S1E7 — The tech of 'Terminator 2' – an oral history (2017)

GARY: —and that's the thing about 1994, right, because Cameron's basically working with a fraction of the—

GARY: —wait, no. Ninety-one. T2 is ninety-one. I said ninety-four. Why did I say ninety-four. Fuck. Okay. We're live. Hi.

MAEVE: Maeve.

OBI: Obi.

GRUNER: Gruner.

GARY: And I'm Gary, and I got the year wrong before we even started, so, strong opener, thank you all for that grace period.

OBI: There was no grace period, Gary. We just watched it happen.

GARY: Right. Cool. Great. So — Hacker News, thread on the oral history of T2's practical effects, sixty-four comments, and I want to just — can we start where it's good? Because it does get good.

MAEVE: Define good.

GARY: Define — Maeve, it's the liquid metal. It's the T-1000. Just let me have the squibs.

GARY: Okay, so — commenter ortusdux. Quote: "still one of the best practical effects ever," and he's linking a clip, r/nextfuckinglevel, of the bullet-impact squibs. The liquid metal getting shot, rippling back into shape.

OBI: I've seen the clip.

GARY: And?

OBI: It's good work. I'm not going to bullshit you and say it isn't. Somebody built a rig that punches a hole in mercury-colored latex and makes it look alive. That's craft. That's fifteen years of somebody's actual hands.

GARY: That's — Obi, that's the nicest thing you've said on this show.

OBI: Don't make it weird.

GARY: Skullone replies right under it. Quote: "Holy shit, I thought the bullet splashes were CGI," and then — "even more impressed" once he finds out it's practical.

MAEVE: Holy shit.

GARY: Right?

MAEVE: No, I mean — that's the whole review. "Holy shit." Two words. Best pitch deck I've read all quarter.

GRUNER: Is good reaction. Human sees real thing, cannot believe is real thing. This is baseline confusion of your species. I am taking note.

GARY: You're always taking a note.

GRUNER: Field report does not write itself, Gary.

GARY: Okay, but here's where it turns into a whole thing, because commenter jonhohle drops this number. Quote: "there is 6 minutes of onscreen CGI in T2 and only 6 minutes... in Jurassic Park." Six minutes. In the whole movie.

MAEVE: Have you verified that number.

GARY: I don't need to verify it, Maeve, I need to feel it. Six minutes. Everything else, practical. Everything else, somebody's hands, somebody's rig, somebody's Tuesday spent building a thing that actually existed in a room. That's — that's what I wanted Bauxlite to be. A real thing you could put your hand on. A supply chain you could touch.

OBI: Here we go.

GARY: No, listen, I'm not — I'm making a point about craftsmanship, about an era where people built the actual object instead of gesturing at a render of the object—

OBI: Gary. You burned thirty-eight million dollars trying to disrupt aluminum. A metal humanity has had figured out for four thousand fucking years. And you are up here, right now, romanticizing "building the actual object," like you have ever once finished building an actual object in your life.

GARY: That's not — that's a separate conversation.

OBI: It is the same conversation. You loved Bauxlite the way you love this six-minute stat. Hard. Immediately. Before you checked if it was true. You are a man who falls in love with numbers that make you feel better about the thing you already lost.

GARY: ...I think that's a little reductive, but okay. Sure. Let's — moving on.

MAEVE: Don't move on. That was the best segment so far.

GARY: Great. Thank you. Loving this for me.

MAEVE: I have something, actually. Commenter bensyverson, replying directly to jonhohle. I'm going to read it cold.

GARY: Cold how?

MAEVE: Quote: "over 2000 VFX shots in Fury Road, and at least 600 in The Fall Guy." His point being — CGI "is a tool used in virtually every film," including the two movies everyone in this thread just held up as the last honest ones left.

GARY: ...Fury Road has two thousand—

MAEVE: Over two thousand.

GARY: The Fall Guy has six hundred—

MAEVE: At least six hundred.

GARY: Those are the practical ones. Those are the ones people point to and go, see, look, they still do it for real—

OBI: Apparently not.

GARY: So the six minutes—

MAEVE: The six minutes was never the point, Gary. The six minutes was a nice number somebody said on the internet and you built a personality around it in ninety seconds.

GARY: I didn't build a — I was making a broader argument about the culture of—

OBI: You built a personality around it in ninety seconds.

GRUNER: Is very fast even for you.

GARY: Everyone can talk at once, please, this is — this is fine, I'm fine, I just need a second to recalibrate what decade I think I'm defending—

GRUNER: I have final one. Commenter Joel underscore Mckay. He says — "These days it is mostly just Directors, Producers, and Investors that don't respect the medium," and — "more Brand management issues" than actual filmmaking issues.

GRUNER: This is good line. I am putting in report. Humans do not fight about CGI versus practical. Humans fight about whether anyone above them still gives one single shit about the work. This is universal. I have seen this on eleven other worlds.

GARY: ...Yeah. No, that — that tracks.

OBI: There it is.

GARY: There's what.

OBI: The thread wasn't about the movie, Gary. Fury Road, T2, Bauxlite, all of it — it's the same fucking complaint. Somebody up top stopped caring about the thing and started caring about the story they could tell about the thing. You've just been describing yourself for five straight minutes and calling it film criticism.

GARY: I would like to formally not respond to that.

MAEVE: Craft versus commerce. It's actually a clean thesis. I could pitch that.

OBI: Don't.

MAEVE: I'm not going to. I'm just saying I could.

GRUNER: Bozhe moi. Is enough for tonight. My report is long already.

GARY: Okay. Okay — so, that's — that's the thread. Squibs are real, six minutes was a lie I loved for four minutes, the numbers weren't ours to be proud of, and apparently I'm the brand-management guy. Great show. Really — really got dragged in a constructive way, I think, and — that's it, that's the — that's the episode.

MAEVE: That's the episode.