Least Important Things
A podcast about movies, friendship, and finding meaning in the most important of the least important things in our lives.
Least Important Things
The Other Mummy Movies
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Class is in session, and the reports are due. It’s the Least Important Things season four finale and the last episode of The Mummycast.
In this episode, you’ll uncover all the “other mummy movies” throughout film history. From the 1932 Boris Karloff classic to the Scorpion King spin-offs, we’re discussing the evolution and strange turns mummy-based movies have taken for almost a century.
Host Luke Ferris is joined by Mike Wynne, who covered 2017’s The Mummy starring Tom Cruise, and Zach Hall, who watched all five The Scorpion King movies–yes, there are five. Plus, the guys share their final thoughts on the franchise as well as building our own fictional Mummy-based theme park world.
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Sources for this episode:
https://youtu.be/b7nmYiZ6cAg?si=AQbGs_x2LWrZ-HtS
https://youtu.be/bwTFXVdbeEw?si=0F5yf67zhezKvlUY
https://youtu.be/1i6xNScZRP4?si=mtOuloPVTxa_c6wn
https://youtu.be/nTnkLTRR6v8?si=R6dGEihI201TMS88
Interest in more monster movie history? Listen to our episode on the history of Hammer Horror: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2045015/episodes/13847362
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Um, I don't have a cold open, guys. I was I just realized that I don't I don't have a cold open because you know sadly this is uh it's the last mummy cast. A little cold close. Yeah, maybe a cold close because uh we're gonna say goodbye to the mummy for a little while here.
SPEAKER_00I feel like I said bye to it last episode.
SPEAKER_07Death is just a doorway, Luke. Oh yes, it is. It is. Uh is that is that something from the things you guys watch?
SPEAKER_00Okay. I feel really out of the group.
SPEAKER_05You're kind of not really part of this.
SPEAKER_00I'm really not. I'm obsessed with insects now, guys. Uh and Billy Zayn. Uh actually, surprisingly, no. Oh no.
SPEAKER_04I think I lost some respect over the last month.
SPEAKER_00Oh boy. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04So listen to your friend Billy Zane, Zach. He's a cool dude.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Really? Is his ideal ideas and thoughts public? Is that did he get canceled somehow?
SPEAKER_03No, he's back.
SPEAKER_00No, I was just quitting Zoolander. Damn. That's that's the next uh lit cast right there.
SPEAKER_05It's the other mummies coming up next, at least important things.
SPEAKER_09The mummy. Is it dead or alive? Human or inhuman? You'll know, you'll see, you'll feel the awful creeping, crawling terror that stands your hair on end and brings a scream to your lips. There's nothing on earth like the mummy.
SPEAKER_02You will not remember what I show you now, and yet I shall awaken memories of love and crime and death. Now I know his horrible plan. He is going to kill her and make her a living mummy like himself.
SPEAKER_10The mummy, the living dead, bringing terror and death across 4,000 years. He was a high priest of the great god Comanak until one night he attempted the ultimate in blasphemy. He was condemned to guard forever the princess he had loved and protect her from intruders.
SPEAKER_01They are the last of their kind.
SPEAKER_02Train to the generations in the deadly army. Stand alone before the fury of the community.
SPEAKER_09Welcome to a new world. And monsters.
SPEAKER_06A show about movies, friendship, and finding meaning in the most important of the least important things. I'm your host, Luke Ferris. In today's episode, we are wrapping up the mummy cast, as we mentioned in the not so cold open, and talking about the other universal or other mummy property films. Joining me for the last mummy cast is the man we're investing everything into to make a new shared universe, Mike Wynn.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, let's hope uh let's hope it comes to fruition.
SPEAKER_06Yes. We're putting a lot of money into it. We we expect this to be a five-year project.
SPEAKER_00Is the shared universe just ver different versions of Mike?
SPEAKER_06Yeah, it is different. So yeah, like there's gonna be a nap mic universe uh character. It's it's all the different versions.
SPEAKER_04Isn't that basically what podcast networks are?
SPEAKER_06Yeah, it's just a shared universe. That's what the ultimate eventually just became podcast networks.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, it's good to meet this Mike for this this for this universe.
SPEAKER_06Uh also we have our Scorpion King, Zach Hall, with us, of course, returning for the Mummy Cast and uh bunked down friend of the show.
SPEAKER_00I'm so tired. I think I knew that this was happening, but I was I'm I'm really tired.
SPEAKER_06Some of us had harder work than others. I think that that's true. Uh, if you're here for the first time, welcome. Thanks for listening and watching. Um, we have been on a journey this summer called the Mummy Cast, uh, where we've gone through all of the mummy movies starting with the 1999 classic. Uh, last episode we did the third installment um and had a Yeti experience. And then instead of going through all the Scorpion Kings, going through the 2017 Mummy and the 1932, 1959, and all the other properties, we decided to do a mega episode, like get all of the homework done. And we are here to service you, the listeners and viewers, uh, to give you the backstory, the understanding of how this franchise has become what it is, uh, both in the past, in the not so distant past, and potentially in the future. Uh, but but we'll get to that. Uh gentlemen, how are we feeling about our homework assignments?
SPEAKER_03Uh it was, you know. Were you a good student, Mike? Let's go. I was a good student. You were a good student. You sat front row, I did not fall asleep. You you I felt like you were you given the easiest assignment.
SPEAKER_06Yes, but you also talked to the teacher a lot in in school. Were you talking to the teachers after class? Talking back to the teachers.
SPEAKER_00Yes, that's what they would talk to him after class about what he said.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_04Lots of lots of uh phone calls after my conversations with teachers to my parents. Yes, okay.
SPEAKER_00Zach, what kind of student were you? Were you I was a back of the middle of the class, quiet kid.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, but there was a lot going on up here.
SPEAKER_06There was a lot happening there, but it seemed like there wasn't a lot.
SPEAKER_00Were you doodling? Were you doodling? I I think there were certain classes where I was doodling, but I also was a rigorous note-taker, just like uh for these. We're about to find out soon shortly. Uh I did a lot of note-taking back in the day.
SPEAKER_06Well, I appreciate you guys taking these homework assignments because I think it's really gonna help the viewer and listener kind of wrap up what the mummy is as we've gone through this franchise. Uh, again, if it's your first time, welcome. Um, you're gonna get a lot of mummy action today. Um, also, today is our season finale episode. I thought this would be a good way to end our season four of Least Important Things. We've done roughly 52 new episodes since last September. Wow. And you two gentlemen have been a huge part of it. So thank you. Uh I had a goal for this season to produce an episode a week. Pretty much did that. We took a couple weeks off and had a couple of reruns, but uh a lot of new content, and you guys have been a part of that. So thank you.
SPEAKER_00Wow, yeah. I thought just five movies in a month was hard enough, but man. Five Scorpion Kingdom. Yeah, I mean it's it's been awesome to be on here, but also big praise to you for keeping that schedule. Like, that's awesome. I hope people I think the quality just kept getting better this season.
SPEAKER_04So hope people are unlike the quality of the movies we watched, just just to bring it back.
SPEAKER_06That's really what it's all about here. At least important things. It's not about the quality of movie, it's about the quality of conversation. Um, so for listeners or viewers, there's gonna be a couple weeks off. If you are a Patreon member, friend of the show, um, there's gonna be some special stuff to hold the gap in between. But we'll be back in next month uh for season five. It's gonna be the same thing that you the things that you love. We'll have our rewatch episodes, we'll have our discussion episodes and essays. Um, but if you have any ideas for movies you want us to cover or topics you'd like us to discuss, please reach out on our socials or email us at leastimportthings at gmail.com. Mike and I have already been texting about some some ideas. Um, and Zach will of course be involved in that too. Um but it has to be.
SPEAKER_04I can't I don't think we could do the idea that I texted you about the other day without him.
SPEAKER_06Yes, he's he's required for that one.
SPEAKER_04Oh man, is this like another sequel? There are four movies. Okay, all right.
SPEAKER_00Interesting. I'm interested.
SPEAKER_06A lot of fun stuff to come next season. Uh, but thank you for folks that have been listening, watching, subscribed, and being part of it. But I get it if you want to get that in-between content, you have to be on Patreon, by the way. That's exclusive only to Patreon. It won't be in regular feed.
SPEAKER_04What happens if you get a lot of Patreon subscribers?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. What do you mean? Does something happen?
SPEAKER_04If you get if you get 50 Patreon subscribers.
SPEAKER_06Yes, we did not do the Twilight episode that we were promised. Uh is that what you're bringing up? Or you're not sure. But we'll we'll make sure to do that next season. I do have to say that was also delayed a little bit for you having a child, kind of brought that. Uh, that that might have delayed it.
SPEAKER_04But look, I haven't even been requested to do that.
SPEAKER_06Okay, I I promise now to you and the listeners, we will do our Twilight episode. It's gonna happen. It can only happen if you have the requisite number of it's my podcast, and I get to do what I want, but visit us at patreon.com slash least important things. All right, gentlemen, we've done our homework. Now it's time to report back. I don't I don't know that there's a report back theme song here. Just a solution.
SPEAKER_07Is this more of a military report, classroom report? I I'm thinking classroom.
SPEAKER_06Let's go with the classroom motif. It's it's uh it's a fifth period um film class with Mr. Ferris.
SPEAKER_04Can you just sit on your fifth? That's so like that's perfect because it's like right after launch.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, if I recall. Yeah, so you get a little bit of that like sleepy hunger stuff. So you might sleep through a movie, not saying that people would do that ever, but you could do that in my class. It's a chill class.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, you definitely sit on your desk. Basically, like a study hall, too. Like there's probably a movie going on, but you're also getting your math homework six periods.
SPEAKER_06Definitely, definitely. Um, divide and conquer, as some would some would say. Um okay. So if you didn't know what our assignments were, you didn't track, you didn't listen to the last episode, which it is very easy to go. Well, we did, yeah, we did mention it, we mentioned it in returns. Um, that's right. So uh, which I know a lot of people listen to that one. Maybe not as many people listen to Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, but um, for the five people who did, you're the best. Love ya. Yeah, uh for a reminder, we had Mike. Your homework assignment was to re-watch or watch. Was this your first what first time watching? First time watching. The Mummy 2017 starring TC himself, Tom Cruise.
SPEAKER_04Yes, Tom Cruise. So um some facts that you can fact check yourself, and they're gonna do the work for you. Yeah, um had a budget of $125 million.
SPEAKER_06Okay, so I I actually was very curious about this. Did you look this up at all? No, I didn't. So you tell me.
SPEAKER_04Okay, so $125 million budget. Uh it gross domestically, less than that. Um $80.2 million. Yeah. Um worldwide, $410 million. Okay. So like Wow. Honestly, a commercial boom. That's like three times the budget.
SPEAKER_06Do you know when this came out? Was it it was out of the year? 2017. Well, July was it like a June or July 1?
SPEAKER_04It was a June 9th uh release, I believe.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_04Um at the time of release, some movies that you could have seen. Okay, this is what I'm curious about. Okay. Um, the same weekend, Wonder Woman.
SPEAKER_06Oh, which was a huge, huge hit. Yes.
SPEAKER_04Also, Captain Underpants, the first huge hit. Huge, big, big deal. Uh it comes at night. Okay. Also, still in the theaters at that time. Um listener, least important things, listeners would would know this. Okay. Um, Pirates of the Caribbean. Dead men tell no tales.
SPEAKER_03Okay, what one was that about? Dead Men Tell No Tales. Is that with the mermaids? I think that's Mermaids. Was that the last one?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, that was the end. Um, Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2, which opened the month previous. Yeah. Okay. Baywatch. So that's our uh uh Dwayne Johnson crossover. There we go. There we go. Um, Alien Covenant and some other movies that don't matter.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, a lot of franchise movies. So crowded holy cow.
SPEAKER_04Crowded, yeah. I mean, this movie finds itself kind of suffocated in this period of like the 2010s of uh um studios trying to just find cinematic universes and like create like uh off the success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, of course.
SPEAKER_06Um yeah, because this is two years before Endgame, essentially, right?
SPEAKER_04And like yes, and Guardians of the Galaxy in Volume 2 is already is is out at this time and DC has like come out strong with Wonder Woman that released at that same time, which might be one of their better movies in the last yeah decade. Probably that was Gal Gadot, right? Yep, yeah. Um so um, yeah, some some trivia, some more facts so you can fact check yourself.
SPEAKER_06I'm very excited.
SPEAKER_04Um, Tom Cruise, of course, part starred in this movie, was originally offered the lead role in the 1999 movie.
SPEAKER_06Mummy Wow and he turned it down because he wanted to do Mission Impossible 2, maybe? Maybe, maybe 99. No, it might have been a little bit earlier, but it was Magnolia.
SPEAKER_00Maybe Magnolia might have been around that time too. Yeah, I can't remember right off the bat off the bat.
SPEAKER_04I think Mission Impossible 2, I think was like 2002. It was straight 2000. 2000. You want to check the VHS back there? No, I don't. You can fact check it yourself. Um, Russell Crowe, uh, despite being two years older than Tom Cruise, refers to him as a younger.
SPEAKER_05Younger man, I I caught that. I caught that line.
SPEAKER_04I was like, no, just one of them has consumed a lot more alcohol than the other. Variety kind of picked up on this, and they kind of attributed it to Cruz's, you know, needing to appease Cruz's vanity. Um director Alex Kurtzman um never directed another movie ever again.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Makes sense.
SPEAKER_00Did we look up his letterbox just brand? Okay, it was two movies. There was a rom com in like 2012 that he did, and then this.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, but he was a writer, really writer. He was a writer on a lot of action movies. Yeah, Transformers, some other stuff.
SPEAKER_04It effectively ended his filmmaking career. He did do some TV stuff, um, and he was attached as a producer to a movie in uh like seven years later. So just last year.
SPEAKER_08Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Um, but between the mummy in 2017 and being a producer on this film, no movie credits at all.
SPEAKER_07It's a on sarcophagus. Yes, yes, Hollywood is brutal.
SPEAKER_06Death is just a doorway. Yes, death is just a doorway.
SPEAKER_04Um screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie of uh Mission Impossible for him. He uh reportedly dislikes this film so much that when asked uh to give uh writing advice, he simply said, Don't write the mummy.
SPEAKER_03Wow. Whoa.
SPEAKER_06So this is this is they're collaborating at this point. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03What 2017?
SPEAKER_04Is this right before Fallout? I think Fallout was just about to come out. Fallout was 2019, I thought.
SPEAKER_06Or 2018. Because Zach and I were talking about this. I think this because from in my memory, I did not see this in the theaters, but from my memory, there was a is Tom Cruise done? Like this, this is this the end of Cruz?
SPEAKER_04Like, can he not really he's just phoning in really Fallout, fortunately for him, is the greatest action movie ever made. Um, so yeah.
SPEAKER_06Gone in 60 seconds right behind you. Might have an argument there.
SPEAKER_04Absolutely not. Um, absolutely not. Face off is better than that. Um the uh screenplay uh notably had a few uh writers attached to it. Um I won't name name names, but a few. A few. Yeah, Zach and I did look that up. We were like, there's a there's a long list. There's a long list. Yeah, yeah. Um and what's interesting, I I does Tom Cruise a part of that list.
SPEAKER_06I would say he's always writing the last 15 years of Tom Cruise movies, he's he is part of the writing process unofficially.
SPEAKER_04I from my research, it it seemed like they were doing a lot of reshoots of stuff because he was trying to move some chess pieces around. I think I mean we we can talk about it in a second, but I think I think Tom Cruise recognized this movie was bad from the get-go and was trying to do everything he could in the middle of production and not in pre-production to try to fix it. And unfortunately, I think it it caused different issues.
SPEAKER_06It does have a little bit of I'm not saying that there's a these are very two different movies, but Quantum of Solace, which was the sequel to Casino Royale, was during the writer's strike, and the director and Daniel Craig essentially wrote that movie as they were making it, and this one had that kind of feeling. I think it's actually better than no, it's not, it's terrible. It's pretty bad. Also, the video you get you gotta watch it right after Casino Royale. I think I told you that. I have watched it right after Catalina Royale.
SPEAKER_04I think what we're gonna highlight even more how bad Quantum Masala says.
SPEAKER_06Okay, but it had that had that vibe to it. Like it's not a writer strike, but it's definitely so. Did you do it? I noticed David Kepp uh of Jurassic Park Fame was also a writer, but I'm assuming he was not involved. Maybe he maybe was involved at the start. Was he there to like clean up stuff?
SPEAKER_04I don't know.
SPEAKER_06I mean, kept does a lot of universal stuff, so he was it's to me, he's either they probably asked brought him in right at the end to fix a bunch of stuff, or he was just early on.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, it's either one of the one or the other. Uh, I don't know. I and I love Cap, but he's trying to wait, do way too much fact-checking right now.
SPEAKER_06Okay, see, this is what I I didn't have control. I'm trying to, yeah, I'm in the we're in the group project, and I'm like angry that fact-check it yourself, man.
SPEAKER_04Um, so okay, we're we have to talk about this in a second here, but the dark universe side of this, right? So I did not know this when I watched the movie last night. I'm watching, I see the universal bumper, and then it kind of flips. And it actually the way the bumper works, I loved it. It was a it was a good bumper. I'm not saying anything about it, but it almost looks like it's gonna go straight from the universal bumper right into the film, but instead, like a map of China zooms, yeah. It zooms over and it basically you see the other side of the world, but it says dark universe, the dark side of the um, and this was this was Universal trying to set up um like a connected universe, a connected uh franchise universe where um it was gonna be dark, monster-y stuff. Um, they had um obviously they were releasing the mummy, they already had Javier Bardem attached to play Frankenstein, they had Johnny Depp attached to play the Invisible Man. Kind of would have I would have loved it.
SPEAKER_06That would have been so good.
SPEAKER_04That would have been really good. Um, they had all these projects lined up to kind of come out over the next several years, and the performance of the mummy almost immediately, Universal canceled all of those plans. So you watch this movie and you see this bumper for Dark Universe, and it's like, wait, I've never heard of that production company or that production out. And there's it's because it was a you know.
SPEAKER_06Um and there is a scene in the movie when you first go into spoiler alert, you know, Dr. Jekyll's lair, and you see uh like a vampire skull, you see a creature in the black lagoon like hand.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I don't know if there was a and frankly that's where it should have ended for as far as trying to build tie-in future films. Yeah, I see what you're saying. Um, but yeah, so that is some facts that you can factor.
SPEAKER_06I literally just watched it this morning before recording, and I I really wish we got all those movies. Like, I know they probably wouldn't all all been pretty much.
SPEAKER_04Well, they did piver and they did release an Invisible Man in 2012. Yeah, but it was more like filmmaker-driven.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, they they shifted their strategy with their properties, but I'm like, I kind of wish an alternate history of like these big universal summer blockbuster, yeah, monster movie action movies. I kind of like, I don't know, maybe it's uh it's a little bit of like nostalgia. Yeah, and I like it that it's different than the comic book stuff that was happening at the time, but it would feel really comic booky though. It would, I guess that's the idea the idea.
SPEAKER_00Very League of Extraordinary Gentlemen kind of thing, which was not a great team-up movie.
SPEAKER_06I which remember that movie, I love that movie. I have a huge soft spot.
SPEAKER_04A lot of big fan energy there. I think where this movie goes wrong, and uh I'll start out by saying this. If you look at the Rotten Tomatoes for this movie, I mean it is poor, it's like 18%. Um, critics destroyed this. Critics destroyed this movie. Yeah, it's bad.
SPEAKER_05And I will say No Roger Everham coming to save the day.
SPEAKER_04I will say the hate has gone too far in this movie. This movie is not nearly as bad as its Rotten Tomatoes score suggests. I agree. It is entertaining, it is fun, it is there are some really cool stuff about it, it's got a great cast. Um, however, it's got some glaring weaknesses. The biggest weakness, and I'm gonna say this, and I'm probably gonna be Luke's probably gonna say, I cannot believe you say this because it's an actor I love, but the biggest weakness of this film is Jake Johnson.
SPEAKER_06I I get it. No, I I I get it, even though I did tell Zach before we recorded that I just wanted a buddy cop movie with him and Tom just.
SPEAKER_04The tone he throws off the tone of the movie entirely. I get it. And I I like Jake Johnson, great actor. I think there's a version of this movie that has his character as it's designed and shown in this film that it is a good mummy movie. The problem is that in the first half of the movie, he is the comic relief. In the second half of the movie, there is no comic relief. It's supposed to be a dark movie, yeah, and the tone of the movie is supposed to be really dark, and it totally falls flat when you have Jake Johnson as a is a friendly zombie trying to guide Tom Cruise on his journey to fulfill this prophecy. And um, that for me was kind of jarring. Um and then some positives I'll say about the movie. I think Tom Cruise is just a fun actor to watch. Um, even though it's it's kind of hard to see him as this um everyman who like this kind of just happens to.
SPEAKER_06Well, and thief almost he's supposed to be kind of like a deplorable person. Yeah, that's hard.
SPEAKER_04How he how they introduce his character, I thought that was kind of cool.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, it was it's it's like this is it's the anti-Eathan Hunt. That's what they're kind of trying to set it up. He's got Ethan Hunt sensibility like action sensibilities, but they're trying to set it up as like he's not a good guy, like he he's like under the guise of the city.
SPEAKER_04He's kind of to me, so I this maybe this reference may fall flat, but this is kind of how I felt I was trying to draw a parallel between Tom Cruise's other performances or other characters, not performance, but other another character that Tom Cruise did that. Um this is uh this is if Jerry Maguire did not like went went the other way, character-wise.
SPEAKER_06Yes, I literally just watched Jerry Maguire, and so I was thinking like Jerry Maguire, he is kind of deplorable in that. Yeah, and they were trying to do the action version of that of like let's let's Bob and Weave. We have Ethan Hunt, who is like the essentially Jesus Christ, like that he'd be savior of the world, he becomes the Christ figure at the end of the franchise, uh, which we've talked about. And then they're like, Oh, let's let's do the anti-Eathan Hunt. Like, who who if someone had Ethan Hunt's charm and skills and action skills, uh, but he was deplorable and funny. And I think Tom's doing trying to do a lot more humor. Like, I can tell in this movie he he's trying to do more humorous things and gag, and it's not the Ethan Hunt, like I'm making this up as I go. It's more of like he's a bit more sarcastic, he's a bit more, he's got a bit more edge, but I again I think the tone is a bit off with that. And then you have the romance stuff, which is really tough with Cruz at this point in his life to have a romance romantically.
SPEAKER_04They just kind of they try to make it a horror movie, but like not a horror movie at the same time. And I do think I think there's a way to that Universal could have done this where because like the Marvel Cinematic Universe is very set up where um it's the good guys and um and in Universal tried to be a good one.
SPEAKER_06The barge blue villain, yeah, yeah. Universal tried to try to barge blue villain and in a McGuffin, anti-hero, but like anti-villain kind of thing.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and um, I think that there that that really could have worked, but the movie, and here's and we were talking about this in beforehand, and you guys are like, hold that thought. I just got done seeing the new Spider-Man that just came out. Um, what's what's it called?
SPEAKER_06Um Big Day tomorrow. Exactly.
SPEAKER_04I can't remember. It's just another one of those things. Yeah, it's another day, another day out, day and the like. Honestly, I feel like they're just coming up with Is a brand new day? Yeah. Okay. Okay, it just sounds like rejected ice cube album to me. Brand newness of Spidey Sense. Um New York. New York. So I just saw that movie and it was good, but I think it's getting far too much praise for what it is. Uh this isn't a Spider-Man podcast, this is a Mind Podcast. The issue I have with that Spider-Man movie, although although it was entertaining and fun, they do have that. They do wait, there's way too much setup for the rest of the franchise. And trying to set up the new Avengers, trying to set up stuff. There's really little that happens with Spider-Man. It's just a it he they're just trying to make it so that when they come out with another movie in the future, that there's a way to explain that people know who he is now, instead of him being anonymous. So there the movie, the whole movie felt like a middle movie to me.
SPEAKER_06Isn't that the most I that's the thing I actually do hate the most? Unless it's truly a trilogy. It if it's a two towers or if it's like it's specifically a set, like there's a bigger story, and we're just putting this in the chunks. I hate that because it's like, why am I here?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I'm literally here to be able to do that. I'm really just here to be told an hour, two-hour uh ex like exposition, uh exposition on okay, and this is why we want you to be able to begin to the next movie is gonna be you need to know this to for this for the next movie to make it.
SPEAKER_06You're watching this movie to because we want you to buy a ticket in in December for or in November for the next one.
SPEAKER_04So that movie is being praised for how good it is. It is it is a better movie. I'm not trying to say that these that the mummy in 2017 and um and spider in this new Spider-Man movie are are somehow on the same level, but that movie is not being criticized for basically doing nothing, yeah. Where in just doing and just being set up, whereas this movie it was criticized immensely for focusing way too much on trying to set up the universe and not enough on just trying to make the movie good. Right. And I think that that is unfair to this movie because I do think there are really good elements of it, but it does fail in that they they don't focus on trying to make the mummy good, they try to do all of this setup with Russell Crowe's character and all this stuff, and there was just different ways to approach it. So, overall, final like closing thoughts on this film. It was it was better than I expected it to be, but I understand why they scrapped the project.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, Zach, what do you think about the 2017 mummy?
SPEAKER_00I mean, I I kind of agree with Mike in a lot of ways. I having just caught the tail end of it when you were finishing up today.
SPEAKER_07It's been a while. I was cramming my homework, yeah. I I watched it. Actually, it's extra credit because I wasn't, I didn't even have to watch it. So it was extra credit.
SPEAKER_00You really didn't, yeah. You have to work. Um, I just know at the end, like I just kind of it's it's such a transitive like movie because the true mummy in the end is spoiler alert. It's been nine years, right? It's it's Tom Cruise, yeah. Like he becomes the mummy. So it's like we had to watch an entire movie to see this origin story of something. It's very like superhero in a lot of ways, in that way, too.
SPEAKER_06Um, and he even like his he resurrected his buddy, yeah, his quip buddy, yeah, which I get it totally. It's like uh we're I would I I'm in for that movie. Like Tom Cruise as a superhero and Jake Johnson as his sidekick. Yeah, like yes, let's do that. Kicking up sand in the door, but the middle part of it, like this horror, universal horror kind of lore and build-up and the special effects don't match the tone, and I understand that.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I don't know. We have other movies to get into, but I I think something that kind of troubles me about Tom Cruise in in this, and if they were to go on to make additional movies in this franchise, is that Tom Cruise absolutely can play the hero. We see it in Mission Impossible, we've seen it in a lot of other films where he is the guy, right? Yeah, but I at some point the mummy is going to need help, and Tom Cruise doesn't like help. He his characters are always almost lone wolf, team leader, yes, or lone wolf. And so it's just hard for me to to see him as the as like uh is is like an Iron Man figure in in a film franchise.
SPEAKER_06But you get you get why from a production standpoint. If you think about it, if I'm a universal executive in the mid-2010s, yeah, I look at my competitors, Disney bought the MCU. I look at Warner Brothers as is doing their thing with DC Comics, and I'm like, we gotta do something.
SPEAKER_04Well, not only so so here's the thing that I mean Fallen Kingdom just came out, and we're like theme park.
SPEAKER_06So you gotta think about the theme park element of this because we have a theme park segment coming up later. But um do you want to hit save it for this? You want to dive in?
SPEAKER_04No, I want to talk because this is the business side of this. So the um Universal was saw Disney by um Star Wars and uh oh you're right, yeah, Star Wars and uh and uh the MCU rights for the uh for the West Coast, and then they were congl, and then they were consolidating the rights for the East Coast as well. Universal had MCU rights, but only for the comic book stuff. So they were losing they were gonna lose the ability to to have like the Batman ride and the Hulk ride? They made so they were still able to have that stuff because it was tied to it was tied to some different IP, some different artwork, yeah. But um, but it was gonna it like they couldn't create new stuff out of that, right? So they had they were scouring through their IP, and they're like, hey, we know we need a new gate to for a theme park, which eventually they opened up Epic Universe last year, and we need IP to put in it, and we don't have we okay, fine, we can put Harry Potter over there, but we need more IP. And it's only since 2015 that they've come up with that they like found this diamond in the rough of like how to train your dragon, and they grew that, but before that, they were looking for anything, and this was the thing that they were looking through their IP, and they're like, Maybe we can create something here, yeah. Because they had to eventually port into a theme park, and then these this IP, the mummy and Frankenstein and all that translates to rides really easy.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, it makes sense, yeah. That's real, that's fascinating. Yeah, because they had the fast franchise, but it's tough to make that entire those are terrible rides because it's basically just a car ride, yeah. Just broom vroom. That's fascinating. I I like this movie, I really enjoyed it. I had such low expectations. Again, it's one of those movies, and I have a lot of heart for these movies because you can see what they're trying to do, and they just they just couldn't do it. Like they just yeah, they just missed a few at a few things. I really liked some of the the creature effects. I like that they had like a female mummy, and they like kind of played with that where like she's the emotep doing the kiss of death, yeah. And you know, Tom Cruise is in the Rachel Vy's role kind of damsel in distress. Like that's how I kind of view it. Yeah, um, so I there were some elements I liked of that. Uh, but yeah, it just it just it's close. But and then it also is a Tom Cruise movie movie, that's where I think they go wrong. They're trying to like almost put a layer on top of a Tom Cruise movie. They're like, let's take all the good stuff that he's been making with the mission franchise, and then let's put this IP on top of it. Because I Zach was watching me watch the end of the movie, and I was like, Oh, we're getting all the Tom Cruise stuff. We get a water scene, we get him running in a city. Um, it's all these Tom Cruise things that they're just jamming in right at the end of the movie. They did, yeah. We did get an airplane, him bouncing around on the airplane at the start of the movie. But um, also I did a deep dive on Jake Johnson talking about his experience in this movie. Really worth I have listeners and viewers, check it out. He tells some really good stories, adores Tom Cruise, but he tells some hilarious stories of him trying to get in shape and working out with Tom Cruise. But he said, my agent just like said he didn't read the script or anything, it was just like you get to be in an action movie with Tom Cruise, and he's like, I'm in, I'm doing it.
SPEAKER_04Cool, yeah.
SPEAKER_06Which, if if I got the call, I wouldn't care how bad the script or how stupid the idea was. Call me in. I'm ready to go.
SPEAKER_00I have a big question for you. Uh could this franchise actually just go straight to video and do five of these? I would love to do that. Maybe it's not Tom Cruise in the role recast for the mummy character.
SPEAKER_04I don't think so. I think I think they could just go straight to video and just do like, yeah, some really easy, cheesy, you know, low budget stuff. Low budget, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Like five, maybe you could have like five movies that straight to DVD that might be on the sci-fi channel. It could be on the sci-fi channel, or it could just be lost to time and only on the a weird uh Polish streaming movies. It's funny you said to find these on because they're doing it.
SPEAKER_04Lost to time, but really, what are mummies except lost to time? They are lost to time.
SPEAKER_06Okay. Um, the next assignment. Do you want me to go, or should we do that?
SPEAKER_00I think we should continue with the mummy side of stuff. I'm more curious.
SPEAKER_06Um if listeners that we've been teasing it, yes. Uh the Scorpion King was Zach's assignment, and he watched I'm just over here.
SPEAKER_00Thank you. Okay, we'll talk about it.
SPEAKER_06Okay, uh I have a I have my my uh my homework here. Yep, I have it on a clipboard. I have a clipboard.
SPEAKER_00Oh no, it fell.
SPEAKER_06I have my clipboard here of notes, it's cursed. Okay, so my assignment, very Luke, was to go back in history to talk a little bit more about the mummy uh in Universal and how that all happened. So the first mummy movie. I don't know if you guys caught this, it might be on Tubi, is a 1911 silent short film. Pluto, maybe Pluto, maybe there's probably a mummy channel on Pluto. There probably is. The first big mummy property was the 1932 mummy, which I'll talk about in a little bit of detail. Um, really cool how this kind of came about. The idea came from King Tut's tomb, which was excavated in 1922. And if the big lore about King King Tut's tomb is everyone who actually was part of the excavation ended up dying.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, like don't people just die though? Dying be like very quick deaths right after near nearby. Even one person on site died from like malaria, I believe, or something like that.
SPEAKER_06So it was very mysterious, the whole thing. So there was a ton of public interest in this idea of like pulling out a uh mummy, resurrecting, and all the crazy stuff around that. Yeah, so um, studio head of Universal Carl uh Lamy Jr. got this idea of like, let's make this into a movie. He bought um he put a ton of cash into this idea because he wanted to create a new monster movie, specifically a new monster movie for Boris Karloff, who is at this point huge massive star because of the Frankenstein movies. Um, so that's what really spurred on 1932. Um, after that, which I'll go back to 1932, uh, there was a couple other B spin-off movies that Universal did uh that weren't that successful, but then we actually move into the the 40s, uh more spin-offs, not very popular, very low budget. There's even like a 1955 comedy spoof, and this is actually interesting if you look at the Universal Monster movies. Once the the night we get into the 1950s, they start playing with their IP and it's more jokey. So there's Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy.
SPEAKER_00I was gonna I was gonna ask if that was a part of it. Okay, yeah.
SPEAKER_06So it's it's kind of that era where they started playing with their properties, but it's more humorous than like who's on first? Yeah, yes, thank you. Uh and then in the in the 1950s, uh I don't think that's Abbott and Costello. I just need to clear the room. Okay, is that I think it's Groucho?
SPEAKER_04No, who's on first is Abbott and Costello? Is that for sure?
SPEAKER_06Uh you're gonna have to fact-check that. Yeah, fact-check. I'm fact-checking it right now. I feel he's down here.
SPEAKER_05Please listen to this, it's very important.
SPEAKER_06So in the 1950s, so we get into the 1950s, and this small studio in England called Hammer Studios is makes all is able to license the universal monster uh characters. Um, it's it's kind of confusing how they are able to redistribute them in the United States, but essentially, this model is we're this small little studio in England. We're gonna take all these horror properties and we're gonna just churn out horror movies and just mass market them. The whole idea was let's make really um scantalizing posters and make the marketing really edgy for the era, and we're just gonna get butts in seats, and that's the goal. And then they're gonna they're gonna sell it back to the United States and try to just make a lot of money. And it's really like if you look at the history of horror and you look at the late 70s, early 80s slasher stuff, the way they were making movies then, also universal product, uh, for like Friday the 13th, make them as super cheap as possible, get teenagers to come, sell sex, sell death, sell violence, and you're gonna make a lot of money. Same same thing, but this was happening in the 50s and 60s. And so Hammer Studios goes off, they make uh a ton of different movies, but the mummy is one of their most popular uh versions, the 1951 hammer horror production, which I'll get into a little bit later.
SPEAKER_04I was I was right, by the way. Okay, you were right.
SPEAKER_06Um, so those are kind of like that's kind of like the backstory of the history of what was happening in Hollywood and movie making, but there is really a huge gap, 70s to the night, late night late 90s, a huge gap where there's not a ton of like big budget mum mummy stuff happening.
SPEAKER_04All right, what other movies were like as big as or you said mummy was the biggest for hammer horror? They're they're Dracula stuff, Dracula.
SPEAKER_06They have they had they made like a lot of uh Frankenstein, Frankenstein, uh, Dracula, they a lot of just genre stuff. Um more like uh cre a bunch of creature features or teen wolf, not teen wolf, um yeah, wolf man. I have a hammer hammer horror book over there.
SPEAKER_03Have you guys ever seen Teen Wolf 2?
SPEAKER_06No, but it's supposed to be really bad. I do have a full history of hammer horror uh from season two. So go ahead and listen to that if you want to learn more about hammers, and I will not keep talking about hammer because I I it's one of those things that I don't know why I started really just loving and getting obsessed with the history of this crazy studio. And if you watch hammer horror movies, they shoot in like the same buildings and the sets. It's like it's literally like a big, it's a big like British manor. Yeah, like it's an old British house, and they shoot, they shoot, they shot like most of all their movies cool on this, like these grounds of this old British house.
SPEAKER_00Is that like the traitor set now for the UT? Yeah, it's essentially the traitor.
SPEAKER_04Wait, is that the same manor that our Brendan Fraser?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no, oh, is it that'd be awesome? That would be that would be so cool.
SPEAKER_06That would be cool. But there are some connections. So let's go back to 1932, The Mummy huge movie, Boris Koroloff uh as the star. Um, this was good, guys. I mean, I know when you're watching an old movie, it's like it can be hard to get through it and it's slow, but I really, really like this movie. Uh, here's the plot set in 1921, the plot follow follows the discovery of a high the high priest, Imotep. Yes. So Immotep is canon, yes, who was executed for the sacrilege of stealing the scroll of Throth uh to reserve resurrect his lover, uh, Princess I can never say her name. It's the same name.
SPEAKER_00I'm not sure no more.
SPEAKER_06Yep. So same names, essentially the same thing. Yeah. Here's a little bit of a difference. Imotep. Uh he's resurrected. What the same idea is like there's colonial colonial people doing their colonial things. Yeah. Um he becomes he comes alive. He uses the pseudonym Ardith Bay. Yep. Ardith Bay, our dear friend and uh Falconeer. Uh which which uh there's mummy for news. He is coming back.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I heard. Yeah.
SPEAKER_06I think I texted you guys.
SPEAKER_00Were you excited, Mike, about that? Uh keep going.
SPEAKER_05Mike's so lost.
SPEAKER_04Who's I don't remember Ardith Bay. I know. The Mahadran. He's uh yeah. Oh, the the Majit with the tattoo. Yeah, yeah, with the Teddy's and stuff. Yeah, okay. I like that. He's coming back. He's good he's actually my friend.
SPEAKER_06Remember, I I know.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, I know, yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_06Well, remember I texted you? He like it's on his in the actor's Instagram. Yeah, he did like a like almost like a recruitment video that he do for college football. Oh, really? He did like an announcement video.
SPEAKER_01Like I'm signing for the money. Yeah, I'm back, baby. Got a good NIL.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, he got a good deal. Uh so our Immotep uses that as a pseudonym. So they actually brought back that name. Obviously, it's not the same thing. The difference here with the 1932 one is uh uh Immotep is disguising himself as uh an Egyptian uh who is interested in antiquity. So he he's not like fully mummied, really. He he's he's worse Karloff, so he's got that intensity and there's some makeup there. Yeah, the rigidity of his face and stuff. So there it's really cool because obviously with Frankenstein, Frankenstein doesn't really have any lines, but this one he does, and he's able to do it in his really creepy delivery, like almost like you can kind of hear his animated Grinch voice over uh a few times. Does he wear a Fez? Wait, he did the he he did the Grinch? Yeah, the original Grinch voice. That's Boris Karloff. Oh there you go. Fun fact. But his idea is he's trying to get the Brits to stop taking his princess away to the British Museum, so he convinces them to stay in Cairo. So British of them. Yeah, so Immotep is working within the system to stop the imperialists. That's dope.
SPEAKER_03So he's the good guy.
SPEAKER_06So he's it's and I was thinking of you, Zach, because it is truly a love story. Like the 1932 one is totally a love story. Yes, he does kill some people trying to protect the tomb. How does he kill what's gonna be?
SPEAKER_00For love though. For love.
SPEAKER_06We don't, we don't, it's like uh I we do a lot of it's off-camera killings, but it is kind of like you can tell they're like they're they're not fully mumified, it's not like the kiss of death. Okay, um, and then we have a really, really cool flashback scene, um, which it goes through the whole whole idea that he fell in love with the princess and he wasn't supposed to. Okay. Um it's it's pretty amazing. I I I really liked it. There was almost like the use of a pensive as a flashback, um, which is really interesting. What does that mean? Um from Harry Potter. Uh, like for the memories and the uh so another thing, another thing JK stole, uh stole, I'm sure she stole it from the 1932 mummy. But again, we uh we have the same kind of idea where there's a female character, yeah, modern day, not modern day, but in the story that looks like the princess is and he's gonna use her to resurrect his his loved. Um we just don't have a Rec Ocano. We we kind of do, but he's not that he's he's kind of forgettable. He's not like an action hero. He's just kind of like you're you're like handsome man. Um the climax involves uh an an the altar to Anubis, who we know in returns. I'm aware of the god of death.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_06And uh, and there's a another uh goddess, uh Isis, who helps save the hero, and she like prays to Isis um um in our mummy is destroyed. Uh so much more of a love story. There's some really cool shots of Boris uh Karloff's like face because he can't he has like super mummy powers and can like he he tries to like same kind of thing that Imotep does in the 99 is he uses his powers to woo this woman to help him resurrect his love. So honestly, pretty similar to the 99. Yeah, almost like you're frame for frame, not frame for frame, but more of a slow burn, definitely more of a uh more more drama, more love. Okay. 1959. 1959, TNT. We know drama. Uh so we're we're on to our British uh friends uh at ham at Hammer. So this one is set in the late uh late 1800s, 1895. British archaeologists, including a son, father, and uncle, are opening a tomb. It's called Princess Anaka, um, which accidentally unleashes uh uh uh King.
SPEAKER_00No, Luke, it's Anaxun no more.
SPEAKER_06It's not that, but it it's that's actually basically that. I didn't catch that reference. They unleash uh Karis, who is a living mummified, but also a high priest that we come to learn. Uh three years later, um they the the dad goes crazy, um, and then a follower of again the Lord of Death or the God of Death, um, he's an Egyptian, uh, uses a sacred scroll to essentially take use the resurrect the mummy and have the mummy kill the people who tried to get into the tomb of the princess. Got it. So very similar kind of thing. I'll I'll share some more stuff there. Uh, what's similar? Uh backstory, we have a full backstory with the priest falling in love with the Egyptian princess. Uh, priest ignores customs, and then he's mummified to death. Same thing in the 99. Um, human villain worships the god of death, as I mentioned. And then, same deal. We have the modern female character who looks exactly like the princess. Um, and instead, she uses like she almost tricks the mummy uh to like confuse him.
SPEAKER_00Oh, it's kind of like, hey, look at me.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, I like she like puts her hair down as like I look like your princess. Yeah. Uh what's different? Um, we have a muddy mummy.
SPEAKER_00Muddy? What do you mean by like terracotta muddy? Uh not terracotta.
SPEAKER_06Uh, but the mummy is uh dropped into like uh essentially a bog. Um so when he emerges, are there bogs in Egypt?
SPEAKER_03Uh this is in Britain. This would be so the bog person that they found, yeah.
SPEAKER_04So that's okay. So it's like Jeepers Creepers now, yeah.
SPEAKER_07So yes, exactly.
SPEAKER_06Um but Christopher Lee plays the mummy, so this is a trope in hammer horror. Uh Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. Peter Cushing, most famous, probably we all most people know him as as Tarkin and Star Wars. Um, but him and Lee were hammer staples all throughout the hammer movies. Most of the times they played Dr. Van Helsing, Cushing played Dr. Van Helsing, and then Lee played Dracula, which a lot of people know Christopher Lee from Dracula. Of course, Christopher Lee went on to be Kodoku. He went on to uh play Saruman and a lot of things that we had a great rock band. Had a great rock band. Um but lean Cushing, this is where they really got their start, and uh Lee plays a really it's interesting because he he plays the flashback character of the prophet, but he's also the mummy and gets to do some there's some really cool mud stuff on the mummy. So he's not like your traditional like white cloth mummy, he's all muddy and crusty. So some really fun makeup stuff there. Is uh the whole kingdom is it something UK centered then, like something like Celtish or something, or is this still based out of it's still so this one is yeah, they're in Egypt, and essentially this one is I think you'd like this one, Zach, because this one they address the whole idea of the tomb raiding in the colonialism of that, and that's where the Egyptian character who worships worships the god of death. His whole idea is he's trying to punish them for raiding the tomb of the princess. I want that. Um, so they act they actually there's a full like British office, like with the fireplace conversation between Cushing and uh the Egyptian character of saying, like, why should we do this? It's not right to do this, and it's like, well, I'm an archaeologist, I'm supposed to do this. So that's a fun one. Um, we also do get some uh 1950s British uh movie uh tropes, good and bad. Uh as I mentioned, amazing British offices, lounge chairs, fireplace, and desks. Um, accents that are very stereotypically stuffy British. So, yes, of course, yes. Lean Cushing, as I mentioned, just two giants of British cinema. Incredible cigarette smoking by Cushing. Watch this performance for anything. Uh Peter Cushing smokes his cigarette in like a weird way. It's like he smokes them really delicately between like his like his fingers, and then he'll turn it and hold it up as it's like after he he puffs, he'll hold it, hold it straight up so it's vertical, almost like away from himself so the smoke doesn't get on him. It's like I don't like cigarettes, but yeah, but but I have to, I have to, just just a little thing. Um, but we also do get uh brown face, Irish racism, misogyny, and an abrupt ending. Also, uh very true to a lot of hammer horror movies and British movies. So the good and the bad, the good and the bad. And that is Luke's backstory of the mummy franchise.
SPEAKER_04Uh and which of them was the best?
SPEAKER_06Yeah, I think the 32 is pretty amazing, and you think about the time and the makeup in some of the cinematography. There's one really famous shot of Boris Karloff, as I mentioned, where he's like almost in a trance and the lighting and just everything. It's a it's a really fun one to have. I would say throw this one on it uh while you're carving pumpkins this fall, or it it honestly, what it reminds me of you would have this 32 mummy on in a in a movie set in the 70s. So the original Halloween, the thing, the original thing is on in the background. I don't know if you've noticed in a lot of movies, they're watching super old movies, even if it makes no sense. Like, why is there a 30s movie on and a 90s movie? That's what I kind of think this one is. Yeah, this would be on in like a 90s movie, they would have this 32 mummy. But definitely have this one on during the Halloween season because it's uh it's a good background, just aesthetics.
SPEAKER_00What is something from these two, either or um that would have been nice to see in the mummy or the mummy or or the mummy?
SPEAKER_06I think a little bit honestly, like with the the hammer horror one in 32, they talk about it a little bit, and because Immotep is trying to he's you like going within the system, sure, like he's disguising himself as an Egyptian.
SPEAKER_04He recognizes the only way to get anything done is to run for parliament, yeah. Exactly, exactly to become.
SPEAKER_06I wish there was more of these conversations about the colonial nature of these because it's all these British guys going over there to steal something and then they're cursed. It's a theme throughout both of these, and I'm surprised we don't see that. I guess maybe the 2017 is a little bit of an Iraq war commentary.
SPEAKER_04A little bit, yeah, that's a good point. Well, okay.
SPEAKER_06That's something I think they they're they're missing. I really love the 32 because again, it's worse Karloff, he's a really creepy-looking guy to begin with, in a good way. Um you know, he's not with us anymore, but like he's such a dominant are you sure? No, he's such a domineering figure and such an icon, so it's cool that he isn't just being the scary guy. Are you checking to see if Boris Karloff is?
SPEAKER_00My answer to that, are you sure is Karloff is always with me? He's always with me.
SPEAKER_06I would like to see that in future and maybe Mummy Four, they'll do they'll they'll do it, but yeah, definitely uh more of a slow burn, less action, but fun. Uh, the 59 has more action. There's there's uh another British trope is like two kind of out of shape British men and their middle-aged men fighting. Oh, that's fine. Um it's it's a little clumsy, like getting their hair messed up. That's when you know it's getting serious. Oh my. When like Cushing's hair gets like sort of out off his face, it's like, oh did he roll up his sleeves? No, oh, of course, no. Everything's tight. Still, still the tie might be a little loose.
SPEAKER_00Okay, fair enough.
SPEAKER_06All right, let's move on to one of the toughest assignments we've ever had on the show. Um, one that deserves a doctorate. It is yeah, a spin-off series that has birthed many movies. It is the Scorpion King. Uh, Zach, the floor is yours.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, thanks, guys. I do appreciate just absolutely offshooting from what you guys have been talking about today. This is the only thing we're talking about today that doesn't have the mummy in the title, nor is there a mummy anywhere in this movie. I'm trying to just double. There's like there's no mummies at all? Really? No, no, there's a lot of dead people, but none of them are, you know, traditionally mummatized. So, like, what why didn't you even get to jump into this yet, Mike? So okay. Uh what why are we doing this?
SPEAKER_04No, like why are we here? Yeah, why are we here? Like, where does this movie pick up from the story storyline from where we are?
SPEAKER_06So the Scorpion King, the first one that I think I got this far.
SPEAKER_00So the this this series is all a prequel to returns. Some of these are prequels of sequels of prequels.
SPEAKER_05Oh boy, and some of these are sequels to prequels. I need a pen. We need a title.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, with all these, it is all like returns is the end goal of what we are about to set up in Scorpion King. Scorpion King is not the beginning of the journey, that's the second movie. Um the first Scorpion King is the second the first scory Scorpion King movie in chronological order would be the second movie. Okay. Um they do do an origin story movie uh called Rise of a Warrior.
SPEAKER_04Mummy Returns is the second of the three Brandon Fraser Mummies, right? Yeah, correct, yes. Okay, okay, okay. So the Scorpion King movie that you watched, the first one, happens in between the Mummy and the Mummy Returns.
SPEAKER_00No, no, it happens kind of um about uh maybe 50 years before the beginning of the or the opening of what you see in returns. When he eats the scorpion. When he eats the scorpion.
SPEAKER_04Oh, right, because that timeline is like way out in the past.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and he's like a full-fledged warrior.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, okay, okay, okay.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. So we are just setting up the journey of what the scorpion king was, becomes, falls from, then returns to. And the ark of the king. There's an arc of a king and then the fall of a king, and then the the return of the king. No, actually, it's not the return of the king, it's it's the return of uh at the very last movie, they'd established him as a blacksmith. So uh yeah, yeah, okay. So essentially what the Scorpion King was is a vehicle for The Rock to actually do his thing. Yes. What happened was that movie, that entire um movie was dangerous. Uh, really, really uh there's a lot of masculine energy in the wrong ways. Um, no one wanted to return to uh making that film. So they made four additional movies that were just straight to video.
SPEAKER_03Yes.
SPEAKER_00So just as a fun, I don't have a lot of trivia for you guys because honestly, as you step off of the Scorpion King, which was a lot of like uh the casting crew made this actress uncomfortable, and uh this was uh really hard for this person. Um, the only thing that I want to leave you with was trivia from the Scorpion King, the original one with the rock. Um, also the shortest of all five of them, by the way. Most of them are around 101 minutes. This was 92 minutes, so 10 minutes short. That 92 minutes. Yeah. Wow.
SPEAKER_04Um this well, you gotta count the also you gotta add the time that he's the Scorpion King in the other movie.
SPEAKER_06Okay, if you add those, then it's it's a full movie. Right.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, this and the 2002 Scorpion King movie was the last movie that Bill Hader did as a PA. Oh this is the movie that he famously talks about walking, just quitting after they did about a I think it was a 15-hour day in the desert, and he hated it. He had been doing PA work for a number of years leading up to that huge movie file, by the way. Bill Hader.
SPEAKER_06He's great. Like this the SNL, yeah.
SPEAKER_00SNL.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, yeah. Like this go on YouTube, like there, any movie you want. He has like there's so many movies he's he has either experience working on or he worked on um Commando?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was years ago. Why would why pause? Why would you introduce no no no? We're just talking about how, like, oh, Bill Hayter, uh, he was a PA, and you're like, oh yeah, he's got so much experience working on all these movies you would know about. By the way, what was the name of the movie? What commando? Yeah, never heard of that. Nobody nobody listened to this has ever heard of that movie.
SPEAKER_00No, I had a friend just watch it. Uh it's a great short show.
SPEAKER_04That is the example is hilarious.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. It's a pretty good movie. For those who know. Yeah. Um, in real ones. In total, there are five actors. Sorry, four actors that um five movies for him play this. No, five actors, because there is a young, young Scorpio. Okay, okay. Yeah, you should uh I'm going to call call him Scorpio every now and then, by the way. Love it. Um that play him. Um, but before I get too deep into this, I think there's other stuff I could always like just dump on you guys. But first, oh, there's another piece. There was another character that was also the Blue Ranger in Power Ranger's Time Force. Okay, great. Um, he did play. Um does that pink for you? Are you a big PR fan?
SPEAKER_04Yeah. The Pink Ranger had a crush on her.
SPEAKER_07Pink Ranger too, yeah. Oh, I got really excited there. I was that was the most I've seen him get excited out of that in a while.
SPEAKER_00I did make a book report that I wanted to read to you guys. That's okay. Just to save this. Yes, we'll grade it.
SPEAKER_04In fact, what I've been waiting for. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Okay, so uh let me just yeah, just uh get ready for this. Okay. This is the Scorpion King, my overview in about 500 words. My assignment was to watch all five Scorpion. To watch all five Scorpion King movies. That sounds bad enough, but I also watched a documentary about the real Scorpion King to satisfy my sanity. The first film had a production level that matched the previous two mummy films, along with high actane pacing and a plot that kind of slapped at the end.
SPEAKER_10Oh.
SPEAKER_00Yes. The other four films were the exact opposite. Direct to video films that lean into the sword and sandal genre, at nausea. I like that genre, but not to this level of repetition. The skill level of the movie makers ranges from making an Adventures of Hercules Saturday morning TV show to a group of boys with a DSLR shooting in their ex-stepdad's backyard. All of them have cameos from D-list actors and wrestlers who get to swing around a sword from time to time. Also, the Scorpion King's real name is Matthias.
SPEAKER_05Okay.
SPEAKER_00Also, the Book of the Dead makes an appearance.
SPEAKER_05Okay. Okay.
SPEAKER_00Billy Zane owns it and transports Dave Bautista from a death dimension using it. Wow. Also, after telling every appearance in each film, at least 69 scorpions are in the movie.
SPEAKER_08At least.
SPEAKER_00Along with a bunch of ants, snakes, spiders, and camels. Oh, wow. That completes my report.
SPEAKER_04Yay! Well done, Zach. We didn't even talk about for Zach how many crows were in the mummy. Yeah, there's a lot of crows. There's a lot of crows.
SPEAKER_06Yeah. So that's amazing, Zach. I feel like you gave us um apology cards uh recently. Uh I feel like I need to give you an apology card.
SPEAKER_00Honestly, don't. Like, I think this is kind of cool. So I did walk you watch a documentary that was actually tied to um a promotional piece on the History Channel that's introduced and concluded by The Rock saying, Hey, go watch my movie.
SPEAKER_06So this was in the early 2002 type of time.
SPEAKER_00But it does tell you actually like the history behind the Scorpion King, which was actual possible historical figure or figures at the early ages of Egypt. Apparently, the Scorpion King they saw it on a vase. Um, a man, somebody man person, don't know, brought the northern tribes and the southern tribes of Egypt together to become the first pharaoh of Egypt, possibly, or pharaoh zero. So that's kind of like it's actually based in history, which is pretty like legitimized it to me. Um, I didn't watch that until after watching the first movie. So I was like, oh, this actually let's have some respect. Um, but essentially, essentially what you're seeing is the growth of a man who just becomes superpowered over movies. So the idea of a scorpion king, he's actually a scorpion king in the first movie. His rise is essentially he takes over a kingdom from another person who was like uh pretty much decimating an entire region of Egypt. Okay, it's more like post-Mesopotamia, though, it's not actually Egypt. Um, Mike, stay with me here, man.
SPEAKER_04Mesopotamia shows up in our movie. Yeah, it does, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00So also we go to Greece at one point in the third movie. Second movie, second movie, we go to Greece, we meet a Minotaur in that one. No way, yeah. It kind of weaves in and out of mysticism a lot. Is that Minotaur is the bull head and like the labyrinth maze of I think these are the things?
SPEAKER_04That's different than a minotaur.
SPEAKER_06Minotaur Minotaur. Minotaur?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_06It's the bull the bull man.
SPEAKER_04Message bull you get the horns, keep going, exactly. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Uh yeah, it's exactly that though. So uh most of these movies are, except for the first one, the goal, even the first one is the goal is to find an object or a person, and in the middle of it, Scorpio becomes like, oh shoot, this is actually not the object or person I thought it was. Okay, um, and then we must save that object or person from the bad guy or keep it play a game of keep away. And then at the end, usually the Scorpio gets the girl. Okay, so the girl's usually tied to the object because that's how we like to associate uh women.
SPEAKER_07Yes, of course.
SPEAKER_00So but in the process, starting with the very first one. Um is a woman ever the object? Yeah, twice, two movies out of five, yeah, out of five, forty percent. So there were four people that acted in these movies. Uh The Rock was in the first one, Michael Capone, who is like a former layer Blue Ranger from Time Force, yes, of course. Victor Webster does two movies.
SPEAKER_07Oh, so he's he got to play the character twice.
SPEAKER_00Yes, as Matthias, excuse me. So remember, his name is Matthias. Matthias. Um, and then Zach McGowan for the DSLR uh movie, um, which is the fifth one, the Book of Souls. So it which actually is better, but it's also the movie where I was like, I told you about that piece of trivia, whether jet skiers in the background of one of the boat scenes.
SPEAKER_06Okay, yeah, uh, which were famous in Mesopotamia. Famous in Mesopotamia. So huge.
SPEAKER_00What essentially why he becomes the Scorpion King, and I think this is the question we all really wanted to understand, is that he didn't become the Scorpion King in returns, he becomes the Scorpion King much earlier. Yes. For a number of different reasons. He's a part of in the origin movie, the second movie, Rise of a Warrior, he is a part of an elite warrior group called the Black Scorpions. Oh yep, a member of uh the Arcadians is what they the race that he's a part of, or a group. Um in the first one, they call them just Arcadians, they're just known as these uh assassins, essentially. Okay, um, and this is kind of like starting from that. Um, about 25 scorpions in that the first two minutes of that movie kill his father. He just walks into his room. Wait, real scorpions? Real scorpions it's an assassin.
SPEAKER_04Show up just in this scene.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, in just that scene. This is like an estimate, by the way.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, no, it's okay.
SPEAKER_00Um, also, he got a scorpion tattoo on his arm.
SPEAKER_04Did the scorpion give it to him?
SPEAKER_00No. No, it was a part of the being a part of the black scorpions. But at the end of the movie, famously.
SPEAKER_06Wait, so this is like a Batman thing where like the bats in the cave, scorpions kill his dad. Exactly. He like wants to be a scorpion.
SPEAKER_00Yes, guy. He even fights a ghost scope scorpion that the bad guy turns into.
SPEAKER_06Okay, okay, which you know, tragically, he becomes a scorpion and is killed by Brendan Fraser. Exactly. This is like a blast from the past, yeah.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, okay.
SPEAKER_00So it's all connected. Yeah, it's all connected. Okay. But essentially Just like the rock is connected to the scorpion. Yeah, they do this origin story in the second movie, and then um essentially the first one with the rock is the second installment to that, and it continues the plot.
SPEAKER_06Uh so they go back after the first. When they go back.
SPEAKER_04When they go back to the future.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. In the first movie, he gets stabbed with scorpion venom. So in the rock movie, he gets stabbed with scorpion venom, and he does live, but they say forever he will have scorpion blood in his veins. Oh yeah. This can like culminates with almost every other movie, some type of intersection of scorpions added into it. Just like I was highlighted. They just throw it in there.
SPEAKER_06They're like, we gotta get scorpions in this movie. It's called Scorpion King.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Um at the end of Scorpion King 1, he uh takes over a nation.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_00But three movies later, apparently they get all sick and die. And so he just goes out on his own and becomes an assassin again, a hero for hire.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, goes back to his his own.
SPEAKER_00The look that Mike is giving me is like, I'm staying with you barely. Barely. I'm trying. It's okay. Um, so and then he inadvertently becomes a king of another nation. Happens. And then he takes a step back and uh just becomes a blacksmith through. We know like what his birthday is. Matthias's birthday? Yeah. Scorpio's birthday? Yeah, I don't know. It's he's probably a Scorpio. That's what I'm wondering. That's it would suck if he wants the first Scorpio. He might be this very first Scorpio. Um, but by the fifth movie, he gets stabbed. Like, in order to anytime he gets hurt or captured, um, what they do is they just put scorpions on him and let him stab him overnight so he can get scorpion blood powers. And those scorpion blood powers allow him to rip chains from rocks and uh people it's like his superpower, he has to get like fueled up by the scorpion blood powers.
SPEAKER_06Essentially, that's what it is.
SPEAKER_04Like, yeah, Superman needs to be close to the sun.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, oh yeah.
SPEAKER_00Oh so when we talk about like in returns I'm firing these up tonight. I don't know about you guys. I've been and then at the after the fifth one, I'm none of the all of these are trying to get to what we see in returns. Um with him eating the scorpion, it's the final step. Like he's I honestly, Luke, I think it's just lunch. Like, I think it's just like he has so much blood, like scorpion in his blood. Yeah, you're saying at the time that he eats the scorpion and returns, it's it's but he's had six at least 69 scorpions in his life, so yeah, he probably just eats them regularly. And Anubis keeps coming in and out. Like in the second Anubis, he has to literally um vanquish uh the talent of Anubis Anubis kind of thing. Uh there's other Anubis adjacent like deities that he runs into from time to time. Um, the Book of the Dead comes up, so there's like a lot of things.
SPEAKER_06So there is more than I thought that's tied into the Mummy franchise.
SPEAKER_00They try, but then they kind of like even getting that tattoo, like he doesn't have the tattoo in the Mummy franchise. So it goes off canon a bit. They burn it at the end, like burn it off. Oh, they do? Yeah, yeah, which makes no sense because that would be the best like Batman logo ever. Yeah. Is to have a tattoo on your arm. Um, but yeah, essentially, what you get with watching these movies is just I thought I had to pause the last two and come back to it the next day. And I think that's fine for what you're getting. Yeah, they all clock in at 90, like 100 minutes, yeah. Like the last four movies.
SPEAKER_06So it's a two-hour block on the sci-fi channel.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. But the first movie, guys, culminates with uh in the first movie, Scorpio is really good with bow and arrow, and this never comes back. The rest of the time, it's always like a scimitar or a sword. I'm a big fan of these types of movies, by the way. So this was a good one. This is partially why you dig at this, Simon.
SPEAKER_06You were the right man for the job.
SPEAKER_00He gets shot once in the back. This is the end to fight the big bad. Um, I could look it up for you, but I won't. Um, he's real the big bad's really good with swords. Okay. He could use two swords and fight people. It's awesome.
SPEAKER_06Tough to beat.
SPEAKER_00Um, he gets shot, Scorpio gets shot in the back at the very climax of this movie with a big arrow. He takes that out of his back, looses or strings it up, points it at the big bad, who apparently can like he's able to catch arrows and block arrows. But the problem is he has two swords in his hand. So, and with the superpower of just screaming really loud as he pulls back on this arrow, he shoots a super arrow at this guy. Oh. And when he hits the guy, because clearly he can't catch it because he has two swords in his hand.
SPEAKER_05Um his greatest strength is his greatest weakness. Exactly.
SPEAKER_00It launches him 50 feet off of this, off of the top of this building into an explosion of fire that was also happening at the same time that was planned by a a friend of his.
SPEAKER_06So um they used all their special effects budget on that one shot.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I and honestly, I it wasn't too bad. I was kind of like, yeah, yeah, it was better than the other stuff, guys. So I think what you're gonna get with Scorpion King is like a lot of objectivity, um muscles, for sure, muscles, like creatine onset, yeah. Um, weird factions of like ancient tribes pre-Egypt that you are just like, why are these people just dusted up? Yeah, and not much else, some brooding and some other weird interactions, like like magical stuff.
SPEAKER_04I have a question, yeah. So you know how like Star Wars, there are some Star Wars fans that promote a different order of watching the movies, like a machete order. You know what I'm talking about? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um if somebody were to say, hey Zach, you've seen all these movies.
SPEAKER_05Um Zachary Hall, famed first person on the Wikipedia page as watching all of these movies in one month that I will be adding as soon as we're done recording.
SPEAKER_04Can you recommend the machete uh order of watching these movies in? What would you say?
SPEAKER_00I would say you want to do Scorpion King first, but then you want to jump. Honestly, you can take her take or leave the um the prequel, the second movie, Rise of a Warrior. So get rid of that one. Yeah. What you want to do after that is watch Oh, they're all so bad. So like the middle, the ones that are immediately after Scorpion King in like the chronological order just have a very odd tone to them.
SPEAKER_08Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um the f the first of them, which is called um Battle for Redemption, his entire kingdom essentially gets a plague and he like wanders away and just becomes a mercenary again. And everybody's like, I've heard of the Scorpion King. You're the Scorpion King, you destroyed a nation. Um, and it is like a two-parter, like Victor Webster. This is the guy who plays it, plays it twice. Victor Webster brings it. This is three and four. Three and four, essentially. Yeah. Um Victor Webster, who plays Scorpion King, brings a whiteness to the character that I never had before. Uh but also a beard.
SPEAKER_04Look, when you're covered in sand for that long, yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_00Come on, exactly. Um, so somewhere when The Rock returns and the return uh Money Merch Mummy returns, he gets rid of this beard that's on like he has that that establishes the beard for three, four, and five.
SPEAKER_05Okay, so they're like, we gotta stick with the beard.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. So um, and I think with those, what you're gonna get is a lot of like great appearances, like Billy Zane, uh Lu Ferigno is in two scenes, obviously the biggest person on the the poster art, um, even though he's in literally seven minutes of the movie.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, which is very typical of these straight to video DV, they might pull a star from the past, but like they're in one scene, and they're they're literally there for a day for a paycheck, and you can put them on the poster.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, Ron Perlman's in a part of this in the third movie. Um, they have a bunch of smaller roles. And the fourth movie, Quest for Power, by the way, which is just really just a quest to find an object. Um, yeah, I I think that you you can skip. I I'd say watch one, three, and four. And you're good. But take or leave the other two. Like you can you can leave those to the side if you really want, because I think they just get a little too. I do like the fifth one a lot because it's more of the style that I like. And like it's the DSLR one, so it's like the indie style.
SPEAKER_06And is that the jet ski one as well? It's the jet ski one, too. So it's very much at this point, it is it is the lowest budget. That's like dessert. That's dessert. It's the lowest budget filmmaking, and also just a great ending.
SPEAKER_00So, like, I love romance guys, and it turns out that the the book that he's looking for in this book, and that's in this installment, uh, the fifth is the novelization. Book of souls. The book of souls is actually a woman. She is the book, she is, and in store, in order to destroy this uh talent of Abubius. Like Book of Eli. Like Eli is kind of like, yeah, yeah, exactly. In order to destroy this talent of Anubis, which is the big bad has this, um she has to die, and he doesn't want to do that because he's in love with her because he met her once. Also, there's a golem in it, like an actual like golem, and it looks like the suit was super hot to wear, and you also can't, it's like Bane voice, too, so you can't understand what the hell he's saying. Just Spiegel just running around, a little crossover. Golan sacrifices himself by falling into fire to kill the big bad. Then what is in an incredible gesture of love? The woman who is the Book of Souls steps into Scorpio's sword to kill herself and release the curse. At the end, when she hits the hill, just like Tom Cruise, yes, and the mummy. Yeah, so similar, yeah. This is must have been the same writers, guessing.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, um, when she hits the hilt, they're like, I like that guy. I don't know, there were a lot of writers, it might have been the Scorpion King Five. Let's bring those guys in.
SPEAKER_00When she hits the hilt, she kisses them on the mouth as she deteriorates into dust. Cinema. Um, it's that's just a part of it. I mean, that's just one of many, many pieces that I can bring to this table.
SPEAKER_06Wow. You you talked on the machete order. Was there was there one that surprised you the most? You're like, oh, this is pretty good. Was it was it three or four?
SPEAKER_00Did those surprise you or was I mean the first one is actually surprisingly okay. Um also the rock establishes that um Scorpy rides camels exclusively.
SPEAKER_07Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_00He's a camel guy, but then they they retcon that later. Um, but then they bring it back to you. Um, I'd say the third one is pretty close. The one with Billy Zayn and Perman Pearlman is pretty much that's that must be really fun to watch.
SPEAKER_06Solid.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, fun fun in a way where it's actually totally sarcastic too.
SPEAKER_06Yeah, like it knows the type of movie it is.
SPEAKER_00It I it clearly knows that it's a direct, it's going direct to Amazon streaming. Uh and this is early days of the street.
SPEAKER_04Where did you where were you able to get acquire these?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Again, a Polish video streaming platform. No way, really? I probably have a virus.
SPEAKER_06Doing it for the lit for the listeners and viewers. I appreciate it. Really?
SPEAKER_00That's the only way you were able to get them. You can find them. You can behave like that.
SPEAKER_04I would have assumed that at Best Buy they're in a bin all dark.
SPEAKER_06There is, I think, if you have Apple TV, there is, I think, a full mummy extended universe collection. I don't know if it has all five, though. I think it has maybe.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I mean maybe. I don't think I don't know. I didn't go that route.
SPEAKER_06I wish I'd gone that route. Make the investment.
SPEAKER_00I did it for the for but I did see the his the history channel documentaries on uh YouTube.
SPEAKER_06Okay, so you people can check that out. Yeah. Once again, I can we give it up for Zach Hall. Thanks, guys, for the work that you did. Definitely the most difficult assignment. And he nailed it. That's a that's an A for you. I'll give you an A minus, and I'll give myself a B.
SPEAKER_00I think we all get A's, guys.
SPEAKER_06We do all get A's. Uh listeners, viewers, you always get A's. All right, we're gonna wrap up the Mummy cast uh with one of our new favorite segments. It's it's Mike's theme park corner. Um, we talked about this last episode, I believe. I want to do a little exercise here as we wrap up the mummy cast. We wrap up season four of these important things. Let's just let's just think. Let's get creative. And we're talking about some really creative ideas with the Scorpion King. In preparation of the Mummy Four, Universal Studios has given Mike Wynn, Zach Hall, and Luke Ferris 20 million dollars to design a theme world around the original Revenge of the Mummy ride. And the only stipulation is it has to include ties to all the universal mummy properties. What are you going to do? So we do have to keep the original revenge of the mummy ride. If we want, we can make improvements. So I'm gonna say first off, I think we talked about last episode. I think Imotep's bar is we're we're definitely gonna build that. Would you guys agree?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah, absolutely. You gotta build that. I think you can't.
SPEAKER_06And then so we're covered for revenge or uh curse of the tomb of the emperor. Please let that be it. That's it, that's it. I think that's good.
SPEAKER_04Did you want to do just the bar like just the it's just the bar or it's a full fledged restaurant? Because because I think full restaurant.
SPEAKER_06I think they just make it a full restaurant and it can be a character restaurant, you can have the and you can have you can have acts, so like the golden girls are gonna be on stage. Um you you could have uh and I think is it too much you could do a little mini stunt show within like a it's a dining experience, so you have a Rick O'Connell kind of like they're being chased within the restaurant. Is it or is that too much?
SPEAKER_04I think that there ought to be um I think to to get rid of the not get rid of, but to I think there should be um almost like a jungle cruise-esque ride where Rick O'Connell is kind of like leading this jungle cruise through uh it's not so much a jungle cruise, but like a Nile cruise, you know.
SPEAKER_03Would we do the uh go ahead, Zach? Could it be a camel ride?
SPEAKER_04I thought about that too. I I wondered if yeah, you could do a camel ride. I was also thinking too, like this movie franchise, because in order to try to immerse you into the desert, you almost need to do like a 4D ride. Okay, where you put where you do we're in like a 60 usually smell or something. Cool. Um, but like or or disgust. I don't know.
SPEAKER_05That's for the scorpion king. That's for the scorpion.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I don't know. I thought about that too, but I don't know.
SPEAKER_06So let's let's do a jungle cruise. Is it is it more tied to returns? We could we could do the um the Zeppelin.
SPEAKER_04Oh, yeah, the that's that's what it is. That's what you gotta do.
SPEAKER_06So we'll do this a Zeppelin ride that covers returns, and you're going, you could have water water in there, so you're riding the Zeppelin. I like that better. That's a good one. Okay, so we have a Zeppelin um jungle cruise ride, emoteps, emoteps bar. We have the revenge of the mummy, original ride. Okay, um, what else are we missing from a theme park? If I'm if I'm going into a theme park world, what else do I need to really be like I it was worth waiting in line at 6 a.m. for this? We have food, we've got our classic ride, we have our jungle cruise experience.
SPEAKER_04There's probably a show, you have to find something to do, like a show of some sort.
SPEAKER_06Um we could have the band Scorpion playing on the Scorpion. Scorpion? I don't know if they're there still existence. They're 80s bands. I barely the 80s rock band from Germany. Yeah. Um see if we can get them.
SPEAKER_00I think you googled the wrong thing when we were talking about Scorpion King. Because you didn't do any research on Scorpion Kid, did you? I watched the trailers. Thanks, buddy. Um I don't know. I'm struggling with this. Uh so some type of entertainment like piece, that's what we're looking for with the show. Um, I mean, you could do like a mercenary boxing arena or something like that. In the fourth movie, there is that that have a girl-on-girl fight. Uh um Ava Torres, I want to say, one of the WWF wrestlers.
SPEAKER_06That might be the thing is bring a WWE professional wrestling in honor of the Rock and the Scorpion Kings that use all those type of fighters, entertainers.
SPEAKER_00You could do uh Arcadian Knight, but then you could also do kind of like uh what happens in the second movie with umaksun Namor and uh Rachel. Oh yes, well they they do a uh a flashback. Yeah, so you could have like a Egyptian palace fight arena. I like that slash like you could. You just want to see two chicks go at it. I don't actually want this part, I want more of like the both in both situations, though I did bring that up. You're right.
SPEAKER_05Zach's been totally scorpion king. It's the red red pill, which is watching all the scorpion king movies.
SPEAKER_00Very like gladiator, though. Like you could do a gladiator style kind of thing. Um, that's also in the reference in the second movie, too, with the black arrows. Okay, thank you. Or black scorpion, sorry. Black arrows in the fifth movie. I'm not kidding.
SPEAKER_04There could be an attraction where you have to um where it's like a shooting range, but it's with arrows. I like that. Arrows and different things. Yeah, it's like just one of those like offshoot. It's like next to some concession standards. Yeah, let's we'll throw those in there. Yeah, okay.
SPEAKER_00And you have to pull the arrow out of like a table that looks like the Scorpion King's back. By the way, I forgot he rips off his shirt before he. Oh, of course, of course. Right, yes.
SPEAKER_06Okay, so we have uh the potential entertainment is like WWE wrestling style stuff, face-off stuff. Um, we have some some smaller things. We do we need a coaster? I think we need probably a roller coaster. Maybe a coaster.
SPEAKER_04I was thinking that like a character, a character experience where you are um you can take foot, you stay online and take photos and get an autograph from Rick O'Connell. Yeah, of course, of course, and it's a cast member playing Rick O'Connell. I also think um, no, it's actually Brett and Fraser. A kids for like a kids area. Um in Disney they used to have in Dino Land, they used to have this uh sandbox. And oh yeah.
SPEAKER_06I love that.
SPEAKER_04Here's my idea for an area like that, like a free form area, like no super, it's not supervised. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Um a library where all the books are scattered on the floor, and kids have to go through and and and recategorize.
SPEAKER_00So they have to use, do they get to learn the Dewey Decimal system while they do this?
SPEAKER_06I I'm all in on that. I'm all in on that. And then maybe whoever's hosting it is like, yeah, yesterday um Evie knocked all these books down and we gotta put them back up because she's on an adventure.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, uh, I like that. I like that.
SPEAKER_06Um I think another thing we easily could do is like uh there could be a mummy makeup station where you you know you can get some like mummified makeup on on um I think uh there there could be like a wax museum element where you do some of some of the history where you have some of the the the costumes from the like the 30s movie, some hammer horrors. You have a little bit of a history thing. Maybe you could tie in the the history of the scorpion case.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and also just like general, like yeah, like uh King Tut stuff. Yeah, you can see those influences. We'll have Steve Martin come.
SPEAKER_04I don't for the coaster King Tut's guy.
SPEAKER_00Could the coaster be uh did you have a coaster idea? Well I do I think I do have something you go because I was gonna poo poo. It might be a twin twin ride instead, though. We could do a car chase or something. Oh, yeah, you could do the bus ride. You could do the London bus ride. Yeah, that could be the 4D. Yeah, the 4D would actually be pretty good. Or you have like kind of like a Gemini kind of style roller coaster. Maybe it's a wood coaster in the streets or something like that. Could also just be I like that.
SPEAKER_04I was gonna say it's hard to think of a coaster because the one they have now is so good. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_06I guess that is a real that's a coaster, right? Okay, yeah, yeah. So maybe we don't need to do maybe it's a um it's a carousel of terracotta, a terracotta warrior carousel. Don't ever do don't don't don't just don't look.
SPEAKER_00We don't do terror.
SPEAKER_04We definitely need a Yeti day. There will be a Yeti day. Why didn't we, when we recorded that, why weren't we all drinking out of Yeti Cup?
SPEAKER_00Oh shoot. I think I had one in my car that day.
SPEAKER_06Huge missed option. Uh you know, I like it. Uh we'll maybe bring this back segment back um for the Mummy Four when we uh in a two years where we have to cover the mummy four.
SPEAKER_00Oh, by the way, okay. There is gonna be another Scorpion King, possibly. Dwayne Lumar. I was I was gonna ask you. So are you serious? I it's it's listed it's potential, it's potential, something's being shopped around, but it's not four.
SPEAKER_06It would probably honestly it'd be a retcon.
SPEAKER_00It would we would probably ignore the the four movies that I had to watch.
SPEAKER_06You really you think they would they would ignore the four movies? It wouldn't make the plague thing happen, and that wouldn't actually it would be retcon, so they don't it would be it would be really a yeah, I think it would go up in value then.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the Scorpion stuff wouldn't be as big of a through line, wouldn't make as much sense, but he does have Scorpion in his veins.
SPEAKER_06Scorpion King 6 coming to the theaters, coming to streaming, a streaming service, coming to Peacock soon. Well, gentlemen, what an experience on the Mumikast. Thank you, viewers and listeners. This has been another fun delve into a franchise. We'll probably do more one-offs, but there could be future franchises for next season. Cool. Zach, thanks for being here. Thanks for going down the Scorpion King Road.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I'm honestly the whole journey itself was fun. I it did take a detour with the Scorpion King thing, but I'm very happy that we could come to the table and I could contribute this weird thing.
SPEAKER_06I we to the there's just gonna be a lot more IMDB. It's gonna be people listening to this and then adding all the knowledge you dropped in your report um to to those Wikipedia pages and IMDb. So you're really doing work for the Scorpion King franchise. Of course, Mike, last thoughts on this franchise.
SPEAKER_04We're so rabbit.
SPEAKER_06I'm back in, man. The Tom Cruise one and doing the 1932 one. I was like, I I I really like that there are some tropes throughout almost a hundred years of cinema. Like if you think of it from 1932 to 2017, we didn't talk about the recent horror movie, uh Lee Cronin's the mummy that came out. I don't think anybody wanted to do that.
SPEAKER_00I'm okay.
SPEAKER_06But we're really it it's gonna be coming up with this mummy for we're gonna have almost a century of Hollywood mummy movies. That's crazy. So it's just really cool to like see that full life cycle. We obviously really focused on the Brendan Fraser and Rachel Vise movies, but it's really fun to like delve into this property that like everyone knows because like every Halloween there's a mummy cookie or on a on a trick-or-treat bucket. But there's really this legacy of cinema that started all the way back in the 30s.
SPEAKER_00It wasn't written in books either, like it was never a very shelley thing. It was that's uh another point I didn't bring up.
SPEAKER_06Is this was a truly, I mean, based off of real events, but truly an original movie idea. It was it was not something that came from a book or or another property, it was yeah, made for cinema, and I think even uh in the ups and downs, almost a hundred years later, where people are still interested in this this genre. Are they well maybe not?
SPEAKER_00We are, and we are, and that's they haven't made a mummy twilight.
SPEAKER_06No. Well, friends, thank you for listening and watching this entire season. That's been a pleasure. Uh, we'll talk to you very soon next season on least important things.
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