¶ Obrother Podcast and "Megan" Movie Discussion
Welcome to the Obrother podcast , with hosts Dan and Mike Smith , brothers from the same mother with different opinions Movies , tv , video games or more , plus celebrity interviews . Get ready , it's set . It's time for the Obrother podcast .
Welcome to the Obrother podcast from your host , dan Smith . Long time he's always my brother from the same mother , mike Smith . Halloween Fest rolls on . You know what it's like the post office ?
It's like , you know , nor heat , nor Slee or nice shirt , mike showing off his I got a rock t-shirt which is , of course , the Great pumpkin , charlie Brown and I already got my rock for this Halloween .
Yeah , well , that's what I was that's what I was saying .
The , you know the , the , the postal service slogan for years . Right , it's like , no matter what the Blizzard , you know , we still deliver the mail . It's no different with the Obrother podcast . You know fractured ribs . You know you name . Whatever the ailment is , I've got it , I'm gonna miss an episode .
Not gonna miss any stone . We're on stones .
Yeah , you've had kidney stones on the air . I have like been in progress with with people not even knowing it right . So there's this episode is no different Mike forging on here in the interest of keeping Halloween Fest alive , and no delay . I roll and gotta keep it rolling , which is the fact that you're . You're half the man you used to be .
Well , I'm gonna snap it off and make a girlfriend . What's that ? My rib , oh , I see , is that a big reference . That's a biblical thing , I see , yeah , all right . Well , hey , on that . Getting on to Megan . Yeah , so we're gonna be talking about Model 3 generative Android aka Megan . I didn't realize that was the whole thing with the name .
But well , you just taught me something .
Oh , you didn't realize that and it's mentioned in the beginning of the film , but we're talking about Megan now . We we contemplated doing this kind of back when it came out now . This originally was released January 6th 2023 . It is since now as of this recording , it's on peacock .
It came , it landed on peacock in February and the blu-ray is out now , I think in March . Yeah , you know what's happening . Which is really odd is movies are showing up on streaming , then they show up on 4k or blu-ray and a lot of times there's a delay .
You get the blu-ray and then you got to wait a month for the 4k , so I don't know what's going on with the distributors . That a commentary on the physical digital media argument .
Well , I'll tell you .
I'm gonna keep going . Yeah , you're locked in for now .
I've seen a little bit of me .
Be me and the one company that still makes them much like your ribs . I've seen a little bit of a hairline crack in the foundation of your yeah , you know , commitment to physical media , but there are plenty of people out there in your camp as well . I'm , as you know except for Halloween Right and a few other exceptions , maybe , godfather I'm full-on digital .
So now , as I said , the blu-ray DVD came out March . So what , as you mentioned the 4k , is that what's the release on that ? Is that already out or it's not out ? I'm not sure if it's out yet . Okay , last time I checked it wasn't , but okay . That was a maybe you know that was pre , when I had full ribs .
Now , this , this , had some delays , maybe not as much as others , but this was somewhat impacted by COVID . It was because the filming wrapped in August of 2021 . Oh , okay , so this had been in the can for a while and They've already green lit Megan too . They have , and we'll talk about that . We'll get into that .
But so let me run down kind of just the sort of the highlights here , as we typically do . It's got a PG 13 rating .
You're looking at a runtime about an hour and 42 minutes , directed by Gerard Johnstone , written by a Kayla Cooper in collaboration with James Wan , produced by Jason Bloman and James Wan , who you've talked about a lot recently during Halloween Fest . Curious to see what your thoughts are on James Wan as we get through this episode .
Not tipping the hat , but you know , might be a little indication , I think . I think an indication . Now , the cast here . Let's just give a little . You know few of the , the main players here . Allison Williams plays Gemma , who , of course , is . Allison Williams , the daughter of Brian Williams , yeah , from MSNBC , nbc fame .
Yeah , how did I not pick up on that ? Oh , I thought you would have known that going in I should have , because I like her , I , yeah , yeah . So Alison Williams , violet McGraw , who plays the her niece , katie , and I'll have you set up the synopsis so you can kind of reference Katie .
And I do want to say we did a recent episode on the Black Phone , the old Black Phone , the old Black Phone , and that starred one of the young actors in that film was Madeline McGraw , their sisters , wow .
And then Danny Chang who plays David , and then Amy Donald is the sort of physical actor behind Megan and we can talk about the effects and all that sort of stuff .
This was put up by Universal Pictures , of course , and anybody that's been on TikTok in the last few months or has been to Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios East or West Coast has seen by now the Megan Flash mob , which is very I actually love it . Every time I see it I can't stop Flash crowd . I wouldn't call it a flash mob .
There's only about six of them . There's a few more than that , but that's what you would refer to that , as they just kind of spontaneously appear Right and they do this dance and all of that . So all right , give us the very brief synopsis of Megan . Okay , so Alison Williams has this job making like furbies Remember furbies ?
where the I love how you take her . My profile career is a robotics engineer and say she makes furbies .
Well , that's what you do , Like boils it down to make it furry pets .
But see , you said cut it . And I was like , okay , fair enough , go ahead , sliced it , right , I digress . So anyway , the company , the boss , is screaming mad because somebody copied their furbie and he says I want the next big thing , I want it now , I want it Monday , I want it Friday , I want it today .
So she has to go off with her team and create some new furbie and they wind up getting this robotic skeleton and they put a face on it and they start playing with it and somewhere in the process they come up with a doll .
Megan .
Like synopsis of the film sounds about as convoluted as the film itself . I think that was pretty good , considering what's ahead . A couple of important details there , though , is that , first of all , she you mentioned the furbie , which I love , because that's a reference from like 20 years ago . That's not even a current reference , but it's a good comparison .
But I think it's like perpetual pet is what they called it in the film .
It's like this virtual pet , whatever , and she works for this toy company called Funky or Funkai Funky or whatever and this is a side project that you're describing , that she's been working on which is this robot , this companion robot , and when he demands that she get something , she has to kind of go to her side project . Yeah , but she's not See .
She's all in on that . And coming from the standpoint that this is a toy that could replace the need for all other toys Like , this is the one and done . If you get this toy , you don't need any other toys .
And her boss , david , played by Ronnie Chang , is basically saying he shows her a commercial from a competitor that has basically the same furbie , exactly Right .
Exactly .
Right and he's like Half the price . Half the price , right . So I need you to come up with a new prototype for our Furbie and I need it yesterday , right . But she's so committed to this other side project she's got , she ends up delaying the work and tells them I need to push back the deadline on this Furbie project about a week Right Now .
What we're not talking about here is what happens in the opening of the film that pairs her with her niece , katie . Her sister and husband are driving . They get into a car accident . They're both killed . Katie was in the car but she survives and I guess in the wheel or whatever , her custody is given to the sister , which is Allison .
You know I was pleased to see because I felt , you know I felt some . I was very distraught for the child and Allison it's character , gemma but was pleased to see that they were able to get through their grief in about two and a half minutes . You know they were able to . They pushed through .
I think it was great , they rallied .
Yeah , I mean , they went from hating each other to her having zero parental skills to , hey , you want me to flip some pancakes ? You know , it was just kind of silly .
But again , to finish off , the kind of synopsis and setting up the story , is that you know , gemma , if the setting up was on , or at least over a handful , is also looking at the finishing of this robotic or robot project to serve as a companion for Katie Because , as you said , she's got no parenting skills herself . Clearly , right , and so this will be .
You know this , this and look , this is not a new , this is not an original idea . Right , tech has been babysitting kids for years and in the seventies it was called television . That's right . Right , it's been , it's no different .
It's no different .
We were sat in front of a TV for Absolutely Eight hours and we liked it . That's right and that's really a big part of the premise here . And the message behind the film right Is that there's a potential for us to take technology too far , right to the point where it replaces much needed human interaction , parenting , et cetera right .
And that's the one thing that's kind of in the news now that's relevant to this movie is this discussion of AI . What's going to happen when the robots get smarter than us ? And that's the way it's going . I mean , you know , my iPhone , can you know , can get itself home better than me . Now I got to tell you , let's dive into it by .
So there's the setup . Okay , now I'm jumping to the ratings real quick , because that needs to frame where we're going to go with this , because I'm already like telepathy has kicked in and I already know where you're at with this film . But 93% from the critics , 78% from the audience and it's got about a 72 meta score in IMDB .
So how many people reviewed it ? How many critics reviewed it ? Two , that's over 300 . That's over 300 .
That's why I hate rotten tomatoes .
This has only happened a few times in the show right , where I come on here and looking at the ratings and the reviews and things , and then I watch it and I'm like , wow , I'm on a completely different planet . We got to get the old brother score happening pretty soon . Yeah , well , let's give the rundown at least , because I this wasn't a great film .
This was not a 93% critical review film . And you know , like Black Phone , remember I said I was into it . I was into it this one , I got maybe 10 minutes into it . But I'll tell you what really tanked it is when Megan became a real girl and it was so obvious because she was moving like this .
And then all of a sudden she's flipping people and slicing people's necks and it was just stupid . That's true . Yeah , I mean there was a lot I had a problem with with this film .
And again , we're too few from what I can tell , because most people seem to enjoy the film Like I can't believe it's got a house at Universal right along with icons and it's green lit for a sequel . Now , correct , but that's based on you . Look at the budget was like 12 million or something Right . And it's made what ? 100 million dollars .
So , you have to go through a sequel at that point . But I would like to know who's liking this . Well , these are a few of the issues I had with it . Right , because now if you look at the behind , there's a feature that you can see out on YouTube about the film and you can look up different interviews and things and read about it .
But it was intentional .
¶ Reviewing a Disappointing Film
The director , I guess , is known for this kind of bringing this campy sort of humor to a film but also trying to balance it with the drama and the thriller aspect of it . But that just made it really silly to me from the beginning and things like this .
Right , you mentioned that you set it up talking about the loss of her parents and this and that you gotta give something like that a little bit more time to breathe in the film . This was like her parents were killed in a horrific crash and like two minutes on and we're good , here's your new mom , but no real signs of grief .
I feel like you gotta let that breathe a little bit in the film . You know they built Megan in like two minutes , like that whole montage . It was like two minutes , right . Right , there was no build up to that and it was very kind of silly . Honestly , you get two thirds into the film .
The only part that I enjoyed for a brief moment was that whole bit about the dance , the Megan dance , which is what they're doing at Halloween Horror Nights , and this was a big thing . When the trailer came out , it was all this . Should we put that in the trailer ? Should we hold it for the theater ?
Whatever , they decided to include that in the trailer back when that came out , and that's what got all this buzz on social media going about it . So it turned out to be a good move , right , but that's like the only thing that I got a kick out of in the film . Yeah , we've talked about this before too .
I got up more than once , was walking around doing chores and things .
And this is a 90 minute film .
Right , not paying attention , I was just . Really the acting in the film was not good . Even Allison Williams , who I normally like she was in , get Out , I think , was she was , she was in Girls , the series Girls , yeah , and even she was kind of stiff . Even I think she was like what am I doing in this movie ?
Yeah , and she just kind of had this stiffness to her , like Molly Shannon , the girl that doesn't move her arms on Seinfeld . Not even the physical acting , but the just the delivery of lines . Yeah , was just very kind of robotic . Yeah , it was kind of robotic .
And do you agree with me that when , eventually , megan gets more enhanced and all of a sudden it flips on a dime , she goes from to Right ? I suppose what the argument might be is that she , you know , the whole idea behind the technology is that she's learning right the more that she's interacting with Katie and humans .
She's learning , she's correcting , she's adapting , etc . But yeah , in terms of the physical movement it got still . It was like you know she was gonna do the flash point . I know At one point All she didn't do was run around in circles to go back in time and get the older Magans . It's a good concept , which is , again , it's not an original idea .
In fact , james , what Annabelle ? Right , annabelle , annabelle ? There's plenty of others you can go back to , I mean .
Chucky , chucky , chucky .
Right , but it's a good idea but very poor execution .
Yeah , very poor execution . That's what I thought .
There's a scene where she , Gemma and takes Katie to some gathering in a in the Redwood forest or something which is kind of weird to play with other kids , so I forget what that was , but they go and she's basically bringing her to socialize with other kids , right . And she begs to bring Megan with her Cause .
At first Gemma's like no , we're not , you know , she's not coming , et cetera . She gives in , she brings Megan , she sets Megan over against the tree with a bunch of other dolls and toys and things , right . Which was totally goofy , Right .
But then there's this kid , Brandon this character they introduced Like a bully kind of kid .
Horrible this kid . The acting . I'm sorry , it was just not good and you could see it coming from a mile away . This kid was going to get it Right and it just was kind of goofy and she's running through the woods like a you know , chasing after at one point like a weird . I don't know , it was just very bizarre .
But , like you said earlier , what's the attraction here ? What did people love ? I don't know , because those numbers suggests we're in the minority here . Although it's a C rating from the audience , it's not like A plus , right , I mean it's . I'm shocked at the critical rating . The critical rating stunts . People on Rotten Tomatoes should be thrown off .
Well , you've said that for years on the show that you know you don't give much . I gotta say , though , some of the music was maybe more memorable than like Disney films of of maybe I . I didn't even get there . You know , mentally I wasn't even with that . When did you check out exactly at what point ?
I don't know , it was early because it was so stiff , yeah , and , like you said , the car accident . And then it's like okay , we're done with that . Here's your new mom .
You like her right ?
Oh , it was just , I was just done , right , you know , and you could . And again I don't . You know , I watch all these other stupid movies like Saw and Chucky , and Freddy , I've got them all , why are you saying stupid ? Well , yeah , I'm saying it because they're not . You know , these are not going to be nominated for any kind of Academy Award .
I don't think I would call it stupid . No , I'm not . I didn't mean stupid , that's just the word that came out .
Okay , that was just the adjective I used .
I would call them kind of you know , camp movies you know Right . Like you go to the camp and they show a movie and it's Friday the 13th . Back in the old days , the drive-in . This would be a great drive-in . Yeah exactly , dude I just . What are they going to do for a sequel ?
with this .
Megan 2.0 is the sequel . Right , that's the original title , you know it took . They spent a lot of time . And that was green lit very early on . Yeah , that they were doing a sequel . Well , it's like you said if you make that kind of money , you can guarantee a green light .
Yeah Well .
I think once the opening weekend came and went , they were like okay , sequels are on . I think that's what it was . It was one of those movies that came out at the right time , took in a bunch of cash over a couple of weeks .
They bumped it up a week , I believe , to avoid some competition with actually a man called Otto was one of the films which we did a review on the show about that . Yeah , totally different audience . Yeah , it wouldn't have mattered . I don't know why they thought that was gonna cut into the bottom line . But yeah , this was . I just didn't really care for it .
Yeah , it's not one that I would pull out again and watch .
No , it's not one .
I would even get . I don't have any interest in seeing the sequel and it's just . I feel like Blumhouse right . We've reviewed a lot of these films on the podcast . They're really hit and miss . They're very hit and miss . Well , I don't know there wasn't a whole lot to talk about with this film .
I gotta be honest .
I can't pretend that there's a lot to break down and analyze , just not a great film . No , we're done . So we're done . Listen , mike , halloween Fest is gonna continue to roll on . We've got some super exciting things happening . One of them I wanna mention Again as of this recording the O Brother podcast , the one and only O Brother podcast .
Mike is gonna be where , in Orlando . We're gonna be in Orlando at the 20-year Spooky Empire Convention in Orlando . So if you happen to be visiting the area during the end of October , october 27th through the 29th , mike and I are going to be live at Spooky Empire all weekend . Come up and say hello .
I cannot express how stoked I am to be there this is gonna be If I'm not sipping martinis with Kiefer Sutherland come up and say hello if I am . Sounds like you've already been dipping into the martini . Well , you know , Kiefer is yeah . Broke it's my broken rib . The lineup is incredible . Spooky Empire , the dark side of Comic-Con .
Make sure that if you're in the area , come out and say hello . We're gonna have a table there all weekend , Looking forward to covering that whole weekend We'll do at least a show a day from there , I would- . We're gonna be live streaming throughout that whole weekend . It's gonna be fantastic .
Now , if you're not currently following us , make sure that you do it . The easiest way to find all things O Brother is to go out to the the O Brother official website , Mike , which is OH Be as a Brother podcastcom . Now , this is our YouTube handle , which is at O Brother podcast , but you can go out to the official website , OHBpodcastcom .
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Some great other episodes and content that are being pushed out every week . We've got O Brother Rewind . We've got O Brother on the street . We've got . Oh no , tonight , tonight as we .
It's too late to tell people .
As of this recording . Yeah , right , so lots of content out there for you to enjoy , and we're on all podcast platforms too . So if you enjoy listening to your podcast and watching your podcast , like I do , you can find us on Apple Podcasts , spotify , iheartradio , like wherever you find your podcast , that's everywhere . Youtube music we're everywhere .
But yeah , that's gonna do it , Mike , this is a very I was disappointed .
I wanted .
I saw a nice tight film . I wanted to . Just that's the one thing about horror films you just get away , you just kind of like go somewhere else with your brain , and I really was looking forward to that .
Yeah , I went somewhere else .
I went into the next room and I was doing laundry , while this was on my brain left but never came back . Now , if you're in disagreement with us and we often say on the podcast , we're just giving our opinion , it's just our take on it . We're not claiming to be right or whatever , but we do love to hear from you .
So if you love Megan , if you agree with us , whatever you take is on it , drop us some comments on the video and let us know your thoughts . We love interacting with everybody out there and we don't pass any judgment . It's just , we have our opinion , you have
¶ Movie Audience Reception Discussion
yours . So I would like to hear thoughts on this one though , because , again , it's not an overwhelming rating from the audience in terms of like rotten tomatoes , but it made some banks . So clearly it was well received overall , but and those numbers don't lie Even the audience number which is lower , which is a C still pretty high to me it is .
Yeah , well , it's very close to B rating . So , yeah , it's a little too high for my liking , but all right , well , that's gonna do it for another episode of the Over the Podcast when you host Dan Smith Long time . Me is always my brother from the same mother , mike Smith , and we will see you next time . Ooh , everyone . Seekature News .