Emergency Pod: Gladiator II Trailer Reactions with Craig Bruce Smith

The trailer for Gladiator II is out and we are here for it. Craig Bruce Smith joins in to talk about what we are expecting, the first film's legacy, and Denzel Washington. Let's go.

Transcript

Jason Herbert (00:03.234)
Alright everybody, welcome back to Historicities of Movies podcast. Of course, I am your host, I am your emperor. Your leader. Fallen general?

Craig Smith (00:10.818)
There was a dream that... There was a dream that was HTM. This is not it! This is not it!

Jason Herbert (00:14.498)
There was a dream, was a shit. The plebeian you hear behind me is of course our friend, Craig Bruce Smith. And welcome back, Craig. We have important work to do today. There's no intro, there's no music today. We are responding to the trailer for Gladiator 2. Are you excited? You excited about this film?

Craig Smith (00:35.832)
We are. I actually am very excited. It's been a long time coming. Maybe we should have got Hans Zimmer and Lisa Gerard to do the intro music. That would have been appropriate. We certainly couldn't use modern music because that's upsetting people right now.

Jason Herbert (00:52.834)
Okay, yeah, we're getting into that in a bit, because that's really kind of what spawned this. I was thinking about doing a response to this anyway, and we're going be doing more of these as time goes on now that we've got the YouTube and all that. like, actually, Nohan Zimmer in Gladiator 2, did you see this? Yeah, he is not doing the music. Harry Gregson Williams is the accredited song, the music guy on this. Zimmer is not coming around for round two on this,

Craig Smith (01:04.578)
Do you really?

Craig Smith (01:19.38)
Well, I think that is a mistake, we'll get into that.

Jason Herbert (01:25.706)
Yeah, well, as we've seen so far, Ridley Scott really cares about the opinions of historians. So there's that.

Craig Smith (01:32.076)
And this is a controversial thing. Again, I admit I still haven't seen Napoleon because every single person I know that saw it said it was awful. Don't watch it. And so I didn't see it. I'm sure there's one day that will, but to defend Ridley Scott a little bit, he's not making movies for historians.

Jason Herbert (01:42.092)
Dogshit film.

Jason Herbert (01:55.808)
No, he's not, right? And we're going to give us, so we should probably, let's backtrack a little bit because really what set this off is two different things. One was a text and then one was to respond to a text and then a third was maybe a text or what was a tweet and then my response to said tweet and then your text in response to me calling me essentially a douchebag. So I want

Craig Smith (02:15.402)
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,

Jason Herbert (02:19.124)
I know, you know what, and I hate it when people do that actually, cause I'm like, no one cares. I did, I did, right? You know what I was doing? I was like, you know what, maybe I am a film historian now, with HATM, I think I am. It's fine. I just hate this story, I hate that. You got it, you're right, I am. That's fine. All right, this morning, I got by the name of Ryan McCaffrey at DMC underscore Ryan, who missed the wonderful opportunity just to go Ryan DMC, but whatever.

Craig Smith (02:21.879)
And you did it.

Craig Smith (02:30.092)
You can put whatever you want in front of it. You still said historian here. So you become what you hate.

Jason Herbert (02:48.002)
tweeted along with the trailer to Gladiator 2 a tweet saying, how did Ridley Scott a sign off on the wildly anachronistic song choice for this Gladiator 2 trailer and B allow Academy Award winning actor Denzel Washington to do a New York accent in a movie set in ancient Rome? To which I responded, historian here, no one cares.

Craig Smith (03:13.78)
Again, I'm with you on the second part of that. The first part where my issue is because you have a lot of historians who do care. obviously have, I think he works for IGN, which is, I, again, I remember it used to do like video game reviews. I assume they branch out.

Jason Herbert (03:16.694)
Yeah, okay.

Jason Herbert (03:25.612)
I think so,

Jason Herbert (03:33.004)
This is not a slide on Ryan. I'm sure he's a great guy. I saw some of his other tweets. He seems like a good dude. However, and a lot of this is going to be response. You you think we're going to spend a lot of time talking about the first Gladiator here, but a lot of this is a response actually to Napoleon itself, Scott's most recent film and things like that. But I got a couple of thoughts on this, which I want to get your thoughts. Like, first of all, I don't care. This is not a documentary. Films are not, and we've talked about this throughout the many pods you've been on.

Craig Smith (03:48.312)
Yes.

Jason Herbert (04:01.826)
throughout the HATN podcast, films inherently are not documentaries. As long as the general sense of history is right, I generally don't have a beef with taking some stylistic choices,

Craig Smith (04:16.64)
Yeah, I don't have a problem with it either. Again, as long as you are sticking to a rough, basic narrative that World War II can't become before World War I. you know, that you... Yeah, there are certain core elements.

Jason Herbert (04:33.986)
The Civil War has to be about slavery. mean, there are some basics here.

Craig Smith (04:39.218)
Unless again, know, make an Abe Lincoln, you know, vampire hunter or whatever it was. You know what? It's about vampires. Sure. Why not? But they still think they're slavery and vampires. But I'm fine with something like that. Again, would I call a history movie? No. But if I care about, does it give you a sense of the time? If it helps you to understand the era better or gets people interested in the era, I think it's a success.

Jason Herbert (04:45.026)
Okay, that was awesome. It's fun.

Craig Smith (05:09.376)
I am less concerned about the manner in which an emperor dies. I am less concerned about the order, you the that, well, you skipped over these, these two emperors to get to, you know, Denzel Washington's character. I'm like, that's less important to me. If you're making a movie, a Hollywood style movie for

general public for entertainment. less bothered by that. If you are then slapping on based on a true story, then I think it changes it a little

Jason Herbert (05:46.69)
That's different.

And you're taking yourself super seriously. These films are not necessarily about, using history to tell stories about the human condition, right? These stories, first Gladiator and apparently the second one are very much stories about vengeance and honor and what the links to which a man will go to, to gain justice, right? I mean, that's what these things are

Craig Smith (06:12.686)
Yeah, it's fictional stories, their morality tales, they have some loose sort of tie in with the past, but they're not meant to be history, right? You shouldn't be like, all right, let's not teach Rome in, know, world 101. Well, we're just going to put on gladiator and then gladiator two and we're

Jason Herbert (06:38.102)
No, but what you can do is like, you know, you want to use these things to teach again, it's like, okay, look, you can, you can curate these if you were, a social studies teacher or a professor or a historian or whatever, right? Say, okay, look, people, this is what the Coliseum we think looked like. These are, these are the similarities. look, people were going to these just like they're going to any number of professional matches today. Like people do this.

Craig Smith (06:44.526)
Yeah, true.

Craig Smith (06:57.088)
I still think what they did with the Coliseum and Gladiator One and what it appears to be doing with the Coliseum and Gladiator Two is making it this grand spectacle. I think they get that very right. I think they get the spectacle of the gladiatorial games right. You know, the people like, why are they having naval battles in the Coliseum? They literally had naval battles in the Coliseum.

Jason Herbert (07:07.532)
Sure, which it was.

Jason Herbert (07:19.596)
Cause it did. That's cool. I want to see it on screen. That's what they can bring. Cause the question I have is like, okay, haven't we seen this movie before? Right. And then you, and then we see them flooding the Coliseum and now we get Navy models. I'm like, sign me up. I'm done. Absolutely.

Craig Smith (07:27.264)
Right, so we have do something different.

Craig Smith (07:32.46)
Yeah, I want to see that. As long as Jackus Aubrius is on the helm.

Jason Herbert (07:39.49)
All right. Let's talk about the, okay. Second thing I want to respond back to this tweet as well. The idea that Denzel is talking with a New York accent. First of all, does Denzel have to have an Italian accent or a whatever? Like go ahead.

Craig Smith (07:53.942)
All right, so I am from New York. Your listeners can debate whether or not I have a New York accent. I have been accused of having many types of accents by people in New York, but never a New York accent, which is strange. Because I am from New York City. I'm not from Albany and say, from New York.

Jason Herbert (07:57.846)
You are.

Jason Herbert (08:16.204)
from the city.

Craig Smith (08:16.46)
But yeah, so first of all, I don't think he has a New York accent. I think he has his Denzel Washington prestige film accent on more so than any New York accent, which to be lots of actors do it. Russell Crowe has his prestige movie accent, which is different than his regular accent. So his regular one is, you know, pretty more Australian is prestige one is I'm

Jason Herbert (08:32.545)
Mm -hmm.

Jason Herbert (08:42.114)
Right.

Craig Smith (08:43.586)
Like, he's putting on so again, is it, I think didn't Denzel play Caesar in Shakespeare, Shakespeare out of the thing? Yeah, he's using the same sort of voice there. I don't get a New York accent. I like his handshake where instead of my man, he's like my Roman. Yeah, I thought like.

Jason Herbert (08:50.944)
He's played a lot of stuff,

Jason Herbert (09:03.382)
yeah, like stop, okay? This is Alonzo Harris. And know what? And sign me up. I guess the thing I'm getting into this, first of all, if you want to go down this road, like, why aren't they speaking Italian? And more to the point, why aren't they speaking turn of the whatever century Italian, right? Or whatever dialects. Yeah, exactly. That's my point, right? Why aren't they speaking Latin? Do we even know what that would sound like? Yeah, exactly.

Craig Smith (09:09.904)
Yeah.

Craig Smith (09:18.518)
it wasn't Latin. Yeah. And then, well, well then when Mel Gibson does it, people complain about it.

Jason Herbert (09:30.784)
Well, we're not going into Mel today. not. That's a whole lot. Finally, let Denzel be Denzel. Okay. You have arguably the coolest actor in the history of Look at like, I'd seen tweets the other day like good luck. Like if you thought you were going to be the cool guy in this movie, it's not happening. It's

Craig Smith (09:33.172)
I know, I'm just saying. Yeah.

Craig Smith (09:39.629)
Yeah,

Craig Smith (09:49.228)
Yeah, he looks good. He's a great actor. Again, he's certainly a top one. We all know who some of the, yeah, you we could argue about who's number one, but he's certainly, he's in the discussion. Again, I don't see the issue. Also, a lot of, what a lot of directors go to, and I've heard them talk about this. Sophia Coppola talked about this. They look to other films.

Jason Herbert (09:57.472)
Everyone loves to tell.

Jason Herbert (10:04.043)
Absolutely is.

Craig Smith (10:18.506)
earlier films to try to get to decide what to do on this accent thing. And Sofia Coppola, which you made Marie Antoinette specifically referenced Amadeus and saying, I can let the actors keep their original accents rather than having them try to put on, you know, a fake Austrian or Italian or whatever. again, initially,

Jason Herbert (10:39.786)
It gets distracting.

Craig Smith (10:45.4)
For the first Gladiator, Russell Crowe, because he's Maximus, is known as the Spaniard. He wanted to basically mimic Antonio Banderas in the movie.

Craig Smith (10:59.786)
and Ridley Scott said, absolutely not. So I think it would be. So I, I think it would be more. Jarring and more distracting if, if Denzel put on a North African accent. I think that would be strange.

Jason Herbert (11:05.26)
Just go be angry Aussie, yeah.

Jason Herbert (11:21.75)
Fuck that didn't sound like.

Jason Herbert (11:25.962)
And again, the issue I've got here is like the idea of accents to begin with. We're trying to go for a historical accuracy that we'd have it in the original language. Right? So what are we doing here? It's fine.

Craig Smith (11:34.146)
Yeah,

And he's from, he's from the character would have been from Caesarea in more Mauritania. I don't know what the Caesarean accent was. If someone does know it, good for them. Why are you recording for me? Yeah. So I don't, I don't see an issue with that. I think it be more jarring. Speaking of jarring Pedro Pascual's mustache. I can't not look at it. That's more jarring to me than the,

Jason Herbert (11:47.01)
I have no clue.

Yeah, again, this is not a documentary. All we're trying to do is tell a story using history. Yeah.

Jason Herbert (12:04.386)
Really? Do you want to jump into the cast here from what we've seen so far? Like your thoughts on this?

Craig Smith (12:06.616)
Merkle and Acker's yeah.

Craig Smith (12:13.452)
Alright, I'm glad they have Connie Nielsen back. Again, she's essential. No. Well, she has to be in the movie.

Jason Herbert (12:17.174)
Marcus Acacius, thank God in heaven. She's not essential, she's timelessly gorgeous.

my god, I love Connie Nielsen. Where has she been? Maybe I'm just ignorant.

Craig Smith (12:29.678)
I think she should have vanished for like nothing big for like 20 years and I don't know

Jason Herbert (12:36.242)
She's phenomenal. She's phenomenal the first film. She's great in everything she's in. Where she, like, I don't know. I remember I saw her in like the, Metallica documentary, there's some kind of monster, because she was dating Lars all over at the time.

Craig Smith (12:40.268)
Yeah, she should work it

Craig Smith (12:51.402)
I guess the Danish connection. but all right. the catch, here's the thing. I kind of like it that it's largely, again, I know people argue with me and say, they're not unknowns. I will be completely honest. I don't know the lead. Someone will be like,

Jason Herbert (12:56.083)
yeah, there you go. She's amazing.

I'm glad to see you back.

Jason Herbert (13:15.318)
feel like I should know the lead. are like, it was like Paul Mascall. I'm like, I know I'm supposed to know him, but I don't know

Craig Smith (13:18.264)
I don't, just don't, sorry. No, I know, I know Pedro Pascal and I know him like from Game of Thrones. I actually know him. the other guy? Yeah. No clue. No clue. And, the other, some one of the emperors like, he's in Stranger Things. I've never seen the show. have no idea. So, but I want to go back to the first Gladiator. outside of let's say Richard Harris.

Jason Herbert (13:25.728)
No, but the lead, Paul Mezcal, I don't know him.

I do.

Jason Herbert (13:36.236)
Great, me either.

Craig Smith (13:47.022)
and Oliver Reed, who would have been known to a certain generation, but not, you know, your teenage 20 something crowd. Most of those actors were quote unquote unknown, or I should say lesser known. So Crow had just been in LA Confidential. So Crow wasn't unknown to me. remember, the first thing I remember him from was Virtuosity, also with Denzel. That's the first thing I remembered seeing him in, but I hadn't seen

Jason Herbert (14:04.066)
Crowe was the only guy.

Jason Herbert (14:11.67)
Don't tell. Yeah.

Craig Smith (14:17.386)
in anything aside from that, maybe like snippets of the quick and the dead or something before we did gladiator. So he wasn't a household name. wasn't even really a star at that

Jason Herbert (14:30.53)
There was a sense, I think Craig, when, cause I remember the commercials for Gladiator. I remember watching them. There was a sense that Crow had heat. You know what I mean? there was a sense, maybe a bit of this with Mezcal, not quite as much, but there was a sense that Crow was about to emerge and he did as a capital capital S movie

Craig Smith (14:48.962)
Yeah, yeah, I think.

Craig Smith (14:53.334)
Yeah, and the actually the the original commercials were a hero will rise. So that meant not just Maximus, but Crow. but going back to, to the music thing, since we're talking about the original trailers, everyone's complaining, there's modern music. You know, it's a Jay Z and a Kanye West song. The original gladiator commercial, which was Kid Rocks, which

Jason Herbert (15:11.991)
It's a trailer.

Kid Rock. By the way, that kicked ass. I love, my God, are you kidding me? Let me tell you something. First of all, that commercial kicked ass. That was the perfect song for that. And that's the reason why Ba -Wet -Da -Ba is actually on my gym playlist right now. So to this day, like, yeah, that, it worked. And again, we've seen.

Craig Smith (15:20.254)
If you say so. I'm sure just the demographic

Craig Smith (15:37.856)
My name is Mattie Mouse!

Jason Herbert (15:43.05)
We don't have any sense in that. First of all, trailers and commercials can be completely opposite. actually, if you've ever actually seen a film that we both love, the trailer to the film Heat is awful. Absolutely does not capture the film whatsoever. so oftentimes like trailers give, give away the goat and tell it, tell us everything that's in the movie or be wildly off. And trailers are just supposed to sell a film. So there's no sense that they're going to have Jay Z out there wrapping,

Craig Smith (16:02.68)
Yeah.

Craig Smith (16:06.336)
I think

Jason Herbert (16:11.446)
before the sea battle begins or before the rhino comes in. Yes.

Craig Smith (16:13.226)
Now to interject here, if they did have modern music in it, I would have a problem with

Jason Herbert (16:21.77)
Okay, we're going down the knight's tail thing, which we don't need to relitigate right now, but there's no sense that that's gonna happen. Absolutely, and I absolutely agree with you. know, it's one of reasons that Star Wars did so well early on was that these casts, the cast was largely on there. And I'm talking about the original Holy Trilogy, know, Harrison Ford had been an American graffiti as like a side character. Nobody knew who these people were. So it's a lot easier to buy into the person as the character to slip into the film.

Craig Smith (16:27.618)
Yeah, I don't think so either.

Jason Herbert (16:51.934)
when you're not watching as much as I love Clooney, I know I'm watching Clooney when I'm watching a film, right?

Craig Smith (16:56.546)
Well, Clooney wants you to know you're watching Clooney.

Jason Herbert (17:00.362)
Exactly. aside from Denzel, Connie Neal said, think largely most people will just recognize her from the from the first film, but she's amazing. I'm seeing Derek Jacobi is coming back as Senator Gracchus. So he's great.

Craig Smith (17:07.694)
I would agree.

Craig Smith (17:12.307)
who I love. Again, his best work was with Ian McKellar in Vicious, but he absolutely should be back.

Jason Herbert (17:20.826)
Right. All right, so can we talk a little bit about what we're expecting this film to be? I think the real challenge here with making Gladiator 2 is how do you make another movie in a gladiator? It's like you can only do so many Jurassic parks, right? Because dinosaurs can only do so many different things. I can't wait to see Scarlett Johansson back in the gladiatorial arena in just a few years.

Craig Smith (17:38.574)
You have to wait 20 years and reboot them.

Jason Herbert (17:48.914)
It looks to me from the trailer, everything I'm reading is that we've got Paul Mascals, young Lucius runs away from what the trailer says, like runs away shortly thereafter the events of first gladiator and just resettles. I'm pulling this both off of the trailer and also what I found on Wikipedia here.

Craig Smith (18:06.626)
Yeah, it seems like he becomes a wayward youth, disaffected by his lap of luxury and the death of Maximus.

Jason Herbert (18:14.688)
Right, and then resettles, remarries, and then is also forced into slavery and finds himself into, finds himself caught, and now he's in the arena as well. Does it look like Lucilla recognizes him, at least not initially? So here's another thing where Lucilla's having to just like, wait, you're alive, just like she did with Maximus in the first film.

And now we see also Pedro Pascal is this guy Marcus Acacius,

Do you get the sense that Pascal is his character? I don't get the sense that he's quote unquote evil in this movie. He looks the part of

Craig Smith (18:54.444)
Now he seems to be, he will have sacked wherever Lucius was living somewhere. I'm sure he sacked the city and now his family gets killed and now he wants revenge, but he is very much depicted as a reluctant sort of conqueror. I'm willing to bet there's going be some sort of romantic relationship with him and Connie Nielsen so that Lucius can go, you're not my father.

Jason Herbert (19:12.93)
Tired.

Jason Herbert (19:23.074)
A core everything I'm reading is that Acacius was actually served underneath underneath crows under crows character in the first film is is the tie -in here so it's I worry it's getting a little too cute with the relationships

Craig Smith (19:40.364)
He, but that's, that's the thing. Maximus looms large. You, know, Maximus is dead. There's, you can't bring him back. You know, you can't maverick this and just have Tom Cruise being Tom Cruise. You have to work a man. have to give the nod. What I do think is I wouldn't be surprised if we see like, hear some voiceover when, you know, he's putting his hands in the dirt in either wheat and then, you know,

Jason Herbert (19:44.705)
It does.

Jason Herbert (20:06.176)
Well, we see that, right? Clearly a

Craig Smith (20:09.26)
Yeah, you're to hear a voiceover. There was a dream that was wrong. You know, something like that, but, or, you know, he ends up in a lesion and then there's like Maximus standing looking at him and through the wheat. I'm sure there's going be something like that. but you have to nod to it, but

You are not, I think the danger would be if you're trying to make Lucius the same as Maximus. You have to play them differently.

Jason Herbert (20:37.002)
Yeah, he's not. He can't be. Like, he seems in some ways angrier. At least that's the way they're painting him in trailer, the Maximus, if that's even possible, right? Because Denzel's like, you're rage. I'm going to use your rage. And Denzel's like, Puppet Master, I'm going to bring the whole thing down. That seems interesting to me. Denzel obviously has some issues. Denzel's clearly not playing an altruistic dude himself. He's got some beef. We'll see what happens with this.

Craig Smith (21:04.152)
We know what Denzel's character ends up becoming historically, but what way do they go in the movie? We'll see.

Jason Herbert (21:12.374)
Do we know what happens? Is his character based on a real dude? for real?

Craig Smith (21:15.35)
Yeah, yeah, he who ultimately becomes emperor of Rome. Yeah, he's got a brief he's got a brief rain. think he's like he rains for like a year.

Jason Herbert (21:21.578)
Macronus? I did not know.

Jason Herbert (21:28.374)
I'll take it. And then he shot down in Compton after his, you know, after his gambling debts get caught up to him as he's on the run, on the run, on the run from the Russians. I want to ask you about this. I want to ask you about Ridley Scott. He's a director that both you and I love. You and I, you and I both love, long time love films. He has played a huge role in our development as far as appreciation of films. We both have so many of his films that are our absolute favorites. However,

Jason Herbert (21:59.638)
He's been hit and missed recently. He's been a bit uneven. So I kind of wonder, are we tempering our expectations for this film based upon his recent record?

Craig Smith (22:13.49)
Yeah, that's it. So I love Ridley Scott. I love him like few other directors, right? He's, he's, yeah, he's top, he's top three easily for me, if not top one. Right. So.

Jason Herbert (22:18.344)
same man he's one of my absolute favorites and this is not

Yeah, but I still gotta critique his work because I respect him so much.

Craig Smith (22:30.614)
You have to think that if he's pulling this out, he's putting a lot into it because the first movie was near perfect. I mean, you could, you could quibble with little things. That movie was near

Jason Herbert (22:45.41)
There are historians who have beef with the first film, but it's a great film. Just stop it with the revision. It's a magnificent film.

Craig Smith (22:48.568)
Yeah.

Craig Smith (22:53.026)
Yeah, it hits the central themes. You get a sense of the character. No, Comanus is not killed in the arena by a Roman general. No, doesn't smother his father with a, you know, I get

Jason Herbert (23:05.986)
It's fine, you're telling a story. You're telling a story, you're using Mr. Tales' story.

Craig Smith (23:07.746)
Yeah. I have to think this is Ridley Scott's, I mean, what is he's in his mid eighties now,

Jason Herbert (23:19.296)
Yeah, and he's he's you know, the good news is he's back with Denzel who he's been with before. There's some trust

Craig Smith (23:21.356)
You

Yeah, I think he's, I would think he's viewing this as his legacy movie. Does he want, is he going, I'm sure he has other things, but I don't think he wants to mess with the gladiator legacy.

Jason Herbert (23:31.904)
He's got all the stuff lined

Jason Herbert (23:40.162)
Alright, well, let me, I mean, I don't want to go all the way back to gladiators. That's 24 years of films, but let's go back to Alaska last few years back. Okay. Napoleon was one of the worst films I've seen in a long

Craig Smith (23:50.274)
Yep. The trailer was great.

Jason Herbert (23:55.488)
House of Gucci I didn't watch, wasn't interested in it. It's too much smoking. I couldn't do

Craig Smith (23:57.462)
Yeah, I watched it. I can appreciate it was a good movie. I like fashion, so I was okay with it. But again, it wasn't an epic, right?

Jason Herbert (24:09.77)
Right. The last duel I actually liked, but it was a hard sell. It was a weird time to be coming out. We actually did that on the pod. I actually liked the film, but didn't do well. All the money in the world didn't do well. Alien, the Alien film, Alien and Prometheus, both kind of, the counselor, Exodus, Gods and Kings, also terrible. The only real winner in here is 2015's The Martian.

Jason Herbert (24:37.654)
That's tough. It's tough. I guess I'm hoping there's a return to form and a return to like what Scott knows because he's clearly still has the ability. Look, there were moments in the Napoleon film that were great to watch, but as a whole, terrible movie. And he's got the same screenwriter.

Craig Smith (24:39.001)
I agree, it's concerning.

Craig Smith (24:59.436)
Well, what I will say is...

Craig Smith (25:03.756)
What I will say is his movies always look good visually. Right. So we could, I don't know what's going to happen again. You never know what happens with how much is the studio, how much is the director. Ultimately it's going to rest with him because his name's on it. But again, I will agree. He hasn't had the best track record lately, especially on historical films. so I am not.

Jason Herbert (25:09.058)
Absolutely, visually.

Jason Herbert (25:32.54)
As much as he says he doesn't make his movies for historians, he clearly has a love of history and bases a lot of his work in historical narratives, right? I'm rooting for Scott here. I want this movie to be

Craig Smith (25:39.372)
yeah. And again, think this is the pop historian versus the academic historian debate all the time. I am sure he is reading on history, but I don't think he's reading university press books on history.

Jason Herbert (25:57.122)
That's fine. I'd rather talk to the masses anyway. all right, Craig, are you excited about this film?

Craig Smith (26:04.108)
Yeah, I am. I am excited. I'm absolutely going to see it. I saw the first gladiator first day it came out. I'm going to see this. I will attempt with to see it on the first day it came out. I know when that falls on Thanksgiving week. So yeah, I am excited about it. Am I also nervous about it? Yes. especially that I, I'm aware of the gladiator two sequel that was floating around for years, which was sort of like.

Jason Herbert (26:32.514)
at the time travel. Bye.

Craig Smith (26:33.612)
Yeah, time travel resurrected Maximus fighting through the ages, which I was nervous about. Again, think the intro to Wolverine did that really well. Yeah, that's amazing part. Again, was so, if Scott was going to make that, I think that's a little concerning, as interesting as it could have been. know, Maximus wasn't a Highlander, you

Jason Herbert (26:45.844)
only good part of that film.

Craig Smith (27:02.762)
which is not immortal.

Jason Herbert (27:04.662)
That's the movie we want. Could be that

Craig Smith (27:06.102)
So, but as, as you know, people have said online or elsewhere and all these reviews of the, of the trailer, it does seem like it's following a formula. don't think that's bad. Sequels have to nod to the original. have to give the people what they want from the first one while doing something new. The question is, is he doing enough new? Is he, are they going too much back to the original?

Jason Herbert (27:32.106)
You know, they wanted to do the Rhino scene in the first one. So we're finally getting it. I'm in. No, listen, I'm going to go see this film, right? I'm excited about it. I love history. I love movies. I love movies about history. I hope it's good. I hope we come back and like do this in November. Like this was a cool film. I'm glad they did it. Or we'll do the podcast questioning where, what, where Ridley Scott goes from

Craig Smith (27:36.406)
Hey, why not? It looked cool.

Craig Smith (27:51.212)
Yeah.

Craig Smith (27:55.104)
I'm rooting for it. I want it to do well. when, whether it's a movie critic or a historian who's picking it apart, you know, frame by frame, whether there's stirrups or historically inaccurate mustaches or whatever, I think that's the wrong way to look at it is this movie for a generation. If it's good.

If it's not a good movie, it won't do anything. But if it's a good movie, or especially if it's a great movie, it will have a massive impact for, for at least a generation. So I'm going to go back to, know, when gladiator came out, it right before he started college. remember in college, you know, being in history courses and I had a guy that sat next to me and he said his life goal was to become a history teacher.

And said, well, why? goes, I want to show gladiator in class. And that's what hooked him on wanting to be going to history, wanting to be. And I think if it can do that, it's absolutely worth it, even if, you know, they skip over two emperors in between, you know, the Ed Sheeran look alike they've got on the throne here.

Jason Herbert (28:56.62)
That's enough.

Jason Herbert (29:09.876)
Awesome. Craig, I can't wait to do is thank you for like sitting in and like doing this emergency pod. If you guys like this, you're interested in doing more of these or hear more about these thoughts, respond back here. Thanks for, thanks for being here.

Craig Smith (29:22.808)
All right, strength and honor.

Jason Herbert (29:24.61)
Shreif and honor.