Ready to embark on a cinematic journey back to the glory and grime of ancient Rome? This episode of 'We Recommend' promises a thrilling revisit to the classic film, "Gladiator." Jesse and Jason, your hosts, reignite the flame of their high school days and unpack the film's gripping fight scenes, stellar cast and the use of CGI. Here's your chance to relive the iconic film, but this time, with a deeper, behind-the-scenes understanding of its making.
Ever wondered what it takes to create a cinematic masterpiece like "Gladiator"? We lift the curtain on the man behind the magic, the brilliant Ridley Scott. Feel the pull of ancient Rome as we discuss Scott's commitment to authenticity, with elaborate costumes, striking sets, and even a replica Colosseum. Hear about the casting rumors, the innovation in digital effects and the impact of actor Oliver Reed's unfortunate demise during production. Grasp the intricacies of the craft as we share insider details from the set and production of this remarkable film.
As we near the end of our journey, we plunge into an intense analysis of Gladiator's emotional scenes. Brace yourself for an exploration of Commodus' twisted desires, Maximus' quest for revenge, iconic lines, and the occasional historical inaccuracy. We dissect the strengths and weaknesses of the film, leaving no stone unturned. So, whether you're a Gladiator fanatic or a cinema enthusiast, this episode is your ticket to an enriching and entertaining discussion on this timeless classic. Are you not entertained? You will be!
Follow us on social media by clicking the link. http://linktr.ee/werecommendpodcast
Intro provided by Joey Prosser. @mrjoeyprosser on X
Ready to embark on a cinematic journey back to the glory and grime of ancient Rome? This episode of 'We Recommend' promises a thrilling revisit to the classic film, "Gladiator." Jesse and Jason, your hosts, reignite the flame of their high school days and unpack the film's gripping fight scenes, stellar cast and the use of CGI. Here's your chance to relive the iconic film, but this time, with a deeper, behind-the-scenes understanding of its making.
Ever wondered what it takes to create a cinematic masterpiece like "Gladiator"? We lift the curtain on the man behind the magic, the brilliant Ridley Scott. Feel the pull of ancient Rome as we discuss Scott's commitment to authenticity, with elaborate costumes, striking sets, and even a replica Colosseum. Hear about the casting rumors, the innovation in digital effects and the impact of actor Oliver Reed's unfortunate demise during production. Grasp the intricacies of the craft as we share insider details from the set and production of this remarkable film.
As we near the end of our journey, we plunge into an intense analysis of Gladiator's emotional scenes. Brace yourself for an exploration of Commodus' twisted desires, Maximus' quest for revenge, iconic lines, and the occasional historical inaccuracy. We dissect the strengths and weaknesses of the film, leaving no stone unturned. So, whether you're a Gladiator fanatic or a cinema enthusiast, this episode is your ticket to an enriching and entertaining discussion on this timeless classic. Are you not entertained? You will be!
Follow us on social media by clicking the link. http://linktr.ee/werecommendpodcast
Intro provided by Joey Prosser. @mrjoeyprosser on X
you, you, hello, and welcome to the we recommend podcast, a movie podcast, where every week we recommend a movie for you to watch and then come back here and listen to us discuss. I'm Jesse and I'm Jason at my signal unleash hell. This week we recommend gladiator Blood thirsty maniacs. That's what I'm talking about, baby. So I'm just gonna immediately start with how many times I watch this movie in high school, how many, almost twice a year, every year of high school. Hell yeah, man, it's like almost every time in history class Like they put this on. And then one of my English classes they put this on, and I remember the year that, the semester whenever I was in high school, in English class we watched this movie and Romeo and Juliet. I'm not sure which version of Romeo and Juliet was the older one. It's an older one. It doesn't seem to have any actors that I recognize.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're the much older. You know the fun story about that one they were 15 when they did the sex scene and the nude scene.
Speaker 1:Oh, I did not know that. We're in their lives. Yeah, I bet they.
Speaker 2:I'm sure whenever they turned 18, they're like huh, wish I didn't have my nude body out there, but the girl, the actress, was like 70 years old before and she got any kind of apology from anybody from it.
Speaker 1:Wow, really Holy crap. But I it's funny now thinking about it, rewatching gladiator, and how violent it is like at the beginning there's just Boy just got his head straight and there's and it's funny that nothing in this movie was blocked by my teacher but and Romeo and Juliet. Then she ran in front of the TV to cover it and now as an adult I'm like like one of these is way worse than the other one.
Speaker 2:So my English teacher put this movie on as well, and she put up a piece of paper just above where her boobs show. Yeah, hold on, gotta cover her big brown eyes. That's so hot English teacher.
Speaker 1:Oh, really man.
Speaker 2:On fire. I don't think I've ever had an attractive teacher.
Speaker 1:They've all been older, like way older. So, so yeah, we're recommending gladiator. What do you think? Would you still love this movie?
Speaker 2:I Really, really do, and it's amazing, and I remember when it first came out Washington theaters and then when it came out on DVD Mm-hmm, that was when computers first started having Like disc drives that could play DVDs. Yeah and I was super psyched about it. So once my buddy had one he just got this brand new computer and I was gonna watch I was like I gotta try this out. So I put in gladiator.
Speaker 2:But I had to go through and there were so much porn on the computer that I had to delete a Lot of it just so I could watch the movie. So I just I had to go filtering through this list of of Every type of porn you can imagine. So I started with deleting the bestiality first. What it was his younger brother that was downloading. This is bestiality for.
Speaker 1:I'm not gonna lie taking notes in this movie. I did not realize when this was leading.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean it's you gotta do what you gotta do sometimes, but I play, I watch the movie on the computer and it was. I was like this is the best technology on the planet.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it is well. This movie gets me amped Like, especially the first big gladiator scene. Well, I mean, you have the first one where they're they're chained together. That one rules, but man, whenever Maximus is just like, I'm taking charge, hell yeah.
Speaker 2:Dude awesome.
Speaker 1:Watching it a couple weeks ago to prepare, I was like, oh dude, this Hold on a second, because I watched it so much in high school and it was always on. I was like, oh yeah, gladiator, you know whatever. And like ever since high school I haven't watched it and always it's like it's one of those short sword and shield movies. It's like, whatever, it's fine, man, I'll watch it again. Oh my god, this movie's the best. I was like, oh, this is why everybody loves this movie. It's just flat out good. It's awesome.
Speaker 1:It's there's a little bit of CGI, but it's, and it's a little janky, but like not during the scenes that matter, not the fight scenes, they're just like it's real, it's just gonna happen. Cuz whenever I saw the Tigers, like some of those got to be CGI Tigers. Nope, all real Tigers, nice, yeah, they're mean. I have some facts about that tiger, a tiger scene. Oh no, not so bad for the Tigers, but almost bad for Russell Crowe. Yeah, so, russell Crowe man, um, what happened? You know Where'd he go? I Mean other than the fact that he just like ran around like the country world just wanting to fight everybody, man. And then I think, the last really good movie that I saw him in was the nice guys which you have. I don't remember the last.
Speaker 2:Movie I think was the last movie he was in like recently.
Speaker 1:The one sexer says the Pope sexer yeah that was the one that Dakota said was Kurt Russell, and then and. I Well, yep, he's in it. Sure, I mean, they're practically. I mean you Russell pro Kurt Russell. You know same last name. So this film stars Russell Crowe, as we just said. And and walking Phoenix, the guy dang man, he's so good in this movie. Oliver Reed, who plays Proximo oh yeah, he's great. Connie Nielsen, lucelia right.
Speaker 2:Lucelia, is that. That's the emperor's sister. That's a girl. Yeah, the girl, the girl, I guess yeah there's not really a whole lot of.
Speaker 1:I want you to tell me who do you think Marcus Aurelius is. Where does work it's? Search your brain and try to tell me where. You know that actor from Christopher Lloyd? I cannot remember. He's Richard Harris. Okay, do you know who Richard Harris played? He played a prominent character in the first two movies of a series. You mean Lord of the Rings, no, harry Potter. He was the first Dumbledore. Oh, how perfect is it that we just did fantastic mr Fox starring the second Dumbledore and then we immediately go to this one and it has the first Dumbledore. Just, I was just like, oh wait, that's the first Dumbledore. Oh my gosh. Oh yeah, I mean, yeah, I see it now, cuz the night that we record, the day that we recorded that episode we put on gladiator. I was like whoa, so much Dumbledore here recently.
Speaker 2:Dumbledore, please Dumbledore.
Speaker 1:Nailed it. And then you got I don't know how to say his name the Demon Hans. Yeah, that was terrible. He's, uh, his, his friend in the gladiator arena. The black guy oh yeah, yeah, he's awesome. He's in so many movies randomly, he's like in all the old bunch of MCU movies and he looks the same constantly throughout his career. He's fucking huge and cool. Yeah, he's great, he's always so good and everything he's in. So let's head head to some facts.
Speaker 1:So for the opening sequence, scott actually burned down a force, just straight up, burned it down, so the film starts in northern Europe in 100, 180, 80, where the Roman Empire go into battle with the Germania tribes. It's a huge battle sequence with hundreds of extras, explosions and fire. And really Scott actually found a bit of luck here Because the sequence was filmed in Bornwood, surrey in England, and the Royal Forestry Commission had slated the area for deforestation, so Ridley Scott was allowed to burn it down and film it hell yeah what a great day for filming.
Speaker 1:I know he's like wait, there's an actual force we can burn down. Let's go. That'd be so great, that's incredible. It's like awesome for him, bad for the plan.
Speaker 2:Yes, but it's like one of those rooms full of glass objects that you can just go in and break stuff and just think like there's probably like a.
Speaker 1:Bunch of apartment complexes on that land now and they're like whoa, some guy got his head chopped off.
Speaker 2:here they're finding props from the movie in the dirt.
Speaker 1:This. This is where Maximus was betrayed by comatose cool. So at first, scott, ridley Scott the director, which is why we're doing this movie, because Napoleon's out with walking Phoenix. I probably won't get to watch it until it comes out on Blu-ray, but we're still celebrating Ridley Scott, one of our best filmmakers ever to do it, you know.
Speaker 2:And I think didn't Napoleon like practice cannon fire on the Colosseum or like a pipe Did it to a bunch of statues?
Speaker 1:I know he did a lot in Egypt, but I was wondering if he did it in Rome also I hope when we watch it we just see him doing that and be like whoa. I mean, if he did do that and they don't show in the movie, what are we doing? Why would Ridley Scott make a movie which, in Napoleon movies, been in the works forever all the way with? Like Stanley Kubrick, who did 2001, space Odyssey and the Shining, that was supposed to be his next movie. Well, he was going to do AI, then he was going to do Napoleon, but then he died before he could do those two movies. So, anyways, just some stuff about what we got.
Speaker 2:I'm psyched for the Napoleon movie.
Speaker 1:I don't think it's getting great reviews but honestly I feel like the past few movies of his hasn't gotten very good reviews and I've still loved them. House of Gucci just a masterpiece, Just super serious cinema, but it's hilarious. Have you seen that House of Gucci? I have not. Oh my gosh, this son, House of Gucci so good, One of the best lines in film.
Speaker 2:I listened to a podcast about the guy who killed the Gucci, mr Gooch Mr Gooch Himself.
Speaker 1:Really, that's awesome.
Speaker 2:Because he was murdered right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like they. Well, I don't want to spoil the movie too much, but I'm sure everybody knows about the Gucci.
Speaker 2:He was a hired assassin. A hired assassin. I thought it was the serial killer guy.
Speaker 1:No, are you thinking of a different guy? Maybe, yeah, you're thinking of Asahi. Oh yes, I am thinking of Asahi, yeah you're thinking of Mr Asahi, because I was the guy that, yeah, the crazy guy, I know who you're talking about.
Speaker 2:That's alright, never mind.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he thought he was like he was in with the spaghetti, because I was the guy that was like super awkward around Lisa Kudrow and stuff at some parties and stuff. Yeah, I know who you're talking about.
Speaker 1:Can't remember his name to save my life, but anyway, scott was convinced to take the gig because of a painting Dreamworks. They always wanted really Scott to be the man to helm the movie, but he wasn't certain so they had to convince him. The head of Dreamworks, walter F Parks, and the producer, douglas Wick, told Scott that they wanted to do the film with him and to visualize it. They showed a painting from 1972 called Police Verso I'm sorry, I can't, I don't speak Rome, which means thumbs down and shows a gladiator standing over a beaten opponent. Scott loved the painting so much it played a part in him signing on to direct the film and really just like what you think a gladiator would look like. I mean, you can see almost the exact painting in the film at some point and the guy's helmet and he's just like he's standing over a guy looking into the crowd and the crowd's like Exactly, and they have some thought bubbles and it just says, hey, just kidding.
Speaker 1:So Scott wanted to depict ancient Rome as realistically as possible. Ridley Scott was very keen on avoiding what he thought as the swords and sandals, cliches and gladiators, things like people lounging about eating grapes, drinking wine from goblets. He wanted his film to have a grounded realism and he and his team went all out to achieve that. The costume designer was called Janty Yates and she and her team created over 10,000 costumes for the cast and extras and almost 30,000 pieces of armor were created for the movie. Most of the Rome set scenes were filmed in Malta, and that included building a replica of the Colosseum. It was 52 feet tall, took seven months to build and cost $1 million. Wow, state of the art. Digital effects were created to buy, establishing shots of the city pushing the boundaries of what was possible at the time.
Speaker 2:I do remember watching the extras of this movie of the DVD. Yeah, and it talks about how they recreated the Colosseum. It's so fucking cool. Just to see it all rebuilt from rubble. That's wild.
Speaker 1:I mean it only cost a million. It cost a million bucks. I thought it cost a little more than that. Honestly, now, with inflation, am I right? Y'all In this economy? Jeez, thanks, obama. I don't think I'm funny, I don't know. Yeah, no, the, I mean it's which. This is something that we just don't have in movies. Now, like I was thinking especially for later categories like the good, the bad and the ugly, I was like, dude, this would all just be CGI, like everything would be so much of it would be CGI. Maybe this was a hundred million dollar movie and it's worth it, right, like I mean, come on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just to create that giant, those giant set pieces.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's fucking amazing, I know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so there were other names up for the lead role. The lead character is Maximus, played by Russell Crowe, scott Cast Crowe after seeing him in Romper Somper, a 1992 Australian drama which just he sounds like a perfect film for Russell Crowe, and he said that he was someone worth watching. But most notably, there were other rumors of people he wanted to cast. One was Mel Gibson was off for the role but he turned it down. Good Gison says he was too old to play Maximus and Scott denies he was ever seen, ever even offered the part. Also considered to play Maximus was Hugh Jackman and Antonio Banderas.
Speaker 2:Oh, I don't know about Antonio. He would. Hugh Jackman would have been cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he's too short, though I guess Boy small. We can't do anything about that with movies. I have no idea how tall Hugh Jackman is. He just plays Wolverine Swissby a short little guy.
Speaker 2:So I just always assumed he's smaller. I don't know. He's one of the hobbits yeah.
Speaker 1:So Crowe was convinced to take the part by another famous filmmaker. Russell Crowe said that when he was first approached to play Maximus, the script was very poor. It was so bad the producers wouldn't send it to him in case it put him off. Instead, they just asked him to meet Ridley Scott. Crowe did get his hands on the script, though, and didn't like it. He was going to say no, but when he was working on the Insider, a Michael Mann film, michael Mann told Crowe he should meet with Scott anyway. Crowe did and said Ridley's pitch was basically we've got a hundred million dollar budget. It's ancient Rome, you're playing a general and you're being directed by me. Yes, golly, that's so cool. I mean, it's like hey, have you heard of? They're yours truly. Have you heard of Alien and Blade Runner? Yeah, that was done by me, so you're in, okay.
Speaker 2:Russell Crowe was just like do I get to fight? Do I fight?
Speaker 1:Yeah, tell me what if I actually didn't fight with swords, I just used my fist? It's like with Ivan, I don't know what accent that was.
Speaker 1:So Crowe didn't like the script. Crowe was so unhappy with the script during production that he would frequently walk off the set and initially refused to say the famous line I have my vengeance in this life or the next Crowe Letter said to the screenwriter your lines are garbage and I'm the greatest actor in the world and I can make even garbage sound good, nice. The writer later said in Russell's defense my lines were garbage. So Walking Phoenix. He wasn't convinced by his own performance so he played Commodus. Phoenix was Ridley Scott's first choice, but he did have one other name in consideration in case it didn't work out Jude Law.
Speaker 2:Ah, that's. I was thinking that Jude Law would be cool for this.
Speaker 1:He'd be pretty good. But now he's the young pope, so so Walking Phoenix is a big name now. At the time this film was a big step up for him. He was very nervous about playing the role. He felt so out of his depth that he offered to pay the producers back for his hotel and travel if they let him walk away from the movie. And before filming scenes with Crowe he would ask Crowe to slap him about and do a bit of I don't know. Try to pump him up for this scene and make him upset. So Crowe said to him why don't you try acting, you little maggot?
Speaker 1:And Phoenix said oh, that was good, Can we go now? Oh, phoenix was so Damn Russell. I know Phoenix was so intense in that role. Immediately after filming a scene where Commodus kills Marcus Aurelius by squeezing his life out of him, phoenix passed out on the set. Crowe spoke to Richard Harris, who plays Marcus Aurelius, and said what am I going to do with this kid? He keeps asking me to abuse him before it takes. And Harris, being Harris, said let's get him pissed. And they took him for a few pints of Guinness. That's great. There's always stories about walking Phoenix on sets where he's just such an uncomfortable guy. If you ever watch interviews with him, he just looks like he hates doing it. It's so weird.
Speaker 2:It's so perfect at making me feel uncomfortable I know he's so good at it.
Speaker 1:And he's such a good actor, but he just seems like he doesn't like acting. I listen to interviews with him all the time and most recently I listened to one on SmartList and he just seemed like he did not want to talk about himself or anything at all. I'm just like why are you? Do you just act because you're like I'm too uncomfortable to do anything? Else it's so weird, but walking Phoenix is one of my probably top five actors ever.
Speaker 2:Yeah he's amazing, he's great. Have you ever seen her? I've watched the first hour of it.
Speaker 1:I haven't seen a lot of it, so mad I just wanted to win Oscars.
Speaker 2:I know he falls in love with the AI.
Speaker 1:Yeah little phone thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's great, it's getting weird.
Speaker 1:I went as yeah, it is beautiful and shut up, we will eventually do that. I was thinking about it in February, when it's like Valentine's Day.
Speaker 2:All right yeah.
Speaker 1:So the real-life Commodus may have been even more ruthless than the movie version. So Commodus is based on a real-life person, the former Emperor of Rome, and it seems the real Commodus was just as merciless. He was born to a mother who had slept with the Gladiator and then bathed in said Gladiator's blood. Because of this, commodus referred to himself as the Gladiator Emperor, and would fight in the Colosseum. Whenever he fought, his opponents would be stabbed in the back before the fight, which is what happens to Maximus. Oh, that's bad. Commodus would also take people with disabilities into the Colosseum arena, tie them together and club them to death. Wow, he was such a megalomaniac that he renamed Rome to be called Colonia Commedania.
Speaker 2:It really rolls off the tongue Really nil.
Speaker 1:And he began charging the state for his appearances in the Colosseum. He charged him so much that the value of Roman currency fell and his story didn't say this is what directly led to the fall of Roman Empire. Jeez Commodus was eventually killed for his indiscretions. He was poisoned when in the bath. When he vomited up the poison, he was strangled by a wrestler named Narcius. Interestingly, Narcius was Maximus's name in the first draft of Gladiator. Oh cool, so sorry.
Speaker 2:I thought Narcius. I thought like, because Narcius, like Narcissism, comes from. There's like a story of a great guy who would like look at himself in the water and like thought he was the best. So like I don't know, it's like Narcissus.
Speaker 1:Narcissus.
Speaker 2:Well, that might actually now that.
Speaker 1:I'm looking at the word more clearly and without the microphone in my face it does look more like Narcissus. But yeah, maybe, I mean, maybe he was just named after that guy because he was a wrestler.
Speaker 2:Or maybe that was like his that was his wrestling name.
Speaker 1:Yeah, pretty boy.
Speaker 1:When he cut, whenever he cut promos in the wrestling ring. I am nauseous. Give me a puddle to look at. So the Tigers were real, so a memorable element of the fight between Maximus and Tigris. The goal is that Commodus has several live Tigers released into the arena, not a movie established for that. This idea was based on reality, as the Romans would often throw Tigers and Lions into the Coliseum unannounced for the Gladiators to deal with. Crazy Seems a little ridiculous, but Ridley Scott had five Tigers on set and, for safety reasons, it had an expert on hand with a gun loaded with tranquilizer darts Should anything go wrong. The Tigers weren't supposed to be allowed within 15 feet of Russell Crowe but due to miscalculation, the biggest tiger, which was 11 feet long, got within two feet of him and swiped out on. That shot is in the film, so that really close shot of it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's real, that was.
Speaker 1:CGI, that was real, that's awesome Sick.
Speaker 2:Oh God, it's so scary.
Speaker 1:It's like I'm glad he didn't get cut, but that was cool.
Speaker 2:That's cool as fuck. And they covered him in trout, which didn't help him. Covered him in trout.
Speaker 1:It's like dang. Why did we just put so much like?
Speaker 2:deer urine all over me right before this.
Speaker 1:You knew that the Tigers would want to eat me.
Speaker 2:Do I need to be covered in fancy feast right now, right?
Speaker 1:This seems unnecessary. So a key part of the Colosseum fight was incorrectly based on reality. Something we see all the way through the film is the famous thumbs up and thumbs down that the Emperor gives whenever he wants the people to die or whatever. In reality, it was actually the other way around. Thumbs up meant death and thumbs down meant mercy, but due to the fact that nowadays thumbs ups is a good sign, they went the opposite.
Speaker 2:All right, that could have been confusing for all of us.
Speaker 1:Future folk, yeah, so I mean, I feel like I would have got it, oh, okay.
Speaker 2:So I mean, yeah, you get it immediately. Oh, so that was good. Okay, that's cool.
Speaker 1:There would probably be like a like as soon as he does that and he kills it. There'd be like a cut to like somebody. Being like that actually means it's a he dies.
Speaker 2:It's not like that now, but that's actually what it means the person next to him.
Speaker 1:what are you talking about, or just?
Speaker 2:like some kid would be like what's that mean, mommy? What's that? Why does it get in Rome, mom? Because they're in Cognizant bro.
Speaker 1:What the fuck.
Speaker 2:Why do we sound?
Speaker 1:like we from 1950s and now we in Roman times, gee will occurs. So Oliver Reed, who plays Proximo, sadly died during midway. Through production. Sucks. Oliver Reed famously passed away during the film in three weeks before production ended. A legendary hellraiser, he died in the pub during a break in shooting after drinking eight pints of German lager, a dozen shots of rum, half a bottle of whiskey and a few shots of Cognizant, and after beating five Royal Navy sailors at arm wrestling a clause in the movie's insurance contract would have let Ridley Scott reshoot Oliver Reed's scenes, but most of the actors and crew were exhausted and Scott didn't want to cut Reed from the movie.
Speaker 1:So the writer was flown back in to do rewrites and a body double and CGI were used to give Reed's character a different ending. I think it's like I don't notice it when I watch it.
Speaker 2:I don't watch the movie about his life.
Speaker 1:I want to watch, just yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm at the bar.
Speaker 1:Oliver Reed, I want to sounds like a good name. His last night, just straight up, just drunk as can be.
Speaker 2:Having the best night of his fucking life, that's awesome.
Speaker 1:So this is the last little fact I got and it's great. So the ending originally was very different. The film ends with Jubo bearing the figurines of Maximus's family in the Coliseum before heading back to his family in Africa. Originally, though, before the death of Oliver Reed, it was supposed to be Proximo bearing the figures in the sand. Also, maximus didn't die in the original version of the script, and Scott Crow changed it on set. Crow later said I remember Ridley coming up to me on set saying look the way this is shaping up. I don't see how you live. This character is about one act of pure vengeance for his wife and child, and once he's accomplished that, what does he do? Does he end up running a fucking puc pizzeria?
Speaker 2:by the Coliseum that would be great.
Speaker 1:I really know that, yeah, nice happy ending. That would have been awesome. Snag come here. Just forget Sit down, buddy, I'm sorry, I know Spaghetti pizza I wish I got to play with you.
Speaker 2:You see him just like with his gladiator sword just chopping pizzas? Yeah right, Slice some of the A-pieces.
Speaker 1:It's like A First Tigris, the mall, the gall. Come get a slice of pizza. It's a Maximus, a pizzeria. If you eat my pizza, I might not be a gladiator anymore. I don't know, I'm cutting that pizza. All right, bro, you ready to hop into the movie? Yeah, man, we start with a 12-year war with barbarians. It's 180 AD. We see our boy touching wheat, boy touching grass out there. We see Maximus. He's walking through his forces. They're all weirdly smiling at him. And then we see that they're waiting on somebody to come up. They're like it's been two hours, we can tell by the sun or whatever. And then a man comes up on a horse. We're thinking, oh, here we go, we're about to start the battle. It turns out that guy ain't got no head, no more.
Speaker 2:They didn't like what he had to say.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and they're like all right, here we go. And after the guy rides up on the horse with no head, one of the other guys is like people should know when they're conquered, because this is like the last battle with the Germanian barbarians. Right, is it Germanian? Yeah, and so they're essentially like this is it Like, once they kill them all, this is the end of the barbarians? Oh, yeah, and they get to go home, yeah, and then the great line by Russell Crowe at my signal Unleash Hell and the dog runs.
Speaker 2:like is the dog's name? Hell also, I don't know, is it just like?
Speaker 1:let my dog go. Yeah, he's just like running around with him.
Speaker 2:It's great. Yeah, he's a cool dog.
Speaker 1:It's like, I don't know. It looked like a blue Hitler, kind of like my dog, but like darker it's scary, like give me. So, as they attack, general Maximus Decimus Meridius leads his Roman legion to victory against Germanic barbarians in the year 100 AD.
Speaker 2:Hell yeah, man, they fucked them up hard. Yeah, they've got all those war machines and the barbarians just sitting there taking it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's crazy because they start firing and all the barbarians like, yeah, they're just like getting hit with arrows. I'm like y'all should probably go, I should start attacking at some point, you know.
Speaker 1:And then we, so essentially they win the war. It's great, it's a dope fight. Yeah, you got catapults Russell Crowe's like or some guys like we need to move the catapults. Russell Crowe's like eh, who cares if we kill some of our own men? Great guy. And then we see like it's the ending of a prolonged war and earning esteem for elderly Emperor Marcus Aurelius. It's an awesome battle, looks dope.
Speaker 1:Then we cut to the Emperor's son, commodus, played by Walking Phoenix, and daughter Lucilia. They have been summoned to join the campaign because Marcus Aurelius is about to name his successor, because that boy on his deathbed. And we see Commodus. He's weird AF. Yeah, really wants to put it into his sister. Weird, he thinks about that a lot, yeah. And then Commodus talks about having some sort of games Once he becomes a ruler, which we'll learn to be. The gladiator games Boy just wants to put on a show. You know he wasn't a dude, he'd be a great leader. 150 days of gladiator awards Back in the day. He'd be like are you kidding me Sounds incredible He'd be like hey, now, every day there's a football game on.
Speaker 1:Everybody'd be like what? No way, all the dudes be like let's go.
Speaker 2:We got a lot of people to murder All the wives like dang it yeah.
Speaker 1:No, but I mean, I wouldn't be able to watch any gladiator battles, would you? Oh bloody.
Speaker 2:I feel bad doing UFC. I watch UFC and I'm like dude that seems painful.
Speaker 1:The guy gets. Eventually. A guy gets on the ground and he's like passed out, and the guy's like hitting him like 10 times after he's passed out and the rest like okay, you can stop now. Could we have stopped at 10 punches ago. I feel bad over here, but it's been a while since I watched it. Maybe I would enjoy it now.
Speaker 2:I don't know. I mean, back then there really wasn't a whole lot to do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 2:So this is like the best thing ever.
Speaker 1:I don't know I probably could have watched one Playing Domino's or Dice or whatever.
Speaker 2:I don't even know if they did that Like everybody died all the time. Oh wait, no Back then we see them.
Speaker 1:They're just playing with Cobras and throwing things out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the Cobra game, that was cool. I don't even know what that is. I don't know, it looks dangerous.
Speaker 1:So Marcus Aurelius asks Maximus what he wants and he says he wants to go home. And then we're like we're there's like oh okay, whatever you want, but not really. And like they're in the battle, feelings like look, they're all cheering for you. Marcus Aurelius is like no, maximus, they cheer for you, raise his hand, yeah. But then Weasley old communist shows up after the battle and Marcus is pretty dismissive of them. It's pretty awkward. Because the comment is like take my hand, father, father. He's like get that.
Speaker 2:I don't know why I'm talking like that. That's scoosy.
Speaker 1:And then there's more talk of Maximus wanting to go home. Oh boy, just want to see his wife Dang it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he says it's been like two years.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Over two years. Wives is like.
Speaker 1:I don't know if he's dead, dude, like I don't know this point, just whatever. If you're just gonna keep leaving me for two years, just be gone. Commodus, confident he'll be chosen, is friendly to Maximus, calling him brother. Commodus wants Maxis by his side so he can be stronger whenever, because Commodus is assuming that he's going to be the successor. Yeah, we learn. Lucilia and Maximus apparently had a romantic involvement at some point in time In the past. Commodus is concerned that it will trouble her to see him again. It seemed like whatever she did to him messed him up. It's her feelings. He was like super rude to her when he sees her.
Speaker 2:Well, it's like I mean, she is kind of a cold woman, yeah, especially at the beginning, yeah, Then she kind of like wait, my brother's in charge.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he's worse, I'm going to get molested by this guy. He's gonna kill my kid. Yeah, marcus tells Lucilia he asked her to come because of her brother. He's very fond of her and will soon need her more than ever because she's probably a better leader. But he's like I wish you a born man. You've been a great leader.
Speaker 2:But who will? Let's just give her a shot, dude.
Speaker 1:Let's just give her a shot. It seemed to would have worked out a lot better. You know, yes, mark will actually. Commodus probably just killed her, or something, probably. Yeah, marcus appoints the morally upstanding Maximus as his successor, with the understanding that Maximus will eventually restore the Roman Republic by returning power to the Senate. Maximus, longing to go home to his wife and son, tries to decline the honor, but Marcus Aurelius insists that not wanting the job makes Maximus the best man for her. Yeah, he's like too fucking bad, mark. Max, yeah, you're going to do it. And Marcus says Rome has become nasty and evil and that Maximus is the son that he never had.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the son he should have had. Yeah, do you think Commodus is like listening to all this? He's like father. I can't believe you'd say that.
Speaker 1:What are they? What's the accent? Where are we going Now? He is pretty ruthless to his son, though We'll see you in a second. Celia and Maximus talk. Marcus talked about God. There's so many M names in the beginning. Maximus doesn't seem to care that much for her. Maybe I'm assuming a bad breakup, maybe she cheated on him, I don't know. We learned that Moose Lucilia was married but he died, and she has a eight-year-old son, lucius witcha. I don't know, I didn't like the kid.
Speaker 2:He ruined everything. He made me so mad.
Speaker 1:It's like God dang it.
Speaker 2:Like, why would?
Speaker 1:you tell him that, like, by the way, the kid's eight. Well, no, I mean, just like later, when Lucius tells Commodus everything we'll get there, we'll talk about it when we get there. It pisses me off so much. Watching it this morning I was like God dang it kid. So, maximus, he's praying for his family. He asks advice from his loyal servant, cicero, and tells him they may not be able to go home because he's deciding that he's going to take up command for Marcus Aurelius. So Commodus and Marcus, they meet to talk. Marcus tells him that Commodus will not be the emperor. At the end of the talk, in which Commodus accuses his father of not recognizing his virtues and never loving him, commodus confesses that all he ever wanted was his father's love and approval, and then he smothers him to death.
Speaker 2:Yeah, marcus Aurelius is like okay, fine, first hug ever, here we go.
Speaker 1:Yeah, let's do this Too late. Father, you're about to die anyways, get this over with. But there is the dope line like your faults as a son are my failure as a father. Yeah, I was like hell. Yeah, yeah, bro, you've been at war too long.
Speaker 2:It's time to heal. You need to freaking like this.
Speaker 1:You should have been teaching your son, if you know that your son's going to be leading and you're like wait, he seems kind of demented, but if he's got to be the next leader, because that's how this works maybe I should spend more time with him. Spend a little more time with him or, if you don't really care for him, force him in the battlefield. Let him die.
Speaker 2:And why wouldn't Comet just go back to Rome and say well, the Senate's in power now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're too old to be out there on the battlefield. Yeah, I know, just like. All right, I'm decreeing, senate has all power and Max, you got to tell people.
Speaker 1:Don't just tell one person, Just be like when you're like a king almost, because in Game of Thrones this happens too. Whatever the Barthain, whatever his name, is the very first season when it's like, hey, sean Bean's going to be the king, and then everything goes wrong and it's like, well, no one heard you say any of this, so now no one's going to believe you, so great.
Speaker 2:Like I don't know, put a poster up or something.
Speaker 1:I don't know. Yeah, that usually drives me crazy in these types of movies. It's like what the word is too confident.
Speaker 2:He's too confident that no one was going to murder him. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:So, declaring himself Emperor. Commodus asked Maximus for his loyalty, which Maximus realizing. Commodus involved Marcus Aurelius' death because he's immediately, he like, sniffs it out, he's like, he kisses him. This was a motive he refuses his hand in loyalty. Commodus orders Maximus arrested and executed and dispatches the Praetorian guards to murder Maximus' wife and young son. Maximus nearly escapes his execution and races home, only discovers his family's charred and crucified bodies and smoldering ruins of Villa. Oh, I was messed up. And then, after burying his wife and son, maximus succumbs to exhaustion and collapses on the graves. Yeah, that kid, he got straight up, run over by that horse that looked brutal.
Speaker 1:I was like whoa, that looks so real.
Speaker 2:He was like it's like, it's like. It's like it's like kicked in the face by a horse or something.
Speaker 1:Yeah and trampled to death. But this is all great because I don't know, it's just like give me a soldier's death and then you just straight up, just murders all of them. That was sweet, yeah. It's like why do you have to just shoot an arrow at the guy you know?
Speaker 2:Do we have to do this whole?
Speaker 1:I mean, like they're probably, they probably knew him, yeah, and I guess they liked him, but it seemed like the what is it? Praetorian, praetorian, praetorian guard. They seem more like, like just by the Rome side, more so than by his side, I guess. I suppose, yeah, and loyal to the emperor only. Another thing is whenever he gets to his family and they're like charred and like hanging, like there's so much mucus coming out of his face.
Speaker 2:I was like he goes in, like like touches his face to their foot and it's just like I was like holy crap, that's more disgusting than the head being cut off. I know it's like. It's like he's ugly crying and just rubbing his face on his dead wife.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and actually the grossest thing in that whole movie is this next part. So, with a wombful of maggots, so gross slave traders find Maximus and take him to how do you say it? Zucca bar Sure, the, a rugged Providence in North Africa where he is purchased by a proximo, the head of a gladiator school, the straw and nihilistic over the death of his family and betrayal by his empire, maximus. Maximus initially refuses to fight, but as he defends himself in the arena, his formidable combat skills lead to rising popularity with the audience. Like the gladiator, stuff is so good.
Speaker 2:I love, I love. Though, like a lot of times in this movie they have Russell Crowe or, you know, maximus he's. He's kind of moving, like he'll be floating along and he's in this like dream state. Yeah, and then, as it goes back to reality, you know he's in some like he's in those vehicles, in that cage.
Speaker 1:But he's like when he's like close to death, almost yeah, he's like he's in his wound. Yeah, that was really cool. I love it.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And so Maximus befriends Hagan and a Germanic barbarian, and Juba, a Numidian hunter. He becomes Juba, becomes a close friend and confident of the grieving Maximus, and the two speak frequently of afterlife and Maximus, eventually Maximus, is eventual runification with his family. I don't know why I try to be fancy with the wording on this one. It's all right, a little dumb words.
Speaker 2:I really liked Proxima when he first met him and he's talking about. He meets that trader and he grabs him by the balls.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So you sold me two giraffes that won't mate. But when I watched it, you know, 15 years ago, I thought he said that you sold me two giraffes that won't paint. I thought they were supposed to be painting giraffes this whole time.
Speaker 1:Man, that would have been wild, that would have been crazy, you know because you know people selling.
Speaker 2:That's where the term like flying carpet came from. It's where people would just say anything to sell you something.
Speaker 1:So that's what I thought was going on. Man, that would have been so good If we just it just like pans over to the side and you need to see two giraffes is painting and like they've got berets and like yeah. We, we, we do a giraffe. You like this? No, but what do you think about the Germanic barbarian? The giant guy, he rules man.
Speaker 1:He does rule, he's so cool in this film. He's cool Like he's just testing out, especially when he gets shot in the In the leg, in the calf, and he's just like who cares, I'm breaking it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he just snaps it off and keeps going. Yeah, it's great, he's a beast.
Speaker 1:So we cut to Rome. This is where we get the classic Ridley Scott weird color correction, where everything turns blue. Yeah. Just something he does in all his movies now and I'm like this movie doesn't ask for this.
Speaker 2:Well, I think in a lot of the scenes where Maximus is dreaming everything turns out like twilight blue yeah. And like it's supposed to represent Elysium, you know, in the afterlife, which I think, according to video games that I've played, elysium is blue, oh, really.
Speaker 1:Nice. Because, it's twilight all the time. Yeah, I don't know, I mean for Commodus. This is like for him, this is like his Elysium. He's, finally, is in charge of Rome.
Speaker 2:Elysium is supposed to be for heroes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, he's thinking like he's a hero. He thinks he's a hero. Yeah, exactly, because they do say whenever he comes up, it's like, oh, he's like he's a war torn hero or something.
Speaker 2:A battle yeah.
Speaker 1:Something like that. Yeah, but we see some senators. They're talking about Commodus. Some of them don't like them. What, oh, really likes them and wants to be his bestie. They have a Senate meeting with him but he doesn't care about any of it. There's like a play. They're worried about the plague and he's like whatever, yeah, I'll hug them. He's like would you?
Speaker 2:hug someone with a play.
Speaker 1:It's yucky, yeah, and we learn he wants to completely get rid of the Senate. He wants to be Just the ruler. He wants to be the only one that makes the rules. What do you call that? Oh?
Speaker 2:What do you mean? Like the?
Speaker 1:The oh gosh dude. What is happening to my brain today?
Speaker 2:It's the dictator, dictator.
Speaker 1:They call me dictator. Awesome, blue-colored oh there's bringing it, bringing it back for salt.
Speaker 2:Here's your trap.
Speaker 1:So commonest decides to reopen the gladiatorial games to commemorate his father's death, declaring a hundred fifty days of celebration In a bid to win the affections of the Roman populace. He just wants love all you need is love.
Speaker 2:It's really a good idea, though. It is a fucking cool idea and we still do that now. Yeah, just with other stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean we got the Olympics right. It's all for people to be like yeah, our team.
Speaker 2:I think they should bring back Bloodsport yeah, like the movie bloodsport remake. Oh no, that movie's kind of sucks. They would have done that for this movie, though he's blind at the end, maximus is just like trying to feel the wind to find comatose, tips his hand in glass.
Speaker 1:Yeah, let's go Commodus. So we're back to Africa. Maximus makes quick work in the gladiator arena, throws a sword. Are you not entertained? Are you not in time?
Speaker 2:this fight scene was cool, yeah, when they first run out the gate and that in the guy swinging the big ball oh, he's immediately. Yeah, it's so good.
Speaker 1:Just makes quick work of everybody. So Proximo's company of gladiators is hired to participate. Proximo tells Maximus that his abilities as a fighter won't be enough in Rome. He needs to win the affections of the audience. Maximus at first doesn't like the idea of playing to the crowd, but Proximo explains that it might save his life, revealing that he himself used to be a gladiator and, after gaining popularity with, was freed by the emperor's Marcus Aurelius. He shows Maximus a ceremonial wooden sword he received at the time. Maximus is credulous at first you knew Marcus Aurelius but then realizes his strategy might get him close enough to comatose to get his revenge.
Speaker 2:Hell yeah. But yeah, I think I'm gonna my fight's mess mixed up because this fight, that fight where he says are you not entertained? Yeah, he just went out by himself. Yeah, he was by himself. Because Proximo's just like, you're good dude, you don't need help like they were all in there, but Martin Max is just like I got this Well at that point.
Speaker 1:I think he's being declared as champion of this gladiator arena. Yeah, it's great, though. Oh god, I love it. I love his little wooden sword. He gave me this sword. I'm like that's it I gave you dude, I gave you some gold or something. So we cut to comatose staring over Lucius. He's very jelly oh.
Speaker 2:He's still brooding over the Senate.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he asked his sister to sleep with him. Oh Hell yeah. Boy straight a freak, got some weird ideas of love. Yeah, he's such a weirdo.
Speaker 1:But he's perfect being a weirdo is like I, just feel like his sister since, like they were, like ten has just been, I Need to get married stats. It's like, hey, y'all to go play in your room. She's like I don't know. It's just me coming up with excuses to leave the room. So, and then we're, we cut to Maximus. He's in his little sale waiting to go out into the gladiator arena in Rome. There's the awesome shot of the Colosseum entering they're like how could they build this?
Speaker 1:But before the games, lucius talks to Maximus by the end. By the end, maximus realizes this is Lucilia's son. He's like you're who. I make some he like goes into the corner, like behind a pillar. I'm like what we doing? I guess he doesn't want to be recognized at this point. I wouldn't either, even though nobody in Rome would know him except for Commodus and Lucilia. And yes, senator too, because he's earlier. Marcus Aurelia says that oh no, like he, you've never been to Rome.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, he's never been there, but he's protected.
Speaker 1:You love Rome so much and you've never been. Yeah, so in a recreation of the battle of Carthage at the Colosseum, which apparently is wrong, apparently is the battle of Zuma. Oh, so they got that wrong. I guess in the movie, maximus leads Proximo's gladiator. So it is such a victory against a more powerful force. Much of the maze man of the crowd, he's like telling them to follow his orders and like if he asked if they're in the army, and they're like if you stay with me, we'll survive.
Speaker 1:So, you got carts flipping, got this an old girl, she gets her cut in half. Oh, thanks, oh that's all that was like oh my god Wait, this is so cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, she gets bisected.
Speaker 1:I mean, just like this is Ridley Scott like at his best with action. It's so they took so much care into making these action scenes so good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean and they look incredible. Mac, like Max's his helmet. It just looks terrifying. Yeah, it's great.
Speaker 1:So iconic? I don't know, it's just if this, if these scenes just didn't get your blood pumping you, just I don't think the movie would have worked. But it's just no wonder everybody likes this movie.
Speaker 2:So it was just the how he commanded them that he told when he's like stick together, shield wall.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then he like diamonds, you know diamond shape. Yeah, fucked up, even though we're supposed to already be on his side. But, like after this, it's like oh no, Maximus is the dude Like let's go. I hate Rules. Now you understand why people are like oh no, we need to stay with this guy this guy, this guy's great, and then like we're kind of like the audience and the gladiator. You know, we're just like yes, more violence, yeah, and this guy rules. I hope he kills common.
Speaker 2:I do and I wish that they would have made. Have you seen the show Sparta?
Speaker 1:Yeah, or uh, spartan, spartan, uh, what is it called? I do know what you're talking about.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, but when every time I shoot they cut to the crowd, it's just like women got their tits out. Yeah, it's, a lot of people were drunk and like it's going nuts, oh it is like Spartacus yeah yeah, something like that, yeah, I didn't know it's talking about.
Speaker 1:I used to watch that show all the time. It was so boobalicious, it was kind of the I don't know if it was before Game of Thrones or if it was around the same time as Game of Thrones, but they seem like one-in-one together, almost. Oh, so cool, just because it's like here's the action for the guys, here's the romance for the girls, and they're all great.
Speaker 2:And there's. There's something that they did in that show that they saw in this movie. They'll have like a Scene. They'll have like a senior watching, but the background will be like wild ass fucking clouds yeah fast.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was very, almost kind of 300-esque yes, definitely inspired by 300, like you could feel that, because it had like a lot of like speed, ramping with the camera and editing to where it's like slow, fast. Yeah, it's great. I only watched the first season of it, but I did enjoy it because I had stars at the time and I was like, oh, this movie is cool and I'm younger.
Speaker 2:So many boobs.
Speaker 1:So common is. I love this during the scene because, you see, common is this like out there, like yeah, he talks to, like the weird guy with a wig who's Like introduces the gladiator thing wild eyebrows now remind me in the battle of Carthage Didn't the barbarians lose? Because the gladiator supposed to be the barbarians? Yeah, they were just supposed to be fodder, he's like it's okay.
Speaker 1:I like surprises, so common is like I want to meet the Spaniard. Commodus descends into the arena to meet the victors. At first, maximus turns his back on the emperor Raven salt. Whoa then is stunned to discover that the leader of Proxima's gladiator is Maximus. He's got the probably one of the best quotes in lines and maybe ever. My name is Maximus Decimus meridius, commander of the armies of the north, general of Felix legions and loyal servant to the true emperor, marcus Aurelius, father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife, and I will have my vengeance in this life, or the Blood pumping right now, just even snakes. It's like over here farting so pumped up.
Speaker 1:Sitting on my foot farting great, no, but seriously, whenever rewatching it I was like and it's funny because like, yeah, anybody else saying that line it probably sucks, but that was a really good, he's fucking cool. So crow man, he can do it.
Speaker 2:He's crazy. This is where I thought you were mad at the kid, because we he reaches down to bow and he picks up that arrowhead. He's like I'm gonna kill commoness right now. I bet they've been. The kid runs up.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, that's shit. That, yeah, just kill him. Let's do it. It'd be great people in audience.
Speaker 2:What let's go.
Speaker 1:So the the emperor, unable to kill Maximus because of the crowds roaring, approval for him gives the thumbs up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he's like telling the hush. Yeah the finger. Thing.
Speaker 1:And then he, like, sulk's out of their arena. Oh man, I'm gonna swim to my cartman. But five stars at this point in the movie because this is our perfect scene and everything about this was great. Yep, so maybe perfect. So commoness is all pissy and wondering why Max is alive. It's just.
Speaker 2:Alive sister.
Speaker 1:Why did they all cheer for him? That Vex is me. I'm terribly vexed and he's like why? It's like if they all like they told me that he was dead, they lied to me.
Speaker 2:If they lie to me then they don't respect me, they don't love me.
Speaker 1:So he's like dude, you're so weird, you're a lot. Hey that you're my brother. Yeah, just don't kill me. And Lucia visit, visits Max miss realizing oh snap, this might be a chance for me to get out of this situation. Max miss is mad at her, though, because she's like you knew, it's like I didn't know. Yes, you did. She tells him she is just as scared in a prisoner as he is. Her son is the heir to the throne, so she is constantly in danger and so is he. She says that Max miss is the only chance to get rid of Commodus. She asked him to meet with senator Uh, gragas, gragas, yes, who he can help him overthrow Commodus. But Max miss refuses. He's just like I'm just gonna die, like I'm just gonna fight till I die, essentially, or till he gets his chance in the arena, I guess, to kill him. Oh yeah, whenever Lucy, lucia's this isn't around Pipsqueak. Then we get a little fun scene between the three pals, juba and the Hagan oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Hey, get your food, max miss these like jubas, like don't poison you and Hagan picks it up. Really fun. Yeah, it was fun. We hear the games horns. The games continue. Commodus pits Max miss against Tigris. Tigris, yeah of gall, rome's only undefeated gladiator. In an arena surrounded by chain tigers with handlers instructed to target Max miss. Following an intense battle, max miss narrowly defeats yeah, I love how shiny tiger says yeah, he's great.
Speaker 2:He rules.
Speaker 1:Feel bad for him and he awaits Commodus's decision to kill or spare. Though Commodus votes for death, max miss spares his life, deliberately insulting the emperor and garnering the audience of audiences approval with his bitter enemy now known as Max miss. The merciful Commodus becomes more frustrated as inability to kill Max miss or stop his ascending popularity while Commodus, his own popularity shrinks.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he had. So every time he fucking wins he's got a call out his buddies and then like, surround them and give him a stern talk.
Speaker 1:It's like oh, I'm gonna get you. I'm very fax. So following the fight, max miss meets his former servant, cicero, who reveals that Max miss, his army, remains loyal to him. They are camped at the port of Ostia. He also hands Max miss the two small wooden idols of his wife and Son that he carried with him as a soldier in general. He's like I just need the, I just need the idol of my wife. Yeah, that's some cranking to do. Why is sister Rose's face all fucked?
Speaker 2:up.
Speaker 1:I don't know, assuming probably got in battle, maybe yeah, I'm prison at some point it's like I can't really. I don't really know the story of and isn't sister.
Speaker 2:Oh, like there's a story of sister oh, as a romantic, yeah something like that and who would like speak? Tell he would tell the other guy what to say to woo this woman.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I do remember that I was thinking I was supposed to be ugly, yeah, but he was like poetic. I don't know if it's like the same guy. I don't think it's the same. I mean, they only have like five names back in the day. There's no, some start with them. As we learn, communists is being told by a senator that he should just kill him. But, honest, like I can't, I can't do that. I don't want to make a martyr of him. He's told a lot. The enemies come to him and reveal themselves. It's cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the sea snake.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's kind of cool, I know I was gonna write all that down and say it. Lucilia, increasingly fearful of her brother's instability and incessuous desires.
Speaker 1:Oh man so weird a plot with Maximus and sinner Gragas to reunite Maximus with his army and overthrow Commodus. Because there's a point where Cicero is like hi, lady, pull over. It's like they all, they all want to work, everybody's ready to fight, so let's do this. And she's like oh thanks, by the way, here's some money for your lawyer face fix, bro. So Proximo is concerned with the plot to kill Commodus, saying that he's an entertainer and commoness Commodus makes him rich. But Max miss tells him Commodus killed the man who set Proxima free. Oh hell no, yeah, oh hell no. Lucilia tells Max miss that Commodus some. There's some points in my notes where I wrote Commodus as Commodius.
Speaker 1:I forgot to fix it. But he is a big old fool, it man. So Lucilia tells Max miss that Commodus had Gragas arrested and he has to leave tonight.
Speaker 2:They smooch, yeah, they smooch her heart and then like as okay. So, as the escape scene is happening, are they going and killing all the senators? Is that what's happening? So, because they put a snake in that one dude.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're killing the senators that aren't gonna follow him. Okay, yeah, they're probably gonna leave the one good one, the one that's like with. Commodus alive yeah he'll probably be his right hand man. Got you Commodus. However, learns of his sister's betrayal from her young son, lucius, who's practicing to be a gladiator. It says oh, he's gonna free Rome. It's like dude, you just told the Caesar oh yeah. Of the plot, like what are you doing? You don't think I Guess? You're just like born a kid spoiled and it's like.
Speaker 1:No one can hurt me. I'm the heir to the throne.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 1:Oh my god, don't ask kid. So Like she, he essentially threatens the boy, like in front of Lucilia the boys like.
Speaker 1:I don't understand any of this. And now she's powerless and must do whatever Commodus demands of her. Fucked up, the Praterian guards immediately storm proxmo's gladiators barracks, battling the gladiators while Maximus escapes. Hagan and proxmo are killed in the siege rip while Juba and the survivors are imprisoned. Maximus escapes the city walls only to be ambushed by cohort of them, I Bratorian guards, who uses Cicero as bait, killing him as soon as Maximus comes out in the open To the best characters die. Well, I like Cicero too, but it's like dude. You should have known that I was obviously a trap, right.
Speaker 2:I mean, he was just like.
Speaker 1:I'm just out in the open over here.
Speaker 2:I think he kind of felt like it could have been a trap, yeah, but he just hadn't, he was just doing.
Speaker 1:There's nothing else he could have done right.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of dudes waiting on him out there. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:So Cometus says that Lucius will stay with him now and there's a lot of more threats to her saying like you have to do Whenever I want.
Speaker 2:We're gonna do it.
Speaker 1:So concluding that legends born in the Colosseum must die there. Cometus personally challenges Maximus to duel in front of the roaring audience, acknowledging that Maximus's skill exceeds his own. Cometus deliberately stabs Maximus with a stiletto, puncturing his lung, and has the wound concealed beneath the gladiator armory. I didn't know, it punctured his lung. Yeah me neither. I was like dude. You should probably stab both lungs.
Speaker 2:Well, it's gotta they would have bled out too soon.
Speaker 1:It was just one stab. I was like dude, like, maybe, like stab him in the lung and then just like, maybe a little bit in the leg, the thigh, so he can't move as well. I Mean you're still, you're, I mean you're the, you're the see there. I mean, so what if they know? He seemed a little injured. I mean just like, oh, what'd you say? You're dead now? Yeah, so as Cometus collapses in the now silent Colosseum, maximus oh, so there's the hole in the arena the two exchange blows before Maximus rips the sword from Cometus's hands. Cometus is like demanding a sword from the guards, but they ordered by one of the leaders. Yeah, it's the one from the beginning. That was like why are you armed? And he's like, sorry, communist, we have to. Or sorry, maximus, we're doing this. Yeah, and he's like what, what of my wife and kids? And it's like they will be burned. They will meet you In the afterlife.
Speaker 2:he's like God, that's sucked so, but then he finally has like a little heart. Yeah, it's like this emperor sucks, it's like yeah, y'all can't have his weapons.
Speaker 1:And as he slips closer to death, maximus, hallucinating over his home in Spain, drops his own Sword and Cometus pulls a hidden Slido and renews his attack. Maximus then beats Cometus into submission and kills him with his own.
Speaker 2:Stabs him in the neck yeah, it's great. Like turns his own hand around, like that's the worst.
Speaker 1:Gratifying to give us is almost a little more, I know.
Speaker 2:I kind of wish you would have like dismembered him a little bit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, just rip. Where's the tigers?
Speaker 2:Though he had frozen in a tiger pit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so, as Cometus collapses in the now silent coliseum, maximus still sees his wife and son in the afterlife. He reaches for them but is pulled back to reality oh there goes gravity by one of the guards who asked him for instructions. Maximus orders the release of Proxima's gladiators and senator Gragas, whom he reinsates and instructs to lead the restoration, the Restoration of power to the Senate, as Marcus Aurelius intended, rome will be a republic again.
Speaker 2:Okay, man democracy.
Speaker 1:No, that killed it. Way to go Max. Max Miss collapses in. Lucilia Rushes to his side after being reassured that her son is safe and Cometus is dead. Max miss dies and wonders into the afterlife, to his home and family in the distant senator, gragas and Proxima's gladiators carry his body out of the coliseum that night and they just leave the emperor's body just sitting there he's like all right crowd get him.
Speaker 1:And then Juba buries Max miss two small statues of his wife and son in the coliseum in the patch of Max miss's blood, and says that he too will Eventually join him. But not yet. Not yet Not. And that's the film. Next year there's a gladiator to is there. Yeah, I wonder what it's gonna be about. I hope it's about this character. Oh man, that'd be great, oh.
Speaker 2:Can't wait to see it. It's been too long since we've had a. We gotta get back to the gladiator.
Speaker 1:I just wonder when it's gonna take place, like before this or after this. Oh, yeah, I mean, I like I wonder if it's gonna be a prequel or a sequel. Yeah, I mean, or they just gonna break.
Speaker 2:Max and this is bad. It's a zombie film. That would be cool yeah.
Speaker 1:I Shoulda look, I should have looked up what it's gonna be about, but I kind of also don't want to know. I don't want to be surprised to. So we are gonna cut to our Categories. The first category the good, the bad, the ugly, the fine. This is where we talk about the good of the film, something that we like to see the actors the bad, something we didn't like, the ugly, something that we don't think that age well.
Speaker 1:And the fine, something we do think age well. What do you think age well or what do you think the good is?
Speaker 2:I, there's so much good. I really love the, the music, like whenever Hans Zimmer baby, whenever he would he'd go into his dream world To Elysium he's thinking about it. You just hear like the, the chorus, I guess, or the choir or whoever's doing it. Yeah, son is so like I don't know how to say it like Just eerie and I like happy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like a very dream state type of sound. Yeah, that was fucking cool.
Speaker 2:Makes you feel dreamy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly. Yeah, the soundtrack is. It's like one of the most bought soundtracks ever actually bought. Yeah, like people bought used to buy soundtracks. Okay is one of the most popular and one of the most purchase tracks. I'll go Russell Crowe and walking Phoenix. They nail it, yeah they're great.
Speaker 1:But then you also have a Like I like the lack of CGI in the battles, like I'm fine with the CGI and like showing the Coliseum and like Rome, like I'll take that, that's fine, yeah, the light, not using fake blood, not using you know. Just there's not CGI everywhere, which is what all we get now.
Speaker 2:I mean, it looks so and they did such a good job. Mm-hmm, it look real, the choreography of the fights, great, wonderful man.
Speaker 1:We need a movie like this every year. I feel like I say that in every movie. Would have been cool if the chariots would like explode yeah. They shoot an arrow just explodes for no reason, like they do in like movies with guns and cars. They just always exploding, all right. So what do you got for the bad of the film?
Speaker 2:not enough explosions, I guess. Yeah, I only really got one.
Speaker 1:It's that the the third act just kind of Happens and it happens fast.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it does. It really cuts to him being like a champion and then he made it.
Speaker 1:He's like oh, you have to leave tonight. Yeah, by the way everybody's dying now. Oh, it's like I feel like it's 20 minutes and it's just All that happens. He kills, calm it is, and then all that ends. I was like that that was bad.
Speaker 2:It was very, very fast and if I feel like they missed out where they could have told like a cool story about him escaping, yeah, but I just feel like they get it.
Speaker 1:I mean, I guess it's just there's so much detail at the beginning, in the middle, and it just seems like they're like we got to land this now.
Speaker 2:Yeah how are we landing it, which might be the issues. We're gonna cut this under four hours, yeah.
Speaker 1:The thing is, man, like this movie. Part of the good is just that the this movie like Goes. Whenever I was watching it this morning to take some notes, I was like, oh my gosh, dude, like I just watched this movie for two hours.
Speaker 2:I don't record, I just started it. Yeah, it's like, oh awesome, but until you get to this point, and then you kind of see that like whoa like now this is going really fast, yeah, all of a sudden.
Speaker 1:So what do you got for the ugly?
Speaker 2:It's kind of tough something, I guess. I guess, I just kinda.
Speaker 1:Just how crappy people were back in the day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they were pretty crappy. I mean, and you know it's your sister man.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this yes does not age well. Things we used to do back in the day.
Speaker 2:We gotta keep it in the family, baby my.
Speaker 1:So my ugly, for I guess this is just like the general story of you know, like back in the day, when they use tigers and like real animals.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's soft. They're pretty much just torturing animals. They went, they used I think they they use a lot of elephants. Yeah, back in the day, creatures that are now kind of endangered.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, but also, I think, kind of the ugly using real tigers in, yeah, in the actual movie. You know that sucks for them. I mean, I know zoos have them but they're trying to keep them from being endangered. But also, just like now, we can't use real animals because, yeah, too many animal attacks.
Speaker 2:Cuz you that and you have to whenever you see it. Like if you go to the circus that has animals like that, they have to order like 10 times the number of animals that they that you actually see. Because just to get one alive, why ship to you? Because 90% of them are gonna die on the way to get to you?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean they're gonna. They're so stressed. Yeah not good, very bad, not fine. Yeah, that is ugly as fuck. All right, so something at age will about the movie. Hmm, mine is just the sword and shield films, sort sword and shield my first blood yeah it was quenched, they're always so
Speaker 1:gruesome you know, and it's just I Don't know. It's just like it's cool to see what it was like. Yeah, and those times where it's like man, you get cut by, you get like one sword stab and it's like You're dead, yeah, nothing we can do.
Speaker 2:There's that one scene where he's he's a he when they're the battle of Carthage, when he's he finally got on a horse and he slashes that one Chicks throat. Yeah, it's like an explosion of blood. The crowd is cheering.
Speaker 1:No, I think this is kind of crazy. Just I Remember I was watching something and it was this about like professional sword fighters, like back like the dual with swords, and it's like back in the day, like 1800s or whatever, and it would just be a thing where, like it wasn't extravagant sword fights right, like they'd like parry and stuff like that, but then like soon as like they nick them with a blade to be like All right, but it's over, they'd walk off, yeah, because they're just gonna die that night.
Speaker 2:Because they didn't have medicine. They didn't have a lot of the time. Slaves were expensive. Humans are expensive. Apparently they didn't want the Gladiators a lot of them. They didn't want them to die. Yeah one of them to fight the next day?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was kind of like proximate whenever they first go to. Rome. It's like you're gonna have them Fight like these guys like they're all gonna die immediately. That's all that's all my gladiators like we can't do this. And he's like do you want to get paid or not? Like luckily for Proximo, he had a straight beast up in there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and a couple, but then a few raiders.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we'll go to our next part, which is the double feature, a movie that you think would pair well with this. Do you come up with anything?
Speaker 2:well, I was thinking of, like Spartacus. It was a cool show to watch, like with this.
Speaker 1:Even the movie. Is there a movie? 1950s, Stanley Kubrick Spartacus. Oh yeah, okay, I've seen that one. It's like three hours long as well, longer than this movie.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean I love movies about like Roman mythology and stuff, so I guess something like that, like the story of what's it called the guy that had, like there's the scorpion and the scorpions and like the fucking frog, scorpion and the frog. No, I can't remember what it's called right now. Scorpion King? No, but like there's, the giant sea monster comes out and he's got like Phyton Medusa.
Speaker 1:Oh, like has Odysseus in stuff in it Like the Odyssey, Odyssey, the Iliad.
Speaker 2:Not the Iliad, I can't remember right now, it's okay, but something like that. Or Spartacus. Yeah, that's a good, that's a fun TV show. That's a fun show, yeah or Game of Thrones.
Speaker 1:You can watch Game of Thrones.
Speaker 2:Game of.
Speaker 1:Thrones sick. Watch the first four seasons of the best. I chose the Northman.
Speaker 2:You seen it Nice, yes, and then he rolls.
Speaker 1:I think it's like perfect, it's not Roman mythology or like it's like Nordic mythology and stuff like that. It's really great. It's visceral, rough. It's great Swords, shields not as much shields, they're just straight up just killing each other with axes and stuff. And there's like the dope one-shot scene where he's like climbing up there, like raiding, invading this little town, and they're pillaging it. Yeah, sweet Insane, but that movie rolls. It's Robert Eggers Check it out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there was one scene that I saw in Gladiator. There's it, and it kind of reminded me of those old movies about Rome and the mythology. There's like a model of the Colosseum and that dude like gets a little doll and he puts it in there. And in those old movies they always cut the picture, like whenever they show the gods. They're all surround, they're all like around this model and they're like they have little figurines and they're putting them in places and they're like fucking with people's fates.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And that kind of reminded me of that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's all, so I thought that's why.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's great, kind of a cool callback to some of those old films.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so oh, there's. Before we finish up here, I was listening. There's this podcast called how to Survive a Horror Movie. It's really great and, like I tweeted Adam one day because they did the film the Blair Witch, the new one that directed by Adam Winger, I was like you should do your next. Next he's like, oh, we just might be doing it. And then I was listening to the episode yesterday and they mentioned us that I tweeted them.
Speaker 1:So, I just wanted to shout out anybody that's looking for like a horror movie podcast, they're great. How to Survive a Horror Movie Thanks, just look it up. It's a cool idea because they have rules of like horror movies. Oh nice, there's things like like one of the rules like realize you're in a horror movie, and it's like just things like that Like don't split up All the all the like cliches you get from horror movies. But they have like certain rules and it's just a really like interesting podcast.
Speaker 2:I remember the name of that movie. It was called Clash of the Titans.
Speaker 1:Oh, Clash of the Titans.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't think I've actually never seen that one.
Speaker 1:I do kind of want to watch a lot of movies like that. There's like there's a couple with what's his name? The guy in 300. The guy who died from cancer.
Speaker 2:Gerald Butler.
Speaker 1:You know, butler, I'll draw a Butler.
Speaker 2:I'll draw a Butler. I'll draw a.
Speaker 1:Butler, I'm struggling, but anyways. So that's our episode on that, on Gladiator.
Speaker 2:Great Five stars.
Speaker 1:I give it five swords and shields, five d-capitations.
Speaker 2:I give it five commodes.
Speaker 1:Five emotiuses, but I would like to. Oh, next week we are doing Godzilla. We're going to have our buddy Dakota on it. It's great. We already actually recorded the episode. It's a great episode. Yeah, it was so fun. Love having guests. It's wonderful. That movie's great, and two of the three people on it almost fell asleep During the movie. I won't tell you who, no, I did fall asleep too, not almost.
Speaker 2:It's a sad movie I understand.
Speaker 1:No, but Godzilla rules. Love the guy. He's one of my top best friends, so I'd like to thank Joey Prosser for doing our intro and producing our music. You can follow him on X at Mr Joey Prosser, and if you want to follow us on social media or listen to us on another platform, follow our link tree at linktree forward slash. We recommend podcast. And yeah, I guess that's it. You got anything else bro?
Speaker 2:You're all conuff.
Speaker 1:Yes, you're conuff, I'm wearing my tie-dye.
Speaker 2:I'm conuff sweatshirt.
Speaker 1:Leave reviews. Yes, please Give us five stars. Please Tell your friends about us. Like we're cool people. It's amazing. Tell your friends about it. I know this guy.
Speaker 2:Jesse and Jesse.
Speaker 1:They're pretty cool, you know, but yeah, so this has been the we Recommend Podcast. I'm Jesse, I've been Jason, and what we do in life echoes an eternity.
Speaker 2:See you next week. Bye.
Speaker 1:Bye.