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The ConverSAYtion
Dwarves Need Not Apply: Disney's Half-Billion Dollar Fairytale Flop
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What happens when a beloved fairy tale collides with modern sensibilities? The spectacular implosion of Disney's Snow White remake reveals the dangerous tightrope walk of reimagining classic stories for contemporary audiences.
In this captivating episode, we unpack the fascinating train wreck that is Disney's half-billion-dollar Snow White disaster. From lead actress Rachel Zegler's eyebrow-raising press tour comments ("He's a stalker," she says of the prince) to the controversial decision to initially replace the seven dwarfs with "magical creatures" of various heights, we examine how a film can self-destruct before even hitting theaters.
The conversation takes us through the bizarre spectacle of watching an actress promote her film by criticizing its very premise. "She's not going to be saved by the prince, and she's not going to be dreaming about true love," Zegler declares about a character literally named for her fairness. Meanwhile, her co-star Gal Gadot, an Israeli national who plays the Evil Queen, found herself awkwardly positioned opposite Zegler's political statements during a press tour that seemed determined to alienate potential viewers from all sides of the spectrum.
Most astonishing is the film's current status as the lowest-rated movie in IMDb history, sitting at a jaw-dropping 1.6/10 with over 340,000 ratings—below even notorious disasters like The Human Centipede trilogy. We explore whether this is simply "review bombing" or something more indicative of a fundamental disconnect between studios and audiences.
Join us for this thought-provoking discussion about the fascinating intersection of entertainment, politics, and cultural expectations. When did fairy tales become battlegrounds, and what does Disney's Snow White debacle tell us about the future of reimagined classics? Subscribe to The Conversation Podcast for more deep dives into the stories shaping our cultural landscape.
Podcast Introduction
Speaker 1you don't gotta do it if you don't want to. You don't gotta do it if you don't want to. You don't gotta do it if you don't want to. It's just a suggestion. What's your last topic?
Speaker 2oh yeah, well, uh, do we need more? We do. Yeah, we could pause here. It's just like two hours. We'll let it go, but like this is a nice clean break no, that's, that's not how we're doing it.
Speaker 1The the time, the time frame is. I know I need some restroom, then use the fucking restroom. That's what I'm saying. Go ahead, not that pot. Go pee bro. Oh, we can just walk away, that's perfectly fine. Yeah, that's perfectly fine, but I'm not cutting this into anything based solely on the fact that we hit two hours exactly.
Speaker 2No, no, no no.
Speaker 1But it just happened to happen. It happened to happen. I just happened to accidentally buy this cheeseburger off on credit and financed this taco Speak on hour increments. He doesn't realize that this two-hour thing that he's so enamored with We've already done three topics. So what now? How hot's your potato now? I wonder what his last topic's going to be.
Speaker 1This is kind of a fun, fun format. Oh, they have different things on there. No, no, no. They all say you can't prohibit genius, nevermind. So my wife texted me and she said oh, she sent me a meme. Let's see here if we got a joke here from my wife, amethyst.
Speaker 1Okay, I just tried to order Indian food in Bethesda and this is hilarious. What the spice level? And this is Bethesda, maryland. The spice levels for ordering food are zero spice American mild, american medium, american spicy and then Indian mild, indian medium and Indian spicy. So all the American spices are below the lowest Indian spicy. That is pretty good.
Speaker 1Yes, so we've been getting into the habit of having tacos on Thursdays. There's a place called the Crane, but in Spanish El Grillo, across from the hospital. It's pretty awesome. It's like they took a taco truck and put it into a brick and mortar business, because all they sell is taco truck and put it into a brick and mortar business because all they sell is like taco truck stuff Very small menu, very, very, very good food. They've only got the one lady who runs the register. She's the one that speaks English. They have dollar tacos after 5 pm. It's really good, and we get the hot ones, and sometimes they're so hot that you know how, when something's too spicy and you take a bite out of it and then you're like, ooh, that was good, but oh, my gosh, that was spicy. And then your, your stomach says, take another bite, but your brain says I don't know if you should do that, and so you fight it. You know what I'm talking about and so you fight it. You know what?
Speaker 2I'm talking about yeah, yeah, I don't fight it, though. No, no, I'll keep going yeah.
Speaker 1But yeah, they have that place by the hospital that has the dollar tacos. Oh okay, yeah, they have just like the Toro Bravo. They've got two options mild or hot. Yeah, and the mild is it's kind of savory and it's kind of savory and it's kind of cute and it's okay.
Speaker 1It doesn't have a lot of flavor and the hot has good flavor but it's super hot, like there is no middle I like to, I like to feel it, yeah, cheers I like it when I like it when the spice has good flavor and it may, and it makes you sweat, just enough to where your temples get a little bit, a little bit moist.
Speaker 2Yeah that's when you know that you're doing it right there w's so it's kind of funny how you you happen to mention snow white. I hope snow white wasn't on your list, was it?
Speaker 1uh, on my list of what I've already done, both of my topics, though, you did yeah, oh, I was the first topic, I was my first oh, it's been 45 minutes making fun of the fact that you stopped drinking after watching the ice cards.
Speaker 2Oh, that was it. Okay, that was the topic. There we go. It was so natural. I was just bullshitting, it was so natural, all right. So you mentioned Snow White. So what have you heard about Snow White? What do you know?
The Two-Hour Mark Debate
Speaker 1going into this, so there's a lot snow white, like what do you know going into this. So there's a lot, I mean. Uh, so I, when I engage in conservative media, they talk a lot of shit on snow white. Uh, so I know that. I know that the that they tried to do this all-inclusive thing with no dwarves originally and they had all these different colorful characters they were.
Speaker 1They were going to call them magical people yes, and they had, and they were trying to go down this path and they got got so much hate for it that they revamped the entire thing and did cgi dwarves. They had to. They already shot with that cast. Yeah, no, they. I watched the trailer. They had, the released a trailer, which is what prompted the outrage, and then they did that. So people are just poised to hate it already. And then the gal who plays Snow White gets on her soapbox and starts saying all this anti-Israeli stuff in the media and which is kind of like both hands in front of you, whoa, and why are you doing that? Well, you know, people are allowed to have their opinions, but when your co-star is an israeli national, yeah, and the third thing that I that I heard about, which I totally agree with, is that the, that the, the evil witch, and you know, and that one it's way hotter than Snow White.
Speaker 2So we'll start here. Let's hear a little bit of the, the, the stars words in her, her own voice.
Speaker 5I'm a narcissist words in her. Her own original cartoon came out in 1937 and very evidently so there's a big focus on her love story, um, with a guy who literally stalks her, weird, weird. And then it became like I will elbow everyone out of the way to play the part and people will assume is a love because, like we cast a guy in the movie, andrew Burnham, all of Andrew's scenes could get cut. Who knows, it's Hollywood baby.
Speaker 1Deal.
Speaker 5If I'm going to stand there 18 hours in the press of an iconic Disney princess, I deserve to be paid for every hour that it is streamed online. We absolutely wrote a Snow White. That is yeah by the prince. She's not going to be saved by the prince, and she's not going to be dreaming about true love. She's dreaming about becoming the leader she knows she can be.
Speaker 1I'm a narcissist so I was on my side of the screen but we got the audio for that. Yeah, my goodness, so, yeah, I mean. So the whole thing. I'm a narcissist. I mean that's a really funny intro to this little, this little montage that somebody put together. Uh, but yeah, the fact that she went on a press tour bashing disney's first animated feature, that wonder why that rubbed people the wrong way so I know, uh sky News out of Australia.
Speaker 2They're a little bit conservative, a little bit right-leaning, but I find them interesting because they've got no skin in the game. They're Australia and they're commenting on American culture, right.
Speaker 3Disney's Snow White remake is on track to lose 115 million dollars according to deadline. It cost more than 400 million dollars just to make the film, but then it also includes another 270 million. Uh sorry, which includes 270 million in production costs and another 140 million dollars in promotional related costs, but the film is, of course it's the lowest I'm. I am bd rating of all time, sitting at 1.6 out of 10. What do you put this down to? Are you surprised? Do we blame disney or rachel zegler for this?
Cultural Spice Levels
Speaker 4I do blame disney. I blame them for casting someone as woke as her. I blame them for taking the root of wokeness. I want to remind the viewers Snow White is called Snow White because she's white as snow. Now, rachel is an attractive woman, but she's not Snow White. She's very anti-Trump, she's very anti-Israel. She felt that it was necessary to have her movie promotion to start indulging in her political advocacy. And when you turn off, trump's approval rate was what you said 53. So you had more than half of the country supporting trump and you took the route of going against him. You just loved. You lost half of your fan base and it's a shame when you see a lot of hollywood actors come out, you know against, let 's say, trump or any politician. Personally, I can't watch another Mark Ruffalo movie. I can't watch half the time I get it.
Speaker 1This is a very conservative speaking point yeah, it is.
Speaker 1I don't. I do not care that the actor who plays Snow White is not white, I don't give a shit, that doesn't. I mean, that's just that's really trying to drive the point home of wokeness. Who cares she's, she's not white, it doesn't matter. But the? Uh. The thing that I agree with is that you're trying to promote a film, you're trying to get families and children and and disney buffs to go see this movie that has already been marred by myriad problems during production, and then you're going to use that as your one and likely only opportunity to just carry your soapbox around and you're promoting a family film. What does that have to do with Israel promoting a family film? What does that have to do with israel? I mean, that's just very bad mistake, uh, on her part and the fact that disney let her do that throughout the press tour, because you watched that clip and there were, I mean, how many different shots with that.
Speaker 2You have to promote your film, you have to support it, you have to sell. You are, you're the main character in this movie. This film, this screenplay, relies on you to be attractive and draw in fans. You want to increase your audience and if whatever comes out of your mouth does anything but that, you're doing the whole production at this service.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, yeah that. So that's a really good point, because it's not just about her. How many people put, put two, three years of their life into that production? And she just went out and said well, this is all about me and I don't like this and I don't like that and I don't even like the namesake of the film that I'm in. I mean, she was just bashing everything and it's like so there's a british talk show. It's called like the red couch or something like that. I see clips of it all the time. I've never seen the whole show. But there's this, this guy who has famous actors, and then it's just a talk show.
Speaker 2Oh, graham, is that what it is? I think, I think so. I'll show you.
Speaker 1I'll show you, keep going and, yeah, he did a thing where he had a. He had, um, tom hanks on the show and tom hanks tells a story about how he, he, he spoiled the fact that they were working on toy story. What four or five which one has, which is, which is the one that hasn't come out yet? How many, how many making yeah yeah, grab Norton, grab Norton Show yes.
Speaker 2I like watching him.
Speaker 1And so they're making a new toy story. And Tom Hanks spilled the beans. And he tells a story about how he gets a call from one of the Disney lawyers telling him hey, you can't do that, you can't be, you can't. You know, you can't say that, you can't, you can't tell people that we're doing this, you're under contract. And of course he cracked a joke. He was like what are you going to do? I'm Woody man, but the story is so funny they called to admonish Tom Hanks for spilling the beans on something that's going to happen anyway, but they let this gal go on this massive press tour and just just and just bury the brand of snow white.
Speaker 2Somebody should have pulled her aside after that first time.
Speaker 1She said something that wasn't helping like, hey, wait until the movie's out and then you can you. No one will cast you ever again. Now you may go do whatever the fuck you want.
Speaker 2yeah, they need to give her a list of okay, you can talk about this. You can talk go do whatever the fuck you want. Yeah, they need to give her a list of. Okay, you can talk about this. You can talk about this. Leave the interview back here. This is what we want you to highlight. You made an excellent point, and I was thinking the same thing about everybody who has their name printed when the credits roll, devoted their lives for the better part of two or three years, many of them in hopes that this successful film would take off and maybe make their career, maybe something that they could be proud of, moving forward.
Speaker 1And now it's anything but that. How many people on that production who are just nine-to-fivers like any grocery clerk, like anybody in this world, are on that production and they try to get a job on the next movie and the people are like, oh, they work on Snow White.
Speaker 2Let's pass on that person. If I stood to earn residual income from the film and then found oh, the whole thing is tanking and nobody will on IMDb 1.6, 1.6 stars out of 10.
Speaker 1So what the Australian gal said was true this is currently the lowest rated IMDb movie in history. This is currently the lowest rated IMDb movie in history. I watched a thing a few weeks ago where somebody took the time to point out that that includes being lower rated than the Human Centipede trilogy.
Speaker 2Oh yeah.
Speaker 1So, here.
Speaker 2I'm glad you brought that up because I have a list of all the worst movies on MTV. We've got Disaster Movie on 1.9 is better. We've got Super Well, that one's just right there. 1.5. Birdemic Shock and Terror at 1.7. Birdemic Manos, titanic, the legend goes on.
Speaker 1Wait a minute.
Speaker 3Manos the Hand of Fate has a higher rating.
Speaker 1So that film, it's a Spanish cult theater.
Speaker 2Oh, it's close to it.
Speaker 1So is it the Mystery Science Theater version.
Speaker 2A horror film about a family encountering a cult gained infamy via Mystery Science.
Speaker 1That's how come. I know it because it's one of the worst movies ever made and Mystery Science Theater famously made fun of it. It's one of their best episodes ever and it has a higher rating. The original film has a higher rating than Snow White. Anna's going to love that.
Speaker 2Saving Christmas 1.6 is right there. With it, the Hottie and the Naughty.
Speaker 3Oh yeah 1.9,.
Speaker 2Paris Hilton here, Battlefield Earth.
Speaker 1Oh my gosh, You've ever seen Battlefield Earth? No. John Travolta is a Scientologist, and so they made this Scientology movie.
Speaker 2What a nightmare, the Pledge Radhe, I don't even know R-A-D-H-E, it's a bollywood film, no, it's a bollywood film.
Speaker 1And then we have, we've got uh, epic movie, uh so, so, so so the so the uh food fight a lot of the short comedies glitter date movie.
Speaker 2House of house of dead cat woman. Meet the spartans. Daniel the wizard, smoke the troll.
Speaker 12 hobgoblins I love how all of the turn of the century um parody films are on this list dragon ball evolution uh, vampires suck.
Speaker 2And yes, here we are. Uh, the human set of p2, full sequence has, has over, has like double, double theirbled their current rating.
Speaker 1The internet skips most of this list and just makes fun of it beating out Dragon Ball Evolution.
Speaker 2But when you get Disaster Movie, if Disaster Movie with Carmen Electra, it's a parody film.
Speaker 3I know, I know.
Speaker 2Carmen Electra is in a film that did better than the current Disney's version of Snow White.
Speaker 1She's in certain films that did better than Snow White and she is more fair than Snow White.
Speaker 2She's written a lot of love stories too, which Snow White should have been.
Speaker 1Yeah, they really screwed the pooch on the whole premise of Snow White being the fairest in the land and then casting Gal Gadot as the evil witch.
Speaker 2So, according to Grok, their poor box office performance, which they spent almost half a billion dollars on the whole thing, all of it put together.
Speaker 1Think about how much it costs to go back and reanimate the people out of the film. It's like the Sonic the Hedgehog thing that cost Sony hundreds of millions of dollars. I mean it worked out for them, but the original design for the Sonic movie was so bad that it hurt and people just said we're not going to go watch this.
Speaker 2So yes, Main character we mentioned calling the prince weird and being a stalker, being openly pro-Palestinian and choosing to use your promotion tour to break out some of those statements. Let's talk about the stalker thing.
Speaker 1Yeah. So I mean, is he just actively trying to court her? I haven't seen Snow White in like 40 years, neither have I. I mean, like in most princess-style things, the prince or the male lead is trying to court the woman and it's always one of those like, oh yay, the cousin prince is coming, so they cut out a whole bunch of that stuff.
Speaker 2The interactions that they had from what I'm told the current production, the interactions between the prince and snow white, were limited. The interactions that they did have were a departure from the original, the interaction that the snow white had with the, the dwarves, which I agree, those, those roles should have been cast to little people. What why? Basically, okay, we don't want to be insensitive and we don't want to be insensitive by completely excluding all little people actors from any sort of production that is actually designed for them. Like there was a lot. I was, I was watching some. I don't know if you're familiar with the the show little people World you ever watch that or familiar with it. They're famous in the little people community. I know it because my wife loved to follow. Well, she still follows the family, she still watches their shows and one of the sons in the family went on record stating like hey, come on.
Speaker 2What are you doing? And I guess it was. Um, there was, oh, the little person that played on game of thrones and I still haven't seen it peter diglage. Yes, uh, he came out in opposition to little people being used and snow white. And so then when he came out and was like no, I can't do that, and everyone's like like what are you talking?
Speaker 2about, just because you're already fucking famous. You've made it. Yeah, you got, you found yourself of the role, of roles that set you up for life. And now there's other people that are trying to, because you're an inspiration to them. And now you're just you're, you're casting a shadow, you're in on their parade. You, you won't allow them to have some of the same opportunities that you were able to have. And so, after he said, that's precisely what happened, and disney kind of whether it was because of his statements or if they were already thinking this is just going to be too difficult. How are we going to navigate through what people are going to say online? But it was just yeah I've seen too much.
Speaker 1I watched an interview, an interview with Brad Williams, who's a comedian a little person.
Speaker 2Oh, yeah, yeah, I like him, he's hilarious, so funny.
Speaker 1He said the same thing. He said it's so hard to find dedicated roles for little people in Hollywood If you want to be a Hollywood actor and you're a little person.
Speaker 2They just took away seven of the most juiciest choice opportunities in recent hollywood history yeah, uh, who plays evil queen is is a rate israeli on and on lebanon's israel boycott list. Yeah, leading the film being she is wonder woman leading the film being banned in lebanon.
Speaker 2Uh, okay, so the cgi dwarves that was. That was a major thing. The story changes. I know there was a scene in the original snow white where, uh, you know, the dwarves are going out, they're working. They graciously took her in the house or an offender, and she was. She was along with all the other animals helping them straighten up the house right, yeah and the new one. She put all the dwarves to work when they got back and they cleaned their own house.
Speaker 1That's hilarious oh, wow, that's so, so.
Speaker 2So they turned snow white into a gold digger who just sits around eating bonbons and makes makes the the hard-working dwarves come home and do all the work she, yeah, she was uh barking orders, so to speak, and no, we can't, we can't put a woman to work in that and in the house, they, they wanted to get away from that from the domestic the domestic tropes correct?
Speaker 1yes, so they have. They had they had seven short. Uh, people go out and toil in a mine for 12 hours and then come home and do the dishes. So does she fall victim to an enchanted sleep in the movie and is she awoken with a kiss, or is it just positive reinforcement? Does she just will herself out of it? How does that work? I don't know. I haven't seen the film.
Speaker 2I haven't seen it either.
Speaker 1They said well according to her, it's not a love story. This is not a. Yeah, it sounds like they could have taken the prince out of the film. Hey, real talk, brass tacks here. If something happens and you, you, uh, you fall under an enchanted sleep and the only way to wake you is through a kiss, I will not be asking your consent. I'm going to get you out of that, bro. I got you.
Speaker 2Thank you for speaking as slow as possible to allow me to envision what I hope never occurs.
Speaker 1Just saying, just saying.
Speaker 2I might need the rest you can let me go. I might need a break. Yeah, I might need a break. He's good, let him. Let us leave another another four months, yeah. So yeah, this, this whole, you know, and it's know, it's been kind of entertaining watching this kind of unravel and unfold, because it started to oh wait, what was that?
Speaker 3It makes me uncomfortable. She said what?
Speaker 2Okay, well, all right, well, maybe that was a one-off, let me put it back out there. Oh, again there. Oh, it's worse. And then what is she doing? And then nobody from disney intervening. Yeah, we just let this go. I would. I would be most angry if I was the prince, if, if any of this, if any of what she had to say, influenced the production team to all. But erase me from this film. You know, I thought this was, hey, that's a great role for a great male lead role. Yeah, prince Charming, yeah, and then, oh, I'm a stalker, am.
Speaker 2I, it's not a love story and I'm barely in the film. A lot of the musical numbers were very empowering I I have heard it's very from within and we're, you know you have it in you. Yeah, I hope off to work, we go they. They sung that song going to work and coming home because they had to clean their house yeah, uh, but yeah, they are losing, right.
Speaker 2So I have heard that disney is starting to, they're making some changes and starting to self-correct. I would be interested in what uh zegler does next. Who picks her up next and for what I think she's done? She is talented though. She can sing, she can dance, she has an excellent voice. She's from broadway right, she's a broadway star?
Speaker 1I think she. Yeah, I think so. So she may be able to go back to that, but I think her movie career is over yeah, yeah, I mean you can just go through this list of terrible movies to know that.
Speaker 2I mean, this is with 340 000 people that have rated this and it hasn't been able to crack two stars. Some of this is just out of spite and, I think, most of these people have it to be fair review bombing is a huge thing now and most of these people I would say the vast of them, or at least I would like to think haven't even bothered to watch the film. No, that's what it is. Yeah, I know, I know what you mean, but you can still review, bomb something and watch it.
Speaker 1That's one of the things no, you can't Review. Bombing is the thing where it's a specific thing, where a bunch of people without, they don't care.
Speaker 2Hey, what's up? Yeah, I don't like the ideology.
Speaker 1I hate the thing. I'm not going to go see it, but me and my internet community are together and just rip this film. That's terrible, yeah like I.
Speaker 2I don't think I like this film, but I'm not gonna. I'm not gonna read it. I haven't seen it.
Speaker 1That's what happens and you get like I see it in video games. You know, the big problem now with video games is the big AAA titles. They are so big, huge, massive worlds. They always come out super broken and so to voice their dismay on that phenomenon, the day a movie releases, releases, hell of people get together and just review, bomb the the game so that it kind of comes out with like two stars.
Snow White Controversies Begin
Speaker 1You know, it's just it is there's, you know it's, it's a form of protest and you know it's like we're giving giving the people too much power over the over what actually happens. I mean, yes, a movie studio is trying to make a film that people want to go see In that respect they are the customer and they're catering to that but here we're talking about people like never do anything like this again. I'm not even going to fucking see it and I'm going to review, bomb it with 300,000 other people to make it the worst movie of all time. And that's so relative. It may not be a terrible film, I mean just because simply from the fact that it has Disney-level production value tells me it's going to be better than Disaster Movie. You know, just flat out. But you know, the relative aspect, relative aspect has got to be better than human centipede 2. Just the relative aspect of the fact that it got review bombed, uh, so hard has made it now infamous so okay.
Speaker 2so if you go see a movie, or if you go see a movie and you're like I can't finish this and you walk out and then you give it a negative review, that's not considered review. No, okay.
Speaker 1Review bombing is a crowd.
Speaker 2It's a crowd thing. Okay, yeah, no no, no, only the ignorant can review bomb.
Speaker 1Yes, but it's it, you know. It brings up an interesting point about what if I don't like the trailer.
Speaker 2This is a terrible trailer.
Speaker 1That's what it is. So they CGI'd those seven dwarves into that film because they released the trailer and the trailer got review-bombed. Yeah, because you go on YouTube, you can give it a thumbs down.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1And that's what happened. Same thing with Sonic the Hedgehog.
Speaker 2Well, youtube is much different than a reputable source like imdb. I mean they're considered like the authority when it comes, or like youtube.
Speaker 1You're so reputable I mean youtube, you have to be reputable to charge 20 or was it dollars a month for no ads. Yeah, 20 to 20, 99, yeah, so bad, um, but no, but. But that's. That's what it's. A it's a form of the social media landscape.
Speaker 1So a trailer goes out on YouTube and it just gets destroyed and people infer their entire opinion on the trailer and it's probably millions of people who never even intended to go see the movie. But you're messing with their idea of society. Oh, not Snow White, not in my world. And then they talk shit. And so a big part of movies. They release these trailers and you watch a modern trailer. They release a teaser, yeah, and they just throw out a couple of scenes and then I mean, the movie is not going to come out for 18 months. They release a couple of scenes, they get the internet's, the trolls, reaction to the trailer and then, based on that, they will go back and do rewrites and reshoots to meet, to better meet, the expectations of all these people who probably won't even go see the damn movie.
Speaker 2When did the original come out? Is it the thirties, 1937. 1937. I think it's so dangerous to touch a beloved, old, historic Disney movie. It's historic. It came out. Think about the people that well, I don't know. There's not too many people that watched it as adults in the 30s that are alive now. So you were probably a child at the time. If you're still here, or maybe after you enjoyed it, you showed it to somebody really young, but think about their age.
Speaker 1Well, if you went and saw it in theaters when you were seven years old, you're 95 right now.
Speaker 2Yes, so, and a 95-year-old, or most 95-year-olds, are definitely not going to go for that video where she's like I'm a narcissist. They pick the worst parts.
Speaker 1I know they put it all together in the worst way that 95-year-old doesn't give a shit about this stuff.
Disney and Actor NDAs
Speaker 2Yeah, probably, Okay. Okay, but their children and their grandchildren, if they watch the original, they remember what they felt and what they were thinking and what they were feeling during that time and they remember the story. And if that was one of the films and the stories that spoke to them and they were really looking forward to this to find what they presented here, I don't know how you can that's.
Speaker 1They should have thought about that a little bit yeah, but honestly, that's such an opinion-based concept because you can't. If you're going to reboot something, you're going to give it some fresh ideas. Yes, excuse me. However, you're always going to run the risk of alienating people who adore the original subject matter. It's just the nature of the beast, you know, you know, and and disney, of course, is doing this. Now they make all these live action movies so that they can maintain ownership of these ips, uh, so they can refresh the ips, right, and so you do get. You do get these people these opinions, strong opinions, like for me. I grew up watching the Jungle Book. It was my favorite Disney film. Jungle Book and Disney's Robin Hood were my favorite Disney films. They still are, probably, and I was almost afraid to go see the Jungle Book because I was afraid of that phenomenon you were describing about how this is going to destroy my childhood love of this film. It's a really good movie.
Speaker 3It is about how this is going to destroy my childhood love of this film.
Speaker 1It's a really good movie it is. But uh, you know, there are other things like aladdin where same deal, they took some very interesting creative licenses with that and didn't allow will smith to rap really at all, which was a tragedy and that was an awful film, just a really bad movie. So but the thing is, I don't know, maybe that's a mindset thing, because I can go into something knowing and not having expectations. Like I, I honestly did not expect will smith to try and try and recreate the song that robin williams did. Yeah, I did not expect that he did. He tried robin william.
Speaker 2Yeah, the goat, I mean yeah, but you know, that was a tall order.
Speaker 1But you know, if you're worried about, if you want something to be exactly like what you remember, this is go, just do that. You can't expect this to be the exact same thing. The only time that's ever existed is when they redid Psycho. They did it shot for shot yeah, I.
Speaker 2I just think they they try to stay, they they try to avoid cancellation by a relative minority, right, you have. You have these relatively small group of people online on social media platforms who speak the loudest and it definitely trends in legacy media and other places, but they're a relative minority and your greater audience is just quietly awaiting for you to come out with something that they can consume and enjoy, and that's what it is.
Speaker 1it's the people speaking the loudest give you the impression that everybody feels that way, when the vast majority of people, only the regular folk, are just living their lives, they're just going on their day-to-day. It's only the people who feel passionately about something to the point where they have to stop what they're doing and get involved and get aggravated and get and get loud. Yeah, there are many things in this world that I just don't really care that much about, and so, therefore, you don't know that I don't care about those things because I never say it.
Speaker 2Yeah, I think it. It's when people are almost attempting to force you to care about. What they care about is when people are like, okay, wait a second, here you were fine, or just a few moments ago, and I was fine too, and I was happy to let you go and live your life and say what you want and do your thing and go after your cause and raise money for this thing or that or start a foundation. Okay, you've got your nonprofit or whatever you're gonna do, go do it. Go live your life, go be happy. But as soon as it's like encroaching on what I have to do because now this is mandatory or some sort of mandate, that now, then you find that those, the silent majority, start to speak up and that's what disney's run into.
Speaker 1Yeah, they're starting well, yeah, I mean they. They have a very conservative fan base, you know, that's just I mean. So, yeah, just the the. Yeah, it's just so funny that I I, I see so many things and I've read so many stories about how like the thing with tom hanks on disney just tells people what are you doing?
Speaker 1stop, stop that you know that was a while ago, obviously, right, yeah but, like you know, like, like you know, there's there's all these running gags about how mark raffallo and, uh, tom holland kept trying to spoil like superhero movies when they're on press tour and didn't, disney would be like tom holland tells and Disney would be like Tom Holland tells Disney what are you doing?
Speaker 2They just had to share. They couldn't keep a secret any longer.
Speaker 1They're famous In the Marvel Universe. Those two guys are famous for ruining stuff. Oh wow, they signed NDAs, that's just it. I've heard people like I think it was Hayley Atwell who plays Agent Carter in the MCU and I think it was her. Somebody was talking about the NDAs and how scary they are, like how they make you want to be extra careful when you're on press tour and you're not giving away anything. Right, it's very important. And then, of course, then Tom Holland comes around and is like, oh yeah, spider-man in the movie.
Speaker 1I'll be there, yeah sorry spoilers in Avengers Endgame they they didn't tell anybody that it was going to be a funeral at the end of the movie. Had all the cast come to there and they start putting people in black suits. When they filmed it, and even when it was happening, they didn't tell Tom Holland what was going on can't tell that kid anything.
Speaker 2He's got a mouth on him. He will run it. I had to sign an NDA for my current position, my current job. It's kind of crazy. It's the first time I've ever accepted a teaching position and had to sign an NDA.
Speaker 1For the federal government you have to sign a uh, a lifetime contract. Basically, my mda for for uncle sam is this 50 year. It's a 50 year commitment, kind of interesting. So, yeah, I don't even think about it.
Speaker 2So the district I work at their, their intellectual property and the way that they disperse information and education.
Speaker 1It's secret it's, it seems to. So. This is the same place you worked at over the last few years. Yeah, yeah, and this is new, the nda this.
Speaker 2When I started there a few years ago, that was the first I got my last place of employment okay, you signed it before you started working there it didn't just happen like last week no, no, yeah, yeah, okay, yeah. No, it's not. The nea is not why why?
Speaker 1why are they trying to keep education a secret? If they're succeeding, shouldn't they tell everybody?
Speaker 2their processes and inner workings are sacred, and should I don't? I don't know, it doesn't make sense to me.
Speaker 1It seems to me like they're trying to entrap you into not not again not saying anything. If one of your students comes to you and says they want to be a different gender, why would you keep? I'll pull it up, I think. I think I got a copy of it somewhere, we don't have to.
Speaker 2I know, I know, but now I believe you, now I'm curious but I mean I work for. I work for a couple universities that didn't have an. I didn't sign, sign an NDA to work there, cause education is for everybody. That's what I'm thinking. They should be trying to give it away. I kind of want to see your NDA.
Speaker 1Now.
Review Bombing and Box Office Disaster
Speaker 2I'm sure it won't have specifics but it's just so funny. You work here. Don't tell anyone, I will not. I'll just show up to work daily and interact with everybody who shows up to learn.
Speaker 1That's all so bad I don't get it, bro, I don't get it Anyway.
Speaker 2Snow White, that's what I thought, yeah.
Speaker 1That was an interesting conversation. I like that. So, hey, thank you for joining us on the Conversation Podcast. I'm Leonard Kay, that's Syke, still, still, still. And this episode.
Speaker 2This episode 42. We've got 42 episodes 42. I just did 41.
Speaker 1Is that okay? So this will be 42 through 46. Yeah, we're in the 40s, we're old. Yeah, we're getting there. We're getting there. We've almost got as many ages as years in life. So big takeaways drinking is bad. Fan institutions aren't your friend. And the ice pirates is brilliant. I swear see you guys. Next time don't get space herpes. Now that is dumb.
Speaker 2The Ice Pirates is brilliant, I swear See you guys, next time Don't get space herpes Now that is dumb.
Speaker 1No, it's not, it's fucking brilliant.
Speaker 3Oh my.
Speaker 2You just don't have the capacity to appreciate the genius. So you think it's dumb. I think my lack of capacity is a dominant gene somewhere that maybe Colossal can give to others.
Speaker 1Yes, you too cannot like great cinema. All you need is a psych gene.
