Now Jendy is
Speaker 3: coming off of Dexter's lab, his dozmer Jack. People really
Speaker 3: of him, but his stuff is edgy. He pitches a
Speaker 3: movie called Fixed. It's an R rated romance that is animated.
Speaker 3: They're like, we don't really know what to do with that,
Speaker 3: but and it's.
Speaker 1: A dog romance.
Speaker 4: It's a dog they are dogs.
Speaker 3: They're definitely sure what to do with that. But they
Speaker 3: have this project and they need a new director. And
Speaker 3: so Jendy looks at the art and he's like, I
Speaker 3: could probably make that work because Bay the next day
Speaker 3: he said he had so many ideas he's popped it off. Okay, wow,
Speaker 3: six director locked in. That movie comes out makes billions.
Speaker 1: Million. They got four feature films. An animated was actually
Speaker 1: written and produced by Tatowski, who returned. I know from
Speaker 1: having many nieces and nephews. Boy, those movies they love them.
Speaker 1: They had video games, theme Bark Attractions, and yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a one point three billion dollar franchise now, so.
Speaker 3: It's another huge hit. But then of course we come
Speaker 3: to Spider Man into the Spider Verse. Lord and Miller
Speaker 3: are back. That movie breaks a bunch, and really what
Speaker 3: breaks that movie open is so there's Sony Pictures Animation
Speaker 3: and then there's Sony Interactive Pictures, I think, and that's
Speaker 3: their like a visual effects team.
Speaker 4: They started a long.
Speaker 3: Time ago on a forgotten project that Bruce Wilson was
Speaker 3: working on where he was like a cop who works
Speaker 3: on a boat, don't ask. And so then when Sony
Speaker 3: Pictures Animated Pictures comes along, they're like, hey, you should
Speaker 3: work with our visual effects guys. And that is not
Speaker 3: worlds that typically overlap. It is very controversial, both in
Speaker 3: house and out of house, but it kind of works
Speaker 3: because if you think about the very distinct imaging and
Speaker 3: Spider Man, particularly the brushstrokes on the background, which again
Speaker 3: if you're not into animation you might miss almost but
Speaker 3: it's really intricate, difficult work to make a painted brushstroke
Speaker 3: look like part of a background as a camera is
Speaker 3: moving across it. It's a lot, but they do it successfully,
Speaker 3: and that is why we have a lot of very
Speaker 3: distinct looking sony animation pictures right now because they partnered
Speaker 3: with their in house visual effects team, and because it's
Speaker 3: all in house, they don't have to like go outside
Speaker 3: and get approval for things somebody's worried about image. It's
Speaker 3: all one team working in the same direction, which we love.
Speaker 3: So then we have the Mitchell's Versus Machines comes out
Speaker 3: not long after into the Spider Verse in.
Speaker 1: Netflicker Netflix smash. Also, I will say very much that
Speaker 1: first movie where we all went, oh, it looks like
Speaker 1: Spider of Us. Yeah, Spider of Us set up that thing.
Speaker 1: And then with Mitchell's The Machines, you're getting the experiments,
Speaker 1: you're getting those different kind of looks. Another massive smash
Speaker 1: for Netflix that I don't necessarily know was expected.
Speaker 2: It's kind of a mix of two D three D
Speaker 2: animation that really hits.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely yeah, and it'll be interesting going forward.
Speaker 3: This article was written in twenty twenty three, and a
Speaker 3: thing that keeps coming up is all the executives saying like,
Speaker 3: we don't have a distinct look and that's what makes
Speaker 3: us special. But if you look at into Spider Verse
Speaker 3: and then the teenage Mutant in Eternals movie and then
Speaker 3: K Pop Demon Hunters. You're starting to see strong similarities,
Speaker 3: like your style has developed. Now that's not a negative
Speaker 3: thing necessary, but it is going to sort of challenge
Speaker 3: him and put them into a space of like defined
Speaker 3: rules where they haven't operated before. I think the hope
Speaker 3: is that they'll continue to focus and work with like
Speaker 3: independent great storytellers, which they say is still at the forefront,
Speaker 3: and there's a lot of good ones. We have Matthew A.
Speaker 3: Cherry who did the hair Love short that was nominated
Speaker 3: for an Oscar. He's got a movie called Tuck coming out.
Speaker 3: Then there's Agent King, which is like an adult animated
Speaker 3: series about Elvis as a CIA agent. He has a
Speaker 3: monkey that does cocaine. What's that about, don't really know.
Speaker 3: And then Goat which looks really good. Kayleb McLaughlin is
Speaker 3: in it. He plays the lead of an actual goat
Speaker 3: who's trying to like become dominant at a sport, which
Speaker 3: is really exciting. And then they're working on Spider Verse.
Speaker 3: A lot of folks were nervous when K Pop Demon
Speaker 3: Hunters came out because they were like, oh no, that's the.
Speaker 4: Big animation project.
Speaker 3: You should be working on. Please redirect your attention to
Speaker 3: Spider Man. We need a finale. I say we've gotten
Speaker 3: to cozy with these quick turnarounds on movie and TV shows.
Speaker 3: Hold your horses, let them make it good, let them
Speaker 3: get it right. We've been blown away every time. I'm
Speaker 3: happy to wait, and I'm excited that we're getting great
Speaker 3: shows like K Pop Demon Hunter in between.
Speaker 2: You know, I hate to have a hot take, as
Speaker 2: I never do on this show.
Speaker 1: Spicy, spicy take, we love it.
Speaker 2: I think Spider Verse needs to have better costumes after
Speaker 2: seeing this, Like just seeing the outfits of K Pop
Speaker 2: Demon Hunters, I'm just like.
Speaker 1: I like that Spider Man outfit is so boring.
Speaker 2: Now give me something better.
Speaker 1: I love Spider Man. I love Spider Man and as.
Speaker 3: Much as you love Hunt Tans, Gwen Stacy, I am
Speaker 3: the Spider Man costume and Spider Punk in his dope jacket.
Speaker 4: Listen. Costs are hitting.
Speaker 1: But I would I got my little Spider Punk a figure,
Speaker 1: but I would like him to have a little bit
Speaker 1: more of a k But yes, Sony animation, that kill it.
Speaker 1: Baby Disney's got to be keeping up, I think is
Speaker 1: the feeling right now? Now?
Speaker 3: I think everybody's nervous and with the Netflix deal and
Speaker 3: their ability to reach so many households instantly, yeah, they're dominating.
Speaker 1: Coming up on X ray Vision this weekend, we have
Speaker 1: two episodes, one focusing on all the exciting trailers that
Speaker 1: came out this week there are a ton and Sunday
Speaker 1: we'll have news and an interview with Ari Esta, the
Speaker 1: director of Eddington, and that is the episode. Aaron and Joel,
Speaker 1: thank you for joining me. This was a joy And guys,
Speaker 1: listen to that playlist. How often do you get a
Speaker 1: beautifully curated playlist by a fantastic musician who's also a podcast.
Speaker 1: It's so so rare, and yeah, enjoy it and let
Speaker 1: us know your favorite songs.
Speaker 2: Bane x ray Vision is hosted by Jason Sepsion and
Speaker 2: Rosie Knight and is a production of iHeart Podcast.
Speaker 1: Our executive producers are Joel Monique and Aaron Korfman. Our
Speaker 1: supervising producer is Abuzafar. Our producers are Common Laurent, Dean
Speaker 1: Johnson and Babe.
Speaker 2: A theme song is by Brian Vasquez, with alternate theme
Speaker 2: songs by Aaron Kaufman.
Speaker 1: Special thanks to Soul Rubin, Chris Lord Kenny Goodman and Heidi,
Speaker 1: our discord moderator