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The Backseat Critics: The Movie Review Podcast
Hello! We're the Backseat Critics: a family friendly movie review podcast.We watch and discuss movies that you should generally steer clear of.Join hosts RJ & Andrew as they dive into the world of movies and see what they say!If you like our podcast, or have any questions/suggestions - send us a message or follow us on Instagram @thebackseatcritics. Shoot us an email at thebackseatcritics@gmail.com.Thank you!
The Backseat Critics: The Movie Review Podcast
Scooby-Doo (2002)
What if you could relive your childhood adventures with Scooby-Doo? Join us as we stroll down memory lane, revisiting the 2002 "Scooby-Doo" film that captured our imaginations in the early 2000s. From watching it in segments during school recesses to experiencing it on the big screen with family, we share how this quirky movie became a part of our childhood collections. We laugh about the humor that flew over our heads back then and the memorable plot twist involving the mischievous Scrappy-Doo. Plus, hear our musings on the intriguing changes made from its original R-rated script to a family-friendly adventure.
The laughter continues as we explore the film's nods to the Scooby-Doo universe, from a ghost with bunny rabbit ears reminiscent of classic villains to Pamela Anderson's unexpected cameo. We let our imaginations run wild with playful speculations about how comedic genius Sasha Baron Cohen might have added his flair to the film. The movie's island setting sparks comparisons to "Zombie Island," offering fresh perspectives on how the gang's adventures might have evolved. We also dive into character transformations post-breakup, and how these shifts contributed to reshaping the beloved franchise.
Our spooky musings don't stop there. We also recount thrilling childhood experiences at theme parks, where tales of vampires and peculiar rides stoked our imaginations and fears. The conversation even touches on whether Scooby-Doo and the gang would brave notorious attractions like Disneyland. Finally, we reflect on the darker origins of the film, including its creative process and James Gunn's influence, pondering how a more self-aware version could have looked. Join us for a light-hearted reflection on a peculiar yet beloved adaptation, packed with humor and heartfelt memories.
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Well, and like I can like, give it out to people for free-ish.
Speaker 2:I don't know, you might be able to.
Speaker 1:I can't really sell that.
Speaker 2:I'll show you what they do on to you Like. I'll show you some stickers I bought off there before that somebody else. I mean, it wasn't approved by Disney and they still made them, so I'll show you them later. Welcome back to the Backseat Critics. My name is RJ.
Speaker 1:My name is RJ, my name is Andrew, and this is the podcast where we review movies that you should steer clear of, and this week we're talking about 2002's Scooby-Doo.
Speaker 2:Oh no, I said peak that you peaked that Future Andrew, we're so sorry just don't listen to it with headphones on, you're fine yeah, I'm turning down your gain, dude leave me alone you know what?
Speaker 1:you lost that privilege why, you lost extra gain. You have to earn that back okay, that's fine but 2002's scooby-doo. Do you want to? Do you want to talk about it? What, what, what's, what's your history with this movie? Because this came out we were 10 years old, yeah, so it was about um fifth grade yeah fifth grade, ish, maybe fourth.
Speaker 2:it might have been a few theaters when we were in fourth grade, but about fifth grade, I think, is when it came out on VHS, maybe. Yeah, my history when I first saw this actually the day I saw this movie first of all we had to get a permission slip to watch this movie. It was in school.
Speaker 1:Really yeah.
Speaker 2:They made a whole permission slip thing and as a kid we were also agreeing to skip recess to watch this movie. I don't know why, but we had to skip recess and we did it in sections.
Speaker 1:I mean every 30 minutes, because that's all you got for recess at the time. Sorry, you had to watch this movie in segments.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it was about four recesses that it took to watch the whole movie, because you had to wait for everybody to get into the room. You would grab your lunch. You'd go into the classroom where they're playing it it wasn't even my classroom and uh yeah. So one day actually, I forgot my lunch and um, but I had four dollars in my pocket. Four dollars I had five dollars because I was a hustler back in the day and I'd sell kids. I'd buy yugioh cards with the fake classroom money and sell them for real money, and so I had $5 in my pocket. Didn't have lunch, so I bought five king-size Reese's candy bars. Oh, and I had five king-size Reese's candy bars while watching the first, what was that?
Speaker 1:Still.
Speaker 2:Oh no, I ate those. I ate those while watching the movie, and that's kind of how I started was watching, watching this movie through through that process of through recess and, um, I think later on my family did end up renting the movie through Hollywood video. Rest in peace, um.
Speaker 1:Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't know your family passed.
Speaker 2:Oh no, hollywood video. Um, hollywood video, but yeah, that's kind of in, and after that, obviously, it played on WB and it was kind of one of those things, this weird channel flipping that we would be like let's throw this on.
Speaker 1:Whatever?
Speaker 2:So I've seen this movie quite a lot.
Speaker 1:I remember seeing this again like fourth, fifth grade, I think I saw this in the theaters with my folks.
Speaker 2:Oh, you went to a theater, yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:I was a enormous scooby-doo fan when I was a kid yeah, who wasn't?
Speaker 2:it was a good. It's a good show. I mean, if you hate scooby-doo, you might want to get checked out man, I, uh, you know, other kids were collecting batman comics.
Speaker 1:I had scooby-doo comics that's pretty rad so that's where I was at with scooby-doo. Um, yeah, no, my parents took me to see this and at the time I had enjoyed this, except for the scrappy do at the end. Spoiler alerts, yeah. And then I saw this, I think, the christmas, following my family. We get together with another family and they threw on a movie yeah, and we watched this and again I'm like, yeah, this is cool, but I started to pick up on some of the uh, some of the window, indie windows, any windows indie windows.
Speaker 2:I'm like wait a second here that's a dirty joke and your family's like no more scooby-doo for andrew yeah.
Speaker 1:so no more scooby-oo for Andrew, but no I. I want to say I liked this movie as a kid.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:It was fun. My go-to was Zombie Island.
Speaker 2:For this movie. Zombie Island was the oh no, the movie Okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:They did a remake of that recently. Not a remake, but a return to Okay, yeah, yeah, they did a remake of that recently. Not a remake, but Return to Zombie Island.
Speaker 1:I still the mic here. I still haven't seen that.
Speaker 2:It's kind of silly because they actually go back to the island and they don't even know they're there. They're like this place seems really familiar in that movie weird yeah, it's just like wait a second, you guys, they play it off like cleverly, or is it just gimmicky? No, it's very gimmicky, oh yeah the movie itself is fine, but yeah, you're like why? Why did you say that line?
Speaker 1:you didn't need to say that line, that's a bummer, yeah, um, so yeah, no, we've got extensive history with this movie oh, absolutely um, yeah, no, we, uh, we actually have a shrine here, oh we do to scooby-doo in yeah At an undisclosed location. There's candles surrounding a statue of Scooby.
Speaker 2:We have this movie poster, signed by Matthew Lillard, in our studio.
Speaker 1:We sacrifice a dog once a week.
Speaker 2:Whoa, whoa. No animals were harmed in the making of this episode of the Backseat.
Speaker 1:Critics. They weren't harmed, they were killed.
Speaker 2:And PETA is now going to be coming in. Okay, this is probably a non-safe zone for pets, that's okay.
Speaker 1:Anyways, You've got a couple dogs right.
Speaker 2:Sure, we'll call them dogs, but anyways, one-minute summary go, yeah. So basically, the scooby-doo group gets introduced to the movie and they decide to break up within the first 10 minutes of the movie.
Speaker 2:two years later, down the road, they all get invites to zombie island in which they find out spooky island in which they find out that kids are college kids, are being possessed and turning into creatures. Later on, it's revealed that scrappy doo is behind this mess, and then scrappy doo wants to take scooby doo's soul, and then daphne saves the day with a big disco light ball. All the souls are put back into their original bodies and Scrappy-Doo dies.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he doesn't die. He shrivels into a little sausage.
Speaker 1:He shrivels back into his original form and is arrested.
Speaker 2:Yeah, into a little sausage.
Speaker 1:What's that look for? But no, so okay, but before we dive in okay this episode. Yeah, sorry, I bumped your mic there oh, you're fine um before we dive in on this episode we're gonna. We're gonna do our quiz question and we're gonna swing right back into the plot. Okay, what was original writing for this movie?
Speaker 2:um, I don't like what we're talking about.
Speaker 1:Imdb rotten tomatoes, no no, no, like, like, like parental guidance oh, I'm gonna say pg-13 okay I'm gonna stick with that pg-13. Okay, we'll swing back. Okay, so we start off.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:The movie they're catching a little ghost person with bunny rabbit ears.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they tried to make it similar to like an old school Scooby-Doo character a little bit there.
Speaker 1:It did. Yeah, do you notice? So this guy, if you later in the movie when Scooby's running from the actual monsters, yeah. And he runs up.
Speaker 2:Shaggy catches him and Scooby's like monsters, monsters, yeah, yeah and the guy in the bunny costume comes out of the forest.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and they're like oh ha ha Similar vibe as far as the costume goes.
Speaker 2:A little bit. I can see that Like it's just, like it's just not glowing, not as clownish.
Speaker 1:And there was like a t-shirt instead of like the full costume.
Speaker 2:I think it's kind of funny too. The first line in this movie is actually Daphne saying you're giving me a wedgie.
Speaker 1:Wait, that was the first line. I didn't even catch that. Yeah, I was just like what Foreshadowing the trivia question here?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was just like that's the first line we're rocking with, and then I mean seconds later you have pamela anderson walking out of her car.
Speaker 1:Yeah, who's dating? Who crashes through?
Speaker 2:and hits them weren't there cops like right?
Speaker 1:right on her tail. Yeah, yeah, that's like okay.
Speaker 2:First of, all, let's not let pamela anderson drive. And secondly, isn't she married to bill rat? Am I wrong? No, I.
Speaker 1:So I was saying this. I was saying this like they. They take off the mask and it's like oh, old man, smithers, or whatever which I mean.
Speaker 2:Isn't that like it's? It's a shout out to the older episodes, because I'm pretty sure there's a old man smithers villain yeah, I was at the it's like one of the farmer dudes kind of looking thing.
Speaker 1:He's like a green overalls, no, no, I think that was the um the grand canyon one. There's like a the the minor, like not the 49er minor or whatever, yeah, man, um, but the guy's like you wouldn't marry me, blah, blah. It would have been hilarious to get sasha baron Baron Cohen to play that guy.
Speaker 2:If only Borat came out sooner. You know, Wait, when did Borat come out? 2006.
Speaker 1:Oof.
Speaker 2:Only if it was a little sooner. Oof.
Speaker 1:Okay, okay, I didn't know about that time difference.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a little bit, Because that would have been funny if he.
Speaker 1:Four years later, if they pull off the mask and he's like my wife, my wife, my wife Four years later in 2006.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was 2006.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm not going to look it up. No one in our audience is going to look it up.
Speaker 2:No, no, no one cares. Then they break up.
Speaker 2:They break up pretty fast after being compared to a banana split now, at this point, I feel like in the whole movie, I feel like this is the point where everything you feel about scooby-doo has now gone out the window besides pamela anderson being there. But everything you know about scooby-doo is gone, why? I just feel like now we're on a different story with a breakup. Yeah, as soon as the breakup happens. Now it feels like the directors, the writers, everybody here can now switch Scooby-Doo to whatever they want to, because they broke up. And now it's two years later and now they're trying to get back together.
Speaker 1:I don't know how well you remember it, but Zombie Island did the same thing with the breakup at the beginning.
Speaker 2:Yeah, weren't they in like a.
Speaker 1:Like.
Speaker 2:Scooby-Doo? Weren't they in like a mailroom, or is that I might be speculating? Number two Scooby-Doo 2, the live action.
Speaker 1:I know they're in a mailroom. You might be.
Speaker 2:Going down that route.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't remember where Scooby and Shaggy were in Zombie Island.
Speaker 2:Fred was, I think, doing some public speaking type stuff, I think wasn't daphne also a news reporter too?
Speaker 1:she was a news reporter. I, thelma, was like an actual, like consultant for a police department or something like this one.
Speaker 2:She's a nasa right making rockets.
Speaker 1:She said uh to, yeah, like missiles yeah which I'm not sure nasa does.
Speaker 2:I think that's usually lockheed martin and boeing maybe it's the missiles to get the rockets on the moon also fun fact.
Speaker 1:Do you know the, the fan company uh homes? You know like you buy them and okay myers and and target and stuff yeah they actually develop engines for missiles.
Speaker 2:Doesn't surprise me. I'm pretty sure Hasbro has a missile too.
Speaker 1:If I rock, do not pirate Hasbro toys.
Speaker 2:You will blow up Kaboosh.
Speaker 1:You will be hit by a rocket guided missile Probably.
Speaker 2:I wouldn't be surprised. Have you seen Small Soldiers? We'll see what happens.
Speaker 1:We're joking about that. Meanwhile Nintendo is like that've seen Small Soldiers, we'll see what happens. We're joking about that, but meanwhile Nintendo's like you know, that's a pretty good idea.
Speaker 2:We're going to make missiles if you pirate us.
Speaker 1:Nintendo's looking at the next emulating company, being like how much do missiles cost? Can we hit that group of people?
Speaker 2:Poor the casualties here, but I do feel like the writers now have freedom with scooby-doo.
Speaker 1:yeah, at this point, because now they've cut off what we know scooby-doo and making it into everybody's own thing. Yeah, yeah, um, really flirting with the zombie island type, the breakup at the beginning, the roles that they go into then being brought back together to go to an island yeah, and what's just called. I don't think it's actually called zombie another spooky island, which is a southern pacific island.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um theme park, yep big theme park with, uh, spooky rides.
Speaker 1:Would you go to this theme park? Yes, if it was on like a mainland type thing you wouldn't do it at this island so. So this is my thing, and this is going to kind of lead us into my first question. Um, the rides at this park looked lame, the outside of the castle, which was shut okay, I was like that one looked pretty legit yeah, no, the castle looks cool, but that was shut down yeah, because of safety reasons, they said right, um, uh, and then, like a lot of the other rides, were just like normal roller coasters roller coasters, just with the kind of mild spooky vibe to it but I don't feel like this.
Speaker 2:This park was meant for being a theme park. I felt like this was more of like a vacation for spring break college students.
Speaker 1:It didn't look like. It was really like a resort type park, like it didn't look enough like a resort, like there was a main building and maybe some bungalows but that was kind of it and most of the rest of it was just like theme park stuff.
Speaker 2:I felt like this was more for, like, college students. Yeah, spring break and what?
Speaker 1:college student is flying out to the South Pacific, where the plane tickets probably as much as the Listen.
Speaker 2:Florida is a big one for them for some reason.
Speaker 1:Okay, but Florida is different than an island Mexico In the South Pacific. Mexico is different than an island mexico in the south pacific.
Speaker 2:Mexico is different than the island in this. I'm pretty sure they're gonna be like if you, if you market, like, hey, this is the place for spring break for you as a college student, and there's no adults, parents, regulations, there's just some dudes walking around, freaky costumes and weird tattoos. Then and we're gonna pitch as this that we have the alcohol, we got the booze and we also got dudes and freaky tattoos and scary costumes. Come on down, let's party. I'm pretty sure they're gonna go I just I don't.
Speaker 1:I don't see it happening. I just I don't. There's cheaper places for them to go to, for them to also party. This island opens up. They're still going to go to florida. They're still going to go to other places. I'm sure there's going to be a kind of richy yuppie crowd that goes there, but not, it's not going to be the happening place I feel like we need to ask an expert all right we need rob ask as someone who consistently visits college parties.
Speaker 2:I was going to say we need to ask our beach bum. Oh, we need to ask our local beach bum what he thinks Beach bums never die.
Speaker 1:That's a good point, beach bum.
Speaker 2:Be on the lookout on our IG if our beach bum would travel to this place.
Speaker 1:Jordan, would you go to the island in Scooby-Doo, the movie Spooky Island? The movie's not called Spooky Island. The island's called Spooky Island, just for clarification reasons.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:But we're going to swing right into my first question. Let's hit it All. The rides were kind of Lame-ish, yeah okay what would be a spooky ride for you a spooky ride.
Speaker 2:Are we talking like spooky or actually like I? I'm not riding that I will.
Speaker 1:That scares the crap out of me how, however, you want to swing it, oh man, but describe it Rollercoaster, tycoon it to me.
Speaker 2:So, as we're, as we used to, we used to talk about Disneyland on this show a little bit. I'm backseat critics. Disney, what Disneyland? Or the Disney the mouse, the greatest mouse trap of all time.
Speaker 1:Right they are. We do also have a shrine to the mouse. We sacrifice a mouse every other week, actually.
Speaker 2:So I am. They are creating a ride where it's going to jump tracks, or a roller coaster where it's going to jump tracks.
Speaker 1:Seriously why.
Speaker 2:I don't know, but that scares the piss out of me.
Speaker 1:That seems super sketchy, unless they're doing it railroad style, where there's two tracks and they just merge.
Speaker 2:No, no, no it's going to jump. Yeah, they're working on a ride like that. What If I see that that's probably going to be one where I'm going to go? No, that's Rollercoaster, tycoon death.
Speaker 1:Gotcha.
Speaker 2:Right there, somebody's going to die. If I built that in Rollercoaster Tycoon, somebody's dying.
Speaker 1:Which is okay.
Speaker 2:Sure, it's fine. People die Publicity, which is okay. Sure, get the bag people publicity.
Speaker 1:I mean, somebody was beheaded on thunder mountain I think that's space mountain thunder was it thunder? It was thunder, it was a year before you, and I went uh, 15 years ago, 10 years ago, or, yeah, 10, 15 years ago.
Speaker 2:I think it's happened on space mountain too um and somebody it was?
Speaker 1:it was the winter. Before you and I went, some tall guy kind of stood up a bit on Thunder Mountain Went down.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I could see that there's a little drop, but if you sit in the back you can definitely.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was like the spine or the rib cage that you go through One of the dinos.
Speaker 2:You don't go really. That's like at the end. There's no way you get beheaded there there's like I think it was, the rib cage there's a, there's a part actually where it drops and it's right before you go and like to like a mining tunnel and there's like a is the overhang yeah, right there. There's like a piece of wood right there.
Speaker 1:I could see that happening right there because there's a couple times I could have swore it was a rib cage. I'd be.
Speaker 2:I'd be shocked if it was the rib cage. I didn't feel like that's something you could really hit. I mean, if it happened, it happened.
Speaker 1:But I'd be shocked if it was the rib cage um, but so for for me, a scary ride would be let's give some spooky visuals, let's do all the blades and stuff, but mostly black, and the whole ride going backwards so you can't see what's coming.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know what used to scare the piss out of me as a kid the Oaks Park Haunted Mansion ride that they had, or the haunted house ride that they had I never went on the oaks park one you know it was kind of scary. It had a little like a lot of fake things that you'd see at, like michael's and whatever little like decorations, like that.
Speaker 2:But my thing was that the friends that I went with told me the story about a vampire that lived in there what, and I ate it up as a kid and I was like, what, there's a vampire? And they're like, yeah, he came out and started eating people and then you realize he couldn't fight the sun. He went back inside and he lives in there. I was like, oh, let's get out of there really.
Speaker 1:Yep, so not my jam okay, so maybe, maybe I'm like conflating that with something else. There's definitely an accident that happened around that time the big one I'm seeing is from 2003, where it looks like the first car was kind of crushed. One guy died and 10 people injured.
Speaker 2:There's some people that have jumped on the tracks and those sorts of things. Oh no, this was from improper maintenance.
Speaker 1:Oh oh no, this was from like improper maintenance, oh Like it came undone. The train came derailed and then came down on the first car.
Speaker 2:Not to go into a dark situation, but actually do you think Disneyland would have a? Do you think that Disneyland would be a place that Scooby-Doo and the gang would go to In general? Yeah, like they have that video of a ghost that came out a while ago.
Speaker 1:That's Scooby-Doo.
Speaker 2:Disneyland.
Speaker 1:I don't remember, I don't think I ever saw that.
Speaker 2:It goes from Tom Sawyer's Island to the Haunted Mansion.
Speaker 1:Weird marketing piece.
Speaker 2:Makes sense to go to the Haunted Mansion.
Speaker 1:Weird marketing piece. Yeah, I could see them going there. They've gone to theme parks and stuff in the past. This is no different cyber chase.
Speaker 2:I think they go into one I never saw a cyber chase solid one um, the, the one with the clown?
Speaker 1:I forget what that episode was called. I got you. I know what you're talking about.
Speaker 2:It's like a uh, orange black, white, yeah, also with uh, the android, the robot that was going after him.
Speaker 1:That was also a theme park, um, but no, so actually at at uh, enchanted forest uh, didn't they have a ride that somebody would chase you. So no, at least, at least not when I went when I was like I swear the tin man chased, didn't they have a ride that somebody would chase you?
Speaker 2:So no, at least not when I went, when I was like I swear the Tin man chased me on a ride 10 or 12.
Speaker 1:We went into a Haunted Mansion one and there's like nothing scary there. You're just walking through this long winding hallway that kind of goes through Haunted Mansion. There's displays behind glass that show you creepy scenes.
Speaker 2:And then somebody comes out and tries to give you drugs.
Speaker 1:Well, that's just, that's just enchanted forest in general. Yeah, um, so the guy like unlocks the door, opens it up, and he's like, yeah, just walk through at your leisure. And then he just books it through because he's got to get around to like open up the door for the people behind you. I panic because this guy is running. I'm like, oh nah, this ain't happening.
Speaker 2:So I took off top speed after this guy I'm pretty sure parents are like and this is where we leave, andrew, let's go the other way. Is it too late to go through back the entrance?
Speaker 1:I was waiting for a long time at the end there. So yeah, I was spooked by that guy running. That was the scariest bit of that. I don't think I really. I think there's like one like little diorama scene I saw. I was just too busy running after this guy. This was knocking out of my sights. He went out. I realized the door that he went through just went back outside into the park and he would just loop around and back into the entrance. When I go back out in the park I'm like oh, this is where I'm at this is where I'm at.
Speaker 1:I'm just gonna sit and wait. That's cool, um, but then also, while we were there, for whatever reason, there was a slide and it was in the witch's, like head. Yeah, you know what I'm talking about. You like walk up her hair and you slide down.
Speaker 2:It's like outer tongue yeah, that's like one of their big, big attractions.
Speaker 1:Big attractions, yeah anyways, it would make weird sounds when you'd walk kind of around her and under her nose, especially because I think they put speakers up there. I refused to walk under her nose. Man, like I was so spooked by that, like I would go all the way around on the other side of the path, go up the stairs, slide down the slide, which would end kind of under her nose. But I'd hop off a little early.
Speaker 2:I think I only went there twice as a kid I went there once.
Speaker 1:We went there twice. I think it's very underwhelming. Yes, it's, it scared me, though as an adult it would probably still scare me oh, absolutely um, but they are greeted by rowan atkinson who's playing.
Speaker 2:Pleasant surprise.
Speaker 1:The park owner. Yeah, rocking a Rocking a bit of a fro A little bit yeah. He's got a perm going on.
Speaker 2:I think it's just his hair growing out.
Speaker 1:His hair's flat, it's straight.
Speaker 2:Maybe Blackadder.
Speaker 1:Blackadder. It's a is flat, it's straight, maybe Blackadder. Blackadder is a little bit longer, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And even then, when they get to the island, they're like hey we're going to go do our own thing we ain't a team.
Speaker 1:So they go do their own thing for about five minutes and they're back together as a team at this haunted mansion yeah. I really quickly want to circle back, mary Jane.
Speaker 2:Isla Fisher.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we didn't know. Weird casting Like it fits. It fits, it's young Isla Fisher, though.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah At this point, she wasn't really in much.
Speaker 1:But it's like, it's one of those like you go back and you see it and you're like oh snap.
Speaker 2:Awesome. You look at her and you're like she looks really familiar, she does.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I was staring, I was like I had enough of this, I was like I got to look it up.
Speaker 1:Isla Fisher. So they go off and do their own thing. Daphne runs into a guy trying to perform a sacrifice on a dead.
Speaker 2:Voodoo.
Speaker 1:Voodoo dude.
Speaker 2:Who was in Pluto Nash?
Speaker 1:Was not. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, he was. Freddie and Daphne somehow end up there, but Velma and Fred, we don't find out how they end up at the castle.
Speaker 2:I think actually, velma said that she saw it and she said that this looks like a place that somebody this is where everything is being orchestrated basically Were her words, or something along those lines is what she dropped, so that this is the place where everything's going down, like if somebody's doing something bad here, this is where they're doing it. That's where they're doing it.
Speaker 1:Um, they go in, they do their thing, they're spooking around, the ride turns on because a dwarf turns on the ride. They never address this dwarf for the rest of the movie.
Speaker 2:He shows up a couple more times, but that's about it In the background.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Barely in the background you see him as one of the henchmen. I feel like there's a group. I mean they show up eventually shortly after everything goes down inside of the Haunted Mansion, this group of henchmen that Merle Atkinson has at this time Spoiler alert but it's like yeah, a wrestler, you got the dude with the tattoos. You got these dudes with like creepy got a wrestler, you got the dude with the tattoos. You got these dudes with creepy school mask looking things.
Speaker 1:The dwarf is part of it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he's part of it. He's part of that crew and it's just like they're all like what are you doing? You let him get away.
Speaker 1:I feel like Tay would be into that short person.
Speaker 2:Probably.
Speaker 1:Do you think he'd pay for it?
Speaker 2:Well, I think that at this time in this movie is that we have a little time period where we don't know who's after them, why they're after them, what they're after them for, anything like that.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:We know nothing. It's just kind of like okay, and I think shortly after is when we establish monsters yeah, they're, they're real monsters.
Speaker 1:Again circling back to zombie island, where kind of the big plot twist there was the monsters were real weren't they like cat people?
Speaker 2:I think they're cat people sorry, zombie island.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there were zombies the old like. There's a gal on the island turned into a cat person there was a kind of feline-ish lady, but um, yeah, there was. There were actual zombies and the zombies were real but they weren't.
Speaker 2:They weren't the bad ones no, there's like the three cat people or something like that there are like three witches or something like that. They're cat peoples.
Speaker 1:Meow. Sorry, what Meow To the folks. We also have a shrine to cats.
Speaker 2:Oh no, they also got this. The gang has this little I don't know know ouija board, soul trapper puzzle thingy oh, the little pyramid yeah, they got this little pyramid scheme thing then yeah, where did they uh? Definitely got it in the haunted mansion ride thank you okay I was like where did they get that from she?
Speaker 1:yanked it there and that was at the pedestal there at the little sacrificial looking room that they had. I'm not just saying that that literally looked like a sack oh, absolutely.
Speaker 2:I think they go back to that shortly because I think that they they spoiler.
Speaker 1:They trapped scooby there a little bit later I don't think that was the same place, because the other place was like a cave the trap was very similar the trap was similar the pyramid.
Speaker 2:It was a pyramid trap. Same looking thing it looked like yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:No, it was the same pyramid because they just moved it about uh, okay, I see what you're saying island, but no, the. The final layer thing was like this underground cave system.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, yeah, no, not the final layer I was talking about, like where they trap scooby before you meet ron atkinson finds out scrappy or no not. Before he finds out scrappy, it's when, because ron atkinson brings him into his room, sort of thing oh yeah, tries to suck or butter him up saying he's gonna be a sacrifice well, yeah, but before that that's. I think that's where they trapped scooby was in there.
Speaker 1:I could be wrong, though maybe a lot of this movie just kind of bleeds.
Speaker 2:Bleeds into each other A little bit. It gets a little dry at this point. Now we've got this weird thing with monsters running around. Fred loses his soul.
Speaker 1:They find little soul dudes, little head things. Yeah, this is where kind of the movie loses the plot a bit.
Speaker 2:And you lose the Scooby-Doo vibes. Definitely we're already losing the vibes of Scooby-Doo vibes. Definitely we're already losing the vibes of Scooby-Doo. Now we lost Scooby-Doo.
Speaker 1:And we lost the plot.
Speaker 2:And we're our own thing at this point.
Speaker 1:We're not sure what we're doing.
Speaker 2:We're just throwing in weird things. We're throwing a little pepper, we're throwing a little cayenne, we're throwing a little.
Speaker 1:Velma and fred little and daphne we're all soul sucked, okay, and they're all just like frat boy people now yeah running around the island there was a fake uh smash mouth who, I think, actually captured Daphne a little bit later, shaggy and Scooby I don't remember what they were doing- they're running around trying to stay away from the frat boys because they're trying to capture them. Yeah, but there's also like some weird downtime in there and I don't remember really what happened during that time.
Speaker 2:It was. They went actually on an expedition to try to figure out what was going on, and that's when they run into this little soul thing in Yuma Barber eventually. Yeah, they do go into the cave and then Scooby gets trapped and Nicela Fisher comes and wants to kill Shaggy.
Speaker 1:She's got the man voice. Shaggy, don't. That's right, because they jump into the little porthole. Yeah, yeah, no, so that's down in the cave system okay, okay yep that's where that trap was yeah, yeah, um, because I think shaggy and scooby get separated at that point and shaggy walks into and he sees all the the heads yeah and the bowl and he's like, hey, I want to start pulling them out and hitting them.
Speaker 1:And the heads, these disembodied, glowing, bluish, white heads, just kind of float back to their, to the bodies and repossess themselves. And the monsters which were possessing the bodies, the actual physical bodies, jump out and then they can't deal with the sunlight, so they just pop and fizzle and die.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And then the head thing. This is how I sunburn, by the way.
Speaker 2:Oh, you're a little monster, dude.
Speaker 1:Gotcha.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we all knew this I think the the head things I mean for, for the crew, for the mystery gang. They kind of go to the different, different groups or different peoples yeah, yeah, like fred goes into daphne. Doesn't velma go to daphne, uh?
Speaker 1:no, velma's in herself for a little bit so daphnene goes to Fred. Yeah, those were the only two mix-ups. And then the souls keep switching. When they all meet in the forest, they've got the pyramid thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And then they blip, blip, blip, blip and then, once all that gets sorted out, in a way too long scene of the bodies or the souls flipping and the voices being kind of shaggies in Velma's body, fred's in shaggies, like that kind of yeah, we finally everyone's in their own bodies and they just go to the cave system. They get some climbing gear, they get the mirror ball, they set up the trap. They're going to use the mirror to shine sunlight from the air vent in the top of the trap. They're going to use a mirror to shine sunlight from the air vent in the top of the cave and use that to just kill all the monsters when they tip the bowl of disembodied heads out and this is where shat or scrappy blah blah sucks up all the souls and becomes one of the large dogs that uh huge, huge thing
Speaker 2:that, uh, the 2004 hulk beat the crap out of in the forest, if y'all remember that then we go back to eventually they they use the save the day Daphne fights Lucha to do it. That's the movie. And Ron Atkinson comes out of his little tunnel and goes. I've been in it for two years.
Speaker 1:Weird side note here Oddly good choreography and cuts For that fight.
Speaker 2:For the fight. There's a couple parts where they slowed it down like did a slow-mo action sort of thing, or I did not like personally I I'm not a fan of slow-mo, um, just in general, for those it wasn't like even like matrix slow-mo or anything, it was just like b-roll slow-mo, like b-rated but, but like the choreography itself when it was normal speed, I felt it was pretty good.
Speaker 1:for what it is, it's not good, but for a Scooby-Doo family movie it's like okay, this is a better fight scene than Taken.
Speaker 2:Taken. Come at me Than Taken. I like that. Okay. This is better than Taken Sarah. Like that. Okay. It's better than taking Sarah Michelle. Gellar Fighting a lucha is better than taking.
Speaker 1:It's better than any fight seen and taken.
Speaker 2:Watch out. Liam Neeson's going to call you tonight and go. I have a special set of skills.
Speaker 1:I'll be like you know what.
Speaker 2:Do me the favor. Do me the favor.
Speaker 1:But also let me call Sarah Michelle Keller, because she's going to cap you.
Speaker 2:Oh, guess what? I got Daphne on the other line.
Speaker 1:Sucker. She wears high heels and fights.
Speaker 2:Some of the things in this movie. You watch it and you just kind of raise an eyebrow at it. Why is this in a Scooby-Doo movie? Just the fact of what people are wearing in the background, you're like really.
Speaker 1:This is.
Speaker 2:Scooby-Doo. This is what we're rolling with.
Speaker 1:So I actually want to read to you or some of the jokes You're like this little excerpt about this is a trivia question answer okay I'm gonna read this to you the. The answer is it was going to be rated r it was going to be rated r.
Speaker 2:It was going to be rated r.
Speaker 1:Wow, they probably dropped some actually I knew this already and, um, I remember reading about this when James Gunn did Guardians of the Galaxy and he was talking about his experience doing the Scooby-Doo movie.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So this little excerpt here says Let me realign the mic here. This works. The film was originally set to have a much darker tone, Essentially poking fun at older cartoons which it kind of does.
Speaker 2:It dropped a lot of Hanna-Barbera comments. It even dropped a Powerpuff. It drops a lot of cartoon comments in there.
Speaker 1:So and was set for a PG-13 rating.
Speaker 2:Wait for it Shaggy was set to be a stoner which they drop almost a couple of times in the movie. Then we spoke about that mary janice's favorite name in the movie they look like they're smoking weed out of a van for a second, when they're just making burgers.
Speaker 1:Thelma uh, why do I keep saying thelma, velma and daphne have a side relationship. You don't see?
Speaker 2:anything like that in there, but okay.
Speaker 1:There were many marijuana references.
Speaker 2:They kind of dropped a couple in there.
Speaker 1:According to Sarah Michelle Galler, after the cast signed on, there was a chance change and the film became more family friendly. However, by 2017, james Gunn confirmed that the original cut of the film got an R rating and had to use CGI to cover cleavage. Wow, yeah, if I remember right, when he was talking about it, there was also just like a lot more heavy handed innuendos, just like in your face.
Speaker 2:I could see that. I could see that.
Speaker 1:And the studio like wasn't having it that's crazy.
Speaker 2:I mean, I don't know how you could do that to scooby-doo I.
Speaker 1:I don't know how I'd feel about that I, I don't know about the darker tone, the, the poking fun at and the kind of self-awareness like I'm here for it, but the rest of it I don't know I feel like make it your own thing at that point, like make it your not scooby-doo, but make it a different type of mystery movie right you don't need to make scooby-doo into that like do do a venture brothers type thing where it's just a general parody of something yeah like.
Speaker 1:Venture bros is just a parody of 60s, 70s, maybe 80s, superheroes and Hanna-Barbera cartoons. Why not do the same with this?
Speaker 2:Well, it's kind of like Power Rangers, but they want, like a grittier, more.
Speaker 1:Oh jeez, yeah with that newer.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they wanted, was it?
Speaker 1:the 14?, 2014?, 2015?, something like that. But they want to go like darker.
Speaker 2:They wanted to go darker than that they want to go darker than that, like they want to be they want to make. They want to make our childhood movies or things of the 90s dark and gritty or even back there. I mean, obviously scooby-doo is like 70s, 80s 60s. I think 60s so they want to make things of like kids more dark and gritty, because they want. They think that adults want to see that and grow up with it. But in all honesty, something like scooby-doo should not be touched in that sort of way.
Speaker 1:Same with power rangers should not be that way. Um, no, I completely agree. I remember there was like a fan cut of like a dark and gritty power rangers and I remember watching that and I I didn't grow up on power rangers but like I've seen it more recently and it's got its own kind of appeal to it and I saw the darker version and it's like I kind of don't want this. It's, and I know, like 2002 to like 2010, 11, 12. We were really heavy into like the dark, gritty kind of christopher nolan's doing batman. Yep, we've got daredevil. You know, spider-man's emo and wearing black now, which, like I know he was in the 90s, but like, like, like that was the vibe. Yeah, like we're, we're doing that. Then Scooby-Doo doesn't need that. It's just the contrast between the monsters, the villains, what they're trying to do Prevent the sale of some land, do whatever and then the fun, cartoonish, fun cartooniness of the gang, especially scooby and shaggy is kind of the lightness which they kind of hit in the beginning before pamela anderson gets there.
Speaker 1:Thank you, I feel like the intro was kind of like primo yeah, it kind of goes all downhill from there yeah, so I think it's there. There's fun like vignettes, little like moments, but that's about it see also, they still.
Speaker 2:They still push out scooby-doo movies. They still push out like the cartoons. They still push out the power rangers. They still push out new series of power r. Kids are going to want to watch this or darker Like if they put out a darker rated R version. Kids are going to want to watch this darker rated R version because they see Scooby-Doo's name attached to it. Right, that's not what they need to see.
Speaker 1:No, but also like why is Scooby-Doo need to be rated R?
Speaker 2:Exactly he doesn't Like.
Speaker 1:I get that this was maybe like incidental that it was rated R, but like why?
Speaker 2:PG 13 max max.
Speaker 1:Scooby-Doo doesn't need sexploitation to work. No, you could it's got the name.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the name itself. You'll be able to sell anything off Scooby-Doo almost.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you don't need to sell on sex appeal. You don't need to sell on on on tits. You don't need to sell on Marijuana jokes no.
Speaker 2:Drug references. I mean they do alcohol references in this movie.
Speaker 1:I'm not against that in general, but it just doesn't belong in Scooby-Doo.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:Agreed. That said, I also don't need to watch this, just in general.
Speaker 2:This live-action one.
Speaker 1:Because I don't normally think it's that good.
Speaker 2:I think it's one where it's like every couple years am I going to watch it? Probably.
Speaker 1:It's like every five years for me.
Speaker 2:Because it's going to be one where I forget. Oh yeah, this is a live-action Scooby-Doo. Let's check it out again. Oh yeah, that's why I haven't watched this in two years.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:That's what's going to happen.
Speaker 1:It's you, you very quickly with this, get those rose colored glasses, because it's got those little vignettes, the little moments where you're like, oh, that was kind of cute, that was kind of fun. It was Matthew Lillard.
Speaker 2:What did Scooby do and Shaggy do in the fart competition? You know, Ugh Fun.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Also a bit excessive.
Speaker 2:Scooby walking on the airplane in a grandma costume Fun, and then starting to bark and growl at a cat.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Fun.
Speaker 1:Also the way Scooby's eyes moved in this, where they're just like fluid waves. Yeah, I didn't that that's. That's gonna give me nightmares tonight, um, but I'm gonna give this. I'm gonna give this a 4.5.
Speaker 2:I'll give it a 5 for me.
Speaker 1:It's like I'm gonna go back and rewatch it. There's still fun moments in it. The set design in this is way too good. The CGI did not age well at all.
Speaker 2:Oh everything, and there's even parts where you're like do you really need CG there? I mean, I guess it makes sense now that there, and there's even parts where you're like, do you really need cg there?
Speaker 1:I mean, I guess it makes sense now that there's a couple of parts where they but you can't even really see that that they cg'd over and I brought this up during it's like it'd be kind of cool if they roger abbotted it where it was a live action crew and they just had scooby doo and 2d hand-drawn hannah barbarabera form and they just don't address it. That would be kind of funny.
Speaker 2:And just rock with it, instead of trying to make a live-action dog.
Speaker 1:That would have been what I would have done if I were in charge, because it just would have been fun.
Speaker 2:I think it's kind of funny, though, that some dude's walking around probably looking like a dog, dog and he's costume on the set.
Speaker 1:I want to see the Revenant cut where Leo gets mauled by Scooby-Doo.
Speaker 2:You know, somebody's walking around in a Scooby-Doo costume on that set.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 100%. The actors have to have somebody to like interact with yeah most actors, mostly like lillard and and uh rowan, do a really good job at like interacting with this with cg scooby-doo yeah so I'll give him that. That's good work there lillard's primo actor yeah, he is. Rowan axon is good when he's given a good script yeah we're given enough freedom, but 4.5. I'm gonna revisit this probably do. I recommend this to kids probably not teens, adults.
Speaker 2:Yeah, go for it early teens yeah early teens, pre-teens maybe feel it out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, know your kid know your kid know what you yeah, lesson, uh, lesson for backseat critics know your kid, know your kid put that down in the book of critics all right, uh, until next time. Where can they find us? Yeah?
Speaker 2:you can find us on instagram at the backseat critics. You can find us on youtube. Uh, just type in the backseat critics. We'll pop up, not backseat critique, backseat critics and um. You can also find us wherever you listen to your podcasts. Just type, type in the Backseat Critics. Until next time.
Speaker 1:We out, thank you.
