Something interesting Ive noticed, is that a lot if what craig/neil/ususlly og game voice actors, say things about the show and characters that they didnt actually put on screen.

Like saying ellie has a violent heart when she has cried everytime shes involved in violence and after stabbing David literally screamed and cries in terror when joel gently grabs her. Or that Joel who is not a cannibal and not a pedophile is like david when the actual episode goes out of its way to make sure you know that their actions and intentions make them complete opposites.

Like it honestly feels like they know that these are opinions that formed from making tlou2. But beacuse none of those are in the show they have to say it in the extra content and explain it. Like so much of what theyve talked about isnt rhe same characters on screen.

Like they want to push tlou 2 narrative but know general audiences will not be receptive to those ideas. So they stretch the truth in off show content to justify their opinions.

Its so dumb. The show they made does not match the narrative they wanted to push and I only wonder how much behind the scenes talks went on that may have scrapped them actually doing those things.

Like Bruce for the og game is a big reason Neil dropped a ton of dumb plots and I wonder how much of that happened with other persons including cast members played a similar role. But they know only dedicated typically game fans will watch their off show content so thats where they plug their rejected interpretations and can pretend its canon.

Pedros out there very diplomatically discussing the show, talking about how he wanted to show a softer side of joel that archtypes like him dont usually get so you see more of his love and humanity. And then you got those bozos on their whatever podcast going "yeah joel and the rapist are parallels basically (henry was joels parallel you bongos)"

no literally. literally!!!!!

The Suicide Squad: Inside James Gunn’s DCEU Supervillain War Movie

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In November 2019, I found myself in the middle of a war zone. Well, the closest approximation of a war zone I’ve ever found myself in during my time visiting the sets of blockbuster movies. If I had been brought to this particular set in Atlanta on a sunny autumn afternoon without knowing what movie it was that I was supposed to be getting a peek at, the scene presented to a group of journalists probably would have convinced me that this was some new war movie or straight up action blockbuster, and not one that features a collection of DC villains and antiheroes at its core.

The set in question is called “Jotunheim” and it’s apparently an objective Task Force X needs to conquer in The Suicide Squad. But for all intents and purposes, this could be the kind of Nazi fortress that the gritty characters of movies like The Dirty Dozen or Where Eagles Dare need to conquer, whether or not they get out alive. That’s no accident, according to director James Gunn.

“A lot of the film is within the genre of war caper films,” Gunn tells reporters later that day, specifically referencing The Dirty Dozen, Kelly’s Heroes, and others. “It’s not really something that’s existed for a long time, but in the late 60s that was one of the most vibrant genres of the world. [We wanted to] kind of … add on to it with The Suicide Squad.” 

There’s no sign of Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn, Idris Elba’s Bloodsport, or any of the other oddball DC characters at the center of Gunn’s newest movie as we stroll the Jotunheim set. Whatever wild action took place here seems to have been resolved long before our arrival. But the evidence is everywhere and it must have been one hell of a fight.

From the decrepit guard tower and busted fence at the perimeter to the entrance of Jotunheim (which has a massive hole blasted in it) is probably a distance of 100 meters or so. And virtually every inch of that shows the scope of whatever took place here: burnt out bunkers, overturned and semi-destroyed jeeps, sandbagged guard stations, and so much debris, a mixture of real rocks and carved foamcore and plywood “masonry.” 

“It’s a giant construction project” producer Peter Safran jokes about the number and scale of practical sets that have been built for The Suicide Squad. “The idea is to do as much practically as we possibly could.”

That reliance on practical sets and effects wherever possible is a theme that keeps coming up throughout the day as we tour sets and look at production artwork, scale models, weapons, and more.

“We built literally three football fields of a set and that’s so unusual in this day and age,” production designer Beth Mickle says of Jotunheim. “You just never do that. We wanted to have real rubble behind them in the battle sequences, and we wanted to see the building that they’re attacking. For that scene to exist in a film today is just highly unusual. And we’ve done that set and then a dozen others of that scale, so it’s incredible.”

Both the war movie vibe and the love of practical effects are very much in evidence on another set, a convincing indoor recreation of a jungle with a guerilla camp nestled in the middle of it. There’s dirty laundry hanging, filthy pots strewn around, a crumpled pack of cigarettes, and a half empty bottle of watery beer…and what appear to be bloody chunks of skull and assorted viscera littering the grass. Like Jotunheim, something went down here, and whatever it was, it wasn’t pretty.

The Characters of The Suicide Squad: Meet Task Force X

It all stands in almost stark contrast to the wacky assortment of brightly-colored characters that make up the actual team. The concept art and costume tests for these characters were suitably colorful and wildly offbeat, and it’s almost hard to make this line up with the gritty, war movie vibes of the Jotunheim and jungle sets. But storyboards reveal a nighttime action sequence on a beach, with the Squad invading the fictional nation of Corto Maltese, and were it not for the colors and unique designs of the characters wreaking havoc, this too would be evocative of just about anything other than a superhero movie.

A production office is papered with life sized posters of Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), Captain Boomerang (Jai Courtney), Peacemaker (John Cena), King Shark (performed by Steve Agee and voiced by Sylvester Stallone…although we don’t know that at the time), Blackguard (Pete Davison), Savant (Michael Rooker), Mongal (Mayling Ng), Weasel (Sean Gunn), The Thinker (Peter Capaldi), Ratcatcher 2 (Daniela Melchior), Javelin (Flula Borg), Amanda Waller (Viola Davis), Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman), TDK (Nathan Fillion), and Bloodsport (Idris Elba).

Looming large is also Idris Elba’s ominous, armored character who we now all know as Bloodsport, but who the studio remained cagey about identifying during this set visit for some reason, leaving reporters to speculate on the identity of the badass in blue, black, and gold. Between the color scheme, the armor, and an impressively intimidating assortment of weapons left out on a table for reporters to ogle as it’s explained that each weapon transforms into or folds out of each other, speculation about Bloodsport ends up occupying a fair amount of the downtime between interviews.

So what exactly could possibly hold such a motley crew together?

“You have to remember that all either have been wrongfully accused or done horrible, morally wrong things,” John Cena says. ”You can see the good in people, you can also see the evil in people… All of these people have real bad personality problems. So I think when you get that type of group together, that’s what makes it fun. Everybody is kind of different. But I think criminals see criminals, they just size everybody up. I think every one of them is like, ‘how is this person going to stab me in the back?’ That’s the world they come from.”

Cena is playing the authoritarian Peacemaker, a character who sees himself very differently than many other members of the Squad do. But the actors behind two of the stranger characters in the film, offer some additional perspective on the team dynamic.

“There’s people in this story that really want friendships, and people that don’t want anybody near them, just like all of us,” says David Dastmalchian, who plays Polka-Dot Man. “I think all of us have felt at times like we are totally disposable to either our employers or society or you name it. So that’s been interesting, in the relationship [between the characters] with the dynamic that starts to build or break down.”

“These are all characters that for the most part, probably don’t even know the existence of the other ones,” Steve Agee says. “Some of them do, and it’s the story of The Suicide Squad. They are forced to be together, and do this task, this mission. So, part of the story is just watching these people adapt to being around each other.”

Flula Borg (who gave journalists a rambling, uproariously funny interview about his character which you’ll see more of on DoG soon enough) spoke about how his character relates to Viola Davis’ team leader, Amanda Waller.

“Judging from all the relationships that Javelin has I would say poor, non-existent, unhealthy, crosses lines, should consider not interacting with other humans,” Borg says. “Javelin doesn’t worry about how people treat him. He treats them … What’s the golden rule? He has the Javelin rule, which is like ‘suck it, I’m cool.’ I think that’s his rule.” 

Even here with the characters, the commitment to practical effects is strong, especially in areas where you’d fully expect them to rely on CGI. For example, Daniela Melchior, who plays Ratcatcher 2, has a little helper rat named Sebastian. While the hordes of rats the character is capable of commanding will necessitate CGI, at least some of the rats are real.

“We have three female rats [that play Sebastian],” Daniela Melchior says about the um…practical rats that the movie is using. “It’s a little bit distracting sometimes because I have to act lazy and tired like I don’t give a shit about whatever is happening… and I’m just like, ‘come here.’ But she doesn’t want to come, she wants to find new places and go, so we’re like, ‘okay, we’ll try one time with the rats, we’ll see what happens.’”

And when one of the rats playing Sebastian doesn’t want to do as they’re told, only then does the movie revert to CGI to get the desired “performance” from the furry co-star.

“I don’t know if I can say this,” Melchior says conspiratorially. “But actually, [some of the cast] are a little bit afraid of rats…I’m always trying to say ‘look, she’s so sweet, she wouldn’t hurt you.’”

From Suicide Squad 2 to The Suicide Squad

Like the characters themselves, The Suicide Squad has something of a rough past. The first movie failed to become the surefire franchise-starter the studio hoped for in 2016, and while a Suicide Squad 2 was put into development almost immediately, it wasn’t until Gunn became available that the project finally solidified.

“There was no plan before James,” Safran says. “There were other writers that had worked on various Suicide Squad scripts over the years, but… this was starting from ground zero, starting from scratch. All the characters that he selected were just characters that he was a fan of and wanted to play with. I think, in typical fashion for James, he picks more obscure characters…he liked the idea of being able to take these characters and imbue them with whatever characters he really wanted, or characteristics that he really wanted to play with.”

One of the “characteristics” Gunn wanted was to truly tap into the spirit of DC’s long-running and beloved Suicide Squad comics of the 1980s, which were co-created and stewarded by Jon Ostrander. 

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“I don’t think of it so much as an interpretation of what Ostrander wrote but I do think of it as a continuation of what he did,” Gunn says. “It’s very much in line with that. When he was first putting this team together, he was only able to get certain characters. For him, it was the fun of taking these characters that weren’t as well-known and developing them in a real way. And it’s one of the greatest superhero runs of any comic book series.”

(Gunn also notes that Ostrander has a cameo in the film.)

As for whether or not The Suicide Squad is a sequel to or a reboot of the previous film, all involved are both diplomatic and evasive. The official line is that any characters that were together in the previous film do already know each other, but as for the actual events of the 2016 movie, that’s where things get murky. 

“We just don’t address it any tangible form,” Safran says. “Yes, they’re the characters and actors that played them in the first movie, but we really wanted to make sure that this stands on its own two feet. It’s not a sequel, but there are some characters that were in the first movie, so it’s not really a full reboot either. So we just call it James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad.”

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Inside Jotunheim

Later in the day, journalists are taken inside Jotunheim via soundstage, an indoor construction that appears almost as sprawling as the outdoor set. As we saw outside, the remnants of what was likely a furious battle are all around. A stuntman in full Peacemaker gear is hanging around as we see Robbie’s Harley, Dastmalchian’s Polka-Dot Man, and Agee as King Shark (“the studio is trying to play down the whole Polka-Dot Man/King Shark universe they’re building,” Dastmalchian jokes) make their way through the rubble. Elba’s Bloodsport isn’t visible, but we’re assured he’s part of the scene.

While it’s Sylvester Stallone voicing King Shark in the film, it’s Agee on set here, wearing a grey mo-cap suit with the kind of padding you see on MLB umpires and somewhat shark-shaped wire headgear. He also appears to be holding a skull.    

Harley, however, is wearing the ornate red dress glimpsed in the trailer (although it’s somewhat the worse for wear at the moment). As she navigates the carnage in Jotunheim, Gunn calls out for Robbie to “hum a little tune.” She does just that, conjuring exactly the kind of aimless musical free-association you’d expect from a mind like Harley Quinn in the midst of battle.

“Harley’s been through some things as you can see by this point in the film,” Robbie says to reporters between takes. When it’s noted that Harley’s baseball bat, a fixture in the previous film, is nowhere to be found in this scene, she jokes “My baseball bat is back home in LA, next to my bed, in case anyone breaks in…I’ve got other weapons in this one.”

We don’t get to see these Squad members engaged in any combat during the shooting of this scene, and it’s not clear if this is the interior from the same “entrance” that had seemingly been blasted into the outdoor structure, or somewhere else inside the fortress. But the clues all point to one thing: like everything else in this movie, where The Suicide Squad goes, destruction and chaos follow.

The Suicide Squad opens in theaters and on HBO Max on Aug. 6. We’ll have more from our set visit in the coming days.

The post The Suicide Squad: Inside James Gunn’s DCEU Supervillain War Movie appeared first on Den of Geek.

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207: Wild Rebels

I guess if it's time to tackle the movies I've been trying to avoid, my next review should be a biker flick.  I don't really like the biker episodes, but then, I don't really like biker movies in general, and the fact that MST3K naturally chose bad biker movies doesn't help me enjoy something I didn't enjoy much to begin with.  Now, bad monster movies, on the other hand...

The hero, I guess, of Wild Rebels is racecar driver Rod Tillman.  Other than owning a magical disappearing, reappearing guitar, he is not at all an interesting person.  After wrecking his car, he decides to get out of racing and goes to a bar where he meets a biker gang consisting of leader Jeeter, ultra-violent Banjo, Designated Chick Linda, and mute Fats.  They need a getaway driver for their next robbery, and I guess none of them can drive a stick shift.  Rod wants nothing to do with them, probably because of the Nazi flag in their hideout, but then the police ask him to help them gather evidence against the gang.  With Rod in tow, the bikers rob a gun shop, then a bank – not because they really want the money, but just for kicks!

I hadn't seen this episode for a while, and I'd forgotten Joel's joke about the Nazi-themed bikers having Trump's Art of the Deal on their shelves.  Everything old is new again.

This is one of those movies that it's kind of hard to say anything about.  It's bleak and dull, and in the closing sketch Joel and the bots already went through its low points quite thoroughly.  “The villains were so cliché, they were laughable,” “so the hero was supposed to be unattractive and spineless,” and so forth.  That basically covers Wild Rebels.  It's a series of tropes and symbols standing in for a story, with a 'hero' we're never given any reason to be interested in.

The very first thing we see Rod do in the movie is give up.  He's wrecked his car, so he decides to give up on racing entirely.  He meets a girl in a bar, but when the gang tells her to get lost so they can talk to him, he gives up on her with only a token protest.  This is actually pretty realistic, given that he barely knows her and the bikers are fairly intimidating, but in the context of his abandoning racing, it just seems to cement 'quitter' as his core character trait.

That needn't ruin the movie, of course – maybe Rod's character arc is learning to see things through, or to stand up for himself!  But character arcs just aren't something this movie does, and Rod never seems to change.  His return to racing was a setup to get the gang's attention, not Rod actually trying again.  When Banjo jealously attacks him, it looks like Rod's starting to grow a spine as he successfully defends himself, but it's a false alarm.  At the climax of the film he just cowers at the top of the lighthouse stairs waiting to be shot, rather than doing anything that might be considered heroic.

The gang members are stereotyped thugs, who seem to do what they do just Because It's Evil.  Linda even says as much: they aren't interested in money or cars or high living, they just want the adrenaline rush.  They have no backstories, no explanation of why they are the way they are.  They surround themselves with Nazi symbols, like the swastikas on their jackets or the flag in their hideout, but they don't seem to have any actual ideology.  The fascist imagery serves only to reinforce that they are bad people, which has already been amply estalished by their behaviour.  It's a lazy substitute for proper characterization.

I don't know how old any of these characters are supposed to be. The actors appear to have been in their late twenties to early thirties.  In the serenade scene Linda looks like she's around forty. The slang they use never rings true.  It's like your parents trying to use emojis.

The romance between Rod and Linda is as unmotivated as anything else.  He knows she's one of the murderous thugs he's trying to bring to justice, and while he might pretend to be interested in her as part of his act, he has no reason to develop real feelings for her. She, meanwhile, repeatedly calls him a square and knows that he's an untrustworthy outsider.  She might pretend to be interested in him in order to keep an eye on him, but again, there's no reason for her to actually fall for him.  They have no chemistry and nothing in common.  Why does Linda kill Jeeter to save Rod?  Does shooting a friend who trusted her really give her the kicks she craves?  Or could the writers not think of any other way to end the movie?

The entire dramatis personae feel like they exist only as players in this particular story.  We don't really know what they were doing before the movie began, and we have no idea what Rod is likely to do next.  It doesn't seem like his story is over, because it never really began.  He had no personal stake in any of this – he just drifted into contact with the gang, and seems to decide to become a police informant merely because he doesn't have any better idea what to do with himself.  T-Bird Gang was not a good movie, but Frank had his father's death to avenge and was determined to do it with or without police support.  That's a character motivation.  Rod doesn't have that.

Because the characters have no real personality or motivation, the story cannot really be about anything.  T-Bird Gang was about a quest for justice, and feels unsatisfying because it does not end in the way that theme would seem to demand.  Wild Rebels feels bleak and hollow because it doesn't even have a theme.  Movies like The Violent Years and I Accuse my Parents tried to be about why people turn to crime.  Village of the Giants tried to be about the idea of rebellion.  Wild Rebels isn't trying to be about anything at all.

If the film-makers had a goal beyond 'get the movie in the can and earn a few bucks', I think it was simply to make us feel as bad as possible.  The beginning, in which Rod gives up on racing despite the encouragement of his friends, is depressing.  The bar scene contains cringeworthy bad dancing, almost on a par with The Creeping Terror.  The bikers murder a couple of barflies for no good reason.  The gang's hideout is a ramshackle place full of paraphernalia associated with the most despicable parts of history. There are multiple musical numbers and they're all terrible.  Joel describes the experience of watching Wild Rebels as like 'being dragged through a dark tarry abyss' and that's as accurate as anything else in the ending sketch.  There's nothing fun or exciting in the whole movie.

There are a couple of places where the movie is mildly entertaining, but never in the way it wants to be.  The bit with the syringe in the bank is laughably impractical.  The movie's signage would blend right into Killer Klowns from Outer Space – there's the Swinger's Club sign that looks like it was drawn with Crayola markers, and the Citrusville First National Bank that Tom Servo describes as “printed with electrician's tape on ceiling tile”.  Tires squeal on grass.  The movie ends in the world's artsiest railing kill.  'Citrusville' is where the Man-Thing's swamp is in Marvel comics.  Each of these is a nugget of amusement, but they don't add up to enough to make the movie worth watching even on that level.

Now that I've run out of things to say about the movie, I'm going to do something I don't usually do at any length, and talk about the episode.  The riffing is mostly pretty good, with some golden lines like blessed are the grease monkeys, for they will lube and Ronald McDonald, shaking his McBooty, and the joke about the ventriloquist's dummy trapped in Rod's suitcase.  The host sketches, with Wild Rebels Cereal and Dr. Forrester trying to figure out what ee-yuh-ka-ee! means, are instant classics.  But it's also got some very uncomfortable moments in it, as Joel and the bots make fun of a character's mental handicap.

We are told that Fats suffered a head injury that left him unable to speak.  He seems to otherwise have his wits about him – he can read, as demonstrated by his drawing the others' attention to the newspaper, he can certainly drive his motorcycle competently and he seems to know what's going on.  But when he's on screen, we get lines like blue light special on chromosomes – extra ones! or riffs delivered in 'stupid' voices.  There aren't that many of these, but they're very uncomfortable to hear.  The swastika-wearing characters in the movie actually treat Fats with more respect than the peanut gallery does!

On the other hand, this was also the episode that began some proper characterization for Gypsy. Wild Rebels was when we found out that most of her processing power is occupied with running the Satellite of Love, leaving little room for anything else but occasional thoughts of Richard Basehart.  Later episodes would develop Gypsy further, and she went on to become a rare example of a comedy character who is an outspoken feminist without being a bra-burning, man-hating joke.  Although I have to wonder... if she runs the 'higher functions of the ship', what kept the satellite going before Joel started building robots?  Did he simply take the ship's existing control computer and give her a way to express herself?  Or did Dr. Forrester and Dr. Erhardt send him up to a satellite with no functional life support, so that he had to build some before he ran out of air?

Eh, it's just a show.  I should really just relax.

RWBY Volume 4 Commentary Play-by-Play

Chapter 1:

Kerry talks about how each episode had a ‘fuck you’ shot, which is a particular shot that was difficult to create across all departments.

I’d say the whole volume was a fuck-you shot to the fans but

In a little conversation about how much they’ve planned in the show, Kerry talks about how they’ve actually been hanging on to team WTCH (Watts, Tyrian, Cinder and Hazel) since the beginning.

I’m leaning towards believing this since Salem was one of the first things conceived for the show, so her team would follow. Makes you wonder if Miles was always gonna have his “crazy” Tyrian though or if that came later.

I doubt it because I don’t believe Monty would make characters as boring as Hazel and Watts right from the start.

Regarding Oscar and his story this volume, Miles and Kerry had more rewrites with him than with anything else in RWBY, trying to figure out the right way to present it. At one point, Oscar’s first major scene was going to be in chapter 7, instead of 4.

Yeah it’s not breaking news to say that they did the opposite of what would be a good idea.

Mentioned in the commentary, but in more detail in the special features, is the fact that CRWBY had a rough start to the volume due to the new production pipeline, which continued for several episodes.

According to Miles, the Petra Gigas was originally supposed to appear in the Emerald Forest during Volume 1. It was supposed to be a part of the giant nevermore/deathstalker fight, as was a giant Bourbatusk.

Wondering how they would have fit 4 whole monsters in that fight, but I guess that’s why they ended up splitting two bad guys between teams instead.

On that note, they talk about how incredibly different the original 4 episodes of Volume 1 were compared to what we got, and that Fennec and Corsac were originally Volume 1 villains.

Just saying that I believe this. They said that Roman originally played a smaller part in Volume 1? How was this possible? Insert more villains.

On the origin of the Geist, Kerry talks about how, at the time Monty was working on the White trailer, he and Miles were thinking of ways for it to make sense, and came up with the idea of a poltergeist Grimm. They say that particular Geist is called an Armor Gigas.

So Weiss fought a Grimm in her trailer it turns out. Idk how to feel about that. In a way it makes sense because, as we’ve seen with Winter’s summons, the Schnee summons are light versions of Grimm. It makes little sense though when you consider that the Geist inhabits inanimate things and therefore the armor isn’t a natural feature of the Grimm.

The crown on Jaune’s shield was first inserted by layout artist Rachel Doda when creating the storyboards. Kerry thought it was a perfect touch and decided to include it in the official design.

Iunno what fatal flaw to focus on here. Is it how this makes it sound like Jaune’s god damn weapon model design was THAT important that Kerry noticed? That it implies melting Pyrrha’s armor down was a last-minute thought? That the plot hole of Pyrrha fucking disintegrating and therefore leaving no armor or cape for Jaune was made entirely because Kerry liked how a shield looked?

Chapter 2:

In regards to the infamous map, Kerry mentions that in one version of the script, RNJR was going to lose the map in a fight of some sort. A similar was also supposed to happen in Chapter 6 involving Tyrian, but decided against it because of how busy CRWBY already was.

So instead of losing it for a reason they just lose it for the sake of it. Cool.

According to Miles, Jaques is loosely based on Jack Frost, something they try to hint at in the way he keeps his study.

The name kind of gave it away without any other hints.

Kerry says that writing the final scene of chapter 2 was the first time he cried while writing. Likewise, Miles said he lost his shit while performing mocap for the scene. Apparently everyone who worked on it had a pretty strong emotional reaction to this scene.

 Wow. The people working on this show were seriously so disillusioned that they thought Pyrrha’s relationship with Jaune earned that kind of reaction. Not even gonna mention how the existence of the recording makes no sense, especially since Pyrrha signs off on it. Why would she do that on a generic fighting guide. I can’t believe how attached these people were to the Alpha Hets.

Chapter 3:

On the topic of writing RWBY with multiple different storylines all taking place at the same time, Miles called it a ‘scary experiment’ but is happy overall with how it turned out.

I can’t say anything more than what’s been said on this.

I also have nothing to say on the technical stuff. I’m really not versed enough in it.

Miles talks about how they tried to have Salem feel a bit motherly, and not overly cruel, because she’s “better than that” and that she has a certain way of talking to each of her lieutenants.

She seemed pretty cruel to me lol. They need to have Salem do more before they announce these kinds of intentions, because now they’ve just given us a preconceived notion and they won’t have to write it that way.

Chapter 4:

Apparently Yang’s eye color was decided because of Taiyang’s and Raven’s eye colors. Red and Blue making purple.

This might be the stupidest thing I’ve ever read.

Burnie is apparently very invested in voicing Taiyang, and takes it very seriously. He would go over the script with Miles and Kerry before recording sessions and they talk about how Burnie will listen to Yang’s lines and efforts, and try and make Taiyang’s similar, as a way of representing how Yang was influenced by her Father. It’s also mentioned that Joel is similar when it comes to portraying Oobleck.

Wow! Joel and Burnie, two voice acting veterans who formed RT, are invested in their roles? Don’t get too shocked by actors who actually try, guys!

When it came to naming all the villages in Anima, they wanted to keep the theme of Mistral being heavily inspired by Eastern influences, so they named villages after the Japanese names for certain flowers.

Blah blah magical mystical Asia land

Originally, the inn and the pub were the same building, but were separated when they couldn’t figure out how to fit Raven into the scene.

Can you imagine if we had to see RNJR somehow not notice Qrow like twenty feet away from them? Thank god he sat in that pub across the street.

Chapter 5:

Miles says he cried while writing Blake’s reunion with her parents, and that the Belladonna’s are some of his favorite characters.

I mean iunno that scene didn’t scream emotional to me but I also have daddy issues so

Fennec and Corsac, as mentioned earlier, were characters originally conceived pre Volume 1, being the 2nd and 3rd Faunus thought about after Blake.

Makes you wonder if by the time of their conception, Faunus were a thing or if Monty was just making up furry OC’s.

Chapter 6:

In the charity scene, Koen says that there are around 100 different, unique people in the room, each with differing clothing.

Jfc guys went kinda overboard there. Didn’t look like 100+ when I watched it.

When describing Henry Marigold to concept artist Erin Winn, Kerry told her to draw a ‘posery, imposter Neptune’.

That’s about what I guessed yep. Now is there a reason for it to be Neptune? To show that Weiss grew past her affection towards him? Or because it was the first person who came to mind? Who knows.

Tyrian’s jacket, despite being one of Kerry’s favorite design aspects, was a real hassle for the animators and the rigging team, so much so that he was animated without his jacket on, and then would add it afterwards.

I remember when capes were in Kingdom Hearts. Then they realized they were too much work so they removed them to avoid continuity errors and such. It was a smart and humble move, because the capes looked cool. I guess Tyrian’s jacket was just really that awesome though.

Chapter 7:

The original plan with Ozpin was to not reveal him as having anything to do with Oscar until the very end of the Volume.

Just gonna keep reminding us of that huh guys?

This episode was the first time proper reflections were used in a mirror in any Rooster Teeth production. Before they would simply fake it.

well that is a legitimately very interesting fact

When it came to Tyrian swearing, some thought went into whether they could get around it, originally having him say witch instead. Ultimately, Miles and Kerry decided it was the right time for things to get a bit more mature.

Best decision they ever made, thank god.

I love the idea of Miles being all modest and going “ah yes time to be mature.”

Chapter 8:

Miles says the whole campfire scene was probably the most difficult thing in the Volume to write, simply due to how much they needed to cover. Also, Kerry says more people worked on this scene than any other in the Volume.

The RWBY writers struggling with exposition?

The two brothers was Miles’ idea, and his first major contribution to the series, obviously one of the first parts of the show that was conceived.

And it was made known that Miles conceived one of the worst parts of the entire story. And he just copied it from a Grimm Tale.

Miles was the one who wrote the majority of Blake scenes in Volume 4. When she’s slapping Sun, Miles only intended it to be soft slaps on the shoulder, so he was quite surprised by the end result.

 Isn’t this why you, like, direct your scenes? To avoid miscommunication like that?

Chapter 9:

Apparently there were several colour combinations the were tried with Ilia that “did not work”.

Apparently the animation crew’s passion is graphic design.

All the patches of mud on the ground were originally water puddles, but Kerry forgot that while the scene was being animated.

Again, directing.

Chapter 10:

In the scene with Nora being bullied, Miles jokes about that if you feel bad about it, those other kids likely died the next day. To follow that up, Kerry then mentions that they actually considered to have one of those kids lying face down on the ground in the background during the attack. Damn.

Idk how to feel about this but it is kind of disturbing that Miles would be so quick to make that joke.

According to Miles, they actually described Ren’s father in the script as “A handsome Hanzo looking motherfucker”.

guessed everyone who knows of overwatch’s existence

One of the ideas they had that didn’t make it into the episode involved Ren’s father going to see the mayor. Since he’s a hunter, and he had just returned from a hunt, Li was going to talk to the mayor about how they didn’t find any animals and it was almost as if they had been spooked away, and that they should get a Huntsman to come and investigate.

That probably would have made some sense.

According to Kerry, Jaune and Ruby’s moment was originally going to end with them hugging, but was cut due to time and Kerry not wanting people to “worry”.

So Lancaster gets shot down completely, cool. Cool thing of a creator to do. How dare we imply Ruby and Jaune are close after all they’ve been through.

Chapter 11:

Recording Tyrian’s efforts in this episode was a ton of fun according to Miles.

Yeah I bet Miles loved Tyrian.

Kerry’s “proudest accomplishment of this Volume” was having the photo of Whitely on Jacques’ desk be face down after Ironwood slams down on it.

Cool?

Kerry talks about Sun’s abs (as you do) and actually reveals that, contrary to popular belief, they didn’t remove them, but instead Sun’s model was made to be more muscular and they would be picked up by lighting and shadows instead.

Pretty sure Sun’s torso is a tube with the new models.

Chapter 12:

When talking about the fight, it’s mentioned there were several different versions of it. They don’t go into detail, but Kerry does mention that Qrow was originally supposed to do something, but Miles reminds him it’s something they can’t talk about.

God, what is left for Qrow to reveal? We got his weapon’s forms, his Semblance, his transforming thing, what else? Tbh my bet’s on Ozpin’s cane. They planned for him to use the cane but decided against it because of their artifact bullshit.

Volume 4 Commentary Counter to Counter

https://rerwby.tumblr.com/post/161522494149/rwby-volume-4-commentary-play-by-play

Yes, like anyone whose opinion matters wants to hear the whiney, egotistical  creator of the third rate, cliché, poorly written version of RWBY bitch about how the people who are actually talented and capable of producing a product that has more to offer than Gen RWBZed.

I’d say the whole volume was a fuck-you shot to the fans but

But you know you’ll get called out on your bullshit seeing as the ratings for Volume 4 are above Volumes 1 and 2 and the only negative things we’v e heard outside of RWDE is a couple of minor issues qand the usuqal “Yang doesn’t get enough screentme.”

And you’re not one to talk: RE:RWBY is just a giant Fuck You shot to the real RWBY and just writing in general.

I’m leaning towards believing this since Salem was one of the first things conceived for the show, so her team would follow. Makes you wonder if Miles was always gonna have his “crazy” Tyrian though or if that came later. I doubt it because I don’t believe Monty would make characters as boring as Hazel and Watts right from the start.

Gee, it’s almost as though those characters have been on screen for a total of five minutes a piece and thus not enough time to be developed and thus you are being a nitpicky douche for making judgements so earlier so you can bitch.

Yeah it’s not breaking news to say that they did the opposite of what would be a good idea. Mentioned in the commentary, but in more detail in the special features, is the fact that CRWBY had a rough start to the volume due to the new production pipeline, which continued for several episodes.

You know, the most common compliant with Oscar was he didn’t get enough screentime to develop his struggle with Ozpin and thus moving him up to Episode 4 is an improvement over the original plan of 7. Of course, it’s not breaking news for RWDE to sabatoge the show just to complain more: That’s like a third of their Modius Operande.

And at least RWBY is original: the one creative license to your name isn’t even an attempt at being original with you badly copying and pasting RWBY onto a screen with what little you do change to make it objectively worse.

Wondering how they would have fit 4 whole monsters in that fight, but I guess that’s why they ended up splitting two bad guys between teams instead.

Oh but Re:RWBY, you just said they don’t do good ideas so that should have happened!

Yeah, see what your bitching does: invalidates what little you have to say nice to show you flip flop like a limp pancake.

Just saying that I believe this. They said that Roman originally played a smaller part in Volume 1? How was this possible? Insert more villains.

And this is worth jackshit...how? is it a crack at the writers? if so, it’s even worse than normal. Is this an observation? Then this belongs under the category of “No shit, Sherlock.”

So Weiss fought a Grimm in her trailer it turns out. Idk how to feel about that. In a way it makes sense because, as we’ve seen with Winter’s summons, the Schnee summons are light versions of Grimm. It makes little sense though when you consider that the Geist inhabits inanimate things and therefore the armor isn’t a natural feature of the Grimm.

Gee, did the fact that she could summon the fucker not tip you off?

And the very commentary points out that the Geists are named after what they inhabit (AKA Petra Geist) so it seems like whatever they inhabit because a Grimm by extension.

Iunno what fatal flaw to focus on here. Is it how this makes it sound like Jaune’s god damn weapon model design was THAT important that Kerry noticed? That it implies melting Pyrrha’s armor down was a last-minute thought? That the plot hole of Pyrrha fucking disintegrating and therefore leaving no armor or cape for Jaune was made entirely because Kerry liked how a shield looked?

Hey RE;RWBY? Know what a storyboard is? Obviously not considering you would know that a storyboard is made RIGHT AFTER they basic writing and thus NOT LAST MINUTE.

So instead of losing it for a reason they just lose it for the sake of it. Cool.

Sort of how Pyrrha can’t understand what jaune was going through in volume 1.

Or how Neptuen and Sun got thrown out of the fight in Voume 2.

Or how no one noticed how old Cinder was in Volume 3.

Or any number of innumerable so-called “plot holes” that shoud have logically booted you out of here a long time ago.

The name kind of gave it away without any other hints

Not really: I never got it. I just thought it was a word for betrayal.

Wow. The people working on this show were seriously so disillusioned that they thought Pyrrha’s relationship with Jaune earned that kind of reaction. Not even gonna mention how the existence of the recording makes no sense, especially since Pyrrha signs off on it. Why would she do that on a generic fighting guide. I can’t believe how attached these people were to the Alpha Hets.

Or, you know.... IT WAS A CHARACTER THEY GOT ATTACHED TO. KIND OF LIKE THE MILLIONS OF PEOPLE WHO CRIED WHEN SHE DIED.

And why does their sexuality have anything to do with how their suffering causes pain in people capable of feeling empathy? Are you saying that people should care about people if their heterosexual? Or are you saying that they only cared about Pyrrha because she was heterosexual?

If A then you are a heterophobe and thus any you say about sexuality should be immediately disregarded. if B then that's offensive to at least Lindsay and Arryn who are LGBT and work at RT.

can’t say anything more than what’s been said on this.

Except maybe a list of what they did right and what they did wrong OBJECTIVELY like a REAL critic would do?

She seemed pretty cruel to me lol. They need to have Salem do more before they announce these kinds of intentions, because now they’ve just given us a preconceived notion and they won’t have to write it that way.

Gee, it’s almost as though Salem is the fucking BIG BAD and thus the GREATEST EVIL IN RWBY. And considering she was protecting CInder from her colleagues taunts and was gently pushing Cinder to improve, she has the motherly side as well. She has done enough: You just wanna bitch considering you cannot grasp the concept of a Big Bad.

This might be the stupidest thing I’ve ever read.

Considering this is the author of Re:RWBY and “Alpha Hets”: That’s a lie.

ANd they do this type of thing in anime all the time. It’s even a real life ocurrance so a commonplace and even factually correct is the stupdiest thing you’ve read? Guess you don’t read much then.

Wow! Joel and Burnie, two voice acting veterans who formed RT, are invested in their roles? Don’t get too shocked by actors who actually try, guys!

Well, you heard that right Miles, Kerry, Linsday, Barbara, Arryn and Vic: You all suck and you should all quit your jobs because one person is an ingrateful little shit.

Blah blah magical mystical Asia land

1. So does that mean the entirety of Avatar was “Blah blah magical Asian land”? Good to know Re;RWBY.

2. gee, I wonder who the creator of RWBY was? Oh right, Monty Oum, an Asian of four nationalities. So uh, pretty sure your the racist here.

Can you imagine if we had to see RNJR somehow not notice Qrow like twenty feet away from them? Thank god he sat in that pub across the street.

Ever heard of a cloak or disguise? Also, you’re bitching about them doing something right again.

I mean iunno that scene didn’t scream emotional to me but I also have daddy issues so

Well that explains the misgyony and bias against males. Also: we get it: you have about as much of a soul as Flowey. You don’t need to remind us.

Makes you wonder if by the time of their conception, Faunus were a thing or if Monty was just making up furry OC’s.

And we should give two shits... why?

Jfc guys went kinda overboard there. Didn’t look like 100+ when I watched it.

CRWBY: *Does hard work*

Re:RWBY: *Bitches about hard work not meeting their expectations*

Good to know this is fine: I’ll start publicly launching the reasons why you suck as a writer directly at you form now on.

That’s about what I guessed yep. Now is there a reason for it to be Neptune? To show that Weiss grew past her affection towards him? Or because it was the first person who came to mind? Who knows.

Number 1. Because it shows character development. Oh wait, I’m expecting a RWDE poster to understand good writing.  Sorry, big mistake there.

I remember when capes were in Kingdom Hearts. Then they realized they were too much work so they removed them to avoid continuity errors and such. It was a smart and humble move, because the capes looked cool. I guess Tyrian’s jacket was just really that awesome though.

Any problems with Tyrian’s jacket? No? Then this is a bitch to bitch point.

Just gonna keep reminding us of that huh guys?

And you’re just gonna keep bring it up huh?

well that is a legitimately very interesting fact

And now you provide one...

Best decision they ever made, thank god. I love the idea of Miles being all modest and going “ah yes time to be mature.”

Who wants to bet they’ll ruin this soon?

The RWBY writers struggling with exposition?

There it is: Less that and more making it not sound like exposition.

And it was made known that Miles conceived one of the worst parts of the entire story. And he just copied it from a Grimm Tale.

Not gonna mention how everyone (including YOU) said Miles mad eit up on the spot and got totally contradicted?

And it’s (SHOCK) RWBY takes inspiration from Fairy Tales.

Also: I didn't know Miles wrote in the Maidens.

Isn’t this why you, like, direct your scenes? To avoid miscommunication like that?

Did he say it was bad or just shocked? Oh wait, you won’t tell us because it might contradict your bitching.

Apparently the animation crew’s passion is graphic design.

Aren’t you a fan of Studio Trigger? Wouldn't that be obvious?

Again, directing.

RWBY chibi, Camo Camp, mentoring the new writer for Red Vs Blue.

They had a lot on their plate.

Idk how to feel about this but it is kind of disturbing that Miles would be so quick to make that joke.

Wanna know what’s more disturbing? SHowing zero empathy and an absolute lack of self awareness. Wanna know what that looks like? Look in the mirror.

guessed everyone who knows of overwatch’s existence

No shit Sherlock.

That probably would have made some sense.

And I’m guessing that here they said they didn’t have time and you choose to ignore that for the sake of bitching right?

So Lancaster gets shot down completely, cool. Cool thing of a creator to do. How dare we imply Ruby and Jaune are close after all they’ve been through.

Gee, it’s almost as though a certain part of the fandom will send death threats and verbally abuse and terrorize the crew for heterosexuality.

Yeah I bet Miles loved Tyrian.

And I bet that’s an insult.

Pretty sure Sun’s torso is a tube with the new models.

Yes, that clearly rectangular shape is a cylindrical tube.

God, what is left for Qrow to reveal? We got his weapon’s forms, his Semblance, his transforming thing, what else? Tbh my bet’s on Ozpin’s cane. They planned for him to use the cane but decided against it because of their artifact bullshit.

Salem’s origins, the history of the Headmasters secrets behind Ozpin, bandits, Raven, STRQ.

And said bullshit was planned whereas the Maidens whom you’ve said nothing about wasn’t. Yeah, between your failure at writing, your failure at basic empathy, your failure at self awareness and your failure at basic fact comprehension you just spent all this time making a complete ass of yourself.

Hank Azaria opens up about speaking Ladino and his latest TV role By Curt Schleier. April 13, 2017 Actor Hank Azaria is known for his portrayal of an array of characters — most notably voicing Moe, Chief Wiggum and Apu on “The Simpsons.” While he may be best known for his work on the long-running animated classic, Azaria, of course, has had a successful career in TV and film, with roles as varied as journalist Michael Kelly in “Shattered Glass” to the title role in Showtime’s “Huff” to voicing the villain Gargamel in “The Smurfs” movie. His friends call him “the freakish mimic.” And Azaria, 52, has a comfort zone, of sorts. “I certainly feel most at home with Jewish characters,” he recently told JTA in a telephone interview. There was producer Al Freedman in the Academy Award-winning film “Quiz Show”; Mordechai Anielewicz, a leader of the Warsaw Ghetto revolt, in the TV movie “Uprising,” and the tortured composer Marc Blitzstein in “The Cradle Will Rock.” “These are real people who resisted power, and I feel a responsibility to portray them as honestly as I can,” Azaria said. “And yes, there’s a certain pride in portraying your own heritage. But I’m a character actor who plays every nationality and all walks of life.” That’s a talent he has certainly demonstrated on “The Simpsons.” Almost from its beginning 28 years ago, Azaria has been one of the show’s most prolific voice actors, with over a dozen characters in his wheelhouse. That remarkable range has earned him four Emmy nominations and two wins. His “Simpsons” voices are an important part of his arsenal. At a 2016 commencement speech at Tufts, his alma mater, he provided sage advice in the voice of several characters, including Chief Wiggum (“If a cop even thinks you’re going to throw up in the back seat, he will immediately let you go”) and Comic Book Guy (“Life is like the ‘Star Wars’ movies. Some of it is great. Some of it sucks. But you have no choice but to sit through all of it”). Mimicking people and accents is something he’s been doing since childhood. Azaria was raised in New York City, in the borough of Queens, and his parents were descendants of Sephardic Jews from Salonika, Greece. Ladino was spoken around the home. “I understood it and still do, and there was a time in my teenage years I was pretty fluent,” he said. Though his family was “aggressively unobservant,” Azaria said — “the closest I came was Friday night services at camp” — he was tutored as a bar mitzvah. Did hearing a foreign language at home facilitate his mimicking abilities? “I don’t think so,” he said. “It was one of many accents I heard. What affected me more was New York City, being in a melting pot.” “My sisters grew up in the same environment, but neither [do voices]. Either you’re born with the ear and vocal cords or you’re not. I thought everybody could do Bugs Bunny.” While Azaria may be best known for his off-screen voices, Azaria’s latest project is “Brockmire,” a new live-action sitcom on IFC in which he plays the title role. Azaria created the character for a “Funny or Die” video six years ago. “One of my favorite [of the voices in my head] was the generic baseball announcer voice I heard in the ’70s growing up,” he said. “It wasn’t distinctive like Phil Rizzuto. It was this generic announcer voice you associate more with hacks or how they sold Ginsu knives or Ronco products.”“I found that voice fascinating. I wondered if that guy talks like that all the time, and that was the comic basis for the character.” The short “got such a good response on ‘Funny or Die,’ we thought ‘this thing’s got legs,'” he said. Azaria and writer Joel Church-Cooper first tried to develop it as a film, but ultimately decided it “might actually work better as a cable series that gave us the freedom to curse and to be really salty with the whole thing.” The show begins with a flashback. Ten years earlier, Jim Brockmire handled play-by-play duties for the Kansas City Royals. He was the youngest announcer ever in Major League Baseball and had the admiration of his peers. Then he returned home unexpectedly and found his wife in, well, a very delicate situation with several neighbors. What made it worse — as Brockmire describes in a drunken, obscenity-laden and very funny on-air meltdown — the group included his next-door-neighbor, Bob Greenwald, and “I was just at his son’s bar mitzvah.” Unable to find work in the States post-freakout, Brockmire has spent the past decade roaming the globe, finding announcing assignments where he can, notably calling cockfights in Manila. He’s been lured back to the U.S. by Jules (Amanda Peet), who owns the failing Morristown (Pennsylvania) Frackers, a minor league team named for the energy extraction method that gives the town its pungent aroma. Jules feels if she can save the team, she can save the town. Meanwhile, computer illiterate Brockmire is unaware that his meltdown went viral — that “keeping it Brockmire” had become a synonym for “keeping it real.”Azaria inhabits Brockmire like a second skin. While the character might not be Jewish, he does get some Jewish-themed quips: After a long home run, for example, he notes, “That ball can’t be buried at a Jewish cemetery because it just got tattooed.” While the show is frequently raunchy, it resonates emotionally and intellectually. The fracking company that lent Jules money to buy the club wants her to fail so it can use the stadium as a wastewater pit. And when Jules discovers she’s pregnant, the topic of abortion also is addressed. For sports fans, there’s also the surprise pleasure of cameos by play-by-play announcers like Joe Buck and ESPN commentators. At its core, though, Brockmire is a story about relationships: There is Brockmire’s growing bond with the team’s young African-American social media intern Charlie (Tyrel Jackson Williams), who knows nothing about baseball or life, as well as Brockmire’s inevitable romance with Jules — two people who have made relationship mistakes in life, but may be on the verge of getting something right. Amid the laughs, it’s hard not to get vested in the three characters — and apparently IFC agrees. When I spoke to Azaria, before the show’s premiere, he told me the network had paid for the creative team to write a second season’s worth of scripts. A week later, IFC announced it had renewed the series. ‘Brockmire‘ airs at 10 p.m. Wednesdays on IFC. Jewish Telegraphic Agency http://www.jta.org/2017/04/13/arts-entertainment/hank-azaria-opens-up-about-speaking-ladino-and-his-latest-tv-role?utm_source=Newsletter+subscribers&utm_campaign=9c14111178-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_04_14&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_2dce5bc6f8-9c14111178-28853825

The Suicide Squad: James Gunn Talks the Creative Freedom of That R-Rating

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

A couple of days. That’s how long director James Gunn had to wait before Warner Bros. and DC came calling in 2018. Up until that moment, it’d been a pretty turbulent July. The iconoclastic filmmaker who made audiences cry over a talking tree in Guardians of the Galaxy was just fired by Disney—temporarily as it turns out—and his name was being besmirched on social media. Yet less than 72 hours after that dismissal, WB was making him an offer that could change the face of DC superhero movies forever.

“It happened immediately,” Gunn says with a hint of lingering chagrin. “We started talking about what the project would be. The first thing that was brought up was Superman, but I didn’t know if I wanted to do that.” 

So the studio suggested a once-in-a-lifetime alternative: make whatever you want. Gunn was free to adapt “anybody out of the DC catalogue.” Somehow though, with an entire gleaming multiverse at his disposal, Gunn only had eyes for the filthiest D-listers this side of Krypton. He only wanted to make The Suicide Squad.

The team of supervillain rejects has of course been adapted before, with David Ayer’s divisive Suicide Squad coming out in 2016. The earlier movie was a hit too, grossing more than $700 million and triggering a small bout of jealousy in Gunn, who even then thought that was the only DC property he ever wanted to do. But the film left something to be desired for many fans and critics.

To be clear, there are things Gunn absolutely loves about Ayer’s movie. How could he not, when he incorporated so many of the 2016 film’s cast into his own? In Gunn’s mind, Margot Robbie was born to play Harley Quinn, which he hopes to only further highlight by bringing out her “true lunacy” in the new movie. Viola Davis’s Amanda Waller, meanwhile, was the first character he decided to put in his own film. But Gunn is unambiguous on one point: his The Suicide Squad is going to be its own 31 flavors of weird.

“It wasn’t something to contrast the first movie,” Gunn says. “It wasn’t about going through a checklist of this is good, this is bad, this works, this doesn’t… but the concept that John Ostrander started with in the comics, that these are B-grade, shitty superheroes who are considered disposable by the U.S. government and are sent out on these black-ops missions, where they probably won’t make it but who gives a shit because they’re pieces-of-shit prisoners without many skills?”

That is the movie Gunn wanted to make. And he did so with R-rated glee.

Engineered as a standalone epic that might (or might not) be a sequel to the 2016 movie, Gunn’s The Suicide Squad is, in essence, meant to be a spiritual continuation of comic book writer Ostrander’s seminal 1980s run with the team. Davis’ Waller is still the government’s shady lady pulling the strings and recruiting incarcerated sad sacks to do the wet work law enforcement won’t; her point man on the ground remains Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman), a straight arrow surrounded by coerced supervillains, including familiar faces like Robbie’s delightfully demented Harley, plus new ones such as Idris Elba’s Bloodsport.

The genre Gunn and his cohorts compare this to is war movies, but who they’re going to war against isn’t exactly clear. With that said, recent marketing revealed a comic book deep cut, with the 1950s space alien, Starro, running amok at kaiju-size.

“Starro is hilarious because he’s ridiculous. He’s a giant, cerulean blue starfish, but he’s also fucking terrifying,” Gunn says. “When I was a kid I thought that was the scariest thing of all time… and I think that exemplifies what this movie is: it is ridiculous and it’s also terrifying, and serious. So he works really well as the villain of the movie—as one of the villains, actually.”

Ironically, the real antagonists of The Suicide Squad might simply be the flick’s main characters, and Gunn is using the motley crew to unleash his distinctive voice. With an absurdly large cast to pick from, the director has carte blanche from WB to kill any character he wants, and to embrace any level of weirdness. And unlike the 2016 film, or his previous Guardians movies, The Suicide Squad is a big budget superhero flick with an R-rating. A first for Gunn.

“Most of my movies have been R-rated,” Gunn laughs when we mention this. He is, after all, a filmmaker who cut his teeth at indie grindhouse distributor Troma Studios, and has a history with tongue-in-cheek horror movies like Slither. But whether it’s making an R-rated Suicide Squad movie or a PG-13 Guardians picture, it’s all the same to him: telling the biggest-ass version of a campfire yarn.

“This is simply a little bit of a higher age bracket,” he explains, “and my audience is a little bit different. They can see a shark tearing someone in half, they can see a penis. It doesn’t matter.” Even so, there remains a sense of human connection among a number of broken Squad members. And those without that vulnerability still allow the storyteller to broaden the moral spectrum he’s playing with.

“I think you know from the beginning of the first Guardians that most likely, in his heart, Peter Quill is good, Gamora is good, Rocket is good, Drax is good.” But with the Suicide Squad, “some are not good people. They’re bad people. It’s less sentimental in that way. King Shark is much less sentimental than Groot.”

And some of these bad people will die in presumably horrible ways. Not that Gunn is killing his darlings lightly.

“The first thing I had to do was ignore the potential blowback from killing a character,” Gunn says. Instead he focused on following the natural progression of the story, and the natural progression of a character’s arc. “I’m just the servant of the story, so whatever the story says is what I’m going to do, no matter what the repercussions are for anything. I believe in the truth of the story. I believe that there was a story out there that needed to be told that I don’t have any control over.”

Perhaps ceding that control is the greatest advantage he’s discovered from making a gross, foul-mouthed superhero movie exactly to his liking.

“I wanted to do the things that other spectacle films haven’t been able to do,” Gunn says, “which is really take my time and investigate these characters, get to know them, focus on the character aspects, focus on who they were, and deal with time in a different way than it’s been dealt with in these movies.”

Gunn is thus able to let his movie breathe in a way that’s unusual for the superhero genre, but is in line with the more adult-oriented filmmaking he loved as a child. The Suicide Squad may be a war movie, but for Gunn it’s a specific type of throwback. Quick to name The Dirty Dozen and The Great Escape, he becomes audibly excited when discussing those 1960s “war-caper” films from his youth. Recapturing that men-and-women-on-a-mission aesthetic is as much the appeal of the movie as honoring Ostrander’s comics. He even refers to Elba’s Bloodsport as his Steve McQueen.

“He’s the unsentimental portrayal of a 1960s action hero but without the moral repercussions of those characters,” says Gunn. Also, he notes, Bloodsport is the guy who shot Superman with a kryptonite bullet. “How cool is that? And also, what a dick!” When contrasted with Robbie’s Harley Quinn, Gunn even likens the pair’s energy to an Abbott and Costello routine, only now Costello might kill you with a bat.

But then, each of the Squad members represent their own genre. They also each leave the door open for further exploration. Hence Gunn’s next project is still not Guardians 3, but rather an HBO Max TV series starring one of the nastiest pieces of work in The Suicide Squad: John Cena’s Peacemaker.

Describing the jingoistic flag-waver as if Marvel’s Captain America took a really far-right turn, Gunn saw Peacemaker as the perfect jumping off point when HBO approached him about doing a series.

“I think that the actual inspiration for Peacemaker was the shitty 1970s Captain America TV shows that I loved when I was a child,” Gunn says. “And I think Peacemaker exemplifies a lot of things about society that are going on politically, and what people’s beliefs are about America and the world. So being able to tell those stories that are slightly more socially conscious in their essence, but also outlandish, he lends itself to that.”

Exploring this week-to-week with Cena—an actor whose range Gunn believes audiences have only seen a fraction of—is irresistible. In fact, Peacemaker might mark another significant turning point in Gunn’s career.

Says the filmmaker, “I love doing Peacemaker. I could see just making TV shows after Guardians 3. It’s a possibility.”

Three years since Gunn’s one very bad week, the possibilities now seem limitless.

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The Suicide Squad opens on Aug. 6 in theaters and HBO Max. We’ll have more from our interview with James Gunn in the coming weeks.

Check out more on The Suicide Squad in the latest issue of Den of Geek!

The post The Suicide Squad: James Gunn Talks the Creative Freedom of That R-Rating appeared first on Den of Geek.

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